The Architectural Review articles from June 2006

The Architectural Review archives from June 2006

Great countries embrace the world.(view)
June 1, 2006... The largest annual gathering of architects in the world takes place later this month, when the American Institute of Architects holds its annual convention, this year in Los Angeles. Naturally it is attended mainly by US architects, and much of...

Berlin's Bermuda Triangle.(view)(Mark Braun Architekten, Harm Muller-Spreer)
June 1, 2006... Some have called the triangular 4200sqm site to the north of Friedrichstrasse railway station the Bermuda Triangle of architecture. For around a century, architects and investors have put forward successive notions of how to build on this...

City focus for Venice Biennale.(view)
June 1, 2006... In a change of emphasis, cities and urbanism provide the inspiration for the 2006 Venice Biennale, directed by Ricky Burdett, currently an architectural adviser to the Mayor of London. Sixteen major cities and their 'urban experience' will be...

The AR's Dark Side.(view)
June 1, 2006... Only a tiny number of architects, by definition, can take part in the Venice Biennale. However, 'The Dark Side', a 'fringe' event organised by White Partners and The Architectural Review, will crit a selection of projects which can be...

Meanwhile in London ....(view)
June 1, 2006... London's second architecture biennale takes place later this month, with the public highlight being Lord (Norman) Foster shepherding a mini-flock of sheep across his famously wobbly bridge as part of a walking route of the Biennale area, from...

AR first day cover.(view)
June 1, 2006... National Architecture Week in June is celebrated this year by a special set of stamps from Royal Mail on 20 June. Buckingham Covers have produced an official Architectural Review limited edition first day cover. Only 1000 covers are being...

AR Awards call for entries.(view)
June 1, 2006... The Architectural Review Awards for Emerging Architecture are entering their eighth cycle. Inaugurated in 1999, the awards are intended to bring wider international recognition to a talented new generation of architects and designers under 45....

Errata.(Correction notice)
June 1, 2006... The photographer of the Museum in Port Elizabeth, South Africa (AR May, p40) was David Southwood, not David Stafford. The book review of Massimiliano Fuksas (AR May, p87) was by David Dunster.

Keep it clean, please.(outrage)(Agbar Group, Torre Agbar)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... It is rare to revisit a new building and find it dirtier when complete than during construction, however, this was certainly the case on a return trip to Barcelona. Jean Nouvel's Torre Agbar--the building that many saw as little more than a...

Top notch.(outrage)(Beetham Tower)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... You can virtually see Ian Simpson's Beetham Tower from Milton Keynes. Well almost; an exaggeration, perhaps. But it certainly is quite a sight as you approach by rail on the Manchester/Stockport mainline, rising high above any other structure...

Peter Cook: The architecture of fast food kiosks gives specific identity to streets and cities.(view)
June 1, 2006... At last it has stopped being cold in northern Europe and we have an excuse to escape the trappings and serious apparatus of our city. We can drift in and out of marinas, beaches, woodland glades, or even pretend that we don't recognise the...

Civic locus: From galleries to libraries; Do libraries contribute more to civic life than galleries? Trevor Boddy considers their role.(comment)
June 1, 2006... 'These days, architects are desperate for art gallery commissions--but libraries are a richer, more public-centred, less elitist building type.' John Patkau, co-designer, Grande Bibliotheque du Quebec Looking at the range of library...

Required reading: With extensive new accommodation, above and below ground, Renzo Piano brings unity and order to the Morgan Library.(McKim, Mead & White)
June 1, 2006... J. Pierpont Morgan was a ruthless financial wizard with superb taste, whose monument--the library designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1906--was a surprisingly restrained product of America's first gilded age. Still more astonishing in that...

Midwest modesty: As part of an ambitious landscape regeneration strategy, Chipperfield brings figure to the city grid.
June 1, 2006... The public library in the United States has long been considered an important underpinning of its democratic and capitalist society. Initially, imposing public libraries, signs of civic prosperity and pride, were important instruments of city...

Between the lines: With his latest public library, Josep Llinas gives form to his detailed reading of central Barcelona's intricate city grain.
June 1, 2006... Jaume Fuster Library responds to a very specific urban situation. Unlike the bulk of Barcelona, characterised and regulated by Cerda's chamfered grid, the bustling neighbourhood of Gracia has a more haphazard and densely packed urban grain. On...

Les chambres de bois: Montreal's handsome new Bibliotheque is a lively repository of Quebecois culture.(John and Patricia Patkau)
June 1, 2006... An island of seven million francophones isolated within a North American sea of 330 million anglophones, the politics of language has always been acute in the Canadian province of Quebec. The Grande Bibliotheque du Quebec (GBQ) is an emblem of...

Local knowledge: Green, lively and robust, this branch library adds vigour to a Seattle neighbourhood.
June 1, 2006... From the client body that brought you OMA's bravura Seattle Library (AR August 2004), this more modest branch facility forms part of the city's 'Libraries for All' development programme. Impressively, since 1998,25 branch libraries have been...

Reading history: This new library in a provincial Portuguese town makes resonant connections with history.(Jose and Nuno Mateus)
June 1, 2006... This new library is the second major civic building in Ilhavo by the filial partnership of Jose and Nuno Mateus who founded the ARX Portugal collective in the early '90s. Their first, an intelligent remodelling and expansion of the town's...

Private Idaho: This house in the Idaho wilderness is a sophisticated modern take on the traditional American log cabin.(house)
June 1, 2006... Nestling in a spectacular mountain site on the edge of the town of Ketchum, this house by Marwan Al-Sayed is a highly perceptive engagement with topography, light and the local vernacular. Though clearly contemporary--built for a sportif couple...

Lighting: Catherine Slessor trips a dazzling light fantastic at Light+Building in Frankfurt and Milan's Euroluce.(products)
June 1, 2006... POC suspended light in white, black, pink or yellow, by Johanna Lindgren and Helen Hogberg for Dark. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Enquiry 501 www.arplus.com/enq.html Vortex chandelier by Zaha Hadid with Zumtobel for Sawaya & Moroni, a...

Specifier's information.(Senator International)(Screen Solutions)(Hacel Lighting)
June 1, 2006... Senator Intl Rhapsody is a new contribution from Paul and Kate Brooks to the executive end of Senator's seating collection. This fully upholstered armchair has a wrap around form, separate seat and cantilevered backrest, with new low...

Prefab potential.(Book review)
June 1, 2006... THE PREFABRICATED HOME By Colin Davies. London: Reaktion Books. 2005. [pounds sterling]18.95 Colin Davies has written an incisive, provocative and (largely) well researched polemic which can stand as a useful companion to Reyner...

Sound as a pound.(Building the Bank of England: Money, Architecture, Society, 1694-1942)(Book review)
June 1, 2006... BUILDING THE BANK OF ENGLAND: MONEY, ARCHITECTURE, SOCIETY 1694-1942 By Daniel M. Abramson. London: Yale University Press. 2005. [pounds sterling]50 For an institution that spent its first 40 years renting buildings designed for other...

The triumvirate of Modernism.(Another Modern, the Post-war Architecture and Urbanism of Candilis-Josic-Woods)(Book review)
June 1, 2006... ANOTHER MODERN, THE POST-WAR ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM OF CANDILIS-JOSIC-WOODS By Tom Avermaete. Rotterdam: NAI. 2005. [euro]35 If Guy Debord and the Situationists claimed the rebellious highground in the day-to-day activist philosophy...

Search and destroy.(The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War)(Book review)
June 1, 2006... THE DESTRUCTION OF MEMORY: ARCHITECTURE AT WAR By Robert Bevan. London: Reaktion. 2006. [pounds sterling]19.95 This book by a former editor of Building Design has already attracted considerable attention for good reason: it is a...

Architecture as Philosophy: The Work of Imre Makovecz.(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Section drawing by Imre Makovecz of a proposed new Catholic church in Budapest. From Architecture as Philosophy: The Work of Imre Makovecz, edited by Janos Gerle, Stuttgart, Edition Axel Menges, 2005, [euro]78. The Magyar Magus has now notched...

Lucknow: City of Illusion.(Book review)(Brief review)
June 1, 2006... The Rumi Darwaza gateway to the Bara Imambara complex in Lucknow, the once opulent and mysterious city in northern India that the British reduced to rubble following the Revolt of 1857. From Lucknow City of Illusion, edited by Rosie...

Modern matters.(V & A show)
June 1, 2006... The big exhibition at the V & A heroically sets out to provide answers and attempts to look at the whole designed world between 1914 and 1939. The dates are chosen to focus on the heroic period, when the ideas were at their freshest and most...

Harry Seidler 1923-2006.(Obituary)(Biography)
June 1, 2006... Harry Seidler, who died in March, was a key figure in the acceptance of an international modern architecture in Australia. After what was intended to be a brief visit in 1948 to supervise the design of his parents' house in Turramurra, NSW,...

Hay there.(browser)(www.spfa.com)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... We now all know everything about straw bale houses. But wait. What about straw bale barns. Or hay barns to give the idea its proper local rendering. One of the buildings on California practice Studio Pali Fekete Architects' website at...

Sitting pretty.(browser)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... I'm a big Supporto fan. I have been sitting on one for the last 25 years. Off and on, of course. Designed in 1979 by the late Fred Scott, it was British modern furniture pioneer Hille's second really big hit following Robin Day's polypropylene...

The joy of prefabs.(browser)(Marmol Radziner Prefab)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Sylvester's is a strictly non-business site. But there is one interesting commercial prefab site, that of Los Angeles design-build firm Marmol Radziner Prefab at www.marmolradzinerprefab.com. It offers sample plans and budgets. What is...

A la recherche du ....(browser)(www.retrothing.com)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Jay Shafer's 4sqm Tumbleweed Tiny House Co, Werner Asslinger's 7.25 square Loftcube and the horrible $35K dome home from Timberline geodesics are the main architectural features of Retrothing at www.retrothing.com--along with the beanbag for...

Diary.(calendar)(Brief article)(Calendar)
June 1, 2006... AR'S CHOICE OF INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS DENMARK SIP MY OCEAN Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek Until 20 August International video in the Louisiana collection including works of Bill Viola, Sam...

Delight: Over thiry years after its conception, Robert Smithson's floating island becomes a reality.(Spiral Jetty)
June 1, 2006... Last September, New Yorkers were treated to the surreal spectacle of a re-imagined fragment of the Isle of Manhattan drifting languidly around the Hudson and East Rivers. Floating Island to Travel Around Manhattan was conceived in 1970 by...