Archinect - News

What is the future shape of social housing? MVRDV looks to the 500-year-old Fuggerei for useful clues

2022-05-11T14:41:00-04:00

A central part of the Fuggerei social housing complex’s 500th anniversary festival of events that began over the weekend, MVRDV’s newly-opened NEXT500 Pavilion examines the future of the all-important typology through the inclusion of proposed designs which would install inspired versions of the historic complex in different areas of the world.

Inside the uniquely-cantilevered wooden pavilion on the central square in Augsburg, Germany, are three different proposals for a ‘Fuggerei of the Future’ spread through eight individual-themed exhibition spaces. The studio claims they are based on the same number of “building blocks” it developed after writing a “Fuggerei Code” using an internal study of the most effective elements of the iconic housing complex constructed in the early 1520s.

Image: © Eckhart Matthäus courtesy MVRDV

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that behind the exhibition is “an admirable sense of citizenship, ...

Norman Foster says he still hasn't lost that old, familiar feeling

2022-04-05T12:03:00-04:00

If I enjoy doing what I do, why would I change it? Of course, at any point with any of us, there’s always the other side of the coin […] I get the same buzz from designing buildings, working with people, educational workshops, working with the UN heading their Forum of Mayors, engaging with civic leaders, writing, drawing, sketching. I’m privileged to have many such opportunities […] I think they’re my lifeblood, yes.”

Norman Foster, who will turn 87 this year, was at the Guggenheim Bilbao to talk to The Guardian’s Tim Lewis about his lifelong love of cars and upcoming exhibition there titled “Motion. Autos, Art, Architecture.” Foster told the writer he sees the exhibition as “almost like the requiem for the age of combustion,” adding that, at this point in his career, “I feel as young as the people that I’m working with and engaging with and sharing passions.”

Foster also discussed his reaction to some of the changes in worklife necessitated by the coronavirus, and the ability of his office to get back on its feet following a year of economic downturn.

Earlier on Archinect: Norman Foster on the impact of pandemics on our cities

“We were all surprised by the way in which the technology has worked,” he said. “And the energy and resourcefulness of the team. But I guess it’s also made us acutely aware of the importance of physically coming together. The lessons of history are that an event like that ...

Herzog & de Meuron's exploration of the SongEun Art Space showcased possibilities of augmented reality technology

2022-03-18T14:31:00-04:00

Seoul’s latest cultural mainstay was a recent subject of an introspective investigation with help from its creator Herzog & de Meuron.

The Swiss firm returned to its debut Korean design with an augmented reality exhibition titled Exploring SongEun Art Space that uses physical and digital models, drawings, sections, and printed images to give visitors a real insider's perspective on the creation and inner workings of the new 11-story museum.

Previously on Archinect: Seoul's newest art space opens in a triangular concrete shape from Herzog & de Meuron

With help from Swiss VR/AR specialists Bandara, the installation delved into the new building in an extraordinary high-tech way, displaying documentation that explored the design and construction process from the initial conception in Basel to the physical realization last September in Seoul's Gangnam district. It consisted of seven augmented reality stations, where different images in the room triggered videos, models, and other media f...

'Zaha Hadid Architects: Vertical Urbanism' offers a new perspective on ZHA's innovations in tall building and urbanism

2022-02-21T15:26:00-05:00

A closer look at one of the most innovative approaches to tall building design in the industry went up in the gallery of the Hong Kong Design Institute after “Zaha Hadid Architects: Vertical Urbanism” opened to the public last Wednesday.

By utilizing a wide array of various forms of media, including technical drawings, models, renderings, and VR experiences, the show’s curators arranged a three-pronged exhibition that highlights the work of the firm’s five-year-old design education and research group ZHA CODE, explores their considerable regional output, including the forthcoming 36-story Henderson development for the central business district of Hong Kong, and, importantly, showcases ZHA’s innovations in supertall building and verticality across the world.

The Peak Project, Hong Kong, 1982-1983. Image courtesy of HKDI.

Thallus, Installation, 2017. Sculpture developed by ZHCode with ZHD in collaboration with AiBuild, Odico Formwork Robotics, Armadillo Engineering. Image courtesy of...

MoMA's next exhibition will explore the role architecture played in shaping post-colonial South Asia

2021-11-11T16:53:00-05:00

MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design has announced a forthcoming new exhibition that will examine the way in which the modern architecture of former colonial enterprises helped shape the post-independence era of self-determination politics in latter South Asia.

Woman carrying cement at the Capitol Complex, Chandigarh, India, in front of the Secretariat (1951–58) designed by Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, 1887–1965). 1956. Photograph: Ernst Scheidegger.

Comprised of over 200 photos, architectural models, and other media taken from institutions in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, the exhibition highlights key projects from some of the region’s most prominent designers, including Mahendra Raj and 2018 Pritzker laureate Balkrishna Doshi.

Chittagong University, Chittagong, East Pakistan (Bangladesh). 1965–71. Vastukalabid (est. 1964). Muzharul Islam (1923–2021). Master plan. Ink and pencil on paper. Muzharul Islam Archives.

The exhibition was organized by MoMA...

Elizabeth Diller is drawing personal lessons from her design for the Jewish Museum's Edmund de Waal exhibition

2021-10-18T16:40:00-04:00

The personal has never been a hallmark of Diller’s work in architecture and design. But working with de Waal’s emotionally charged travelogue, she said, had a transformational effect. “Seeing the world of his family through Edmund’s eyes,” she said, “I saw my family history also.” “Edmund dug into his past,” Diller added. “I didn’t. I couldn’t bear it.” Designing an exhibition based on de Waal’s book has changed that.

Six rooms designed by Elizabeth Diller give viewers a glimpse into de Waal’s inner world informed by his relatives, the Ephrussis, who, like the architect’s own Polish family, was forced into exile during the Holocaust. Diller said she wanted the exhibition spaces to reflect the displacement felt by the storied art-collecting family and chronicled by de Waal in his fiction. The author referred to Diller as “the great dramaturge of space.”

Diller had previously designed a 2016 exhibition at the museum which focused on the lifework of French architect Pierre Chareau.

The exhibition "The Hare with Amber Eyes" goes on view starting November 19th. More information can be found here.

“Beauty in unexpected places”: Hélène Binet looks back on her work ahead of Royal Academy retrospective

2021-10-12T11:22:00-04:00

I am very glad to see the genre of photographing architectural space being lifted to the level of portraiture and landscape photography,” Ms. Binet said. This is “not only a profession, not only a service. It’s also a form of art.

Binet’s work for the late Zaha Hadid features prominently in the show alongside 90 other select images showcasing the genius of Peter Zumthor, Le Corbusier, and others. The photographer’s recent centenary examination of Gottfried Böhm’s Cologne churches will be on view as well.

“I think to shoot is like a performance. You have to give the best of yourself,” Binet told Archinect at the opening of her solo show at Woodbury University’s WUHO Gallery 2015. The exhibition opens its three-month run on October 23rd.

An artist is honoring Eileen Gray’s iconic E1027 villa with a new research-intensive exhibition

2021-10-01T19:04:00-04:00

Situated on the French Riviera, about a 30-minute drive east of Nice, the graceful 1929 villa was originally designed by architect Eileen Gray as a retreat for her and her lover, critic Jean Badovici. Over the course of its nearly century-long life, it has borne witness to one naked starchitect vandal, one world war, various drug-fueled orgies and a murder.

The original 1929 villa reopened in August after a five-year-long restoration effort led by the French Association Cap Moderne. The house was the site of a 1996 murder in addition to several other sordid affairs and outré episodes that have helped create a rather useful mythology surrounding Gray’s modernist icon. Artist Kim Schoenstadt incorporated three year’s worth of research into the home and its architect, whom many now count as an unheralded icon of the International Style.

“Gray wasn’t forgotten, but the way she was written about and the way her work was dismissed — that’s an important discussion to have with students,” curator Julie Joyce told the LA Times.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by ArtCenter Exhibitions (@artcenterexhibitions)

The exhibition will be on view until February 27th at the ArtCenter College of Design’s Mullin Gallery in Pasadena. The Times’ Carolina Miranda has more on the house’s inspirational backstory here.

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Check out the first installation images of the now open Chicago Architecture Biennial

2021-09-17T16:34:00-04:00

The 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial has officially opened to the public in its fourth edition.

This year’s theme, The Available City, is explored by 15 installations featuring more than 80 contributors from 18 different countries.

Block Party by Studio Barnes (Miami, FL), in collaboration with Shawhin Roudbari (Boulder, CO) and MAS Context (Chicago, IL), organized in coordination with Westside Association for Community Action (WACA), Open Architecture Chicago, and Freedom House for the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial. Photo: Nathan Keay

The sites of this iteration include the historic Central Park Theater and Danish-backed Soil Lab in North Lawndale. Exhibitions at the Bronzeville Artists Lofts and Graham Foundation feature contributions from SHAU and El Cielo internationally. Essays from Yale University’s Elleza Kelley and Harvard’s Jill Desmini will be available online along with the writings of six other contributors along with a conversation about The Available City them...

Forensic Architecture reinstates exhibition at University of Manchester following censorship row

2021-08-19T20:55:00-04:00

A statement in support of Palestinian rights put up by Forensic Architecture as part of an exhibition at the University of Manchester’s Whitworth Gallery is back in its rightful place tonight after backlash against the message caused the group to temporarily withdraw the exhibition over censorship concerns.

The group shared a social media post on Wednesday showcasing the re-installation of their statement that decried the “ethnic cleansing” of the country as a prominent introduction to their exhibition titled Cloud Studies which opened on July 2nd. The exhibition outlines FA's initial phase of the latest investigation which explores and exposes how “power reshapes the very air we breathe," according to a brief posted on the group's website.

Our statement is back up! pic.twitter.com/uwE5pJM7Am
— Forensic Architecture (@ForensicArchi) August 18, 2021

Read Forensic Architecture's statement standing with Palestine here.

The move came after the announcement earlier in the week that the g...