The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts will be hosting an exhibition on Russian Modernist Architecture starting October 11 through February 16, 2013. Featuring a wealth of rarely published material on architecture that spanned the empire of the Soviet Union, the 80+ large-scale photographs – documented by British photographer Richard Pare – provide unique insight into the movements of the Soviet revolutionary period. More photos and information after the break.
All Hale, a new film written by Anita Banerji, follows the story of college student Alice Walker who finds herself in a small town in Hale County, Alabama building a home for a family that is going through personal and financial hardship. The movie is filmed on location, with a variety of unique Hale County architecture serving as the backdrop for a story that rekindles a love for “home-grown architecture”. At a time when so much emphasis is focused on “starchitects” and the “Bilbao effect”, the story of this movie has a social agenda that highlights the backlash to this phenomena: the rising trend of design/build architecture.
Join us after the break for more on the underlying social inspiration of this film and a sneak peek at the trailer.
Designed for the ‘Mobilicity: Tirana Multimodal Station’ competition, the second prize winning proposal consists in giving back an identity to the area. Designed by Morfearch, the masterplan is not only a project of a railway station: it is a project about Tirana. The chaotic and informal feature of the city asks for the tracking of a simple and clear sign that would restore order and a hierarchy between the urban parts. The system is configured as a flexible solution in different urban situations: depending on space availability and willingness of densification, the layout of the project can change and respond to city needs. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965) will forever be known as an icon of Modernism, but did you know that the man who changed the face of architecture led quite the colorful personal life?
In honor of his 125th birthday, take a moment to check out some Corbu classics (perhaps Convent of La Tourette, Ronchamp, Villa Savoye, Unite d’Habitation, or Villa Roche) and read on to learn more about the man behind the myth – Charles-Édouard Jeanneret.
Fun Facts About Le Corbusier (including what Salvador Dalí had to say about him. It isn’t pretty) after the break!
Taking place October 18-23 at Ajman University of Science & Technology, UAE, Japanese Architect, Satoshi Okada, will be putting on an architectural workshop titled, ‘Thinking of Shadow’. As the founder of Satoshi Okada Architects, Okada is known for his simplicity with sublimity even in warmhearted spaces for human activities and even spirituality in rich materiality and delicate details. He believes that “…building activities, on one hand, are nothing but destruction of whatever exists; nevertheless, all the more because of it, they have to compensate it by a beautiful gift of artifice more than before”. For more information on the event, please visit here.
Originating from the ‘pure plate’ structure occurring in natural structures such as sea urchins, and based on a hexagonal geometry, the Spaceplates Greenhouse is being used for the first time this term by horticultural staff and students at City of Bristol College’s South Bristol Skills Academy in Hengrove Park, Bristol. Designed by N55, with Architect, Anne Romme, the project is constructed using an innovative building system based on aluminum and polycarbonate and accommodates work, growing and teaching space. More images and architects’ description after the break.
In addition to yesterday’s announcement of the World Building of the Year Award, two further awards have also been awarded at the World Architecture Festival in Singapore:
Kallang River Bishan Park, Singapore, designed by Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl, has won the ‘Landscape of the Year’ Award and Msheireb – Heart of Doha, Qatar, designed by AECOM, has won the ‘Future Project of the Year’ Award.
Find out more about the awarded projects after the break.
Cooled Conservatories at Gardens by the Bay, Singapore, has won the World Building of the Year Award at the prestigious World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards 2012. The project, designed by Wilkinson Eyre, Grant Associates, Atelier One and Atelier Ten, was chosen from over 500 entries. More information and images after the break.
A cultural and educational space for creative industries, such as movie, TV, web design, fashion and performing arts, the first prize winning proposal for the CASA FIRJAN da Indústria Criativa unifies the educational, cultural and corporate segments. Designed by Lompreta Nolte Arquitetos, the project, located in Rio de Janeiro, creates a hub for producers, consumers, and investors of these disciplines to provide interaction, networking and business opportunities. More images and architects’ description after the break.
How to think about today’s architecture, captured in the pragmatic flows of changing society? Can architecture once more be captivating, romantic, humanistic, visionary, and everyday at the same time? It appears that today’s architecture is becoming increasingly complex and ambiguous, and thus increasingly manipulative. It is lost in the cloud of the everyday. But how can architecture be seen again in its elementary correlations, geometry, form, use? To be derived from the specific, idiosyncratic, everyday, and face the timeless, resistant level. How to find the vertical of the everyday? The everyday that makes sense only if it is reflected in the sublime.
More from exhibitor Metamak – Architectural Collective after the break.
Architects: gmp Architekten Location: Frankfurt, Germany Design: Meinhard von Gerkan and Jürgen Hillmer Design Team: Klaus Lenz, Sebastian Flatau, Ingo Beckmann, Kai Beckmann, Markus Carlsen, Christian Dahle, Henning Fritsch, Ben Joscha Grope, Markus Helmin, Matthias Holtschmidt, Silke Jessen, Eduard Kaiser, Raimund Kinski, Prisca Marschner, Rouven Oberdieck Project Leaders Susanne: Winter, Reiner Schröder Project Year: 2012 Photographs: Marcus Bredt
Yes, it could begin this way, right here, just like that, in a rather slow and ponderous way, in this neutral place that belongs to all and to none, where people pass by almost without seeing each other, where the life of building regularly and distantly resounds. What happens behind the flats’ heavy doors can most often be perceived only through those fragmented echoes, those splinters, remnants, shadows, those first moves or incidents or accidents that happen in what are called “common areas,” soft little sounds damped by the red woolen carpet, embryos of communal life which never go further than the landing. The inhabitants of a single building live a few inches from each other, they are separated by a mere partition wall, they share the same spaces repeated along each corridor, they perform the same movements at the same times, turning on a tap, flushing the water closet, switching on a light, laying the table, a few dozen simultaneous existences repeated from storey to storey, from building to building, from street to street. They entrench themselves in their domestic dwelling space—since that is what it is called—and they would prefer nothing to emerge from it; but the little that they do let out…
- Georges Perec
The Ministry of Information and Culture of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, in collaboration and sponsorship with the Government of the United States of America and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, has awarded AV62 Arquitectos first prize for the National Museum of Afghanistan Competition. The Spanish team was selected over 72 other design proposals from 31 countries.
A second and third prize winner, along with three honorable mentions, were also recognized at the awards ceremony in Kabul. More details after the break.
ARCHITECT Magazine has released their fourth annual ranking of the most “powerful, philanthropic, talented and profitable” architecture firms in the United States. Don’t be fooled, this doesn’t necessarily mean the biggest firms, as the survey uses the broadest possible criteria to allow practices, both small and large, the opportunity to compete and be recognized.
Firms are ranked by profitability, sustainability and design quality. For the first time this year, the survey included pro bono work and water modeling in response to the challenging realities of the economy, natural disasters and drought.
Additionally, the survey revealed that 66% of the firms reported an increase in their net revenue from 2010 to 2011. No surprise there, when considering the slow, overall improvement of the ABI (check out the latest ABI report here).
Architects: Elías Rizo Arquitectos Location: Tapalpa, Jalisco, México Architects: Elías Rizo Suárez, Alejandro Rizo Suárez Collaborators: Rigo González and Gabriela Chávez Project Year: 2008 Photographs: Marcos García
From the architects:
The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank was designed by Norman Foster in 1979. At the core of the project is the attempt to create a civic space, a piece of common ground for the city. Though the building’s design went through many variations – culminating in the final scheme, completed in 1985 – the common denominator throughout was a desire to create a public arena by lifting the building up to ensure a flow of pedestrian movement across the site. This covered space is lit naturally by an external “sunscoop”, which reflects sunlight down through the glazed “underbelly” of an atrium at the heart of the building. Through the medium of models, sketches, drawings, and photographs, this exhibition shows the evolution of the design of the space and the tower that defines it.
Designed by Space Group + Superunion Architects, their winning proposal for Ruten competition reflects the city of Sandnes’ development and establishes Ruten as a natural center and Sandnes as a future city with strong roots and a proud local history. The proposal, titled ‘Lysning’, consists of a ring that connects and creates the new transport hub and public space below for an attractive unifying roof. As the Central Park in New York was built before the Manhattan grid was condensed around it, Ruten has remained as a buffer in the urban development in anticipation of something bigger. More images and architects’ description after the break.
With the existing Riga Passenger Terminal now outdated and situated in an exclusive location – adjacent to the very center of Riga, the infrastructure needed a new identity and urban response. Therefore, the first prize winning proposal by NRJA envisions the development of the territory and port as a high quality urban environment which offers not only maritime transport, leisure, shopping and business experience but also public space connection to the city. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Designed by MAD Architects for the 2011 international competition for a new national museum in Beijing, their proposal aims at being a city-sized museum where the public space is the greatest good. Situated on the central axis of the 2008 Olympic site, and part of a six mega volume masterplan, the main question became how to design something iconic on an unrealistic and inhuman city scale. Their response became a hybrid between an elevated public square and a floating mega building above. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Born in Finland, Eero Saarinen (1910 – 1961) is recognized today as one of America’s most influential architects of the 20th Century. The exhibition Eero Saarinen: A Reputation for Innovation, opening tomorrow at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles, will highlight his short but brilliant career bookended with two iconic buildings: the unbuilt Smithsonian Gallery of Art which was to be Washington, DC’s first museum of modern art and Dulles International Airport which was designed as the nation’s first jet airport.
The World Architecture Festival have just announced the winners of 17 of the awards categories. The jury included Sir Peter Cook, Juergen Mayer H, Moshe Safdie, Willy Alsop, and many more, including our own David Basulto.
Check all the winners after the break.
Architects: a.gor.a Architects Location: Mae Sot, Thailand Architect In Charge: Albert Company Olmo, Line Ramstad, Jan Glasmeier Project Year: 2012 Photographs: Franc Pallarés López
