Archive for the ‘Architecture’ Category
Ruskin in Venice
The years that John Ruskin spent in Venice are no longer just an important biographical fact about an eminent art Victorian critic. They have become a narrative prism through which to assess architecture’s role in contemporary society. This month the British contribution to the Venice Architecture Biennale is effectively an architectural and artistic exploration of Ruskin’s writings. At the most important exhibiton of architectural ideas in the world, Britain’s contribution, housed in a small neoclassical pavilion in the Giardini in Venice, explores Ruskin’s relationship with Venice in a questioning way. The exhibition poses some important questions about Ruskin’s relationship with architecture’s role in contemporary society, specifically around the way it is made. Liza Fior, the artistic director of the pavilion would have us believe that Ruskin was a radical. Read the rest of this entry »
Empire State of Mind
I re-read JG Ballard’s Empire of the Sun recently. This was at the same time that I was getting sent beautiful shots of pavilions from the Shanghai Expo, and then writing about it in some kind of historical context. At first the two Shanghai’s seemed so far apart. Today it is the site of architectural grandstanding and in Ballard’s description it was segregated by occupying powers. Today it is a port from whence China’s unprecedented industrial production is distributed to the world and in Ballard’s description it was an apparently arbitrary site for the battle between the British and Japanese empires. Read the rest of this entry »
Not Learning From Learning From Las Vegas
The exhibition What We Learned at Yale and the 3-day symposium Architecture After Las Vegas prompted a predictable degree of puffery from those media-friendly, Po-Mo apologists over at FAT. Sean Griffiths review in Building Design was generally a list of names of the people who attended and a conclusion which appears to suggest that the text has finally won some sort of victory over Brutalism on its home turf. The piece by Charles Holland at least grasps the significance of the book as a hugely influential model for ordering and presenting architectural research. Both however failed to take a critical look at how the architect’s take their research and extrapolate an architectural style from it.
A drop in the ocean
In July 2007, Hilary Clinton, then a candidate for US President proposed a no-flight zone over Darfur, to prevent the Sudanese government from bombing their own citizens. It was an attempt to call to a halt what has been described as the first genocide of the 21st Century. At the same time though, scientists from Boston University made an astonishing discovery beneath the ground of Darfur, which had from 2003 to 2007 been the site of 200,000 killings in a brutal civil war. Read the rest of this entry »
The Tallest Building In The World
This is the text of a phone interview with Bill Baker, structural engineer on the Burj Khalifa and partner of S.O.M, on the day after the Burj Khalifa was inaugurated.
What was the launch like?
It was a pretty amazing launch. For structural engineers to see all this fire coming of your building is pretty shocking but it was an incredible event. There was this tremendous sight of sky-divers coming down. I couldn’t tell whether they were jumping off the building but I was told later they weren’t base-jumping. Then there was a light fountains. Then they had the lighting off, then spotlights. Then all the fireworks coming off the tower. It was incredible.
Beijing Bye Bye
Building Number 10, Hu Jia Lou Public Housing Project West
Man and van der Laan.
The work of architect Dom Hans van der Laan (1904-1991) is more influential as a system than as a design. The Dutch Benedictine monk is acclaimed by those who embrace modernism as a style rather than as an outlook or philosophy. To the brick-ish modernists he is one of the truly original thinkers of 20th-century architecture. To those who believe in a democratic approach to architecture which embraces the technology of the day he is a throwback. Van der Laan sought a formal language for his architecture which could easily be compared to the catechism.
The Abbey at Vaals by Hans van der Hejden
‘What the hell was Colin doing with a Limehouse minicab driver in Belfast? ‘
A really nice bit of flaneury at Homo Ludens, which identifies exactly what makes the former docks at Wapping in London such a profoundly dispiriting, disorientating experience. Read the rest of this entry »
Architecture and Ai Wei Wei
Transcription of an interview with Ai Wei Wei. He’s doing the answers. Pictures are by me.
What is the method of construction of your latest exhibition?
This is Chinese household furniture that folks have been using for thousands of years. They are the most ordinary objects in southern China. The material is bamboo. If you look closely, the poles and the chairs are one thing.
How does the piece reflect your relationship with Herzog and de Meuron?
We have been doing several projects together and we have a mutual understanding about art and architecture. We often share concepts and ideas. The relationship is part of architecture but its also more important than architecture.
A True Commonwealth
Jordan Baseman’s excellent art piece which was displayed at the Collective Gallery in Edinburgh earlier this year tiptoes cleverly around some of the aesthetic and political issues that surround Britain’s civic modernist heritage.
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