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Four Pritzker Prize-winning architects have recently designed watches

2024-03-28T11:00:00-04:00

There are countless examples of architects expanding beyond buildings and architecture to engage with product design. This month alone, for example, our news coverage has included a swirling whisky bottle designed by a Zaha Hadid Architects director, a lighting product range by Snøhetta, and a series of biophilic design products by ecoLogicStudio.

In particular, the fashion industry has played host to several intriguing collaborations with big architectural names. Late last year, Frank Gehry collaborated with Louis Vuitton on a handbag for Art Basel Miami Beach one year after Louis Vuitton’s Peter Marino collaboration while, in 2022, Amale Andraos debuted a jewelry collection for Judith Ripka. To further explore this relationship between architecture, product, and fashion, we have rounded up four recent examples of notable architects engaging in the design of watches.

Tambour Moon Tourbillon Poinçon de Genève Sapphire. Image credit: Louis Vuitton

Frank Gehry for Louis Vuitton: Tambou...

Rafael Moneo awarded Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

2021-04-28T17:00:00-04:00

Famed Spanish architect, educator, critic, and theoretician Rafael Moneo is the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. His illustrious career is comprised of several projects like the transformation of the Villahermosa Palace into the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the Kursaal Auditorium, the Los Angeles Cathedral, and his involvement in the Giudecca housing project of 1983. Hashim Sarkis, 2021 curator of the 17th Biennale Architettura, shares, "Rafael Moneo is one of the most transformative architects of his generation."

After graduating from the Escuela Técnica Superior of Madrid in 1961 Moneo soon worked for architect Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza from 1958-61 and Jørn Utzon from 1961-62. He was awarded a fellowship at the Spanish Academy in Rome and soon opened his own office in Madrid while teaching at the Escuela Técnica Superior.

Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels, 2002 Los Angeles. Courtesy of Rafael Moneo Architects, photo © Michael Moran

Rafael Moneo: Murcia City ...

Moneo & Frampton In Dialogue

2017-11-06T14:42:00-05:00

Therefore it ought to be recognized that even in the entire second half of the 20th century, the true way to try to find out what architectural theory means ought to be figured out by reading historians. In a way, historians are depositaries, they have defined the paradigm of what could be considered ‘modernities,’ something that has changed radically in this new century.

"The ever diminishing role played by theory and thought in professional practice is, according to Frampton and Moneo, one of the principal challenges that contemporary architecture is faced with. Add to this the great transformations taking place in society, the economy, and architecture itself, thanks to which the traditional discourses, based on concepts like Zeitgeist, rationalism, and faith in progress, are ineffective. Not to mention the precarization of the labor market, with its terrible effects on young people. In this situation Frampton and Moneo call for a more critical reading of globalization, and also an ethic of resistance grounded upon the principles of the architectural discipline."

Editor's Picks #403

2015-02-03T11:20:00-05:00

Archinect Sessions still wants you to share your client horror stories!, (Inspired by the insane Just lost a-hole clients thread from a earlier this month) which you can do via twitter #archinectsessions, email or call us at (213) 784-7421.

News
Stephen Burgen traveled to the newly opened Museo Universidad de Navarra, designed by Rafael Moneo. Mr_Wiggin was disappointed "To me, Moneo's best works are those that are inserted into a place built up 100+ years ago....this, standing alone in the middle of a verdant green, looks like failure of planning".

The NYT reported on the latest developments regarding Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center in Goshen, N.Y. Thayer-D lamented "I know this building is a maintenance nightmare, but it's truly one of the more interesting brutalist buildings out there. A lot of ideas to cull from it".

Orhan Ayyüce shared a quote/story from Esther McCoy's 1981 memorial to Konrad Wachsmann, wherein both Corbu and Konrad praise the Pont Transbordeur as ...

Will Pamplona's "Bilbao Effect" gamble pay off?

2015-01-26T13:27:00-05:00

The Museo Universidad de Navarra, a brand new gallery designed by the renowned Rafael Moneo, may lead to a stampede of art lovers every bit as important to Pamplona as the running of the bulls [...] The architect is Rafael Moneo, a Pritzker prizewinner and native of Navarre province. [...] If the architecture of the new gallery is not as eye-catching as Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim, the collection is more impressive [...].

Lost in Translation - The NY Times Magazine discusses Rafael Moneo and his work

2013-04-15T20:38:00-04:00

During a career of more than 40 years, the Madrid-based Moneo has produced buildings of startling quality, no two of which are alike. Working mainly in his native Spain, which has regarded him as something of a national hero since his National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida opened in 1986, Moneo has approached commissions with the goal of making architecture that is simultaneously an ornament to the Old World and a beacon of the new.

Rafael Moneo Honored with 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts

2012-05-09T17:52:00-04:00

Spanish architect Rafael Moneo has been declared the 2012 laureate of the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts. The announcement was made today in Oviedo, the capital city of the Principality of Asturias, Spain, on Moneo's 75th birthday. The prestigious awards program aims “to reward the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanistic work performed at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions”.