Archinect - News

Through the eyes of Verner Panton; a master of color through contemporary expression

2019-01-03T09:38:00-05:00

If you don't know his name, you probably know of his work. Verner Panton's iconic designs have noted him an innovator in furniture as well as atmospheric design. Deemed the "bad boy" of Danish design, Paton's rise as an icon in contemporary design broke through social convention. His take on design and its accessibility to others was his calling card. Obsessed with the needs of individuals, Panton believed that intelligent design should be available for the masses, and not merely set aside for the wealthy.

A less successful experiment is preferable to a beautiful platitude”

The '60s was a time of the search for the psychedelic and social progress, Panton's design theory and ideals fit well within the needs of the time. Famously said, "A less successful experiment is preferable to a beautiful platitude.” A true optimist in the future of design and social mobility, Panton strived to create objects and spaces that provoked the senses. In his new monograph by Phaidon, writers Ida Enghol...

We Are All Scutoids: A Brand-New Shape, Explained

2018-08-01T00:48:00-04:00

Where you have curvature, you have scutoids

Naming a fundamental shape that nature uses at 2018 AD is a credit long overdue. Now the shape architects use has a legitimate public name and official credibility and no longer be called weird. First living architect came to my mind was Frank Gehry. Yours?

"Honestly, in the beginning, we couldn’t believe that nobody before us had named this shape. I mean, geometry has been around forever—the square, the circle. It’s really wonderful that we could name something this fundamental."

9 graphic posters inspired by Bjarke Ingels Group projects and syntax in architecture

2018-05-09T13:47:00-04:00

Giuseppe Gallo, a PhD candidate in Architecture at the University of Palermo, has created a series of posters inspired by 9 Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) projects. Gallo is the creative director of Mirabilia, a communication design studio based in Palermo, with a background in graphic design.

Reflecting on syntax in architecture, Gallo was inspired by the firm's response to functional problems as a method of generating new formal solutions. Take a look at these 9 projects next to their graphic interpretation:

Serpentine Pavilion 2016 – London, UK

Serpentine Pavilion 2016 rendering by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). Image: Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

Serpentine Pavilion 2016 poster design by Giuseppe Gallo. Image: Giuseppe Gallo.

Kistefos Museum – Scandinavia

Kistefos Museum rendering by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). Image: Bjarke Ingels Group.

Kistefos Museum poster design by Giuseppe Gallo. Image: Giuseppe Gallo.

Amager Resource Center – Copenhagen, Denmark

Amager Resource Center rendering by Bjar...

In Tokyo, Brand-Name Stores by Brand-Name Architects

2016-03-14T01:03:00-04:00

Many local architects complain that these high-end follies are not serious architecture, but gimmicky flash. In many cases they are right. But that’s O.K. Form, as any architect will learn, follows function. In this case it’s selling a name and a mystique.

Sam Lubell visited Tokyo for some "architectural shopping", taking in the works of many architecture stars (including Herzog and De Meuron, Toyo Ito, Sanaa and MVRDV), for global luxury brands. Thus the requisite trips to sites in Omotesando and Ginza.

If you were looking for "spectacular, game of architectural one–upmanship" in Tokyo where would you visit? Over at Google Map Tour Guide Central (an old feature from 2007), Ludwig Abache offered-up a "version of 'ICON's Magazine Architectural Trail' Aoyama and Harakuju."

Penis church, vagina stadium: Can genital-shaped architecture really be accidental?

2013-11-23T12:00:00-05:00

"Sometimes,” wrote Charles Lindbergh in his 1953 flight memoir, The Spirit of St. Louis, “the world from above seems too beautiful, too wonderful, too distant for human eyes to see.” And sometimes, it looks like a bunch of genitals.

Recently: Unnecessary Muffness; Jon Stewart discusses Zaha's "f**kable buildings"

Hey Middle East: Enough With the Regional Architectural Clichés, Already

2013-08-18T12:44:00-04:00

Many of these references are to natural phenomena: the wind-blown sand dunes of the desert or the sanctuary of an oasis; others refer to a way of life seemingly passing beyond recall: the dhows used for trade and pearl diving, or the tents of the nomadic Bedouins.

It is like the new expression of Orientalism. Middle East architecture is defined by few limited metaphors by Western architects who are really looking East to fulfill their payroll obligations.

Pure Hardcore Icons Manifesto Book by WAI Think Tank

2013-05-28T18:58:00-04:00

WAI Architecture Think Tank upcoming publication Pure Hardcore Icons: A Manifesto on Pure Form in Architecture (August 2013) is featured on Artifice Books on Architecture Autumn 2013 Catalog.

The Catalog can be downloaded here.

Pure Hardcore Icons summary:

In the kingdom of architecture the shape reigns supreme. Ever since the beginning of history, pure geometric form has been one of architecture’s recurrent obsessions. A genealogy of buildings shaped as pyramids, spheres, and cubes can be traced back to ancient times, while contemporary projects, either as poured concrete or virtual bytes, often resemble stacked boxes and looping skyscrapers.

Despite torrents of pure shapes flooding with evidence magazine pages and computer screens around the world, architecture lacks a written work to declare its intentions. Pure Hardcore Icons is the first manifesto on pure form in architecture.

WAI Architecture Think Tank, directed by authors Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz Garcia,...

The Shapes of Hardcore Architecture

2012-03-16T11:02:00-04:00

hard–core

adj \-ˈkȯr\

1: a : of, relating to, or being part of a hard core
2: of pornography : containing explicit descriptions of sex acts or scenes of actual sex acts
3: characterized by or being the purest or most basic form of something

Modernism

Modern Architecture was a fashion statement. Coated with an ideology of social impromptu and urban reconstruction, it seems undeniable and remarkable that the dominant gene of the Modern Movement’s DNA was its aesthetics.

Everything, from the “hygienic” appearance of its white villas, to its revolutionary materials—glass, steel and concrete, to its grid-restricted urban plans and its desolated tree-less plazas, was a trend; a stylistic straightjacket fiercely defended through an almost endless list of manifestoes and catalogues that prophesied how the modernist Zeitgeist should be portrayed.

Modernism’s plan was to become alchemistic through fashion; it was trying to transform positivism, rationalism, and Cartesianism i...

Frank Gehry: 'There's a backlash against me'

2012-02-19T18:38:00-05:00

"There is a backlash," says Gehry, now aged 82, "against me and everyone who has done buildings that have movement and feeling", that is "self-righteous" and "annoying… The notion is that it is counterproductive to social responsibility and sustainability. Therefore, curving the wall or doing something so-called wilful is wrong and so there is a tendency back to bland."

Also make sure to check out the heated debate going on in Driehaus and Krier do battle against Gehry's Eisenhower Memorial design