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“I think when an artist exhibits in a gallery that is sometimes a white cube or a former power plant or warehouse, they have a lot of freedom to focus on the manifestation of their work. You can almost see the Serpentine Pavilion as exactly that: it’s a small pavilion in a gigantic park. The work becomes a pure manifestation of that architect.” — Bjarke Ingels – Archinect
Opening to the public tomorrow, BIG's Serpentine Pavilion has been likened to pixels, Minecraft, Gehry, and "a wall that has enjoyed a good lunch." Made from stacks of fiberglass boxes, the strikingly tall pavilion creates a light-filled canopy in its interior meeting space.The structure was... View full entry
A teetering stack of fibreglass blocks has landed in Kensington Gardens, rising above the Serpentine Gallery in a stepped wall, before billowing out to form a cave-like space within...
From one side, it looks like a wall that has enjoyed a good lunch. The blocks stretch outwards in a swollen bulge, like a snake devouring its gallery-going prey. From the other, it looks caught in a stiff breeze, a pixelated curtain rippling in the wind.
— the Guardian
"In keeping with the best-observed-from-a-distance nature of other BIG buildings, the detailing is also a bit clunky, with each fibreglass frame bolted and bracketed in rather heavy-handedly, due to time constraints," writes Oliver Wainwright. "Still, the interior remains a stunning space, a... View full entry
Not content to merely redefine skyscrapers, football stadiums, and the agency of the architect, Bjarke Ingels Group is now leaping into the realm of transportation, joining up with Hyperloop to "transform the future of public infrastructure." Bjarke explained it thusly: "Traditionally, the work... View full entry
Contrary to many, maybe including himself, I do not consider Bjarke Ingels the reincarnation of this or that architect from the past. On the contrary, he is the embodiment of a fully fledged new typology, which responds perfectly to the current zeitgeist. Bjarke is the first major architect who disconnected the profession completely from angst. He threw out the ballast and soared. — TIME
"With that, he is completely in tune with the thinkers of Silicon Valley, who want to make the world a better place without the existential hand-wringing that previous generations felt was crucial to earn utopianist credibility," writes Rem Koolhaas for TIME's 2016 list of the "100 Most... View full entry
Caruso St John, Stanton Williams with Asif Khan, and BIG in a team with Hawkins\Brown have been shortlisted to design the Museum of London’s new home in Smithfields.
The shortlisted teams saw off 80 entries from more than 140 practices and were chosen based on their relevant skills and experience, in particular of significant cultural projects.
The competition will create a £150 million new base for the Museum of London in the historic West Smithfield market.
— architectsjournal.co.uk
Also selected:Lacaton & Vassal Architectes with Pernilla Ohrstedt StudioDiener & Diener Architekten with Sergison Bates Architects, East Architecture and Graphic Thought FacilityStudio Milou architecture with RL & Associés, Axis Architects and Alan Baxter AssociatesRead more articles... View full entry
“The one thing that everybody's sort of excited about is this idea that the stadium is designed as much for the tailgating, the pre-game, as for the game itself,” Ingels says in the 60 Minutes promo. — CityLab.com
When sports fans think football, they think...moats? Although the proposed stadium for the still-offensively-named Washington Redskins hasn't officially found a site, team owner Dan Snyder is pushing for it to be located next to the Anacostia River, which would provide context for Ingels' moat... View full entry
The culture at BIG is intense but in off-hours, blowing off steam dressed as your favorite comic book hero isn't uncommon. That's the boss armed with a gun full of tequila.
Bjarke Ingels: The way we work is maybe unlike certain architects that have a very particular style where it is the auteur. It has to be the design principal who makes the strokes of genius. I don't have to come up with the best idea. It is my job to make sure that it is always the best idea that wins.
— cbsnews.com
Looking for even BIGger news on Archinect? Here are a few recent stories to begin with:A closer look at BIG's West 57th Street "courtscraper"Serpentine unzips Bjarke Ingels' Pavilion and 4 Summer HousesBIG in Paris: Bjarke Ingels to design for Galeries Lafayette on Champs-Élysées View full entry
It’s tempting to see this as celebrity’s flourish, but consider all that the shape achieves: It maximizes river views and covered balconies, obstructs its neighbors as little as possible, fills a deep narrow block without resorting to an ungainly slab, protects even low apartments from the noise of the West Side Highway, pierces the skyline with a jaunty top, and leaves room for a courtyard that even in winter basks in sunlight most of the day. — nymag.com
More BIG news from around the world: New Renderings Revealed for 217 West 57th Street, the Will-Be Tallest Residential Building in the WorldAlbright-Knox Gallery announces short list of firms for $80m expansion: Snøhetta, BIG, OMA, wHY, Allied WorksSerpentine unzips Bjarke Ingels' Pavilion and... View full entry
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery wants to create a public space that could rival Canalside while expanding and remaking one of the city’s most recognizable institutions.
And gallery officials are looking to some of the most respected architects in the world to make it happen.
They have narrowed the list of potential architects for the gallery’s upcoming expansion project to five firms with experience building in challenging urban environments.
— the Buffalo News
Located in the historic, Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Delaware Park, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery is one of the major cultural hotspots of New York State's second largest city. Now, the contemporary and modern art gallery plans a major expansion of its facilities, which originally opened in... View full entry
Bjarke Ingels' unfurling wall-based pavilion joins four summer houses—designed by Asif Khan, Kunlé Adeyemi, Barkow Leibinger, and Yona Friedman—to create this year's Serpentine Architecture Program. Each of the four summer houses riffs on the adjacent Queen Caroline's Temple designed in... View full entry
The sentiment is warm and fuzzy. The design, however, is radical: BIG has imagined a complex that would be unlike any other building in the city – or, indeed, North America. The scheme blends an unusual stack-of-blocks form, and adds a complex weave of public and private spaces underneath and within the heart of the building itself...the effect [Bjarke Ingels] is going for is akin to 'a Mediterranean mountain town.' — The Globe and Mail
More recent BIG projects: BIG to design 2016 Serpentine Pavilion, alongside smaller "Summer Houses" by Kunlé Adeyemi, Barkow Leibinger, Yona Friedman and Asif Kahn BIG in Paris: Bjarke Ingels to design for Galeries Lafayette on Champs-Élysées BIG's concept for a spiraling-landscape tower in... View full entry
Long-time Archinector and reliably sane commentator Will Galloway joins us from his base in Tokyo to discuss the weekly news, including his interview with Assemble, crucially taking place mere weeks before they won the Turner Prize. While news from Bjarke Ingels Group commanded the feistiest... View full entry
The Serpentine Galleries in London announced earlier today the designer of the 2016 iteration of their annual Pavilion series: Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG, the Copenhagen and New York-based global powerhouse.This summer marks the 16th Pavilion of the acclaimed program, which began in... View full entry
When asked why the company chose not to commission Rem Koolhaas' OMA, who are already involved with designing the department store’s art foundation, Costa says that the decision to select BIG was based on the firm’s disruptive thinking and that OMA was already working with German department store KaDeWe in Berlin. “We were confident to work with new architects,” he says. — Business of Fashion
Tune in to tomorrow's Archinect Sessions to listen to a fuller discussion of what this disruptive design choice means for BIG, for Paris, and for flagship stores everywhere. In the meantime, here's a window display from Galeries Lafayette, circa 2007:And here's a quick refresher on what Bjarke's... View full entry
To understand how strange this pairing of client and architect is, you have to contemplate two things: the deeply embedded social progressivism that has become the standard worldview of international architectural firms such as BIG; and organizations such as the NFL, a private club for 1 percenters that bullies municipalities and treats its own players’ health with indifference. Can this marriage last? Is BIG motivated by naivete or cynicism? — The Washington Post
WaPo's art and architecture critic Philip Kennicott discusses the oddities of BIG's recent commission to design a new stadium for the Washington Redskins — and the team's problematic name is just the tip of the iceberg.More on Archinect: Bjarke Ingels Group, BIG, tackles NFL stadium design for... View full entry
