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UAE awarded Golden Lion for Best Pavilion at the 2021 Venice Biennale

2021-08-30T15:45:00-04:00

The United Arab Emirates has been awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale. The pavilion, titled “Wetland,” was curated by Wael Al Awar and Kenichi Teramoto and demonstrates the potential of natural salt as an alternative to Portland cement.

“Prior to the pandemic, we started looking into sabkhas, a sturdy ecosystem of natural salt flats nascent to the United Arab Emirates,” the curators explained. “This inspired us to explore a renewable resource for construction, one that can replace Portland cement. The crystallisation of salt in the sabkhas offers a blueprint for an alternative to Portland cement, the production of which accounts for 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions.”

Philippines Pavilion. Photo: Andrea Avezzù

The pavilion was selected by an international jury composed of Kazuyo Sejima (president, Japan), Sandra Barclay (Peru), Lamia Joreige (Lebanon), Lesley Lokko (Ghana-Scotland), and Luca Molinari (Italy). In their ...

She exemplified 'the perseverance of the architect,' Lina Bo Bardi awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

2021-03-10T16:30:00-05:00

The late Lina Bo Bardi is a prolific architect, designer, editor, and curator. Even after her passing, her work continues to be an example for others to take note of. Her legacy reminds the industry that at the center of design is bringing communities together. Hashim Sarkis, 2021 curator of the 17th Biennale Architettura, stated, "it is her powerful buildings that stand out in their design and in the way that they bring architecture, nature, living, and community together. In her hands, architecture becomes truly a convening social art."

Familiar with her impactful career spanning decades of iconic work, it was no surprise that the famed multi-talented architect had been awarded the Special Gold Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Sarkis, who recommended her for the award, shared, "if there is one architect who embodies most fittingly the theme of the Biennale Architettura 2021, it is Lina Bo Bardi. Her career as a designer, editor, curator, and activist reminds us of the role of the a...

Saving an "ugly architecture" instead of "preserving" MASP

2013-11-24T15:43:00-05:00

"Personally when I did the project of the Art Museum in São Paulo my basic concern was to make an ugly architecture...A poor architecture with free spaces that could be created by the collective...Most people find that the museum is poor, and it is. I wanted to make a poor project. That is, formally and architecturally ugly, but that would be a usable space, that would be something that could be taken over by men". - Lina Bo Bardi

A recent opinion piece in O Estado de S.Paulo proposed fencing in the wonderful open plaza of Lina Bo Bardi's MASP, as one solution for addressing concerns that the space is becoming a mini cracolândia. This situation it is argued has negatively impacted the MASP and it's cultural prestige.

However, it turns out that back in 1972 (while she was still alive) Lina Bo Bardi preempted such concerns in testimony found in the film Arquitetura, A Transformação do Espaço. Therein she spoke about her building.

a H/t, to Ana María León

Editor's Picks #342

2013-11-19T12:40:00-05:00

The latest edition of Showcase; featured a complete redesign of the Law Faculties and Central Administration Buildings at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), by CRAB Studio.

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With Architecture for Humanity's experience helping communities beyond the relief phase of disaster, they are currently mobilizing to assist in long-term reconstruction. Through speaking with local stakeholders and construction professionals, they are working to begin understanding the on-the-ground situation to prioritize rebuilding needs and help affected regions build back better and stronger.

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Last week Bustler.net highlighted the winners from the 39th annual KRob Architectural Delineation competition, the longest running architectural drawing competition in the world. Six winners, three juror citations, and 21 finalists were selected this year.

While he ...

Lina Bo Bardi: "I Am Somehow Special"

2013-11-12T17:12:00-05:00

Lina Bo Bardi was loyal more to an emancipating concept of modernity than to the abstract, formal language of modern architecture. Her thinking and practice were situated at the intersection of different worldviews: north and south, city and hinterland, privilege and deprivation, modernism and tradition, past and present, abstraction and social realism. As she declared in 1989, “I didn’t make myself alone. I am curious and this quality broadens my horizons. ... I am somehow special.”

Lina Bo Bardi's career spanned two continents and six decades, but we are only just beginning to appreciate what Zeuler Lima describes as the "vast and original body of work that emerged from her prolific but discontinuous trajectory as architect, designer, illustrator, writer, editor and curator."

Places has published an excerpt of Lima's new monograph, Lina Bo Bardi (Yale University Press), with a slideshow of major projects.