The Architectural Review articles from May 2007

The Architectural Review archives from May 2007

Prague booking: Jan Kaplicky creates Prague's New Library.
May 1, 2007... One might have thought that there was a certain inevitability about Jan Kaplicky/Future Systems winning the competition for the New National Library of the Czech Republic in Prague. As one of the idealists who left the country after the 'Prague...

Performing art: Mecanoo win in Taiwan.(Mecanoo wins international design competition award for designing arts center)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... At the end of March, Mecanoo was announced as the winner of an international design competition to design the new National Performing Arts Center in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Beating Zaha Hadid Architects into second place, and the relative small...

Wilkinson Eyre Architects have unveiled proposals for the House of Human Rights Cultural Centre in Milan.(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Wilkinson Eyre Architects have unveiled proposals for the House of Human Rights Cultural Centre in Milan. Launched in collaboration with Amnesty International, the building considers public space in relation to a broad range of activities from...

Rogers wins Pritzker.(Richard Rogers winning the Pritzker Prize)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Lord Rogers of Riverside, better known as Richard Rogers, has won this year's Pritzker Prize. Rogers has been a major figure on the international architecture scene since the 1970s and the completion of the Pompidou Centre, the...

Sustainability and Europe.
May 1, 2007... The continuing interest in the relationship between sustainability and architecture has prompted an Anglo-German initiative taking place at the RIBA, London, on 30 May (12.30 to 5.30). The half-day seminar for young European architects,...

AR Awards early alert.(emerging architecture awards)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... The AR Awards for Emerging Architecture are entering their ninth cycle. Inaugurated in 1999, the awards are intended to bring wider recognition to a talented new generation of architects and designers under 45. Entries for this year's awards...

Errata.(Correction notice)
May 1, 2007... The library at Seikei University, Tokyo, Japan (AR February) was by Shigeru Ban Architects--Shigeru Ban, Nobutaka Hiraga. The structural engineer was Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei Inc. Peter Rees is still City of London planner and not, as...

Peter Cook: Berlin may be entering a new era where free spirits reign again.(political aspects of architects and design and construction of buildings)
May 1, 2007... In earlier years I was always leaned upon to be more political, take more account of politics, notice more how politics affect our architectural decisions. I was reminded of this when I returned this month to Berlin. There are three layers that...

Test beds: considered collectively, key houses usefully summarise broader architectural tendencies.(design and construction and works of architects)
May 1, 2007... A cliche wouldn't be a cliche if it didn't contain an element of truth. As such the notion of the house as laboratory of architectural ideas is a well-used and largely well-applied statement. In his publication, Key Houses of the Twentieth...

Swiss protocol: a new ambassadorial residence mixes formality with sensuality.(design and construction of a new ambassadorial building)
May 1, 2007... The architecture of diplomacy has a distinguished recent history. Signalled in 1931 by the embassy and residence designed by Edwin Lutyens that created a grand country house for the British ambassador in Washington DC, it has been advanced by...

Stair master: this house in northern Portugal is a triumph over a difficult sloping site.
May 1, 2007... Like father, like son. Alvaro Leite Siza bears the same name as his famous father, and this house in northern Portugal manifests all the qualities of elegant reticence that have come to characterise the Porto maestro's oeuvre. However, when...

The good life: Jamie Fobert Architects extends its reach.(designing of a farm house by Jamie Fobert Architects )
May 1, 2007... As convention has it, a formula does apply when moving from metropolitan city existence to ideal country life. First, swap SUV for Land Rover, so as not to look conspicuous, and then search for a redundant farm that allows you to bring a bit of...

Hidden treasure: this family house in Osaka explores a language of exquisite minimalism.(design and construction of a residential house by Kulapat Yantrasast)
May 1, 2007... Kulapat Yantrasast grew up in Thailand, spent 14 years in Japan (seven of those with Tadao Ando in Osaka) and now has his own practice in LA. He was still working in Ando's office when an art dealer friend introduced him to a local landowner...

White cube: Alberto Campo Baeza's Iberian extremism finds renewed expression.(design and construction of house)
May 1, 2007... Known for his exquisite distillations of traditional Iberian architecture, Alberto Campo Baeza nudges the boundaries of his self-imposed asceticism with this latest house at Zahora, on Spain's Atlantic Costa de la Luz. Set on the edge of town,...

Vertical sculpture: a Coop Himmelb(l)au house is dynamically reborn.(redesigning of residential house)
May 1, 2007... A decade before Coop Himmelb(l)au became a major player, Wolf Prix followed the lead of Schindler, Neutra and other compatriots who journeyed from Vienna to LA. His timing was bad; the city was soon mired in the recession of the 1990s, and the...

Space oddity: UN Studio's new house in upstate New York is a provocative exploration of space.
May 1, 2007... This family summer house lies in the Catskills, some two hours' drive upstate from New York City. Originally a favourite holiday destination for the city's elite during the 1920s and '30s, the area is perhaps most famous for the Woodstock...

Young house.(design of houses for awards of architectural services)
May 1, 2007... For the last eight years the AR Awards for Emerging Architecture have consistently attracted hundreds of entries from architects and designers below the age of 45.* In 2006, 462 entries were received from 53 countries. Within this varied array,...

Specifier's information.(Dakota Eurocentral Hotels design and construction due to the use of colorcoat prisma )(Hacel Lighting's updating desire catalogue of die cast alluminium)(evaluation and design and construction of sliding doors)
May 1, 2007... Corus The recently completed Dakota Eurocentral Hotel near Motherwell owes its striking external appearance to the use of Colorcoat Prisma[R] from Corus. The pre-finished steel has been used as part of a Corus Panels and Profiles composite...

Craft skills.(design and construction of art objects)
May 1, 2007... THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT By Rosalind P. Blakesley. London: Phaidon. 2006. [pounds sterling]39.95 'The shuttle drops from the fingers of the weaver, and falls into iron fingers that ply it faster.' So 'men are grown mechanical in...

Fun with cyber Geometry.(conferences of architectural services)
May 1, 2007... GAME SET AND MATCH II: ON COMPUTER GAMES, ADVANCED GEOMETRIES AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES Edited by Kas Oosterhuis, Lukas Feireiss. Rotterdam: Episode Publishers. 2007. [euro]45 This book is an amalgam of papers presented at a conference...

This is not a drill.(educational aspects and works of architects)
May 1, 2007... 5 CODES: ARCHITECTURE, PARANOIA AND RISK IN TIMES OFTERROR Edited by IGMADE. Basel: Birkhauser. 2006. $40 Some people will recall the heady days of the early 1970s when such as Peter Eisenman could give a lecture which focused on...

Danish operatics.(evauation of books on architecture services)
May 1, 2007... BUILDING A MASTERPIECE: THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE Edited by Anne Watson, Aldershot: Lund Humphries. 2006. [pounds sterling]35 OVE ARUP: MASTERBUILDER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY By Peter Jones. London: Yale University Press. 2006....

Touching the void.(Peter Eisenmans work in the field of architecture )
May 1, 2007... WRITTEN IN TO THE VOID: SELECTED WRITINGS 1990-2004 By Peter Eisenman. London: Yale University Press. 2007. [pounds sterling]25 The cultish world of architectural 'theory' is almost by definition indifferent to the vulgar concerns of...

Stadia--A design and development guide.(design and construction of olympic stadium)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... The design team that gave us the Sydney Olympic Stadium, the Emirates Stadium in London, who codesigned Wembley, and are Wembley, and are working on the 2012 Olympic stadium, have produced a fourth edition of Stadia--A design and development...

Brits get gritty: the gritty but fertile underbelly of London life underpins this exhibition of young architects living and working in the metropolis.(reviews)
May 1, 2007... The best places for viewing the works of a young generation of London-based architects may be the city's canals, judging from the exhibition Gritty Brits, currently showing at the Heinz Architectural Center at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of...

Twirling vigorously, Sutherland Lyall dances round the cyber maypole.(design and construction and evaluation of Web pages (World Wide Web) of architectural services)(Viewpoint essay)
May 1, 2007... Talking heads Mugshots. Now I've seen everything. Admittedly its only three blokes, all directors of the Belgian practice Styfhals & Partners, at www.styfhalspartners.be, but when you click on their page their upper torsos remain fixed...

Diary.(art exhibitions)(Calendar)
May 1, 2007... AR'S CHOICE OF INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS DENMARK CINDY SHERMAN: 30 YEARS OF STAGED PHOTOGRAPHY Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek Until 20 May This exhibition traces the career of Cindy Sherman who uses...

Delight: the Yorkshire Sculpture Park celebrates thirty years with new work by Andy Goldsworthy.
May 1, 2007... Twenty years ago, when Andy Goldsworthy was artist in residence at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP), he wondered whether he could suspend a stalk screen between two branches 450mm apart. He has now returned to create the largest and most...