This video reveals the first statement by director David Chipperfield and president Paolo Baratta regarding the 13th International Venice Biennale. With “Common Ground” as the underlying theme, Chipperfield encourages participants not to promote themselves, as if in a theater, but rather promote a dialogue that will begin the “chemical process” that will ultimately lead to finding connections between “things, people and influences”. Chipperfield highlights that the Venice Biennale is about “what is not private, but what is common.”

The architecture exhibition will open to the public August 29th, 2012.

Courtesy of David Chipperfield Architects

Today, the President of the Biennale di Venezia, Paolo Baratta, and the 13th International Architecture Exhibition Director, David Chipperfield, met at Ca’Giustinian with the representatives of the 41 countries participating in the exhibition, including representatives of Kosovo, Kuwait and Peru for the first time. David Chipperfield announced the theme of this year’s Biennale is to be Common Ground. Continue reading for more information.

David Chipperfield states, “I want this Biennale to celebrate a vital, interconnected architectural culture, and pose questions about the intellectual and physical territories that it shares. In the methods of selection of participants, my Biennale will encourage the collaboration and dialogue that I believe is at the heart of architecture, and the title will also serve as a metaphor for architecture’s field of activity.”

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In this Tedx talk, David Chipperfield of David Chipperfield Architects was invited to discuss the distrust that people feel about architecture, from a practitioners point of view, with the seductively titled talk: Why does everyone hate modern architecture?  Chipperfield asks us to consider architecture of the everyday – buildings that are being built on a daily basis, not the notable and expensive projects that are the exception.  In looking at today’s architecture, he laments over what he perceives to be, an unsuccessful way in which the majority of buildings are designed.

More on the video after the break. read more »

© Ute Zscharnt for David Chipperfield Architects

London-based architect David Chipperfield has been officially named as the new curator for the Venice Biennale 2012, the world’s largest architecture exhibition. More information after the break. read more »

 British architect, David Chipperfield, will curate the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. Chipperfield will have only eight months to decide on a theme and prepare to curate the world’s largest architecture exhibition. He will become the first British architect to curate the event.

The newly appointed dean of architecture at the RCA, Alex de Rijke stated, “Someone of his intellectual calibre will rise to the challenge,” he said. “He’s not going to use it as an opportunity to promote his own architecture. He is going to frame an issue, treat it as research and ask people to contribute.”

Via bdonline

Courtesy of David Chipperfield Architects

Architect: David Chipperfield Architects
Location: Essen, Germany
Photographs: Courtesy of David Chipperfield Architects
Door & Window Hardware: FSB

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This week, with the help of our readers, our Architecture City Guide is headed to Barcelona. We recently featured an engaging video where Wiel Arets half jokingly said Barcelona is fantastic but boring. He continued to say as soon as Sagrada Família is finished Barcelona is done; there is nothing left to do there (10:50). Arets can say what he wants about Barcelona supposedly being boring, but our city guide doesn’t reflect this. Barcelona is filled with fantastically expressive architecture that springs from its proud Catalan culture. It was impossible to feature all our readers suggestions in the first go around, and we did not even come close to including some of the most iconic building such as Casa Milà. Thus we are looking to add to our list of 24 in the near future. Further more there are so many fabulous buildings on the drawing board or under construction, i.e. the projects in the @22 district, we’ll most likely be updating this city guide for quite awhile, regardless of Sagrada Família’s completion.

Take a look at our list with the knowledge it is far complete and add to it in the comment section below.

The Architecture City Guide: Barcelona list and corresponding map after the break.

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© Ute Zscharnt

Announced today, the Berlin Neues Museum designed by David Chipperfield is the recipient of this years prestigious EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award.  The Neues Museum is the result of blending old and new; the original Museum was designed by Friedrich August Stüler in the mid-19th century. Substantially damaged in the Second World War reconstruction of the Museum began in 2003.

Jury Chair Mohsen Mostafavi, shared the following about the building, “The rebuilding of the Neues Museum is an extraordinary achievement. Rarely have an architect and client succeeded in undertaking a work of such historic importance and complexity; especially one that involves both preservation and new building. The project raises and addresses many aesthetic, ethical, and technical issues. It is an exemplary demonstration of what collaboration can achieve in the context of contemporary European architectural practice.”

Also announced today was the recipient of ‘The Emerging Architect Special Mention’ award, given to Ramon Bosch and Bet Capdeferro for the Collage House in Girona, Spain.

The awards will be presented in a ceremony at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona on June 20th.

More details about this announcement following the break.

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© Wojtek Gurak

Wojtek Gurak recently shared these photographs of The Hepworth Wakefield Gallery designed by David Chipperfield. Still under construction the new art gallery will open May 21, 2011. Situated next to the River Calder, the state-of the-art facility has ten gallery spaces displaying historic and modern art as well as temporary exhibitions of contemporary art making it one of the largest purpose-built galleries outside of London. The program also includes an auditorium, learning studios, garden, cafe and shop.

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© Christian Richters

Architects: David Chipperfield (David Chipperfield Architects) – Fermín Vázquez (b720 Arquitectos) Location: Gran Via de les Corts 111, Barcelona, Spain Client: GISA, Departament de Justicia (Generalitat de Catalunya) Promotor: GISA, Departament de Justicia (Generalitat de Catalunya) Contractor: U.T.E. Ciudad de la Justicia (Fomento, Ferrovial, Ohl, Comapa y Emte) Structures: Brufau, Obiol, Moya i Associats: Agustí Obiol, Jane Wernick Associates: Jane Wernick Services: Grupo JG Ingenieros Consultores: Joan Gallostra, Arup: Andrew Sedgwick Lighting Consultant: Artecluminotecnia: Maurici Ginés, Arup: Florence Lam, Bob Venning Façade Consultant: Biosca & Botey: Xavier Farrés, Estudio Marshall: Guillermo Marshall Landscape Consultant: Manuel Colominas, Wirtz International: Nico Mortier, Juan Remon, Peter Wirtz Urban Planning Consultant: Estanislau Roca Arquitecte & Associats: Estanislau Roca Acoustics Consultant: Estudi Acústic H. Arau: Higini Arau Digital Images: Carlos Pascual; David Chipperfield Architects, b720 Arquitectos, Javier Piedra, Studio Toni Yli-Suvanto Interior Models: b720 Arquitectos, David Chipperfield Architects, Miquel Llunch, Matthew Marchbank, Vista Models Project Area: 232,368.72 sqm Competition Year: March 2002 Project Year: 2004–2009 Photographs: Christian Richters, Joan Argelés read more »

Interesting interview with David Chipperfield by Martha Thorne (Associate Dean for External Relations of IE School of Architecture and Executive Director of the Pritzker Prize). He shares his thoughts on new concepts in architecture.

Seen at IE Media Campus.

Super star architects arrive to the Caribbean, specifically to Dellis Cay,  a 560-acre island at the Turks & Caicos archipielago. The project, set to be completed by 2010, will feature works by Shigeru Ban, David Chipperfield, Carl Ettensperger, Zaha Hadid, Kengo Kuma, Piero Lissoni, and Chad Oppenheim. In addition to the 124 villas and 154 residences, the island will have a 30,000 sq ft Spa operated by the Mandarin Oriental, a five star luxury hotel, a signature restaurant and numerous casual dining experiences.

Below you can see further images of the individual projects, done by d-box.  There aren´t too many images available, but you can certainly notice the hand of each architect on this projects, specially the Zaha and Chipperfield ones.

From this project, two houses took my attention. First, a house by Chad Oppenheim, pictured above. I really like the public area of this house, which reminds me of contemporary brazilian houses: A unique concrete volume covering the open public space and an enclosed area for the bedrooms. You can really feel outside while being covered by the structure, which has a big span with no elements that block the views.

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