The Architectural Review articles from February 2002

The Architectural Review archives from February 2002

Jean Nouvel Storms Pompidou. (View).(exhibition at Pompidou Center features works of architect, France)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... There could be no better tonic for winter gloom than the unabashed, no-holds-barred celebration of Jean Nouvel's architecture on show until 4 March in Paris at the Pompidou Centre. Yet the exhibition has not been given star billing on the...

Obituary.(Samuel Mockbee)(Obituary)
February 1, 2002... SAMUEL MOCKBEE: AN APPRECIATION It was with great sadness that we heard of the passing away of Samuel Mockbee on 30 December 2001. In an architectural age still obsessed by form and fashion, the work of Sambo was tragically...

Centenary celebration. (View).(architect Arne Jacobsen discussed)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Arne Jacobsen was one of the defining architects of the twentieth century. He translated the traditional Danish Classical sensitivity to the Modern age. This is thc centenary month of Arne Jacobsen's birth, and his lifework is celebrated...

Browser. (View).(web sites for architecture)
February 1, 2002... Sutherland Lyall heroically surfs the architectural cyberwaves. Artless art gallery For some time exotically haired Bamber Gascoigne hasn't been seen presenting BBC's University Challenge. He's apparently been building the newly opened...

Empty gestures. (Outrage).
February 1, 2002... Art adores a vacuum, because a vacuum sucks in the media. If you really want press coverage nowadays you should follow the example of Martin Creed, winner of last year's Turner Prize (Britain's most prestigious contemporary art award, given at...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2002... CONNECTING CRITICALITY SIR: There is a connectivity between Glasgow, Dublin, and Lisbon, not only in myth, which may offer a response to Kenneth Frampton's idea of Critical Regionalism. Attending the perennially excellent Royal...

Electronic images. (Editorial Notice).(Editorial)
February 1, 2002... We are sorry to say that we can accept electronic photographs for publication in the AR only in the most exceptional circumstances. At the moment, even the best available technology does not allow us to assess, manipulate and check them...

Erratum.(Correction Notice)
February 1, 2002... The photo credit for mixed development in Hamburg (AR January 2002, p38) should read: 1, 2, 5 by Cordelia Ewerth; 3, 6, 7, 8 by Dirk Robbers/artur.

View from Lima: The capital of Peru, Lima was once a city that lived in contented harmony with its strange ecology and landscape. But now it has gluttonously devoured much of what made the city work.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Among contemporary Third World cities, Lima may be a case to show how the fierce process of contemporary urbanization has infused irrationality into what, until half a century ago, had proven to be, for over four hundred years, a town that had...

March. (View).(hospitals and other health care buildings)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Hospitals and other health institutions are the building types of the Modern Movement: rational and clean, controlled yet open to the latest advances in technology, the canonical hospitals of the mid-twentieth century were some of the most...

Sinuous link: A new pedestrian bridge elegantly and economically links two halves of a school across a busy road. (Design Review).(Birds Portchmouth Russum Architects designs footbridge for Plashet School, London, U.K.)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... The 67m long footbridge, by Birds Portchmouth Russum Architects, at Plashet School, Newham, London, spans a busy road and links the original school and a 1960s building to the north. Using pioneering technology, the architects have created an...

Destroying all the things we love. (Comment).(negative aspects of leisure)
February 1, 2002... Leisure is one of the great growth industries on the planet: but instead of benefiting humanity, it has destroyed much of what we hold most dear. It is time to use imagination and creativity to limit leisure's corrosion. Leisure, for most...

Musical Variations: This music school opens an issue on leisure because it is not a teaching machine but an institution which promises to enrich the life of the city and all its citizens.(Daryl Jackson Robin Dyke Pty. provides architectural design services for the Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, Australia)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... I never tire of saying that Sydney is one of the most magnificent cities in the world. It's not that many of its buildings are particularly outstanding, but the whole composition of the centre is magnificent, with the skyscrapers of the CBD...

Chastity in Vaduz: A reserved and very well controlled gallery makes a welcome contrast to the kitschy muddle of the rest of Vaduz, and offers calm spaces for contemplation.(Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Liechtenstein is a peculiar place. Sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland, the tiny state has had independence since the fourteenth century. Due to the benign government of the princes, who live in the Schloss that hovers over the capital...

Ice work: Grenoble's ambitious new ice rink transfigures everyday materials into a dazzling synthesis of light and colour.
February 1, 2002... The Winter Olympics of 1968 was a watershed in the evolution of Grenoble, strongly influencing subsequent patterns of urban growth. The town's new ice rink replaces the building originally designed for the games, the demise of which was...

Taking flight: Drawing on the grace and dynamism of the sport itself, this precisely engineered new ski jump was constructed in a very tight timescale to replace an existing outdated structure.
February 1, 2002... Invented and popularized by the Norwegians (particularly the ruling Swedish royal family, whose passion for the sport established its credentials in the late nineteenth century), ski-jumping combines balletic poise and death-defying spectacle....

Spanish steps: Spectacularly cut into the hillside surrounding Toledo, this external stair elegantly and efficiently transports tourists up to the historic city centre.
February 1, 2002... Poised precipitously on a hill overlooking a sharp bend in the River Tagus, the city of Toledo has remained miraculously unchanged since the end of the Middle Ages, when it formed the epicentre of Spanish political, cultural and religious life....

Glorious goodwood: One of England's most delightful and rural racecourses has been transformed with a new, summery and light-hearted back-of-house.
February 1, 2002... As all aficionados of Dick Francis know, parading horses both before and after they run is part of the ritual of racing: before, you go to look at form, to assess which horses are likely to be ahead of the rest; afterwards, the winning animal,...

Boules et gym: This gymnasium was built economically, yet it responds to its setting and incorporates ingenious lighting ideas.
February 1, 2002... The Ruffi sports complex, by Remy Marciano, fills out a rectangular site in the third arrondissement of Marseilles, on the north side of the city's harbour. The immediate environs are a mixture of the semi-industrial and housing estates. To the...

Timber lake: Touching the earth lightly, this small building shows love of the forest and understanding of the sensual potentialities of wood: olfactory, tactile and visual.
February 1, 2002... The little sauna on Muuraissaari Island on a lake near Luumaki in eastern Finland is by architect Teemu Tuomi working with landscape architect Sari Knuuti. It is beautifully sited in the pine forest on a boulder-strewn south-facing slope...

Riverbed revival: Set in the neglected carcass of a dried up riverbed, this new public park is full of subtle and inventive new landscape devices that respond to the site's history.
February 1, 2002... Fontsanta Park is a conglomeration of imaginative public spaces grafted on to the dried-up riverbed of the former Fontsanta River. The riverbed separates an industrial area from a recently developed residential quarter on the outskirts of...

City folk: Exuding a rugged, sculptural power through form and materials, a museum of folk art in manhattan is a luminous backdrop for the exhibits.
February 1, 2002... The new Museum of American Folk Art is housed in an eight-storey building, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien & Associates, at 45 West 53rd Street in the heart of Manhattan. This is the first new museum in the city since the Whitney opened in 1966,...

Concrete couture: A former chocolate factory in Milan's industrial quarter has been magically transformed into a setting for the spectacle and business of haute couture.(Giorgio Armani commissions Tadao Ando to design his world headquarters building, Italy)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Milan is reverting to what it must have been in the centuries before Italian unification, a city state of private wealth and public squalor, in which ubiquitous graffiti and crumbling services crowd the privileged enclaves of fashion. One...

Japanese lantern: A luminous skincare store and spa on Madison Avenue evokes the Japanese provenance of its products and is a lantern on the busy street.(Architecture Research Office designs the Qiora Store and Spa for Shiseido, New York City, U.S.)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... The Qiora Store and Spa on Madison Avenue was designed, by Architecture Research Office (ARO), to sell Shiseido skincare products in the most seductive manner possible. Shiseido is Japanese, and in their design of the store, the architects have...

Bolivian phoenix: A Bolivian house makes use of parts of redundant industrial buildings to generate an ecologically appropriate architecture that respects both topography and climate.
February 1, 2002... The scheme for a voluminous airy house and studio in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia was designed by Luis and Alvaro Fernandez de Cordova Landivar. By skilfully combining salvaged industrial parts with new structures and treasuring existing...

501 KME Tecu. (Product Review).(Harbor Control Tower, Lisbon, Portugal)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Designed by architect Goncalo Sousa Byrne, the new Harbour Control Tower in Lisbon, Portugal, leans slightly out over the River Tejo, clad with red-brown copper sheets of Tecu-Classic. The nine-storey tower monitors and controls shipping...

502 NBK Keramik. (Product Review).(art gallery in Walsall, England)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... The new art gallery in Walsall, West Midlands, UK, was designed by architect Caruso St John. It is clad with a silver grey terracotta rainscreen with strong horizontal joints. The Terrart terracotta tiles were chosen for their qualities of...

503 Schuco. (Product Review).(UN building in Hamburg, Germany)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... A new UN building in Hamburg. the seat of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, has recently been completed. Set in spacious parkland on the banks of the Elbchaussee. the building has a glazed twin-walled facade, a system which...

504 Ritec. (Product Review).(Wurth Museum, Schwabisch Hall, Germany)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Designed by architect Henning Larsen. the Wurth Museum, Schwabisch Hall, Germany has recently been completed. The facades are glazed with a special 8mm white glass which is protected with the Clearshield system. The system provides the glass...

505 Stoakes Systems. (Product Review).(Kalwell structural panels in London school)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Kalwall is a structural composite sandwich panel system which is translucent, redistributing daylight to achieve a calming 'museum quality' diffused light. It has been used to enclose the new sports hall of Burlington Danes School, London, UK,...

506 Space Decks. (Product Review).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... A complete building envelope has been designed, supplied and installed by Space Decks as part of a major refurbishment of the Royal Sun Alliance building in Liverpool. The '60s office building has been completely transformed with a new main...

507 Vetroarredo. (Product Review).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Nordstadt Metropolitan railway station in Hanover, designed by architect Hansjorg Goritz, has walls of cobalt blue glass blocks. By day they give the building a 'cool crystal' appearance; at night they are translucent, taking the form of a...

508 Glaverbel. (Product Review).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Glaverbel, Europe's second largest manufacturer of glass, has recently introduced several new products. Stopsol Silverlight is a new, moderately reflective glass available in green and blue tints. Two neutral-coloured reflective glasses, Safir...

509 Paroc Panel System. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... The Paroc fireproof panel system comprises lightweight composite panels with a core of non-combustible stone wool bonded to colour-coated steel sheets. They offer unique performance characteristics when employed as cladding, partitions and...

510 Seele. (Product Review).(Pfizer contracts Seele for architectural design services, U.K.)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Seele has designed a series of large point-supported glass units and a suspended steel support structure to create a very lightweight construction to the street entrances and glazed atrium roof at the new headquarters of Pfizer, Walton Oaks,...

The Lhasa Atlas. (Forgotten City Celebrated).
February 1, 2002... By Knud Larsen and Amund Sinding-Larsen. London: Serindia Publications. 2001. [pounds sterling]40. Lhasa is the most mysterious and mythic city in the world. High up on the plateau, it was until a few decades ago approachable only by...

Louis Kahn. (Elusive Kahn).(By Joseph Rykwet)
February 1, 2002... By Joseph Rykwet, Photographs by Roberto Schezen. London: Harry N Abrams. 2001. [pounds sterling]52 When Kahn died there was only one slim but excellent volume by Vincent Scully published in 1962. In his concluding sentence, the ever...

Architecture and Science & Urban Environments & Interdisciplinary Architecture. (Science or What?).(Giuseppa Di Cristina, Elisabetta G. Mapelli, Nicoletta Trasi(editors))
February 1, 2002... Edited by Giuseppa Di Cristina Edited by Elisabetta G. Mapelli Edited by Nicoletta Trasi. London: Wiley-Academy. 2001. [pounds sterling]27.50 each These three volumes present anthologies of essays previously published in...

You have to pay for the Public Life: Selected Essays of Charles W. Moore. (Public Possession).
February 1, 2002... Edited by Kevin Keim. London: MIT Press. 2001, [pound sterling]30.95 In his most valuable book on How Buildings Learn, Stewart Brand distinguished between High Road buildings, which are durable and independent, and accumulate experience,...

Future Transport in Cities. (Moving People).(By Brian Richards)
February 1, 2002... By Brian Richards. London: Spon Press. 2001. [pounds sterling]24.99 Is your journey really necessary? To a Londoner, the old wartime adage has never seemed more appropriate. As I inch towards senior citizenhood -- with the bus pass almost...

The Architectural Expression of Environmental Control Systems. (Controlling Variables).
February 1, 2002... By George Baird. London: Spon. 2001. [pounds sterling]49.95 This is a very thorough book with a very clear analysis of environmental systems fully referenced. It is a good source of writing about the subject. In addition, a set of examples...

Delight.
February 1, 2002... A PRECIOUS INTERIOR BY ALVAR AALTO -- ONE OF ONLY THREE SURVIVING WORKS BY THE MASTER IN THE UNITED STATES -- HAS BEEN SAVED FROM THE THREAT OF DESTRUCTION BY THE EFFORTS OF LOCAL PRESERVATIONISTS. The Kaufmann Conference Center, a...