The Architectural Review articles from September 2008

The Architectural Review archives from September 2008

Venice architecture biennale preview; Peter Cook on why Terunobu Fujimori is the person he most wants to meet; The opening of an events building by unsangdong architects in Seoul; last call for entries for the ar awards for emerging architecture.(View)
September 1, 2008... FROM OUT THERE TO IN HERE 'Buildings are objects and the act of building leads to such objects, but architecture is something else,' declares the director of this year's Venice Biennale, Aaron Betsky. An accomplished impresario and critic,...

The great indoors; In an issue that focuses on the qualities of interior space, Jamie Fobert sets the scene with a personal comment on the work of Vilhelm Hammershoi (1862-1912), describing how the Danish artist's work has influenced his practice and continues to focus his attention on architecture's principal element: the room.(comment)
September 1, 2008... There was something magical about discovering Vilhelm Hammershoi paintings. It was in 1997, the year I set up my practice. Since then, most of my public lectures have begun with two slides of his interiors. Setting the tone, they establish a...

Seizing the void: Alvaro Siza challenges modernism's conventional attitude to the relationship between inside and out.
September 1, 2008... When visiting a building is problematic, as in this case when a 12500 mile round trip to Brazil seemed inappropriate for just one afternoon, the next best thing is to visit the architect in person (in Portugal). This is especially true when...

Poles apart: Junya Ishigami uses slender columns as spatial moderators.
September 1, 2008... Completed at the start of the year, this is Junya Ishigami's first completed building.The material and spatial themes it explores, however, have been developed for some time through the architect's experimentation with so- called 'extreme...

Enlightened loft: Timothy Hatton Architects transform an eighteenth-century attic.
September 1, 2008... While acknowledging there is danger in making ambitious predictions, when entering this central London house it is difficult to ignore the possibility that guests could be witnessing the next Soane Museum in the making. Certainly, when...

Wooden den: the interior of Sou Fujimoto's competition-winning experimental house belies its flush cubic form.
September 1, 2008... The Final Wooden House is an experimental project that Sou Fujimoto won in competition in 2005. Run by Kumamoto Artpolis (also responsible for the realisation of Taira Nishiizawa's Tomochi Forestry Hall, a winner of AR Awards 2005), with Toyo...

Stone cool sober: Carmody Groarke create an intense spatial experience in a new basement in Limerick.
September 1, 2008... This private spa forms part of an ambitious residential extension in Limerick, south-west Ireland. Brought onto the project relatively late, once another architect's plans to double the size of the house were already in place, the challenge...

Morecambe and modernity: Union north and Avanti Architects help revive Morecambe's Midland Hotel for developer/hotelier, Urban Splash.(conservation)
September 1, 2008... On 26 January 1932, Oliver Hill wrote a letter to his cliend Arthur Towle, Controller of the London Midland and Scottish (LMS) railway company's Hotel Services, in which he boasted that he had 'made it my business to keep in touch with the best...

Wells Coates: maker of a modern British architecture; Fifty years after his death, Elizabeth Darling considers the contribution of Wells Coates, and argues that his attitude towards the optimisation of space remains relevant to the design of interiors today.(theory)
September 1, 2008... In a remarkable sequence of events, three of Wells Coates' major buildings have been restored in the past few years. Under new owners Lawn Road Flats (1934) and Embassy Court, Brighton (1935) have been rescued from decades of neglect, and his...

Inner seoul: A traditional Korean family house has been skilfully transformed.
September 1, 2008... Schiller's comparison of architecture to frozen music springs to mind in the context of an ingenious adaptation of a traditional Korean hanok (family house) in the middle of Seoul. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

100% Design.(products review)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... This year's 100% Design is an expanded and lively celebration of design innovation that cuts across geography and generations. Tantalising side dishes include 100% Detail, 100% Futures, focusing on upcoming talent, 100% Sustainable, which...

Tactile collaboration: Designer Sebastian Conran has joined forces with leading manufacturer British Ceramic Tile to create a new range of floor and wall tiles inspired by sources as disparate as geology, water and industrial archaeology.(Product development)
September 1, 2008... 'Fashion isn't more important than merit', Sebastian Conran assures me, quoting the late Josiah Wedgwood. He's introducing Tactile, the floor and wall tile collection of six ranges launched by his design company, the recently rebranded Studio...

MODERNISM IN CHINA: ARCHITECTURAL VISIONS AND REVOLUTIONS.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Denison and Guang are heritage consultants, better described as global researchers. Their earlier books, well illustrated and written, covered some of the curiosities of our emerging mono-cultural world economy, Asmara, Africa's secret...

BLUBBERLAND: THE DANGERS OF HAPPINESS.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... This lively and heartfelt book sets out to do something not dissimilar to Alain de Botton's overrated The Architecture of Happiness and does it a great deal better; whereas the RIBA rewarded de Botton with, incredibly, a place as a Stirling...

MANUFACTURING PROCESSES FOR DESIGN PROFESSIONALS.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... This book is sumptuously illustrated taking the reader into factories and workshops, removing a veil of mystery from the production of consumer products. It is almost a wonderful book. It features 'many of the plastic products surrounding us...

ARCHITECTURAL PRINCIPLES IN THE AGE OF CYBERNETICS.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... By Christopher Hight. Abingdon: Routledge. 2008. [pounds sterling]27.50 One assumes this book is a rehashed PhD and consequently it has a reasoned and articulate argument but lacks steaming polemics. Contrary to its title, the main thrust...

Gothenburg plays host to an eclectic array of landscapes in its current summer-long Garden Festival.
September 1, 2008... Set among woods and lakes to the south of Gothenburg, Gunnebo Slott is Swedish Neo-Classicism at its very most beguiling. Complementing Carl Wilhelm Carlberg's villa of 1796 is a fine formal garden of the same period, with clipped green cones...

Sutherland Lyall dons his virtual swimming costume to surf the net.
September 1, 2008... A poke in the regionalist eye Fivefootway is the metrically incorrect name of a Singapore-based blog www.fivefootway.com founded by Singapore University architecture students Adib J. and Yeo Jia-Jun. It is, in their words, 'an online...

Ar's choice of international exhibitions from www.arplus.com.(diary)(Calendar)
September 1, 2008... FRANCE 3XN, DENMARK La Galerie d'Architecture, Paris Until 25 September An exhibition presenting the wide-ranging work of 3XN, a Danish practice with an international outlook that has made a name for itself by winning a...

Klein Dytham Architects transform two floors of a nondescript office building in kamakura.(delight)
September 1, 2008... The work of KDa continues to exploit the intriguing condition of its directors, Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein. Describing themselves as dislocated, they have refused to settle as typical expats. Taking no sight for granted, inspiration comes...