“Forty years ago the public cause proved a powerful source of inspiration. Given the numbers of architects that chose to serve it, one might even speak of a common ground. In the age of the ‘starchitect’, the idea of suspending the pursuit of a private practice in favor of a shared ideology seems remote and untenable. In the context of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale, this exhibition hopes to provide a small contribution towards finding that common ground once more…” – OMA Partner Reinier de Graaf, August 2012
Throughout Europe in the late 1960s and early 1970s, large public works departments employed architects to design a multitude of public buildings in an effort to serve the public cause. Reinier de Graaf describes this “heyday of public architecture” as “a short-lived, fragile period of naïve optimism – before the brutal rule of the market economy became the common denominator.”
In a time of rapid physical and digital connections the global phenomenon of tourism becomes more and more of a common activity. Tourism brings people from all over the world on a common ground giving them the opportunity to interact with a locality, places, and people. However, the conventional tourist entertainment character and the lack of local interaction alienate the notion of the common ground in most tourist destinations. Resorts, theme-parks, international hotel chains, global market icons, and city guides turned tourism into a travelling monopoly with global rules that are applicable everywhere. Common ground is at stake!
The pavilion was curated by Charis Christodoulou and Spyros Th. Spyrou.
The battle over Pennsylvania’s mid-century Cyclorama Center is nearing an end. Located in the heart of the Gettysburg National Military Park, the concrete and glass cylindrical drum was designed by modernist architect Richard Neutra and completed in 1962 under the ambitious Mission 66 initiative aimed to improve visitor services at national parks.
Controversy surrounding the building’s fate started in 1999, when the National Park Service first announced plans to demolish it. This sparked a raging battle between 20th century architecture supporters and Civil War purists, ultimately leading to the federal court.
However, despite these relentless efforts, the structures fate appears to be dismal.
The Irish Pavilion, designed by heneghan peng architects with the support of Arup, and curated by John McLaughlin, charts a position for Irish architecture in a global culture where the modes of production of architecture are radically altered. Ireland has developed a national culture of architecture derived from local place as a material construct. They now have to evolve our understanding in the light of the globalized nature of economic processes and architectural production which is largely dependent on internationally networked flows of products and data. They have just begun to represent this situation to themselves and others. How should a global architecture be grounded culturally and philosophically? How does it position itself outside of shared national reference points?
A quick glimpse at the upcoming weather for Abu Dhabi will show a week of intense sunshine, temperatures steadily above 100 degrees Fahrenheit with 0% chance of rain. In such extreme weather conditions, even architects listing environmental design as their top priority are up against a tough battle. Never mind that the sand can compromise the structural integrity of the building, the intense heat and glare can render a comfortable indoor environment relatively impossible if not properly addressed. For Abu Dhabi’s newest pair of towers, Aedas Architectshave designed a responsive facade which takes cultural cues from the “mashrabiya”, a traditional Islamic lattice shading device.
More about the towers’ shading system after the break.
Currently under construction on the edge of the city of Istanbul, the Alemdag Housing, designed by Baraka Architects, is made up of four building blocks which contain 70 flats, 2 retail units and social facilities. The 6.000 m² plot is situated on the exact interface between the city and the surrounding forest, making this the first characteristic taken into account for the housing complex as an important dynamic. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Commissioned by the Greater London Authority as part of the Wonder series to celebrate the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, BLOOM, designed and developed by Alisa Andrasek and Jose Sanchez from The Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL, is a crowd sourced garden. Designed in neon pink, which is the official Olympics color, BLOOM is conceptualised as an urban toy, a distributed social game and collective “gardening” experience that seeks the engagement of people in order to construct fuzzy BLOOM formations. More images and architects’ description after the break.
With professional cycling rapidly developing in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico in the last decade, there is an interest in building Culiacan’s new velodrome, as well as incorporating policies that favor cycling as a mode of transportation into the city’s plans for new public spaces. The proposal by BNKR Arquitectura channels this new found enthusiasm for cycling into a single thread that unites a professional sports building with a cycling-oriented park development. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Architects: Alejandro García y Arquitectos Location: A Coruña, Spain Design Team: Alejandro García Rodríguez Project Year: 2012 Photographs: Courtesy of Alejandro García y Arquitectos
The Museum of Modern Art, Columbia University and The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation have announced that the vast archives of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) have been jointly acquired by the University and the Museum and will become part of their permanent collections. The archive, which includes some 23,000 architectural drawings, 44,000 historical photographs, large-scale models, manuscripts, extensive correspondence and other documents, has remained in storage at Wright’s former headquarters – Taliesin (Spring Green, WI) and Taliesin West (Scottsdale, AZ) – since his death. Moving the archives to New York will maximize the visibility and research value of the collection for generations of scholars, students and the public.
“The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation takes seriously its responsibility to serve the public good by ensuring the best possible conservation, accessibility, and impact of one of the most important and meaningful archives in the world,” said Sean Malone, CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. “Given the individual strengths, resources and abilities of the Foundation, MoMA and Columbia, it became clear that this collaborative stewardship is far and away the best way to guarantee the deepest impact, the highest level of conservation and the best public access.”
Continue after the break for more images and an informative video.
Inspired by Pritzker Prize laureate Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s call “to get architecture out of the making and thinking of isolated objects and to show it as an inexorable transformation of nature”, Dublin practice Grafton Architects presents Architecture as New Geography at the 2012 Venice Biennale. The exhibition explores the work of the Brazilian architect in the context of Grafton’s first South American project for a university in Lima, Peru.
The International Jury has awarded Grafton the Silver Lion for their “impressive” presentation’s ability to connect to the ideas of Paulo Mendes da Rocha and demonstrate the “considerable potential of this architectural practice in reimagining the urban landscape”. While the Golden Lion for ‘Best National Participation’ went to Japan for an engaging exhibition, curated by Toyo Ito, that develops solutions for a Community building on a post Tsunami site,
Continuing our coverage of the Venice Biennale, London-based Farshid Moussavi’sinstallation at the Arsenale explored different experiences within everyday life and culture that are the result of architecture accepting certain “common grounds.” Entitled ‘Architecture and its Affects’, viewers were surrounded by changing projections of textures and patterns, structural configurations and facades, which were organized in such a manner as to highlight their affects, rather than their chronological existence or historical references.
More about Architecture and its Affects after the break.
Undergoing the most significant change since the historic station was completed to Brunel’s design, the new Paddington Station, designed by Weston Williamson Architects, will provide a major new gateway for London. Serving local, national and international passengers, the Crossrail Station balances many design issues including heritage, conservation, transport integration, way-finding, orientation, servicing and security to create a world-class pedestrian space alongside the existing Network Rail buildings. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Marking the entrance to Stockholm’s inner city center, the Stockholm City Station. Designed by 3XN Architects, integrates the station, a hotel, conference center, and apartments. The main idea behind the design was to create a building that gently adjusts to the area’s existing building in scale and expression, and which reinterprets a number of local Swedish design traditions. Containing a number of public and private functions, the building will contribute positively to creating life in the surrounding neighborhood. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Spearheading the development of the new district in Egedal, Demark, the town hall and health center will be the uniting center of the new Municipality of the city as one of the first buildings in the new planned urban area around Egedal Station. Designed by Henning Larsen Architects, their proposal won the highest score for all criteria in the competition to get the first prize. The health center will become an active part of the town hall, while at the same time offering citizens the opportunity to use the area outside town hall opening hours. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Herzog & de Meuron’s exhibition at the Biennale is focused on the architecture of a symbolic project, with a complex history: The Elbphilharmonie, a concert hall on top of a former industry in Hamburg, which also includes a 250 room five-star hotel, and 47 apartments. The project, in a very advanced state, remains halted since last year due to legal issues with the contractor.
In the exhibition, the history of the project is documented with three-dimensional representations of the complex building services; camera shots panning through the construction site; and large-scale models, whose spatial and physical presence represent what the architects wished and still wish to foreground: architecture.
