materials?

Not SANAA's Moca in NY?

can you describe said project?

not sanaa - i believe the building is in Japan. the materials / description: plain as can be. a lot of white drywall (or appeared to be), brick, industrial/standard looking steel handrails. they best way to describe it would be very, very dry.

the only thing that was special about the building was that it was proportioned well, which made it extraordinary.

i know this description really sucks. but it's all i can come up with. someone who's seen the project will undoubtedly remember it for its austerity, which is a kind of David Ajaye / Chipperfield kind of austerity. It's more like a Don Judd / East Texas kind of austerity.

is it taniguchi's national treasure museum?

that looks remarkably like the MoMA....but no. Taniguchi is not the designer....

BTW - i just realized in my 4:22 post i said "which is a kind of David Ajaye..."

i meant to say "which is *NOT* a kind of David Ajaye..."

sorry for the confusion...

johnszot - this is why we need rdf tags, I feel your pain.

I'll point you to Tezuka's museum which was published in Verb and elsewhere. Otherwise it's a complete crap shoot as the description sounds like all Japanese architecture in the past 50 years

jobbie - i hear you. thanks for chiming in, but it's not what i'm looking for.

RG - the building is not by any of the biggies, hence the difficulty here

thanks to all for taking a stab.

any other suggestions? anyone?

is it dry due to good flashing details?

atelier bow wow's mado house (Japan/urban)
madaspam's well hall (not Japan/not urban)
r & sie's parking lot (object/all about (amazing) roof)
toyo ito's grin grin (non-object/all about roof)

we can use the powerful divide-conquer process for faster results. The following are things you can certainly recall and can then recurse:
surrounded or solitary
small or enormous
local or foreign office

dry/spare/of nice proportions/non-Adjaye/architect-uninvolved-esp-not-Sejima-nor-Ando are markers that come after

are you sure it's japanese?
Galerie Urs Meile, ai wei wei (beijing)





Museum Insel Hombroich, Erwin Heerich (germany)






galerie fuer zeitgenoessische kunst, bearth + deplazes

Tama Arts University - Toyo Ito

dia, i really like that project, though i'm not sure why.

there is a really great drawing in the aug. '07 arch review,
titled detailed section reveals steel plate structure encased in concrete

oh, thank goodness, holz is here. if he can't figure it out, i don't think it exists.

hmmm... yes... Ai Wei Wei's gallery certainly meets all the criteria.

good game, people

the Wei Wei gallery is very nice. alas, it is not the building i am looking for despite meeting all my vague criteria.

again i stop to thank everyone for making an attempt. there is clearly a crowd of serious architecture buffs surfing this site.

i am enjoying seeing the pics of these buildings (most of which i didn't know existed). anyone else with something interested to look at? or better yet, the name/author of the building i'm seeking?

But don't you have some more details? What was exhibited in the museum?
Was it an urban setting or in the country side?

Non-David Adjaye...is not that big a reference for me :-)

I keep thinking of Sou Fujimoto's Centre for mentally disturbed children.

Masanari Murai Art Museum - 4 walls and a mezzanine

ah, so it's kuma? i was thinking of some of his other stuff but it's all so much more....baroque (?) compared to this.

does ep get the t-shirt? i'm guessing he got it.

john? john?

but there is no brick! i feel cheated/guess i'll have to buy a shirt.

irie.

we should start a thread on japanese minimalism.. but i think that'd cover almost all of them...

Towada Arts Center by Ryue Nishizawa?

http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/2008/04/towada.html

Ok, my best shot would be "Palais de Tokyo" in Paris by Lacaton & Vassal?
Extremely spare, very nice, and one could think of it as being a japanese project because of the name...

www.palaisdetokyo.com

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_jBgBdvCE9sI/RNueGbd7ABI/AAAAAAAAAKI/rbNljF2jJhE/DSC04482.JPG

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Palais_de_Tokyo_Site_de_création_contemporaine_2.jpg/800px-Palais_de_Tokyo_Site_de_création_contemporaine_2.jpg

http://www.marcelproustracingteam.com/images/press/cotefacebb.JPG

i'm beginning to wonder if just imagined the building.

these are most excellent suggestions. unfortunately, i still don't have a match. my recollection is that the building is in Japan.

i missed the Palais de Tokyo last trip to Paris. Now i'm regretting it.

that school for disturbed children is really nice as well.

i thought i'd try one more time to describe spare as demonstrated by the mystery building.

we're not talking about a spare *technique* - that is, an approach that seeks to abstract its subject through hiding detail in the surfaces, etc. (hence the use of Adjaye and Chipperfield as dialectical examples); austerity is not the explict agenda - just a consequence of the bald-faced quality of the building.

of the stabs at this so far, the wei wei gallery and the german museum have the right attitude. they might end up being necessary substitutes for the project i'm thinking of. however, sure would be great to find the original....

I guess you can't get any more minimal than possibly not existing.

I was laughing out loud at the vagueness of your description last night, but now, I think I know which building you're talking about. And damned if I can't think of the name/architect, either.

This is worse than having a fragment of a song stuck in your head. At least you can whistle it to someone.

FLM - how true.

Greg - just think how i feel. it's worse knowing you might be on the cusp of solving this mystery.

hmm. last two guesses would be

Jiuchang Art Complex
Heyri Art Valley

hurry up kids, the free t-shirt is getting cold ova here ;)

Hmm, now I wonder if I was thinking of Atelier Bow Wow's Hanamidori Cultural Center in Tachikawa?

There was an Archinect interview with Tsukamoto about it last year:

http://archinect.com/features/article.php?id=56468_0_23_0_C

But looking at the Atelier Bow-Wow site,

http://www.bow-wow.jp/profile/works_e.html

it seems a lot less unintentional than I remembered. Though with all that flexibility, it still looks like a tough place to put on an art exhibition.

Also, it doesn't look much like either brick or Marfa...

I dreamt of a building last night. It was pretty nice. Anyone who can post an accurate picture of it will have me as their live-in maid for the rest of eternity, and an archinect t-shirt of their choice.

holz - That's from flickr but what on earth is it...it's making me quite ill..

here's the photo's page. Oxford Park Central.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61686932@N00/2365411371/

It does "make one question whether there was an architect involved at all."

nice one. yeah, it is awful. but i'm pretty sure that's what dia dreams about at night.

actually, it looks like half the developer crap going up in seattle... no, like 80%

Oh man oh man what I would give to pull a Janine Antoni "Slumber" on diabase's brain activity while he slept...

holz.box, thats a nightmare. A dream is more like this:

on the rare occaision i do dream, it tends to be ridiculous corners

diabase,