Archinect - News

When it comes to building in Russia, Wolf Prix has no guilty conscience

2022-04-12T16:37:00-04:00

If we have to take the moral standards and political correctness into account, then we should instead be talking about where you can then even build at all. Then I can’t build in Russia, and I can’t build in China or Saudi Arabia. I’m not allowed to build for the Church, either, because it is morally depraved. My question for you is this: What am I supposed to do now?

In an interview conducted by Susanne Beyer and Ulrike Knöfel, Wolf Prix claims to be no “moralist” and explains why he hasn’t withdrawn from three gigantic construction projects in Russia, even as other Prominent architecture firms voice intent to suspend work in Russia as statements of solidarity with Ukraine.

The NYT takes a closer look at Coop Himmelb(l)au's new Confluence Museum in Lyon

2014-12-22T13:24:00-05:00

This fall, the French cultural season opened with the private Vuitton Foundation museum in Paris, a rarefied environment for a select collection of contemporary art, by Frank Gehry. At the other end of the cultural spectrum, France’s second largest metropolitan area, Lyon — arguably Paris’s historic rival, the Chicago to New York — just inaugurated the equally large and prepossessing Confluence Museum (the Musée des Confluences).

Chipperfield counters Prix's Venice Biennale criticism

2012-09-07T17:37:00-04:00

In a letter titled ‘Kicking against the Prix’, the RIBA gold medallist claimed the Coop Himmelb(l)au founder had failed to attend the biennale despite issuing a critical press release last week describing it as ‘banal’.

David Chipperfield’s full letter

I am disappointed that our British architectural press should give so much coverage to the destructive opinions of a Viennese architect about the Biennale, even though he hadn’t even visited Venice.

My concerns are not about the criticism, which I didn’t understand, but that this statement and the ensuing ‘controversy’ stimulated by its publication reinforce the negative attitudes of our architectural culture. Wolf Prix demonstrates no interest in the position of others and only imagines that architecture can conform to his own priorities and preconceptions.

This year’s Biennale, with all its weaknesses and mistakes, was above all conceived and realised in a spirit of generosity, optimistically proposing that there is an architectural culture bound together by shared intentions, influences and disappointments and that even the most celebrated protagonists of our profession are capable of engaging in such a dialogue.

When I began to formulat...

Editor's Picks #280

2012-09-03T23:21:00-04:00

The Architects' Journal reported that Wolf Prix referred to the Venice Architectural Biennale as an ‘expensive dance of death’ and went on to claim a ‘great’ biennale would have featured forums and themes looking ‘behind the scenes’ at decision-making. mimiz took on the charge "having just come back from venice where I moderated several panel discussions on the behind the scenes making of interventions at the US Pavilion, I think Prix is sucking on some sour grapes."

For the latest feature in the Student Works series Nicholas Waissbluth explored the inaugural workshop for the INSITU program which took place in Medellin, Colombia. INSITU is an initiative founded by Blokcad Lab and uAbureau in 2011 to implement projects that investigate the informal development of cities, its non-consolidated urban spaces and auto- construction processes.

News

The Architects' Journal reported that Wolf Prix referred to the Venice Architectural Biennale as an ‘expensive dance of death’. The Coop Himmelb(l)au-founder went on to claim a ‘great’ biennale would have featured forums and themes looking ‘behind the scenes’ at decision-making ‘instead of boring exhibitions’. job job noted there was a "Better source at Building Design, but their need for registration denies access to many" and toasteroven wondered "wouldn't wolf prix's buildings classify as ‘expensive dances of death?"

Meanwhile mimiz took on the charge more directly "having just come back from v...

Wolf Prix attacks Chipperfield's 'banal' Venice Biennale

2012-08-29T21:14:00-04:00

Labelling the festival an ‘expensive dance of death’, the Coop Himmelb(l)au-founder went on to claim a ‘great’ biennale would have featured forums and themes looking ‘behind the scenes’ at decision-making ‘instead of boring exhibitions’.

Better source at Building Design, but their need for registration denies access to many.