Courtesy of Serie Architects

Serie Architects has been awarded first prize by the competition Technical Committee for the Wuxi Xishan Civic Centre in China. Serie saw off strong competition from a high-powered international shortlist which included NihonSekkei, GMP Architekten, AS Architecture-Studio, and Arte Charpentier.

The scheme is oriented around a large public plaza which is intended to form the centre of public life and expression within the Civic Centre. This unadorned open space hosts public gatherings and events, government displays and temporary exhibitions. The importance of symmetry within the composition of the plan is expressed in the strong axial relationship to the main entrance. More images and architects’ description after the break. read more »

© Rainer Viertlbock

Flashback: One of Archdaily’s goals is to bring you up to date information about projects that are being designed and constructed around the world. We’ve created a new category to cover inspiring projects that were constructed between the 1990′s and the early 2000′s.

Architect: Murphy Jahn
Location: Berlin, Germany
Project Team: Helmut Jahn, Sam Scaccia, Philip Castillo, Dieter Zabel, Susan Pratt, Scott Pratt, Peter Hayes, Yorgo Lykourgiotis, Tony Pelipada, Andre Piraro, Carl D’Silva, Steffen Duemler, Andreas Hell, Oliver Henninger, Matthias Lassen, Sabine Robel, Bärbel Rudloff, Steven Nilles, Vincent Marani
Landscape Architect: Peter Walker & Partners
Text: Murphy Jahn
Project Area: 1,670,000 sqf
Project Year: 2000
Photographs: Rainer Viertlbock

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© poly.m.ur

Jeju is an island formed by volcanic activities and celebration of its distinctive geological features was one of the main objectives of the brief. The design started from answering the brief which explicitly requested that the scheme to symbolise the volcanic landscape of Jeju consists of caves and mounds. poly.m.ur viewed these two geological feature in terms of their morphological forma-tions – one as constructive space (volcanic mounds) and the other one as subtractive space (volcanic caves), and were repre-sented in the formation of the massing of our scheme.

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Courtesy of Yaohua Wang, Scott Chung, Qing Cao, & Lennard Ong

A wall is a binary condition: in/out, old/new, here/there. Blurry Wall, a proposal for a culture complex in Nanjing, China is a project that confuses these distinctions through conflicting bodily sensations. The intention of team members, Yaohua Wang, Scott Chung, Qing Cao, and Lennard Ong, is to tune the architecture into an instrument that channels the different urban energies flowing through it, blurring the boundaries between them. More images and project description after the break. read more »

© Flickr / Laura Manning

In the early eighties Jean Nouvel in conjunction with Architecture-Studio won the competition to design what would become the Institut du Monde Arabe. It was conceived during the Grands Projets, a major development initiative headed by the French government. The IMA was produced through collaboration with the countries of the Arab League and the French government.  Upon its completion in 1987, it quickly became a popular destination for the local populace as well as tourists. More details after the break. read more »

© poly.m.ur

The design of the new Jeju Cultural Heritage Centre started from an attempt to interpret the cultural value of the traditional artifacts that are to be exhibited here with contemporary view. poly.m.ur was intrigued by the fact that these artifacts are exemplary in showing the influence of regional material on the life of early settlers, and they wanted their proposal to be seen as an object which can symbolize the local characteristics shaped by the abundant availability of basalt as raw material and the indigenous techniques of tool making.

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© Nathan Willock

Architect: Coop Himmelb(l)au
Location: Busan, South Korea
Text: Coop Himmelb(l)au
Project Year: 2011
Photographs: ISOCHROM, Nathan Willock

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© Paul Tierney

Architect: Architecture Republic
Location: Drumcondra, Dublin 9, Ireland
Client: John Graham, artist
Project Area: 25 sqm
Project Year: 2011
Photographs: Paul Tierney

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Courtesy of Spillman Farmer Architects

Architect: Spillman Farmer Architects
Location: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
Project Team: Barry Pell, AIA, Managing Principal; Joseph N. Biondo, AIA, Design Principal; Michael Metzger, AIA, Project Architect; William Deegan, Senior Designer; Wayne Stitt, AIA; Christa Kraftician, AIA, LEED AP; Charles Shoemaker, AIA; Salvatore Verrastro, AIA, FCSI; Brian Brandis, AIA; Joanne Titcomb IIDA; Deirdre Kwiatek PhD; Randy Galiotto; Patrick Ruggerio; Sierra Krause; Joseph Balsamo; Clint Newton; Deborah Innis; Mark Piell; Elliot Nolter; Chris Connors; Mike Savage.
Client: ArtsQuest
Photographs: Courtesy of Spillman Farmer Architects

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Courtesy of Studio 505

Australian architects and designers Studio 505 are currently completing a series of iconic projects in a new cultural precinct in Victoria’s ‘sister state’ Jiangsu Province in China.

Located in Wujin in the Changzhou precinct, the 3.5 hectare Lotus Park has been designed to be occupied throughout the year with festivals and functions throughout the day and night. The design establishes a clear and active programme of functions and includes the W Gallery, a new museum of contemporary art and many new entertainment and restaurant venues. The themes of environmental sustainability, education, recreation and community focused arts programmes are key to the establishment and success of the park programme. More images and architects’ description after the break. read more »

Shrine of the Book and the Knesset, Israel Ministry of Tourism

The Shrine of the Book (Hebrew: היכל הספר‎ Heikhal HaSefer) is a wing of the Israel Musem near Givat Ram in Jerusalem, constructed in 1965. The building houses the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in and around the Wadi Qurman.

The building was the result of an elaborate seven-year planning process funded by the family of David Samuel Gottesman, a Hungarian philanthropist who purchased the scrolls as a gift to the newly founded state of Israel. One architect, American philanthropist-cum-designer Armand Phillip Bartos, was chosed because he was married to Gottesman’s daughter. The other appointed architect, Frederick John Kiesler, had previously recieved funding from Gottesman to install the “Endless house” at the Museum of Modern Art. The architectural team also included the well-connected Gezer Heller, brother-in-law to Ibbi Hammer, future chief banker for the State of Israel and daughter of the Chief Rabbi of Budapest. Israelis objected to the choice of non-Israeli architects, especially Kiesler. read more »

© Adrià Goula

Architects:  Mateo Arquitetura / Josep Lluís Mateo
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Client: ICIC (Institut Català de les Indústries Culturals)
Structural Engineering: BOMA, Agustí Obiol
Installations Engineering: Grupo JG
Project Area: 7,515 sqm
Photographs: Adrià Goula

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© Hélène Binet

Architect: Éric Lapierre Architecture
Location: 107, avenue de Paris, 50100 Cherbourg-Octeville France
Project Team : Yon Chau, Amélie Evrard, Inbum Kim, Eric Lapierre, Guillaume Ramillien
Structure: Batiserf, Pierre-Olivier Cayla, Philippe Clément
Cost Estimation: Bureau Michel Forgue, Aybival Avinal, Michel Forgue
Client: Ville de Cherbourg-Octeville
Area: 600 sqm
Cost: 991 000 €HT
Project Year: 2008
Photographs: Hélène Binet, Paola Salerno

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Photo by genuine nerd- http://www.flickr.com/photos/vaitu/

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Museum is one of the less well known architectural gems in Portugal. The buildings are part of their own isolated campus in Palhavã, in the center of Lisbon. Architects Ruy Jervis d’Athouguia, Pedro Cid and Alberto Pessoa designed the campus and the buildings in memory of the foundation’s namesake, and both the foundation and the buildings have only grown more respected over the decades.  More on the buildings after the break.

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© Iwan Baan

Architect: Kere Architecture
Location: Mopti, Mali
Photographs: Iwan Baan

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© FG+SG – Fernando Guerra, Sergio Guerra

Architects: Manuel Maia Gomes
Location: Vila do Conde, Portugal
Project Team: Carla Cruz, Rui Araújo, Artur Alves, Alda Silva, Luisa Lopes, Catarina Magalhães
Engineering: António Costa, Eça Guimarães, Madalena Camões, Márcia Campos
Project Year: 2010
Photographs: FG+SG – Fernando Guerra, Sergio Guerra

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Courtesy of XV Studio

The Barcelona Ecological Center (BEC) is a proposal of XV Studio about the future of the Bullfight Plaza ‘Monumental’ in Barcelona, Spain. The concept is radical: Transforming the bullring into a center of research and leisure regarding to environmentally friendly activities, especially the ones that respect and take care of animals. In other words, to use all the elements that already exist now in the ring to be reused in the opposite way. More images and architects’ description after the break. read more »

Courtesy of Eirini Androutsopoulou & Dimitra Maniaki

This proposal, by architects Eirini Androutsopoulou & Dimitra Maniaki, defines a new icon and a strong identity for the city of Busan and drives a direct link between Korea’s past and Korea’s future image. In order to do so, the proposed scheme describes the idea of the Korean garden within the building’s shell and the new Opera House within the Korean garden. More images and architects’ description after the break. read more »

Courtesy of PAPER | TOTEMENT

The shaping concept of the buildings for the Busan Opera House by PAPER | TOTEMENT is based on placing simple forms together with their capacities and location determined by their functional tasks. The outside shape of the achieved agglomerate is made by cutting off the surpluses to make a cube form put on its edge. The aesthetics of the given object depends neither on a separate turn of any of its parts nor on their size or quantity, but is defined by a lot of similar but different elements with its external shape of an ideal Platon body in an unusual twist. More images and architects’ description after the break. read more »

Photo by Socialism Expo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/24105644@N03/

Opened in 1933 and completed in its current state in 1953, the Armenian Opera Theater was designed by Armenian architect Alexander Tamanian.  The theater is one of Tamanian’s most profilic architectural works, which include a plethora of Armenian architectural icons such as his hydroelectric station (1926), Republic Square (1926–1941) and many others.  read more »