Construction has just finished on the REX-designed Vakko Fashion Center & Power Media Center in Istanbul, Turkey. This project is particularly interesting in it's creative reuse of existing structure and plans from unrealized projects in both Turkey and the USA. REX utilized the remaining structure from the unfinished Istanbul hotel on-site, and reused the plans from REX's design for the California Institute of Technology’s Annenberg Center in Pasadena. As a result, construction on Vakko started only 4 days after REX received the commission!
Vakko Fashion Center & Power Media Center is our latest ShowCase feature. Click here to view
Construction has just finished on the REX-designed Vakko Fashion Center & Power Media Center in Istanbul, Turkey. This project is particularly interesting in it's creative reuse of existing structure and plans from unrealized projects in both Turkey and the USA. REX utilized the remaining structure from the unfinished Istanbul hotel on-site, and reused the plans from REX's design for the California Institute of Technology’s Annenberg Center in Pasadena. As a result, construction on Vakko started only 4 days after REX received the commission!
Vakko Fashion Center & Power Media Center is our latest ShowCase feature. Click here to view
13 Comments
fashionistas of architecture...
tell me how does this make it different from McMansions?
and please don't give me a ridiculous superficial awnser about form...
Yeah I don't understand why they're so proud of the fact that they did not spend enough time on the project.
And, like most stories about REX, there's a nonsensical Rem inspired storyline about it ( a la Casa Del Musica being formerly the design of a Dutch house). Asif Cem Hakko (the client) called JPR because he heard about how wonderful he is and wanted the project to be delivered in 4 days. It is as sincere as him (JPR) whining about starchitect culture and simultaneously trying to become one himself. Oh well...Architecture marketing and politics aside, how does the existence of a concrete frame and nothing else make this project a re-use?
ha! I second that go architects!-
Koolhaas' Generic City at its worst. Koolhaas' bastard son keeps milking his father's work while prostituting it; sounds like post-modernisim all over again...
sheesh. some pretty tough commenters here.
theres no question that rex leaves itself open to criticism due to its unnerving similarity to 'father' rems work, but this is a corporate headquarters for gawd sake, not a sustainable farmhouse AND arent all architects influenced by who they work for? an ex-boss of mine used to work for marcel breur and forged a very successful career producing knock-off mid century modernism. you can only work with what you've got.
as for the re-use aspect of the project, its neither here nor there, but surely it is worth noting. im not sure they are claiming to be saviours of the world here, rather they have responded to a specific brief and situation, the fundamental characteristic to practicing architecture.
for what its worth, i dont look up to 'corporate' work (skyscrapers, government, and business headquarters, etc.) but someone has to produce it, and i think generally rex do a reasonable job at it.
Most of your commenters here will never build anything that is a hundredth as interesting as this in your lives, even if you get a job.
that glass rocks. of course, because it rocks, i expect to see it showing up on a lot of projects over the next year or so.
i really wanted to hate this building....
but it's beautiful.
My comments were more in reference to architect-as-public-figure and the image of an architect per se. It is a curious contradiction in the way in which he talks about his work as a public figure in opposition to the actual work of architecture itself. When I saw the building under construction, the warped glass looked really beautiful. But the packaging of the publication is the thing that pisses me off. the building is nice, fine, but the rhetoric is just bs. And sameolddoctor, if you have something intelligent to say in particular to the project or the way it is presented to us here, more power to you. I worked for a couple starchitects already where a built a couple "interesting" buildings. Thanks.
as fine as a beautiful prostitute in las vegas strip or a park in prague-what ever suits your taste...
feel free to post your original, non-rem-inspired, non-superficial, non-postmodernist, non-corporate buildings, and we'll evaluate your designs against this copycat, rem-inspired, superficial, postmodern, corporate project.
and honestly, who cares about the rhetoric?
ooh, sexy building! i think this is effectively post-rem. rex is cultivating a rudeness all its own. and i mean that as a *big* compliment.
reuse? haha.
after my last comment i looked at the showcase again, and thought, so awkward and sexy, and, omg, rex is the lady gaga of architecture! damn, and *i* wanted to be the lady gaga of architecture!
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