Last April, we announced the opening of Pedro E. Guerrero: Photographs of Modern Life – a retrospective exhibition organized by the Julius Shulman Institute (JSI) at Woodbury University that honored the incredible life and career of the great 20th century architectural photographer, Pedro E. Guerrero (1917-2012). JSI was thankful to have Guerrero join the exhibition’s opening night, where he entertained the crowd with his charismatic personality as he shared fascinating stories from his life.

Sadly, the world is still in mourning over Guerrero’s passing last week, as he died at the age of 95 on Thursday, September 13, 2012, at his home in Florence, Arizona.

Woodbury University and the Julius Shulman Institute would like to share a few words from JSI director Emily Bills:

“The Julius Shulman Institute is deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Pedro E. Guerrero. We were honored to host a retrospective of his work last April, which included the lively, and often hilarious, conversation he shared with Hunter Drohojowska-Philp. Guerrero will be remembered as one of the great architectural photographers of the twentieth century, capturing the essence of work by Frank Lloyd Wright, Edward Durell Stone, Marcel Breuer, Joseph P. Salerno, and many others. He will be dearly missed.”

Read Guerrero’s obituary in the New York Times and the LA Times to learn more about his epic life and career. Continue after the break to view some of his best photographs that were featured at the exhibition.

Álvaro Siza. Viagem sem Programa, on display at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia through the duration of the Venice Biennale, narrates the most personal aspects of Álvaro Siza’s work in architecture and his concept of life. In response to Siza being announced as the recipient of the 2012 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, curators Greta Ruffino and Raul Betti, along with organizer MedicinaMentis Cultural Association, began to work closely with the Portuguese master to put together this one-of-a-kind retrospective.

The exhibition features an exclusive collection of 53 works, personally selected by the architect himself, that were developed from travel notes and sketches, along with a 38-minute video interview.

Continue after the break for more images of Álvaro Siza. Viagem sem Programa and check out our previous coverage for more information.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the 2012 shortlist for the UK’s pre-eminent private housing design award, the Manser Medal. These five houses, chosen from winners of RIBA Awards and RIBA regional awards, are competing for the UK’s “best new house”.

The 2012 Manser Medal shortlist includes:

• The Dune House in Thorpeness, Suffolk / Jarmund Vigsnaes Architects & Mole Architects
• Private house in Gloucestershire / Found Associates
• Private house in East Sussex / Duggan Morris Architects
• Two Passive Solar Gain Houses, Porthadown, Cornwall / Simon Conder Associates
• Maison L, Ile de France / Christian Pottgiesser – Architecture Possibles

The winner will be announced at the RIBA Stirling Prize dinner October 13, 2012 in Manchester. This year’s judges include Michael Manser CBE, architect; Lady Jill Ritblat; and Tony Chapman, Hon FRIBA, RIBA Head of Awards.

Learn more about each project after the break.

Part I – Part II – Part III

Created by Carniolus, the video above very elegantly gives you a pretty good description of the Baroque Court Apartments, designed by OFIS Architects. A residential block in the historic city center of Ljubljana, Slovenia, the project is positioned to feature an internal courtyard and open-air contemporary glass light well. The inward-facing transparent enclosure was revitalized to create opportunities for communication between apartments at different levels.

The City of York Council recently launched a competition seeking nationally and internationally renowned architects to submit their design proposals which clearly demonstrate potential future uses for York’s historic Guildhall and riverside complex. Registered architects are invited to develop their ideas for the Guildhall, the associated office accommodation, river frontage and boat yard, as part of an ‘Open Ideas’ competition, run by The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Entries will be sought from architects putting forward innovative ideas on how the potential of the Guildhall site and riverside could be maximized for the benefit of the city and its residents. The competition submission deadline is November 6th and the results will be announced early December. For more information, please visit here.

The design for the Nowa Huta of the Future focused on the exploitation of the close relation to the nature and the nearby river landscape, fresh food supply from the local agriculture production fields, and a variety of recreational activities to add to the distinctive quality to the plan. Designed by Basic City A+U, in collaboration with Felixx landscape architects, and Ania Molenda & Magdalena Szczypka (mo.st), they believed Nowa Huta should become a city where the entrepreneurial spirit and optimism are combined with an active and healthy lifestyle in close relation to the nature. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Each year, two million Mexican residents take part in the Ruta del Peregrino (Pilgrim’s Route) – a 117 kilometer pilgrimage through the mountains range of Jalisco that is centered around the adoration to the Virgin of Talpa. This religious voyage has been taking place since the 17th century and represents the pilgrim’s act of faith carried to penitence. In an effort to provide the route with better conditions, nine architecture firms collaborated to build seven architectural landmarks that provide shelter, services and outlook points for the pilgrims.

The Master Plan, designed by Tatiana Bilbao, Derek Dellekamp and Rozana Montiel, was presented in a special exhibition to resonate with the Venice Biennale 2012 theme “Common Ground”.

The nine practices involved since the start of the project are Ai Weiwei (Fake Design), Luis Aldrete Arquitectos, Tatiana Bilbao, Christ & Gantenbein, Dellekamp Arquitectos, Alejandro Aravena (Elemental), Godoylab, HHF Architects, and Rozana Montiel (Periférica).

Read more about the route of the pilgrim and see more pictures after the break. 

ArchDaily is proud to present images from the 2012 Venice Biennale featuring the reconstruction of Anupama Kundoo’s Wall House. The installation is an opportunity for the architect to reassess intial strategies and continue to explore the experiments of the original construction in Auroville, India. The replica was built by Indian craftspeople and Italian builders. The original design for the house aimed to respond to the environment and culture in which it is situated, taking into consideration construction techniques, material applications, and site strategies. The reconstruction, though absent from a landscape, displays spatial innovation and a collaborative use of materials that evokes an excitement about the integration of culture and structural techniques.

Join us after the break for images from the 2012 Venice Biennale.

Part I – Part II – Part III

Typology, volume 2 of the new series Christ & Gantenbein Review, presents more than 150 buildings located in Rome, New York, Hong Kong and Buenos Aires that have been analyzed by the chair of Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. This selective and subjective inventory of metropolitan and essentially anonymous 20th century building production provides a basis for urban project creation.

The winners of d3′s annual Natural Systems International Architectural Design Competition for 2012 have been revealed! With three top prizes and ten special mentions, the results of the competition includes a variety of proposals in response to the prompt which promotes investigation of natural systems from microscopic to universal toward determining new architectonic strategies. The competitions invites architects, designers, engineers, and students to explore the potential of nature-based analysis and documentation in architectural and design applications in urbanism, architecture, interiors and designed objects. The jury included a panel of architects and designers engaged in sustainable practices and computational explorations.

Join us after the break to view the winning projects.

After being nominated to represent Switzerland at the 2012 architecture biennale in Venice, architect and university professor Miroslav Šik decided to join forces with two other swiss firms -Knapkiewicz + Fickert from Zurich and Miller & Maranta from Basel- with whom he has been working together for many years. They have created what they call “an ensemble and atmosphere approach to urban architecture”, and decided to illustrate these concepts by putting together images of their own buildings and projects to create a collage-style exhibition.

See more pictures and read the architect’s description of the pavilion after the break: 

Last night, ArchDaily indulged in building our very own LEGO® Architecture Villa Savoye. As one of the most influential buildings in the International style of architecture, it is no surprise that architecture and LEGO fanatics rejoiced last month when LEGO® announced Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye as the newest addition to their architecture series. Now, thanks to LEGO® Architecture, five of our readers will win their very own.

We want to know what building should be the next in the LEGO® Architecture series and why. All you have to do is become a registered user at ArchDaily and leave us your answer in the comments below by Sunday, September 23rd! (More information on LEGO® Architecture’s Villa Savoye, designed by architectural artist Michael Hepp, can be found here.)

Official rules:

The five winners will be chosen at random from entries received between Monday, September 17th and Sunday, September 23rd 11:59 EST. You must leave a comment as a registered user at ArchDaily. Open to anyone in the world. One entry per person. ArchDaily will enforce verification and remove duplicated ones before choosing the winner.

Good luck!

UPDATE: And, the winners are….

• Seth Ellsworth
• Wonyeop Seok
• Daniel Bollard
• Makoto Shibuya
• Mark Kitchens

Congrats! You can expect an email from us shortly.

Cannon Design recently announced that they are teaming up with Maya Lin and Toshiko Mori, FAIA to design a new, innovative research campus for Novartis, a global leader in the pharmaceutical industry. The new $600 million laboratory and office complex will serve as the centerpiece of the company’s worldwide research operations based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and change the way Novartis conducts research. Doing so will help in promoting increased collaboration, idea-sharing, and teamwork. The entire project is slated for completion in 2015. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Videos

In the frenzy leading up to the iphone 5′s anticipated release last week, we asked our Facebook Fans the best thing about their smartphone (when it comes to their professional lives at least).

The answer was overwhelmingly in favor of one key feature: the camera. From snapping shots on-site to taking photos for inspiration (or just to remember later), the ease of having a camera in your phone has made your lives that much easier (and Apple fans rejoice, as the new iPhone 5′s stand-out new feature is its souped-up camera, now with low-light and panorama modes). Many also mentioned the handiness of having email, maps, and a compass always at hand.

But apart from these standard features, we also got tipped to some really useful Apps that are changing the way you work. We’ve (not very scientifically, we’ll admit) compiled them into a top 10 list…check after the break to see which Apps made the cut!

To celebrate the reopening of the newly restored Alvar Aalto Pavilion, they are highlighting the work of young Finnish architects who have made use of wood in their recent works.

ALA Architects have created an undulating overhang made of massive oak to welcome the visitor to Kilden, their Performing Arts Center in Kristiansand, Norway. Avanto Architects project their public sauna to be constructed out of wood in order to create an easy-going undulating building that is more part of the future coastal park than a conventional building.

I have been looking at these photographs for over a month now. I’m not certain why but they draw me in and I keep coming back to them. They hold me. And by hold I’m thinking of what Roland Barthes may have been suggesting when, talking about another photograph, he says, “Bob Wilson holds me, but I cannot say why…” (1) That’s the exact feeling I get when I’m looking at these images Ray K. Metzker.

Inkjet reproductions rest on my bedside table. I have not known what to say about them or what exactly they might be saying to me. Something about extremes. Something about sidewalks and saturated shadows. Something about walking in, toward, and around. Something about fracturing, dancing apart, even. But there is also something about play, something wonderfully naïve about them, as if they were taken with the eye of a child. But there is more. After the child grows up he discovers the long-forgotten roll of film and develops it. But now, with more life behind him, the process of developing them results in something darker, heavier.

Continue reading after the break

“Spain used to be a sexy, fit and energetic country. Envy, inferiority complexes, greed, arrogance and pride soaked it in fat. It is currently suffering from moral obesity.” That was Architect Manuel Ocaña’s incendiary take on the current state of his home country, one of the hardest hit by the Recession due to its extraordinary pre-Crisis construction boom (a.k.a “the mother of all housing bubbles”).

For this week’s edition of our Recessionary Interviews series – in which we talk to Architects across the globe surviving the Recession - we decided to get one final perspective from the Iberian Peninsula. We chatted with Spain’s Josep Ferrando, of Josep Ferrando Bramona Architecture, who told us how the economic bust has shifted focus from public works towards an architecture of “re”: rehabilitating, re-structuring, re-inhabiting.

Get Ferrando’s take on the state of Architecture in Spain today, after the break…

The International New Town Institute is organizing the ‘New Towns New Territories: New Players in Urban Planning’ conference taking place September 27th from 9am-7pm. The event, which will be held at the NAi in Rotterdam, will explore the latest innovations in global urbanization, privatization and new organizational models of urban development as well as the impact and challenges for professional practice. Global urbanization is moving at a faster pace than ever before and it is showing a fundamental shift in its structure and organization. Hundreds of economic, eco and satellite cities are being developed by private companies. Not only in Asia, but also in Europe. Who are the new players in the field of urban development? What visions, ambitions and strategies do they have? What innovations and financial models make these cities possible? These are just a few of the questions that will be answered and discussed. For more information, please visit here.

Built to enable 24 couples to be married free of charge in July 2011 in celebration of the Marriage Equality Act of New York, the KISS Pop-Up Chapel by Z-A Studio won the Architizer + Pop Up Chapel competition. As a literal gesture, the structure is composed of two separate parts, made of the same DNA, but layered differently. Essentially, two unique individuals that when joined together create a stable entity that is more than the sum of its parts. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The Japan Art Association has named Danish architect Henning Larsen the 2012 Praemium Imperiale laureate for architecture.

Created in 1988 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Japan Art Association and to honor the late Prince Takamatsu, the prestigious Praemium Imperiale awards recognize outstanding, lifetime achievements in the arts categories not covered by the Nobel Prizes: architecture, painting, sculpture, music and theatre/film.

The 2012 Praemium Imperiale laureates:

The Research and Documentation Centre in Technology, Architecture and City in Developing Countries (CRD-PVS) at the Politecnico di Torino (Italy) has launched an international Student Design Competition tur(i)ntogreen – Farms in A Town. Sponsored by the UN-HABITAT within the “I’m a City Changer” campaign, participants are invited to apply their creative talents in developing new multidisciplinary solutions for a sustainable and inclusive city reflecting new forms of urban management and regeneration through agro-housing and urban-farming models.