October 17, 2011
The ‘Melting Vitruvian Man’. All photos: Greenpeace
Geometry is tied to the history and development of Western architecture, and nowhere is this most evident than in da Vinci’s depiction of the Vitruvian man. This iconic, though, by now, conventional illustration, an ideal male figure inscribed within geometric proportions of cosmic origin, forever married notions of geometric exactitude and mathematical harmony with the human body and space, as mediated through architectural constructions. Thus, the Vitruvian man exists on an intellectual plane that is at once both entirely removed from nature and attuned to the order which governs natural expression and form. It’s this paradox that charges artist John Quigley‘s new work, a monumental graphic depicting da Vinci’s figure etched on a rapidly melting ice formation some 500 miles in the Arctic interior. More after the break!
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October 17, 2011
Tatlin’s Tower at the Royal Academy. Photo: Miguel Santa Clara
Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International would have soared 400 meters in the Soviet skies above Petrograd (now, St. Petersburg), a towering and terrifying colossus realized in “iron, glass and revolution.” Although Tatlin’s seminal project would never be built, it would appear repeatedly in innumerable architectural projects (both built and unbuilt) throughout the twentieth century and beyond. This past week, a 1:40 scale replica of the iconic tower has been erected in the courtyard of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. More after the jump!
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October 17, 2011
The jury deliberated long and hard last week, challenged to pick a winner amongst a veritable cash crop of amazing workspaces, all built in 2011. The jury eventually prevailed, and today we’re happy to announce that the winner of this year’s World’s Coolest Offices, sponsored by AutoDesk, Architizer, and Inc.com, is…
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October 10, 2011
“OMA/Progress” at the Barbican Gallery in London – which opened last week for a press preview – represents a necessary struggle between the enormous scope of work the office has produced, and what they continue to produce. Yet all the while, the show provides a didactic reflection on their architectural approach. The resulting show offers overwhelming insight into the conceptual process behind OMA’s work, and a long overdue commentary on the intricacies and contradictions of exhibiting architecture. Read on.
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October 3, 2011
Performance artist Marina Abramović has only two rules for house guests at Chez Abramović: (a) you can’t stay longer than three nights, and (b) you have to sleep on this “uncomfortable daybed.” Conceptual provocation, or insurance against long-term crashers? Someone get Jerry Saltz on the horn.
Abramović listed the daybed’s current home — the SoHo loft she bought in 2001 for $1.5 million — for $3.5 million today. Our friends over at Curbed write that the Serbian artist hired Dennis Wedlick to design the interiors. Wedlick collected all of the loft’s services and storage areas into a single pastel-clad core, leaving the rest of the loft spare and uncluttered. It’s a surprisingly colorful, domestic treatment. Click through for more images.
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October 3, 2011
Photo (c) Luke Hayes.
According to a Saturday night report from BD Online, Zaha Hadid’s Evelyn Grace Academy had won the 2011 Stirling Prize, upsetting the crowd favorite, the Olympic Velodrome by Hopkins Architects. Hadid received the honor last year as well, for her MAAXI Museum.
Hadid’s victory illustrates the commitment of the Royal Institute of British Architects to the kind of no-expense-spared capital-A architecture that’s been called into question this year by the country’s architecture students. Some critics argue that a victory for the Velodrome — a model for a more thoughtful, sustainable practice — would have been more appropriate. From political standpoint, the Evelyn Grace Academy is the exception to the rule for British educational facilities, with many nearby institutions closing down due to budget cuts (BDOnline quotes one architect as saying that the Hadid win depicts “crass stupidity” on the part of RIBA).
Presumably, many were hoping that this year RIBA would take a stand against the kind of “design-for-design’s sake” excessivity of the early 00s. Maybe next year!
Click through for more images.
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September 30, 2011
All photos: Evan Joseph
The scene at last night’s opening of THEVERYMANY’s Irene Neuwirth pop-up shop was altogether different from the schizo-disco of its predecessor, whose fractured excess and tortured geometries have been replaced by clear-headed cool and restrained elegance. The second in the BOFFO Building Fashion 2011 series, the piece is an ebullient, gleaming coral-like swirl constructed of thousands of gold anodized aluminum strips. The helical surfaces are perforated by thousands of stars, which, when lit at night, cast dramatic shadows, inscribing the space with constellations. Opposite the starry installation is a green wall of lush foliage, an ironic gesture that alludes to the complex logic of biological systems buried within the architecture while further contributing to the space’s underwater effect. A field of jarbells house Neuwirth’s delicate jewelry collection with necklaces and bracelets dangling from the branches of tiny, moss-covered trees.
THEVERYMANY was among the winners of Building Fashion 2011, the annual competition hosted by Architizer that pairs five young designers with five architecture firms to create pop-up retail spaces. The store will operate at BOFFO’s 57 Walker Street storefront through October 12. The opening party is tonight, and we’ll be there to document the event. In the meantime, read our interview with THEVERYMANY’s Marc Fornes, in which he details the project’s design and fabrication process, expounds on the central role of scripting in his work, and assesses the current state of architecture. Click through for more images!
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September 29, 2011
All photos: Paul Virilio, “Bunker Archeology” / Princeton Architectural Press
In 1941, Hitler ordered the construction of the first bunkers which were to become the building blocks of a vast Nazi defensive system that stretched the latitudinal limits of the German Empire, from Scandinavia to Spain. Built under the supervision of the Führer’s chief architect Albert Speer, the extensive chain of fortifications, called the Atlantic Wall, still stands as one of the twentieth century’s most extraordinary infrastructural and engineering achievements. Yet, as the BBC reported a couple weeks ago, many of these bunkers have become endangered, made vulnerable by years of exposure to the threats of weathering, sinking sands, and vandalization. Read more.
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September 28, 2011
The New World Trade Center from Piranha Nyc on Vimeo.
Commissioned by Silverstein properties for visual effects company Piranha NYC, “The New World Trade Center” visualizes the full restoration of Lower Manhattan, when Ground Zero ceases to be a vast construction site, but instead, the active urban corridor it is hoped to become. The film, which was presented a couple of weeks back for the tenth anniversary of 9/11, begins with high-res video capturing the choreography of the on-going construction: workers raise and lower steel beams, pour concrete, and man machines–all set to jittery bleeps and paranoiac strings ostensibly pinched from the soundtrack of a Bourne film. This real footage gives way to a virtual landscape, with acrobatic flybys over the fully planted WTC Memorial Site and park and up the sides of the four WTC towers. The completion of the site unfolds before your eyes with an impressive level of photographic realism and clarity that seamlessly appends the new towers to the existing skyline. Cue the crescendo!
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September 26, 2011
Photo: The Guardian
When the Shard is completed in May of next year, it will be Europe’s tallest tower and will, perhaps, represent its most radical urban intervention in some time. In a continent of preserved old city centers where architectural exuberance and caprice are generally suffocated (or institutionalized, thus, sterilized), the Shard’s thrusting form disrupts the London cityscape, dwarfing the treasured wedding cake dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, while also negating the fragile formalism of the Gherkin through its sheer primitiveness.
As it currently stands, however, the Shard stands incomplete and, along with the 2012 Olympic Campus, remains one of the city’s largest construction sites. Britain’s largest crane will be installed to crown Renzo Piano’s 95-story pyramidal tower. In an article published by The Daily Mail, the crane, when fully erect, will rise 1,040 ft into the sky, hovering nearly 25 feet above the apex of the tower’s under-construction spire. The crane, whose base sits on the 55th floor, will hoist some 500 tons of steel upwards to complete the structure’s remaining 23 floors. Photos after the jump!
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