January 8, 2013
Zaha Hadid’s Wangjing SOHO in Beijing, under construction; Photo via Daily Mail
“Never meant to copy, only want to surpass.” That’s the official stance Chongqing Meiquan has adopted towards overcoming the controversy that has mired the developer’s Meiquan 22nd Century project. (Yes, this is the architecture of the next century.) The building’s design is considered by many to be a direct copy of Zaha Hadid Architect’s Wangjin SOHO complex in Beijing. Until now, we’ve only had renderings to compare, but newly surfaced construction photos reveal how closely the counterfeit clone resembles ZHA’s original. Click through for more.
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August 24, 2012
Photo: Victoria Murillo/Istmophoto.com/Biomuseo
Frank Gehry’s Museum of Biodiversity is currently under construction near the Pacific entrance of the Panama canal. The building features crinkled rooftops in a plethora of bright colors, visually suggesting diversity and the colorful flora and fauna of the world’s tropical regions. The museum also includes a series of gardens and biospheres by Bruce Mau Design, marking a wonderful integration of landscape with the built environment. Read more.
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April 23, 2012
Galaxy SOHO by Zaha Hadid Architects, under construction, Beijing. All photos: flickr user trevor.patt
Leave it to Zaha Hadid Architects to reimagine the traditional Chinese courtyard as a loose collection of buttock-like mounds, inarticulate blobs which ostensibly coalesce into “continuous open spaces”. OK, so ZHA’s design for the Galaxy SOHO Beijing shopping complex kind of looks like H. Wunderlich and R. Klüser’s stunning Parkhaus Kaufhof, which is completely fine by me. And the plan, with its sculpted gardens and walkways, carries (if only a few) hints of the dynamism and diagrammatic overlay of forms from Hadid’s “Ubiquitous Urbanism” folio — again, a good thing. Still, the reference to the Chinese courtyard — the firm’s own — is a bit ridiculous, considering, among other things, the enormous jump in scale. Additionally, the architects imply that they have even improved upon the classical model by rendering it without any of the “corners or abrupt transitions” that have hitherto obstructed the flow of space. Tradition and rectilinearity be damned!
Yesterday, A Daily Dose featured these photos by flickr user trevor.patt who traveled to the Galaxy SOHO construction site in central Beijing to capture the near-completion of the complex’s exterior. The five volumes are connected at various points — at the base, midpoint or above — by stretched bridges that weave continuous strands of the 330,000m² of office and retail space into a dense, if fragile formal composition. Apparently, the forms are calibrated parametrically so as to “adapt to each other”, which explains why they oscillate slightly between anatomic orbs and bulbous rumps. Click through for more images.
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October 14, 2011
All images: Zaha Hadid Architects
New construction photos of what may be Zaha Hadid’s first built house reveal that the project is nearing completion. Capital Hill Residence, so called because it is perched on a hillside in Barvikha, a village west of Moscow, takes the idea of the singular villa as extension of architectural manifesto to new heights! Click to see more architecture for the 1%!
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October 11, 2011
Zaha Hadid’s Aquatic Center sees its first use, earlier this year.
Beijing 2008 provoked extremely ambitious — nearly ostentatious – Olympic architecture, spurring many critics to wonder if architectural mediocrity is a symptom of the democratic process.
If Beijing is the control subject, then London 2012 — less than a year away — will be the test group. Last week, Mayor Boris Johnson made the wholly reasonable statement that ”we are ready.” Here’s a look at how things are developing at the 2012 site.
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August 26, 2011
Photo (c) Richard Bradshaw, via socalarchhistory.
Surfing the internet for images — and then hoarding massive amounts of them in folders on your harddrive — is a tradition as old as the .jpeg itself. Everyone has their own habits and methods, some darker than others. Personally, we’re fans of vintage construction photos, and as we’ve done in the past for New York, we’ve rounded up a few good finds from Los Angeles here.
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