The Architectural Review articles from January 2007

The Architectural Review archives from January 2007

View.(World Architecture Congress in Dubai)
January 1, 2007... THE AR AWARDS 2006 PRIZEGIVING CEREMONY AT THE RIBA, LONDON; FOSTER AND PARTNERS' FIRST PROJECT IN SOUTH AMERICA: EL ALEPH IN BUENOS AIRES; TOPPING OUT OF DAVID CHIPPERFIELD'S BERLIN GALLERY; PETER COOK AT THE PRATT INSTITUTE AND COLUMBIA. ...

Imagining Argentina.(Foster and Partners work on El Aleph in Argentina)
January 1, 2007... Many of Foster and Partners' commercial buildings these days involve towers, from New York to Asia to the Middle East and back again. But for the practice's first project in South America, in Argentina, nothing will rise higher than nine...

Re-engineering the European City.(view)
January 1, 2007... The annual AR London conference will take place on Thursday 29 March at the Royal Institute of British Architects, London. Entitled 'Re-engineering the European City', the event will feature a range of European architects and engineers. For...

A new chip on an old block, chippo tops out in Berlin.(view)(David Chipperfield celebrates topping out of Gallery Hinter dem Giesshaus I)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... David Chipperfield celebrated the topping out of Gallery 'Hinter dem Giesshaus I', in Berlin on 14 December. Located in the unique setting of Museum Island and Lustgarten, the project has been heavily influenced by the extraordinary nature of...

Celebrating emerging architects.(AR Awards for Emerging Architecture held at Royal Institute of British Architects)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... This year's AR Awards for Emerging Architecture were presented on 30 November at the Royal Institute of British Architects, London. At an evening reception and private view, 20 winning practices and 200 guests viewed the award submission panels...

Peter Cook: enthusiasm and originality characterise architectural education at the Pratt Institute and Columbia. Enjoy.(Columbia University)
January 1, 2007... The old charm or innuendo of 'Bon Appetit' is now replaced by something sounding more like an instruction: 'Enjoy' says the bearer of the fusion dish, seeming not to slow down in the circuit back to the kitchen. Nonchalantly, we take little...

Sensing the future: looking at the shape of things to come, the AR begins a new year with a global survey of work in progress.(comment)(Editorial)
January 1, 2007... Predicting the future can sometimes be a precarious business. Ask the man who turned down the Beatles, or H. M. Warner (of the eponymous Brothers), who famously opined, 'Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?'. Ten years ago, few would have...

Zaha Hadid: art museum, Cagliari, Italy.(Nuragic art in Sardinian)
January 1, 2007... Raffish, rakish Cagliari, Sardinia's down-and-dirty port city, looks set to be catapulted onto the international trophy art museum circuit if Zaha Hadid's latest vision comes to pass. At the end of last year, Hadid won a heavy hitting...

Jakob + Macfarlane: city of fashion and design, Paris, France.(Docks of Paris, Regie Nationale des Usines Renault transformed)
January 1, 2007... Jakob + Macfarlane's aptitude for working with existing buildings has been amply demonstrated in these pages, most recently with their imaginative conversion of Claude Vasconi's Renault factory into a company communications centre (AR June...

Herzog & de Meuron: museum, Zaragoza, Spain.(Culture)(Espacio Goya)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... The aspirations for this museum were relatively modest. In view of its scale, national significance and remote location, the architects consolidated their extensive experience working with galleries and artists around the world to focus on the...

Make: kiosk, St Paul's Cathedral, London, UK.(Culture)(Make Architects)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Make Architects made a big splash in the media when Ken Shuttleworth left Norman Foster and Partners in 2003. Since then the rapidly assembled 100-plus team has produced many designs, drawing on the expertise of a number of key individuals who...

Zvi Hecker: art museum, Ramat Gan, Israel.(Culture)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Originally an agricultural settlement on the edge of Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan has mushroomed to a fully fledged city, housing Israel's national stadium, a major diamond exchange, and the country's tallest office tower. Here, around 16 years ago, Zvi...

Mansilla & Tunon: automotive museum, Torrejon de la Calzada, Spain.(Culture)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Car museums are currently having a moment, surfing a wave of seemingly inexhaustible public fascination for things on four wheels and their attendant cultural, historical and technical baggage. This appeal is also hucksterishly milked by car...

Future Systems: Automotive Museum, Modena, Italy.(museum design is constructed with the influence of Italian cars)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... You will find no crumpled Maserati carcasses here. Unlike the Mansilla & Tunon Automotive Museum in Torrejon de la Calzada, Spain (p36)--that makes its wry tribute to the ephemerality of the motor car with robust effect--this proposal by...

Rafael Moneo: Roman theatre museum, Cartagena, Spain.(Culture)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Originally built in the era of Emperor Augustus, some 2000 years ago, Cartagena's theatre was a typically impressive feat of Roman construction and engineering. An entire hillside was excavated to create the tiered bowl of an amphitheatre which...

OMA: Museum of Contemporary Art, Riga, Latvia.(Culture)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... The new 16 000sqm Museum of Contemporary Art in Riga, Latvia, designed by OMA (Rem Koolhaas and Reinier de Graaf), will provide a new cultural focus serving as an exciting multi-functional centre for contemporary culture. Hosting seminars,...

Niels Torp: airline headquarters, Amman, Jordan.(Work)(Royal Jordanian Airlines has new corporate headquarters)
January 1, 2007... This new corporate headquarters for Royal Jordanian Airlines, Jordan's national carrier, follows on from Niels Torp's pioneering airline offices for SAS in Stockholm (AR March 1989) and British Airways at Heathrow (AR August 1998). Torp's forte...

Tabanlioglu Architects: business centre, Almaty, Kazakhstan.(Work)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Sister city of Istanbul, Almaty is the largest metropolis in Kazakhstan and the country's commercial centre. Burgeoning energy reserves coupled with economic reform and foreign investment are propelling Kazakhstan into the business big time,...

Barkow Leibinger: dining hall, Ditzingen, Germany.(TRUMPF GmbH und Co. has a new factory complex)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Premiated five years ago in the AR Awards for their Flower Pavilion in Potsdam (December 2001), Barkow Leibinger are currently engaged in developing and implementing a masterplan for an industrial campus near Stuttgart. The firm's involvement...

David Chipperfield: City of Justice, Barcelona and L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain.(City of Justice links legal departments )(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... On land formerly occupied by military barracks, on a border site between Barcelona and l'Hospitalet, this new 330 000sqm City of Justice is due for completion in 2008. Bringing together legal departments that were previously located in 17...

Herzog & de Meuron: Roche tower, Basel, Switzerland.(Roche Holding Ltd. builds its new office)
January 1, 2007... Plans for this 160m high tower in Basel form only part of a comprehensive study undertaken by Herzog & de Meuron into the long-term planning and growth of the international pharmaceutical and healthcare company, Roche. Currently occupying...

Bernard Tschumi: Independent Financial Centre of the Americas, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.(Work)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... The Independent Financial Centre of the Americas (IFCA) will be the world's first privately operated and independently regulated international financial centre. It will be based in the Dominican Republic, the geopolitical crossroads of the...

Williams & Tsien: business park, Mumbai, India.(Work)(business park for Tata Consultancy Services)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... New York-based Williams & Tsien are expanding their geographical and formal repertoire with this 23 acre business campus for Tata Consultancy Services on a site near Mumbai's international airport. The project comprises 12 separate buildings...

Shigeru Ban: Swatch headquarters, Tokyo, Japan.(Swatch Group Ltd. opens new showroom in Tokyo)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... On the glamorous shopping streets of Ginza, central Tokyo, all of the top brands can be seen. Chanel, Dior, Cartier, Sony: they all line up, sparkling with inviting charm. Wallets burn holes in pockets, and credit cards groan under the strain...

Avanto Architects: cemetery chapel, Vantaa, Finland.(Community)(renovation of the Church of St Lawrence)
January 1, 2007... Finnish architect Ville Hara, who was premiated in the AR Awards of 2003 for his bulbous, timber gazebo (AR December 2003), is now in partnership with compatriot Anu Puustinen under the auspices of Avanto Architects. This competition-winning...

Alberto Campo Baeza: nursery/pre-school, Treviso, Italy.(Community)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... The architecture of Alberto Campo Baeza is nothing if not formally arresting and geometrically bold. At all scales his work can be described as abstract, sparse and elemental, and over the course of his over 30-year career many recurring themes...

Barclay & Crousse: community church, Santa Cruz de Asia, Peru.(Community)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Paris-based Barclay & Crousse found fame in these pages with their sybaritic beach houses on Peru's desert coast. Two clifftop dwellings were premiated in recent AR Awards cycles (AR December 2001 and December 2003), both essays in deft spatial...

Baumschlager & Eberle: multifunctional building, Rohner Port, Austria.(Community)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... This is the third stage in a three-phase process that is seeing the gradual transformation of a former gravel pit on the coast of Lake Constance. Completed in 2000, an eight metre cantilevered concrete tube contains the port office, with...

Ofis: sports stadium, Maribor, Slovenia.(football stadium renovated)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Won in a 1998 competition and due for completion later this year, this new football stadium is a swan-like transformation of an existing sports ground in the centre of Maribor, Slovenia's second largest city. The project extends the original...

Rick Joy: chapel, Austin, USA.(St Edward's University gets a new chapel complex)
January 1, 2007... Though a native of Maine, Rick Joy has, since the mid '80s, studied, lived and worked in Tucson, near the Mexican border. In exchanging the temperate eastern seaboard for the more extreme high desert climes of Arizona, Joy, like generations of...

Zaha Hadid: Pierres Vives building, Montpellier, France.(Community)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... The proposed Pierres Vives building in Montpellier by Zaha Hadid is characterised by the unlikely unification of three separate institutions: archive, library and sports department. Compressed together within a single mould-like form, all of...

Daly Genik: school, Silver Lake, Los Angeles, USA.(Camino Nuevo High School to be constructed in Silver Lake)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Difficult sites do not only exist in historic city centres, or in the dense urban metropolis. The scars of highway engineering also throw up the occasional urban oddity, as is the case with this 180m x 27m island site in Silver Lake, adjacent...

Andrew Wright: sports academy and park, Scunthorpe, UK.(awards and works)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Andrew Wright rose to prominence somewhat prematurely when his unplaced competition entry to design a Buddhist retreat on Holy Island was selected as the Grand Award Winner at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1994. Working then in the...

German Del Sol: housing, Madrid, Spain.(housing influenced by Hispanic traditions)
January 1, 2007... Best known for his series of sybaritic hotels in the remote extremes of Chile, German del Sol now turns his attention to the more prosaic needs of social housing in Madrid. But his poetic urges still prevail. Though these are a relatively...

Rick Joy: house, Arizona, USA.(Dwelling)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... This house by Rick Joy is the latest in a series of dwellings in the desert of the American Southwest that poetically synthesise rationalist forms, luscious Hispanic colour, a craft-based approach to building and an astute delight in the...

O'Donnell & Tuomey: housing, Dublin, Ireland.(Dwelling)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... The historic Liberties area of Dublin is largely residential in character with significant nineteenth-century industrial developments within or behind the street edge of Georgian houses. O'Donnell & Tuomey's project for 45 social housing units...

Heikkinen & Komonen: prototypical prefabricated house, Finland.(Kannustalo collaborates)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Finnish savoir faire in the area of timber prefabrication makes for economical, if slightly functional, solutions to the provision of single family houses. This latest project by Heikkinen & Komonen adds a clear architectural dimension to the...

Shigeru Ban: house, Shelter Island, New York, USA.(Dwelling)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... This site for this house is on Shelter Island, a 108-hectare island town located at the eastern end of Suffolk County, New York. Its design was inspired by a recent flight taken by its architect, Shigeru Ban, who while daydreaming at 37 000...

Bolles+Wilson: Market Hall, Hamburg, Germany.(Urbanism)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Set within an ambitious plan to create an Uberseequartier (Overseas Quarter) in Hamburg's docklands, Bolles+Wilson have won an invited competition to re-work the only remaining structure on the 8-hectare site. In contrast to the imposing...

Niels Torp: Tjuvholmen masterplan, Oslo, Norway.(Urbanism)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... The Tjuvholmen development will create a new city district in Oslo. On the west side of Pipervika, the inner harbour of the Oslo fjord just ten minutes walk from the city centre, Tjuvholmen is the natural extension of Aker Brygge (AR August...

Steven Holl: Vanke Center, Shenzhen, China.(Urbanism)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... As an elevated horizontal range of four to six floors of accommodation, the Vanke Center in Shenzhen, China, is described by its architect as 'a horizontal skyscraper over maximised landscape'. The description goes with an unlikely narrative...

Behnisch, Behnisch and Partners: Pittsburgh River Park, Pittsburgh, USA.(Urbanism)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... This dense urban plan by Behnisch, Behnisch and Partners has been governed by a motto to provide 'a sustainable vision for a vibrant city district'. In an intricate matrix of buildings and public and private external spaces, the new River Park...

Tony Fretton: Andreas Ensemble, Amsterdam West, The Netherlands.(Urbanism)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Tony Fretton's Andreas Ensemble sits within an area of Amsterdam West that is emerging as a popular and attractive alternative to the city centre. Planned before the Second World War and largely constructed since the 1950s, Fretton's site was...

Marks & Barfield: observation tower, Brighton, UK.(Urbanism)(London Eye)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Love it or loathe it, Marks & Barfield's London Eye has been an extremely successful visitor attraction, with over twenty million visitors having enjoyed unparalleled views over the capital since its completion in 2000. As designers and...

Product review: Rob Gregory selects some of the best exhibits from orgatec, interieur and design miami.
January 1, 2007... 501 BOSS DESIGN Tom, Dick and Harry are a trio of tub chairs produced by UK seating company Boss Design. Designed by Mark Gabbertas, Tom, Dick and Harry share a distinctive family resemblance, while maintaining their own specific identity....

PARADISIACAL HOUSE OF THE QUEEN.(The Complete Taj Mahal)(Book review)
January 1, 2007... THE COMPLETE TAJ MAHAL By Ebba Koch. London: Thames & Hudson, 2006. [pounds sterling]39.95 As everyone knows, the Taj Mahal is a wonder of the world so much so that, until you go there, it seems boring: so symmetrical, stereotyped and...

ROGERS THE HUMANIST.(Richard Rogers Complete Works, vol.3)(Book review)
January 1, 2007... RICHARD ROGERS COMPLETE WORKS: VOLUME THREE By Kenneth Powell. London: Phaidon. 2006. [pounds sterling]59.95 In an essay entitled 'A Political Carer' that serves as an interlude in this monograph, Richard Rogers is described as a...

UNITY BY INCLUSION.(Sir Ninian Comper: An Introduction to His Life and Work With Complete Gazetteer)(Book review)
January 1, 2007... SIR NINIAN COMPER: AN INTRODUCTION TO HIS LIFE AND WORK WITH COMPLETE GAZETTEER By Anthony Symondson and Stephen Bucknall. Reading and London: Spire Books and The Ecclesiological Society. 2006. [pounds sterling]29.95 A distinguished...

SWISS WATCHED.(Developments in Timber Engineering: The Swiss Contribution)(Book review)
January 1, 2007... DEVELOPMENTS IN TIMBER ENGINEERING: THE SWISS CONTRIBUTION By Anton Steurer. Basel: Birkhauser. 2006. [euro]49.90 Wood is again an important building material, and no longer just for joinery or finishes. The diminution of wood began...

MATHER ENLIGHTENMENT.(Rick Mather Architects)(Book review)
January 1, 2007... RICK MATHER ARCHITECTS By Robert Maxwell. London: Black Dog Publishing. 2006. [pounds sterling]29.95 The monograph is a problematic form for a serious architectural critic. It is practically impossible to write a whole book about a...

REACH FOR THE SKIES.(Jean Nouvel wins the 2006 International Highrise Award for his Torre Agbar Tower in Barcelona.)(Anna Puyuelo, Layetana Developments also get prize)
January 1, 2007... Latest developments in high-rise at Frankfurt's DAM, while Jean Nouvel scoops a gong for his Barcelona tower. In Frankfurt's Paulskirche, to the strains of 'Surrogate Cities' (composed in 1994 by Heiner Goebbels), Jean Nouvel was presented...

Browser: hot from taking down his decorations, Sutherland Lyall bags last year's blogs.
January 1, 2007... Sooo Web2 It's been an interesting year for browsers, so a bit of a round-up is in order. The internet is no less prone to meaningless jargon than architecture. The big jargon this year has been Web2 or, according to another camp, Web 2.0....

Diary.(Calendar)
January 1, 2007... AR'S CHOICE OF INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS GERMANY HIGH SOCIETY: CONTEMPORARY HIGHRISE ARCHITECTURE AND INTERNATIONAL HIGHRISE AWARD Deutsches Architektur Museum, Frankfurt Until 11 February Exhibition of entries...

Delight: this dazzling installation in a Hong Kong park celebrates a Chinese lunar festival.(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... For centuries, Chinese culture has been marked by veneration of the moon. Even today, despite adopting the Gregorian calendar, the Chinese still turn to their traditional lunar calendar to mark New Year (second full moon after the winter...