The French architect Jean Nouvel has defended his Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi, a massive domed complex that opens in November, from accusations it was built by exploited and abused migrant workers. [...]
In an interview as the finishing touches are put to the colossal construction, the architect dismissed accusations over exploited workers as an “old question” and insisted conditions for those building the museum were better than for some employed in Europe.
— The Guardian
"A 2015 a Human Rights Watch report," The Guardian explains, "suggested migrants working on the Louvre museum and neighbouring Guggenheim, part of a £18bn 'cultural hub' on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, were subjected to conditions amounting to forced labour including summary arrest and... View full entry
Migrants building a state-of-the-art stadium for the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar are abused and exploited – while FIFA makes huge profits. — Amnesty International
As previously covered in Archinect news, many migrant workers in Qatar face abuse and exploitation, forced labor or even death.A recent report from Amnesty International reveals new numbers — over 90% of Qatar's workforce, an estimated 1.7 million people, are migrant workers coming from... View full entry
Housing must now be recognised as a human right, no different than the right to vote or express yourself freely. This means understanding that housing cannot be viewed first and foremost as an economic driver or a commodity to add to an investment portfolio; that forced eviction is not development; that land has more than monetary value; and that the private market must be regulated. — the Guardian
It also means housing homeless people rather than making them criminals for trying to stay alive, and it means recognising that everyone has the right to live in the city regardless of socio-economic status.Many of the world's major cities are gripped with housing crises. For more on this... View full entry
Fifa president Gianni Infantino has announced the launch of a body to oversee the treatment of workers on Qatar’s World Cup stadiums.
Fifa has been under pressure from Amnesty International, among others, over the alleged human rights abuses suffered by construction operatives at World Cup venues.
— globalconstructionreview.com
Previously in the Archinect news:"7,000 construction workers will die in Qatar before a ball is kicked in the 2022 World Cup," new ITUC report findsBBC journalists arrested for reporting on Qatar's World Cup laborersRevealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves' to Build InfrastructureDire safety conditions... View full entry
The fort community houses 59 families, and is well-known for its wooden houses in the early Rattanakosin-style. Faced with strong resistance from the community, and academics and activists, City Hall the plan but dusted it off early last month amid a public outcry. — Bangkok Post
The Pom Mahakan community on the edge of Rattanakosin Island in Bangkok has been there for more than 150 years. Many of the old teak houses remain behind the last piece of the original wall of the city. The people of this community have faced many eviction threats in the past 20 years as the... View full entry
A report by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has estimated that 7,000 workers will die before the first ball is kicked in the 2022 World Cup. [...]
“Qatar’s labour laws are ruinous for workers. All the government has done is to codify slavery. Employers can now even lend out workers to another employer without the worker’s consent for up to a year”
— globalconstructionreview.com
In its 2015 report Qatar: Profit and Loss. Counting the cost of modern day slavery in Qatar: What price freedom?, the ITUC demands that FIFA would make workers' right a central concern of the 2022 World Cup preparations. The organization has also called on Qatari authorities to take these... View full entry
On 22 October, [United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing Leilani] Farha challenged the General Assembly to promote urban development through the lens of human rights.
“Human rights can be transformational,” she said. “A human rights framework can provide the coherence and consistency sorely needed to achieve sustainable, inclusive cities for all.” [...]
“Human rights have been largely absent from discussions of urban development,” Farha cautioned.
— citiscope.org
A "special rapporteur" is "an independent expert appointed by the Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme." In a recent report to the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, which you can read in its entirety here, rapporteur Leilani Farha... View full entry
Migrant workers building branches of the Guggenheim Museum, the Louvre and the Zayed National Museum on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi continue to face crushing debt, substandard wages and harsh working conditions despite recent efforts to improve treatment, according to a report published this week by Gulf Labor, a coalition of artists and activists.
[...] the researchers found that “underpayment is far and away the primary concern” for the workers themselves.
— theartnewspaper.com
This issue of labor rights in the greater gulf region previously on Archinect:An updated look at the conditions for Abu Dhabi's migrant workersBBC journalists arrested for reporting on Qatar's World Cup laborersLabor violations affirmed in latest report of NYU Abu Dhabi constructionWorld Cup... View full entry
With all the cultural, sports and real-estate projects launched throughout the United Arab Emirates, there have been persistent protests about the working and living conditions [...] ”Serious concerns about workers’ rights have not been resolved”, claims the advocacy group, asking for a commitment for ”more serious protection” from these institutions and Saadiyat Island’s developers. [...] appears to have made a serious effort to address the concern expressed by Western museums and architects. — theartnewspaper.com
Qatari authorities have confirmed they are holding two British researchers who are investigating the 2022 World Cup facilities, which is linked with a scandal over poor working conditions and dozens of deaths of foreign workers.
...
"All of the actions that have been taken against the two Britons are consistent with principles of human rights enshrined in the constitution," read the statement released by the Qatari QNA news agency on Sunday.
— RT
The silence from Zaha is deafening. View full entry
Baku is gaining international recognition as a centre of cutting-edge architectural design thanks in part to a major award given recently to London-based architect Zaha Hadid for her Heydar Aliyev Centre. The Azerbaijani capital’s new look has plenty of local fans, but also some detractors. [...]
The latest wave of protests occurred in February and March, prompted by a government announcement that 40,000 downtown residents would be evicted to make way for a “green zone” [...].
— theguardian.com
Human Rights Watch said that, along with the Crystal Hall, stage of the 2012 Eurovision song contest, and the park-cum-shopping mall of the Winter Garden, the centre is one of the city's many oil-fuelled grand projects that have seen local people evicted by force. — theguardian.com
From earlier today: Zaha Hadid wins the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year Award 2014While almost 250 homes were cleared to make way for Hadid's building, (questions have also been raised about the rights of those who built it. In 2010, while the project was under construction, the global... View full entry
"It’s an attempt to really use architecture intelligence and design intelligence to unpack violations of international law," Weizman says of Forensic Architecture. Along with SITU Research, he and his team have developed a technique called video-to-space analysis to harvest spatial data from cell phone videos and photos, analyzing footage, sometimes from multiple sources, to model and recreate chaotic events to better understand what happened on the ground. — fastcodesign.com
"Ai Weiwei, who helped design the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing, stayed away from the opening ceremonies because he said he wanted his building to represent freedom, not be a trophy for an autocratic regime uninterested in change." — hyperallergic.com
Are we even delineating the role of the Architect in the construction process? Especially in the case where the clients are a monarchy and the problem cited is endemic to the entire region and not limited to the construction industry?Quoting Ai Weiwei and not Herzog and de Meuron seems almost... View full entry
A hunger strike in California state prisons calls for an end to indefinite solitary confinement in Security Housing Units, known as SHUs. Raphael Sperry has challenged fellow architects to ban the design of SHUs. Beverly Prior responds, reflecting on a career designing for incarceration. Joe Day sees societal values mirrored in the growth of both American prisons and museums. — kcrw.com
Previously: Building A Better Prison View full entry
