Arch Tracker

© Pere Vivas/Triangle Postals

“My client is not in a hurry,” Antoni Gaudí used to say. The pious architect was speaking of God, explaining why the Roman Catholic Sagrada Família church was taking so long to complete.

Our friends at National Geographic have sent us a copy of their December 2010 magazine where Jeremy Berlin examines the architecture and nature-inspired design behind Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia, including why it remains a work in progress and very much ahead of its time.

Courtesy: National Geographic

Nearly a century later it remains a work in progress—a dream of spires and ornate facades rising hundreds of feet above downtown Barcelona, drawing the eyes (and euros) of some two million visitors a year. This November Pope Benedict XVI consecrated it as a basilica. A final completion date of 2026 appears likely. And if history begets history, the time is ripe to reappraise Gaudí’s epic endeavor—and the prescient ideas behind it.

© Pere Vivas/Triangle Postals

The article can be found at:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/12/big-idea/gaudi-text
Text by: Jeremy Berlin
Photos by: Pere Vivas, Triangle Postals

The 18th CEMEX BUILDING AWARD shows the contest has strived to achieve its goal of promoting a culture of innovation and competitiveness in concrete construction. The outstanding structures by the winners and finalists show the effort and hard work involved in creating architecture committed to improving people´s quality of life while still caring for the environment. More info after the break.

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Founded in 1977 as an alternative to mainstream architectural publishing, Pamphlet Architecture provides a forum for architects and writers to present their ideas, theories and designs in modest, affordable booklets.  Pamphlet Architecture helped launch the careers of architects from Steven Holl and Lebbeus Woods to Zaha Hadid, and has had influence far exceeding the ad-hoc nature of these humble books.

Competition theme: Resilience
By addressing the capacity to cope, the ability to bounce back, and the mitigation and management of risk, proposals are welcome that showcase a fresh understanding of the possibilities and opportunities of resilience in architecture, from the large to the small scale. Whether resilience stems from natural disaster, civil conflict, global warming, catastrophe, and so on, is the applicant’s discretion. Please visit the submission site for more details. Dates and contact info after the break Leer el resto de esta entrada »

Via Dutch Profiles we found this interesting interview with Rem Koolhaas, principal at OMA, the interview has english subtitles.

The iconic buildings of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, OMA, and its core principles as embodied by Rem Koolhaas, have gained worldwide attention since it’s foundation in 1975.

The philosophy and aesthetic developed for competition submissions for and the Centre for Art and Mediatechnology in Karlsruhe, La Villette, the Jussieu campus and the Très Grande Biblioteque in Paris, garnered frenzied international attention and were finally realised in De Kunsthal in Rotterdam.

Rem Koolhaas’ intensive conceptual thinking about architecture and social circumstances ran simultaneously from the very early stages of his career. With a background in journalism and scriptwriting – his curiosity, research and urge to analyse are basics of his and OMA’s working process.

It is this approach that makes him a highly debated thinker and architect – although he staunchly refutes the label “Starchitect”. This image, he feels, blinds the public to a clear view of what his and OMA’s work is really about.

Casa da Musica in Porto provides a valuable steppingstone for one of OMA’s latest commissioned projects, the Taipei Performing Arts Centre. Treatment of form, innovative techniques, and the celebration of context are key elements of the design. Rather than relocating the roaring Shilin night market from the site of the forthcoming Taipei centre, OMA will instead build its 3 theatres above the market.

The vibrant, dynamic culture of the East forms a crucial element in Koolhaas’ pre-occupation with Asia. As a child he lived in Indonesia for several years. This experience is central to his current fascination with the region –  and its architecture.

Koolhaas’ seminal 1978 book Delirious New York, a Retroactive Manifesto, explores the Culture of Congestion in the big city. Nowadays, his focus is shifting to the wider consequences of the rapid growth of mega-cities.

Our friends at Princeton Architectural Press have sent us “Interactive Architecture, where authors, Michael Fox and Miles Kemp, introduce us to a brave new world where design pioneers are busy creating environments that not only facilitate interaction between people, but also actively participate in their own right. These spaces—able to reconfigure themselves in response to human stimuli—will literally change our worlds by addressing our ever-evolving individual, social, and environmental needs. In other words, it’s time to stop asking what architecture is and start asking what it can do.

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A few weeks ago we received Digital Fabrications Architectural and Material Techinques by Lisa Iwamoto and edited by Princeton Architectural Press. Digital Fabrications celebrates the design ingenuity made possible by recent advances in digital-fabrication techniques. Lisa Iwamoto explores the methods architects use to calibrate digital designs whith physical forms.

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