Snøhetta Wins ‘King Abdulaziz Center for Knowledge and Culture’ Competition in Saudi Arabia
In competition with some of the world’s greatest architects, Snøhetta has won the competition about designing Saudi Arabia’s new Cultural Center. Saudi Aramco – the world’s largest oil company – is the client. More
Zaha Hadid & Delugan Meissl Assossiated Architects Win ‘Darat King Abdullah II’ Competition in Amman
The Greater Amman Municipality organized an international architectural competition with top-class architects experienced in theater and opera planning, in order to achieve the best and most appropriate design. More
11 Comments
That design by Snøhetta if fucking gorgeous
Snohetta-It's like the bldg is is a liquid or a plasma..or oil poured into the landscape.
"Saudi Center for Knowledge"
April Fools was three months ago.
i wonder how many people will go blind from staring at such a large, shiny object in the desert.
It's like an Anish Kapoor piece, but with an interior . . . a really bad interior.
what do you guys think about the "Darat King Abdullah II" project?
I have really mixed emotions. On one side, I am very excited, since I am from Jordan and visit almost every summer (well I was born in the US, but my parents are from Jordan), so it's great to see an iconic piece of architecture juxtaposed against the monotonous square stone condos.
On the other hand, a lot of the citizens in Amman, if i could put it in the best way, are - "simple folk" (that really like their malls....kinda weird). Jordan doesn't have a lot of museums or cultural centers, and when they do, its a small museum that was created FOR a historic site within that site, like a castle or an ancient roman city remains.
But it's a great feeling that the everyday people are going to be exposed to this creative work that Zaha+Meissl created.
It looks like Snohetta put a lot more effort and ingenuity in the second competition, but did not win; while they are probably surprised that they win in the first one, which is essentially a bunch of residue rhino/maya files clashed together.
The abdullah competition concept has some similarity to the museum of the history of polish jews in warsaw (Lahdelma & Mahlamäki)- the fluid interior space / rectangular shell - thing. There, inspired by the parting of the red sea, here, inspired by Petra - these half-blob forms seem always to find their excuses, no matter what culture they are said to reflect.
But that aside, if the interior actually works well with the flows of visitors, this probably will be a good, functioning building with some character. The Abdulaziz contraption looks more problematic - the "aspiring droplets of oil" form is suggestive yet abstract enough to convince a Jencks of the things iconicness, but fitting the diverse programs in those forms and the walls of the crevice will be hard - circulation, daylight, etc.etc. Hard to judge the reality of the built environment from the iridescent renderings.
---
Has any of the shiny things in the region, seen in these competitions and and other publicity material, actually been built yet? except the crass developer-projects of dubai, I can't recall anything of interest, but rendering upon rendering presenting high hopes. Where are the photographs or visitor accounts?
Cool! Just that and nothing else.
Just do it!, don't think
Snøhetta was on a PBS Doco I was watching last night about the Master Plan for Ras Al Khaimah City. Their approach to architecture left me screaming at the screen, 'so we put a canal from the water to the mountains and that’s our city' I MEAN WTF! I'll all for exploring new architecture, but typically the level of resolution on these projects is limited to the outside. Maybe there are some out there forms that a resolved in every aspect, but the majority are shape making, inefficient, hard to build, expensive to build sculptures. Not great works or Architecture.
The rendering for Zaha Hadid's piece in Amman is beautiful. But I wonder if the local people will really be/get comfortable with such an extraversively"alien" structure in the midst of your typical middle eastern desert city.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.