AaaM Architects have designed a series of sculptures for the Hong Kong Museum of Art's reopening. Invited by the museum with lead artist and architect Billy Tam. the team set out to create a urban artwork for the reopening of the museum after four years of renovation. “Rediscovering Landscape” is located in Salisbury Garden at the end of Nathan Road, a major business street in the heart of Kowloon Peninsula and marks the entrance art square for HKMOA.
Architects and designers, just like all citizens, have a responsibility to participate in global conversations regarding the environment. Their power, however, lies in the fact that they are able to make an impact through the conscious decisions they make with their projects, such as sustainable building materials or expressive artworks.
To shed light on the current climate crisis, artist Alicja Biala and architect Iwo Borkowicz have created Totemy, a series of 9-meter-tall sculptures that translate the state of the environment into an immersive architectural experience.
The showpiece of a planned new development at Edinburgh Park will be UK-artist David Mach’s first-ever building, named “Mach 1” by the project’s developers and investors, Parabola. Working with Stirling Prize-nominated architects Dixon Jones, Mach’s building will be created from over 30 shipping containers - but not in the modular, linear method to which shipping container buildings typically lend themselves. Instead its sculptural shape is meant to draw attention to the new quarter and catch the public’s eye, especially those traveling by on the nearby tram.
XTU architects have published their competition entry for the Founder’s Memorial in Singapore’s Bay East Garden. Inspired by the mangroves and banyans of Singapore which stand tall along the coastal regions of tropical areas, the memorial dives its routes into the ground, before shooting skywards.
Artist Lee Simmons has unveiled a 17-ton, 50-foot sculpture in London’s Marylebone neighborhood. Titled Quadrilinear, the project is made of five layers of laser-cut steel standing four stories tall. The project is slotted through Schoen Clinic by ESA Architects, and was completed over a four-year period with Format Engineers. The stainless-steel column is based on deconstructed maps of historic Marylebone to engage the context, rhythm and fabric of the facade.
The world’s largest ice festival has opened to the public in China. The Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in Heilongjiang, North-Eastern China draws 18 million visitors, marveling at the festival’s spectacular castles and sculptures. In total, the 2019 edition saw 120,000 cubic meters of ice and 111,000 cubic meters of snow crafted by thousands of artists in temperatures as low as -35C (-31F) using swing saws, chisels, and ice picks.
Having begun as an annual tradition in 1985, the festival has gained accolades such as the Guinness Record for the world’s largest snow sculpture (250 meters long and 8.5 meters high). The 2019 festival sees more than 100 landmarks, and ice sculptures by artists from 12 countries.
The Harbin Festival will be open for one month, closing on February 5th. Below, we have rounded up our favorite images of the festival so far, demonstrating that red hot architecture can be cold as ice.
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Architecture firm SOM has designed Kinematic Sculpture, an origami-like pavilion installation for Chicago Design Week. Exploring kinematics as the science of motion, the sculpture was formed as one of the firm's ongoing interdisciplinary research projects. As a test in integrated design, the structure aims to establish ideas that foster new architectural and structural solutions for pressing challenges in the built environment.
Reddymade has been unveiled as the winner of the Valentine Heart Design Competition installation in Times Square, New York. The scheme is inspired by the “history of the iconic New York urban space and its presence in the eyes of the world as a byword for a thriving intersection of people, place, and culture.”
The winning team explored the tectonic possibilities of intersecting shapes, investigating what happens with two different planes intersect. The resulting sculpture created two converging planes merging together to create an iconic ‘X’ which, when intersected by a cylindrical volume, creates a heart-shaped space.
Artist Janet Echelman has unveiled her latest site-specific work of public art, with the activation of the first phase of “Pulse” in Philadelphia’s Dilworth Park. Pulse seeks to reshape urban space “with a monumental, fluidly moving sculpture that responds to environmental forces including wind, water, and sunlight.
Inspired by the square’s history as a water and transportation hub, Echelman’s work traces the paths and trolley lines of the subway beneath, with four-foot-tall curtains of colorful atomized mist traveling across the park’s fountain surface in response to passing trains underneath.
Brazilian contemporary artist Ernesto Neto recently realized a colorful sculpture made of hand-knotted cotton strips in the atrium of Zurich's Central Station. Titled Gaia Mother Tree, the installation resembles a giant tree and extends from the station's roof to its floor.
Exhibited by the Fondation Beyeler, Neto's sculpture is an immersive work of art, a space that one can enter into and walk around or remain and meditate. The Gaia Mother Tree will be on display until July 29th. A series of activities for adults and children, including musical concerts, workshops and debates, is scheduled to take place under the net of cotton.
Italian artist Edoardo Tresoldi, known for his majestic wire mesh sculptures, has unveiled his biggest artwork to date for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California. Titled “Etherea,” the site-specific installation represents the culmination of Tresoldi's research in the music field, realized as three transparent structures taking inspiration from Neoclassical and Baroque architecture.
The Italian artist has established a reputation for wire mesh sculptures, having been named by Forbes as one of the 30 most influential European artists. The Etherea sculpture represents the artist’s investigation into architecture as a tool for contemplation, a “dedicated space where the sky and clouds are narrated through the language of classical architecture.”
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Artist Christo has released images of his proposed temporary sculpture for Hyde Park, London, to become his first major outdoor public sculpture in the United Kingdom. Titled “The Mastaba (Project for London, Hyde Park, Serpentine Lake)," the sculpture will consist of 7,506 horizontally-stacked barrels floating on the Serpentine Lake throughout the summer of 2018.
“The Mastaba” will coincide with an exhibition of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work at the Serpentine Galleries, featuring sculptures, drawings, collages and photographs spanning more than 60 years. Supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the exhibition will be the artists’ first in a UK public institution since 1979 and will showcase their long-running exploits with barrel forms, chosen initially for their sculptural effect and low cost.
_SOM_(1-LR).jpg?1540293091 "Kinematic Sculpture. Image © SOM")
_Benny_Chan_(3).jpg?1540293165 "Kinematic Sculpture. Image © Benny Chan")
_Benny_Chan_(2).jpg?1540293149 "Kinematic Sculpture. Image © Benny Chan")
_Benny_Chan_(1).jpg?1540293132 "Kinematic Sculpture. Image © Benny Chan")
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_-_The_Mastaba_(Project_for_London__Hyde_Park__Serpentine_Lake).jpg?1522848242 "Courtesy of Christo")
_-_The_site_of_The_Mastaba_in_Serpentine_Lake.jpg?1522848328 "Courtesy of Christo")
_-_The_Mastaba_(Project_for_London__Hyde_Park__Serpentine_Lake)_(5).jpg?1522848162 "Courtesy of Christo")
_-_The_Mastaba_(Project_for_London__Hyde_Park__Serpentine_Lake)_(4).jpg?1522848063 "Courtesy of Christo")
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