The Architectural Review articles from March 2005

The Architectural Review archives from March 2005

Park life: an ambitious temporary installation by Christo briefly animated the green swathes of New York's Central Park.(view)
March 1, 2005... New Yorkers are fiercely protective of Central Park, and that is why it took 26 years for Christo and his partner Jeanne-Claude to realize their visionary art work, The Gates. For the last two weeks of February, 23 of the 58 miles of pathways...

Regeneration under starters orders.(view)(Thomas Heatherwick Studio)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... The UK's tallest free-standing sculpture took 20 months to fabricate. B of the Bang, named after Linford Christie's recollection of when an Olympic Gold medal-winning sprinter needs to leave the starting blocks, is the latest work by Thomas...

Philip Johnson.(Obituary)
March 1, 2005... A momentous event, the death of Philip Johnson, at age 98: for now Peter Eisenman can take over. He always said that so long as Philip lived, the competition to succeed him would be premature, and he himself could only be number two (though his...

Oslo sandwich.(browser)(www.worldviewcities.org/oslo/main.html)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Apart from Per Kartvedt who recently retired from the chair of architecture at Strathclyde, I have had a bit of a down on Norway. It was that press trip long ago at the end of which our host came round and said quietly, 'Gentlemen will you...

After the ball was over.(browser)(www.archleague.org/worldview/worldview.html)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... The Architectural League of New York's own site, www.archleague.org/worldview/worldview.html, is from the same design stable as worldviewcities although on the New York site the designers have succumbed to the evils of sideways text. Text...

Foreign bodies.(browser)(www.f-o-a.net, Foreign Office Architects )(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Foreign Office Architects has its site at www.f-o-a.net. The body colour is eau-de-nil and the text dark blue, occasionally red and orange and, because it is very small, indistinct. You know, even before you try it, that the text will be...

Down memory lane.(browser)(www.washington.edu/ark2)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Six or so years ago we took a look at the university of Washington's Cities/Buildings Database at www.washington.edu/ark2. Begun in 1995 it changed its search system straight after we reviewed it. This column is the scarred veteran of a...

Move over Andy Goldsworthy.(browser)
March 1, 2005... Aficionados of that brilliant found-nature artist, Andy Goldsworthy, who had an exhibition in London last month, might also care to take a look at the work of Dutch artist Theo Jansen, who uses not natural materials but, mostly, yellow plastic...

Ave atque vale.(browser)
March 1, 2005... Now that our revered editor, Peter Davey, has decided to abandon us for nameless, probably literary pleasures I thought I would take a commemorative look at how he features on Google. When a tight 'peter davey' 'architectural review' search...

Light on Leiviska.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2005... SIR: My warmest thank you for the lovely issue of Architectural Review in which our work in Bethlehem had been presented so beautifully! (January 2005, p38). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The text and captions, very good though they were,...

Onwards and upwards.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2005... PETER: I can't believe you're retiring; seems like yesterday etc etc... 9-13 QAG/Basher/post-mortems/those sodding owls/Hermine/hock/The Bride/Bill keeping the red flag flying in his rooftop eyrie/the sight of Big Jim drinking in H de C's...

Place is space.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2005... SIR: Your comment (January 2005, p30) is a little masterpiece. Profound, philosophical, with a deep cultural insight. Only one dissent: place is always a space... Yours etc NATALIO FIRSZT Buenos Aires, Argentina

End of an era.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2005... SIR: Hail and farewell to one of the AR's most eminent and enduring editors. We'll miss you. Yours etc THE CLERKENWELL POSSE London, UK

Errata.(Correction Notice)
March 1, 2005... Land Securities will be providing the site and funding for the Architecture Foundation's new centre for architecture in Southwark London; not British Land as reported in last month's AR. Photographs of the chapel at La Calera, Colombia were...

Diary.(Calendar)
March 1, 2005... AR'S CHOICE OF CURRENT INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS For an expanded and constantly updated list, go to our website: www.arplus.com/exhibitions FINLAND LIGHT AND FORM: HUNGARIAN ARCHITECTURE AND PHOTOGRAPHY Until 4...

PD and the AR; Without me knowing, my colleagues commissioned this article from one of our most prolific, experienced and insightful contributors. He describes the last 25 years of the AR from the outside (almost): I owe him many thanks. PD.(reflections)(Peter Davey)(Biography)
March 1, 2005... Peter Davey established his editorial skills on the AJ before moving on to the AR in the late 1970s, but it was not until the issue of December 1980 that he became Managing Editor. The magazine had somewhat lost its way, cowed by the onset of...

Setting the scene for the future.(architecture)
March 1, 2005... I was rather taken aback when my fellow directors asked me to produce a special issue to mark the end of my tenure of the editorial chair. The request was embarrassing and daunting. What on earth was I to do? In the end, it seemed that the only...

Death of high Modernism; Escaping from the grey: Regionalism and the pursuit of roots; High-Tech; PoMo and neo Neo-Classicism.
March 1, 2005... The early '80s were both extremely boring and very exciting. By then, the intense passions of the immediate postwar years were spent, the dreams of building a world fit for social democracy were already beginning to fade as it became clear that...

Urban dilemmas: Prussian Rationalism, French folies de grandeur, Catalonian civility, Norwegian urbanity.
March 1, 2005... A couple of decades before Prince Charles started to build his hameau at Poundbury (p51), a quite different approach to urban planning was being explored in Berlin. West Berlin was still run down and isolated, while the eastern half of the city...

Bling, blobs, burgeoning: problems of figure; Architecture has become more and more gestural in its searches for monumentality and the race for iconic status.
March 1, 2005... Next door to the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie is the city's music school and theatre academy, designed a little later by the same architects. Unlike the earlier building, which gently resonates with the topography, the school is tough, even...

And the future? Buildings and cities of the future must conserve energy and materials so we can live in harmony with the planet.
March 1, 2005... Despite the brilliance of Stirling's Stuttgart and Gehry's Bilbao, the thoughtful power of Snohetta's library, the penetrating reticence of Zumthor and Leiviska, monuments cannot make up a city. We cannot live in a state of constant climax, nor...

Once and future architecture.(architects' views)(Cover Story)
March 1, 2005... To round off this issue's survey of The Architectural Review's last quarter-century, I asked some of the architects and critics who have often appeared in these pages to comment on what they perceived to be the most important ideas and...

Specifier's information.
March 1, 2005... Cast Advanced Concretes Cast Advanced Concretes displayed their new range of MASS Concrete Surfaces at the recent Surface Design Show. From the brand new MASS2 Floor and Wall to the well-established MASS1 Worksurfaces, recently fitted in...

Delights.
March 1, 2005... One of the pleasures of making the magazine has been to introduce the 'Delight' section, at the end of the issue. It was conceived as a way of displaying pleasure in the visual world: surprises, new acquaintances, old friends remembered,...

Archi-Tetes.
March 1, 2005... PETER DAVEY [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]