The Architectural Review articles from September 2002

The Architectural Review archives from September 2002

View.(BRIEF ITEMS)(News Briefs)
September 1, 2002... SUSTAINABILITY AND SUPERSTARS MAKE FOR AN ANIMATED UIA CONGRESS IN BERLIN; AIRPORTS COME ON AGE WITH BENTHEM CROUWEL'S NEW MINI ART MUSEUM AT AMSTERDAM SCHIPHOL; MACCORMAC JAMIESON PRICHARD GET BBC JOB; SURF'S UP WITH SUTHERLAND LYALL IN...

Browser: Sutherland Lyall continues to explore world architecture, cutting his way through the tangled electronic undergrowth. (View).
September 1, 2002... All out for paytime It may be the residual hippy in this columnist but I can't help the odd twinge of tristesse at the way the internet is moving into its next phase. There is still an enormous quantity of information freely available, and...

Letters.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... ISRAELI ARCHITECTURE: ARM OF APARTHEID? SIR: Tom Kay's straightforward eyewitness account from Ramallah (AR May, p32) seems to have outraged those (mainly Israeli) readers who want their architecture unsullied by images of destruction....

View from Dhaka: Dhaka's complex and troubled history has produced much fine and very varied architecture. Now, second-rate buildings and lack of planning threaten the city. (View).(Critical Essay)
September 1, 2002... The crucial question that confronts DHAKA, the capital of Bangladesh, is whether it can exist as a decent and liveable city. To judge from its current architectural and planning scenario, it would be difficult to answer in the affirmative....

October. (View).(Brief Article)(Editorial)
September 1, 2002... 'Present in the past' is the theme of our October issue. Raj Rewal has undertaken the extraordinarily difficult task of adding a great library to the Lutyens and Baker government complex in New Delhi. Giancarlo de Carlo's work in Urbino has...

One for the road; a movable gallery created with great economy and ingenuity out of a common industrial product: technology transfer at its simplest and most effective. (Design Review).(Critical Essay)
September 1, 2002... A competition organized by the BNA (Royal Dutch Institute of Architects) called for a cheap, temporary, movable pavilion. Light Building won second prize and the BNA set about finding a client for the idea. Parade, a summer travelling theatre...

Small is human. (Comment).(Critical Essay)
September 1, 2002... From English garden follies to present-day Tokyo, the virtues of smallness--convenience, humanity and manageability--add to the pleasure of daily life and also have instructive lesson for architects In their 1977 film Powers of Ten (1)...

Clockwork carnival: mixing the atmosphere of a fete d'ete with concerns about the Swiss place in the world, Switzerland's Expo is choreographed around a set of iconic modern follies.(Critical Essay)
September 1, 2002... 'Switzerland,' observed Hemingway somewhat testily in 1922, 'is a small steep country, much more up than down than sideways, and is stuck over with large brown hotels built in the cuckoo-clock style of architecture.' Alpine trimness and...

Blurring reality: shrouded by a drifting, mysterious pall of mist, Diller & Scofidio's Blur building explores notions of dematerialization.(Critical Essay)
September 1, 2002... At the south western end of Lake Neuchatel, the pretty spa town of Yverdon-les-Bains hosts possibly the most radical of the four arteplages. Exhibition structures are dispersed around a gently rolling landscape of artificial hills seductively...

Towers of power: Bienne's arteplage is the largest of the four and is based around a trio of monumental towers clad in a shimmering lightweight metal mesh skin.(Critical Essay)
September 1, 2002... Lying at the eastern end of the Bieler See, at the point where French-speaking west Switzerland meets the German-speaking north-east, Bienne is the largest town involved in Expo and has the largest arteplage. Occupying a disused industrial...

Manmade nature: Neuchate's arteplage explores issues of ecology and sustainability, through an array of quasi-biological pavilions.(Critical Essay)
September 1, 2002... Famous for its picturesque medieval chateau and rock stars' villas, Neuchatel clings to the steep wooded slopes on the north bank of its eponymous lake. Here the expopark is a narrow lakeside wedge (formerly a car park), separated from the town...

From here to Eternity: the focus of Morat's arteplage is a huge monolithic cube clad in plates of rusting steel that floats serenely on the lake.(Critical Essay)
September 1, 2002... Unlike the other three arteplages on their customized and landscaped sites, Morat's arteplage is integrated within the town itself. Morat lies on the southern edge of the Morat See, the smallest of the Three Lakes, and has a well-preserved...

Cultural totem pole: Raimund Abraham's micro-skyscraper makes the most of a tight site amid the colossal jungle of midtown Manhattan.(Austrian Cultural Forum )(Critical Essay)
September 1, 2002... Can a new tower rising only 20 storeys plus mechanical gear truly be considered an iconic Manhattan skyscraper? Inaugurated in April after a lengthy facilitation and construction process, the Austrian Cultural Forum nevertheless achieves an...

Temple and cave: a glass pavilion in Burgundy impinges lightly on history, and overlooking luxuriant countryside encourages contemplation.(Critical Essay)
September 1, 2002... The glass pavilion, designed by Dirk van Pastel, is in the western corner of a triangular site, surrounded by the woods and fields of Burgundy. It has been inserted into the stone abutment of a railway bridge which, long demolished, once...

Open and shut case: a pavilion in a suburban Prague garden shows ingenuity in planning and construction, and a delicate sensibility to the properties of materials, particularly wood.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... In the long garden in Mukarov, a southern suburb of Prague, is a new little wooden building that is in many ways a masterpiece of compression and flexibility. Rectangular, its long sides face north and south, both of which elevations are...

Cabin crew: small holiday cabins, studies in spatial compression and use of prefabricated construction, bring life to abandoned mining works in Southern Spain.
September 1, 2002... The campsite at La Torerera, near the town of Huelva in the southwest corner of Andalucia, is on the site of old mineral workings, now partly a nature reserve. A new year-round aquatic sports centre has been opened by the Junta of Andalucia on...

In the wilderness: a very small building brings a sense of place, humanity and gentleness to the harsh and absurd urban landscapes of Vienna's business satellite.
September 1, 2002... Donau City, east across the Danube and the Donaukanal from the old city of Vienna, is intended to relieve some of the pressures on the traditional centre, in the way that La Defense has clearly saved Paris from some of the more horrid...

Israel in India: developing traditional craft techniques, a group of Israeli architects (who gave their efforts entirely free) helped restore focus to a devastated Indian community.
September 1, 2002... Kutch was devastated by the earthquake of January 2001 which caused havoc in much of north-west India. Traditionally a very poor desert area, Bhopani Vandh lost many of its houses and its social centre. Israeli archiects Lavie-Amir offered...

Court completed: a very sensitive addition to a fine early nineteenth century house combines Modernist refinement and transparency with respect for context.
September 1, 2002... The New Art Centre at Roche Court in Wiltshire is one of only a handful of sculpture parks in England. Works by Barbara Hepworth, Elizabeth Frink, Anthony Gormley, William Pye, Hubert Dalwood and others of similar stature are set in the...

Flash in the forest: carved with great precision into the wooded, half-tame landscape of an Oslo suburb, this house has geometric austerity and human warmth.
September 1, 2002... Oslo is a vast city, sprawling up the sides of its bowl from the old Danish centre into the hills and forests of a gentle, though still sometimes almost sublime landscape. The Red House is in one of the delicious wooded western suburbs, in this...

Smallest room: the quality of much street furniture is very poor. Here is a public lavatory that enhances a fine old city.(Dubrovnik, Croatia)
September 1, 2002... As this magazine has emphasized for at least half a century, the things that have the most immediate impact on the quality of everyday urban life are small: letter and telephone boxes, paving, lighting, street furniture of all kinds, signs --...

Uber attic: an attic in Westphalia has been transformed by judicious remodelling into a fashionable loft with spaces defined by strong forms and simple materials. (Interior Design).(Drewes and Strenge project, Germany)
September 1, 2002... In remodelling an attic in an apartment block in Herzebrock, Westphalia, Drewes + Strenge have opened it out both horizontally and vertically. Working around the existing bathroom and central public staircase, neither of which could be moved,...

Snake charmer: a management school installed in an anonymous office building expresses a new spirit of exuberance.(Ichthus Business Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands)
September 1, 2002... The lchthus Business Centre is one of the special departments of the lchthus Hogeschool in Rotterdam, preparing its students for the tough competitive world of commerce. The Centre's new offices and classrooms, designed by...

KME Tecu. (Susan Dawson Reviews the Latest Cladding Products).
September 1, 2002... A free-standing restaurant, tube-like in shape and clad with Tecu-Patina pre-patinated copper sheets, forms the centrepiece in the main hall of the 'Marketplace for Furnishings', a six-storey furniture centre in Amsterdam. The restaurant,...

Covertex. (Susan Dawson Reviews the Latest Cladding Products).
September 1, 2002... A new cycling stadium in Aigle, Switzerland, is covered with a double-layered pneumatic membrane which, with an area of 5,000sq m. is the world's largest pneumatic structure. In plan the stadium is a 90m x 60m ellipse with 28 steel posts at the...

Fiedler Perforier Technik. (Susan Dawson Reviews the Latest Cladding Products).
September 1, 2002... The facade of the Sony Centre on Potsdamer Platz, Berlin (AR January 1999), incorporates spandrel panels of stainless steel plate with a lightly embossed square pattern. Fiedler Perforier Technik offers a wide range of embossing and perforating...

Schuco International. (Susan Dawson Reviews the Latest Cladding Products).
September 1, 2002... A specialist clinic for cosmetic laser and plastic surgery in Wilmersdorf has a tapered nautical form and solar shades resembling sails: porthole windows at the base continue the theme. The glazed facade and portholes were produced by Schuco...

Stoakes Systems. (Susan Dawson Reviews the Latest Cladding Products).
September 1, 2002... Two new learning centres in Bristol, England, designed by the Alec French Partnership, are clad with Kalwall, a translucent structural composite panel. The material was chosen as it is conducive to classroom study, diffusing natural daylight...

Haver & Boecker. (Susan Dawson Reviews the Latest Cladding Products).
September 1, 2002... Haver & Boecker together with iO, an office specializing in constructional physics, have formed a new company, dBA, to develop the potential of stainless steel woven wire cloth in soundproofing. The woven wire cloth, backed with absorption...

Gasell. (Susan Dawson Reviews the Latest Cladding Products).
September 1, 2002... The GA50-150 half-round profile in aluminium was used to form a chimney enclosure on the roof of the new Cancer Research Institute in Sutton, Surrey, England, designed by Fielden & Mawson. For planning reasons, five chimneys are concealed in...

NBK Keramik. (Susan Dawson Reviews the Latest Cladding Products).
September 1, 2002... The columns, window jambs and lintels of the KPMG offices in central Munich have been clad with glazed terracotta panels in different tones to create a sequence of effects when viewed from different angles. For instance, a column is clad with...

Alcan. (Susan Dawson Reviews the Latest Cladding Products).
September 1, 2002... A new brochure, Innovation in Architecture -- Working with Anodized Aluminium has been produced by Alcan. It illustrates recent buildings clad with Alcan anodized aluminium, including the Toyota headquarters at Epsom, Surrey. England, by...

Kawneer. (Specifier's Information).(John Lennon Airport)
September 1, 2002... A glazed facade of Kawneer's blast-enhanced curtain walling has recently been installed at Liverpool's john Lennon Airport as part of a refurbishment and extension to accommodate three million passengers a year. The facade is designed to...

Rehau. (Specifier's Information).(City of Manchester Stadium)
September 1, 2002... The new City of Manchester Stadium, which was the centrepiece of the XVII Commonwealth Games, will be the future home of Manchester City FC. Rehau's cable management system has been installed in the office and conference areas of the stadium....

Kawneer. (Specifier's Information).(new schools)
September 1, 2002... A [pounds sterling]1.9million contract to provide windows and curtain walling to three new schools in fife, Scotland, has been won by Kawneer and Charles Henshaw of Edinburgh, the new AA 600 Series Window and Door System has been developed by...

Kawneer. (Specifier's Information).
September 1, 2002... Complex curtain walling and structural silicone glazing by Kawneer have been used on the facades of three offices by Nicholas Hare in Reading, England. Two use 1204 SSG structural silicone glazing between aluminium spandrel panels. 1204 SSG is...

Concord:marlin. (Specifier's Information).
September 1, 2002... Up to 100 underground stations on the Paris Metro are being upgraded with new lighting designed and manufactured by Concord:marlin. The system is glare-free and blends in with the original architecture of the Metro. The design achieves 2001ux...

Twyford. (Specifier's Information).
September 1, 2002... BATHtime is a collaboration between the royal College of Art (RCA) and Twyford Bathrooms. Ceramics and glass students were asked to produce a feasible design for the bathroom of the future. The winner, by Beatrice Lopiano and Lee Crithchlow,...

Alcan. (Specifier's Information).
September 1, 2002... The new BT Building at Atlantic Quay, Glasgow, was designed by Fitzroy Robinson. It has a facade of rainscreen and spandrel aluminium panels anodized with a natural finish. A 3mm thick j57S anodizing quality aluminium was used; this carries a...

Trus Joist. (Specifier's Information).
September 1, 2002... Parallam, Trus Joist's parallel strand lumber (PSL), is a strong and dimensionally stable timber products generally used for structural beams, purlins and trusses; it also forms part of the company's Silent Floor System. Parallam has now been...

The House in the Twentieth Century. (Houses of the Past).(Book Review)
September 1, 2002... THE HOUSE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY By Richard Weston. London: Laurence King. 2002. [pounds sterling]40 With modern methods of printing it's easy to salivate over icons of modern architecture but for a book to avoid relegation to the...

Splintering Urbanism. (Reviving Resistance).(Book Review)
September 1, 2002... SPLINTERING URBANISM By Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin. London: Routledge. 2001. [pounds sterling]21.99 In Technics and Civilization (1934) Lewis Mumford showed, probably for the first time, the critical relationship that exists...

Contemporary Techniques in Architecture. (Computerized Futures).(Book Review)
September 1, 2002... CONTEMPORARY TECHNIQUES IN ARCHITECTURE Edited by Ali Rahim. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. 2002. [pounds sterling]22.50 One can debate as to whether the computer in its present state will just change the way that architects...

Diopolis: Patrick Geddes and the City of Life. (Urban Polymath).(Book Review)
September 1, 2002... DIOPOLIS: PATRICK GEDDES AND THE CITY OF LIFE By Volker M. Welter, London: MIT Press, 2002. [pounds sterling]27.50 Geddes, his surviving contemporaries used to tell me, was the kind of person who would grab you by the elbow and talk...

This is Not Architecture. (Consuming Images).(Book Review)
September 1, 2002... THIS IS NOT ARCHITECTURE Edited by Kester Rattenbury. London: E & FN Span. 2002. [pounds sterling]24.99 This Is Not Architecture is a collection of essays exploring aspects of the relationship between architecture and its media...

Geometrical games combined with an inventive approach to structure and materials inspire this eccentric temporary tea house in Hyde Park. (Delight).(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
September 1, 2002... The annual erection of a pavilion next to the Serpentine Gallery has become something of a social and architectural fixture in the London summer season. Emerging from the green boskiness of Hyde Park, these compact, temporary structures have...