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New NEOM documentary features Thom Mayne, Peter Cook, Reinier de Graaf, and other architects speaking highly of The Line megacity project

2023-07-28T13:06:00-04:00

A new look behind the process and select architects involved in Saudi Arabia’s controversial The Line megacity for NEOM has been released, answering some questions as to its ideation while leaving many remaining in regard to the project's structural engineering, technical specifics, and design feasibility overall.

Among the torrent of quickly-spliced and placable bromides, the 45-minute "documentary" features Peter Cook stating, "if it's to be a success... parts of it will fail." None of the interviewees, including especially Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, offered an explanation as to how the "top-down, hardcore engineering" OMA partner Reinier de Graaf describes will be carried out in any detail, an element which has been a constant source of criticism since the segment was first announced a year ago.

"Many projects acquire their sanity as they go along, and I think very, very much the case here too — and the jury's out," de Graaf stated before bemoaning a "complete lac...

It's Archigram's Future: We are just living in it

2017-11-17T12:39:00-05:00

Archigram can be seen as part of several trends that influence metropolitan life to this day. One was the Pop Art movement, where color, dynamism, fashion, and disposability were presented in graphics as understated as a passing billboard.

While history may be said to define us, it could also be that history paves the roads in which we will ultimately walk. Archigram, known for being an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s and for its neo-futuristic, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist theoretical projects, may, in fact, have been more prophetic than theoretical. While their work has been the precedent for endless variations of conceptual and realized projects, it may also ultimately end up being the destination as well.

SoapBox: Manifestos

2017-11-13T16:14:00-05:00

Soapbox is a new weekly series delivering a curated set of lectures, talks and symposia concerning contemporary themes but explored through the archives of lectures past and present. With the plethora of lectures, talks, symposia and panels occurring world wide on a daily basis, how can we begin to keep up and if not, find them once they are gone? Soapbox looks to assemble a selection of recent, archived and outlier lectures surrounding a given theme. Soapbox looks to curate this never-ending library of ideas into an engaging and diverse list of thoughts and provocations. Soapbox is just that, a collection aimed at discovering the occasional needle in a haystack.

This week, in its first offering, we present. Manifestos. A selection of videos whose topics or purpose was to present if not reinforce, Manifestos.

1. GSAPP: What happened to the Architectural Manifesto Series

a. Enrique Walker, Felicity Scott and Anthony Vidler on the architectural manifesto. (2011)

b. Beatriz Colomina,...

Sir Peter Cook-designed drawing studio at the Arts University Bournemouth opened today

2016-03-03T13:34:00-05:00

The Art University Bournemouth’s new drawing studio, designed by alumnus Sir Peter Cook, is to be officially today by Zaha Hadid. It is the first purpose-built drawing studio to open in the UK for 100 years and is the renowned architect and founding member of radical collective Archigram’s first building in the country. The curved studio has been designed to emphasise natural light [...] there is a large circular north-light and a rear clerestory, which provides softer light.

Here are a few more images of the delightful little structure (via CRAB studio's website):

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In new exhibition, Sir Peter Cook reflects on architecture's possibilities

2015-09-08T12:42:00-04:00

Cook’s artwork of over four decades is being exhibited for the first time in India. [...] “I want to make it uncomfortable — for the philistine, for the boring architect, for the person who wants his building to be predictable,” says Cook [...] “Architecture is what you do with the potential of life.”