In Russia, hundreds upon hundreds of buildings are endangered. The work of making sure they don't become extinct? That's in the hands of a tireless few.
One of these crusaders is Natalia Melikova, the author of The Constructivist Project, an on-line web site that seeks to preserve the memory - and hopefully inspire the protection of - Russia's avant-garde architecture. Although it began as her thesis project, it's steadily become one of her life passions. In Melikova's words, "By sharing photographs (my own and others), articles, events, exhibitions, and other resources on the topic of the avant-garde, The Constructivist Project unites common interest and appreciation of Russian art and history and makes it accessible to an international English-speaking audience. This is a way to initiate discussion not only of the perilous situation of Russian avant-garde architecture but also of cultural preservation and urban development in general."
See 10 of Melikova's images, snapshots into a part of Russian history quickly being forgotten, with her descriptions, after the break.
In the early years of the New York City subway system, natural light played a dominant role in the illumination of subterranean spaces. The architecture emphasized a connection to the sky, often through skylights planted in the median of city avenues above — lenses in the concrete sidewalks.
However, it proved extremely difficult to keep the skylights clean, and light eventually stopped passing through. Subway authorities moved toward an almost exclusive reliance on electric lighting. While this allowed for greater flexibility in station design, permitting construction at any location and depth, it also created a sense of disorientation and alienation for some passengers.
For the design of Lower Manhattan's Fulton Center, Arup, in conjunction with design architect Grimshaw sought to reconnect the century-old subway system with the world above.
Read more about this "enlightening" subway station, after the break...
Detroit, Michigan; Courtesy of Flickr User DandeLuca, licensed via Creative Commons
Young entrepreneurs gravitate to places where they can become the founders of a revitalized culture; where land is cheap and available and innovation is uninhibited by a status quo. Detroit, Michigan has become one of those places. The media gives us a portrayal of a wasteland, a post apocalyptic landscape of dilapidated homes and infrastructure. But there is plenty opportunity for start-ups to redefine Detroit's future. That it why young innovators and risk-takers are needed to bring new energy and awaken new markets within the city. A recent article by Chuck Salter for Fast Company identifies six entrepreneurs who have started businesses in Detroit. They vary from grassroots campaigns to inform people of opportunities within the city to small scale enterprises that bring retail and infrastructure to the downtown area and surrounding neighborhoods.
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Currently, many of Moscow's motorways are occupied more as motorways than public space. Image via shutterstock.com
Russia has madly, passionately (and not a little blindly) fallen in love. And, as with any love affair worth its salt, this one will have its fair share of consequences when the honeymoon ends.
The object of Russia’s affection? The good, old-fashioned automobile.
It started fast and has only gotten faster. In 2005, Russia’s auto industry grew 14%; in 2006, 36%; and, in 2007, a whopping 67% - an exponential growth that attracted foreign investors, particularly after 2009, when the country welcomed companies like GM & Ford with open arms. Today, the ninth largest economy in the world is the seventh-largest car market, positioned to surpass Germany as the largest in Europe by 2014.
Nowhere is this love affair more evident, more woven into the city itself, than in Moscow. The city has a reputation (perhaps rivaled only by Beijing’s) for traffic, pollution, and downright hostility to pedestrians. And, ironically, because of its epic congestion, the city continues to expand its highways and parking spaces.
We’ve heard that story before, and we know how it ends - for that matter, so does Moscow. But passion, by nature, is blind - and stopping a love affair in its tracks is far from easy.
As the final segment of the One World Trade Center was hoisted into position – topping the structure out at a patriotic 1,776 feet – Curbed NY captured its journey via a small Go-Pro camera to reveal its fascinating, and somewhat nauseating, view of Manhattan.
While the US rejoices this monumental feat, a debate amongst architects, engineers and city officials lingers on whether or not the 408-foot spire will count towards the One WTC’s overall height and allow it to officially claim its title as the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. Although the Port Authority argues that the spire doubled as a radio antenna is considered as non-essential telecom equipment and therefore should not be considered as part of the “architectural top”, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat will make the final call in October.
Since the emergence of the modern multi-storey building in the late 19th century, screenwriters and art directors have embraced the high-rise building as both backdrop and prop in the drama of feature films. It’s easy to understand the fascination. The precarious nature of a skyscraper – their height, their reliance on competent engineering and emergency systems, and their all-controlling security – provide abundant opportunities for action and disaster. And all with a built-in view.
But while Hollywood loves a high rise, it hasn’t treated them well. Plot lines usually tap into a general scepticism about the kind of engineering feats which make them possible and often carry some underlying moral message about the dangers of technology and advancement.
Jane Jacobs revered the West Village. It was a bustling neighborhood enlivened by its social, spatial, and functional diversity. It had different building types and functions, which meant that people were always in places for different purposes; it had short blocks, which have the greatest variety of foot traffic. It had plenty of old buildings with low rent which “permit individualized and creative uses;” and, most importantly, it had all different kinds of people. As a result, West Villagers could establish casual and informal relationships with people that they might not have had the opportunity to otherwise.
Without these necessary characteristics, Jacobs felt “there is no public acquaintanceship, no foundation of public trust, no cross-connections with the necessary people – and no practice or ease in applying the most ordinary techniques of city public life at lowly levels.”
By simply changing a few words, it’s not hard to imagine Jacobs’ writing describing offices instead of cities. Buildings are different internal spaces, like individual offices or gathering spaces; desks are homes; sidewalks are hallways or circulation space; etc.
If the office is a small microcosmic city, then suburbia is the cubicle-strewn office, and Google might be the West Village. And ‘people analytics,’ the statistical and spatial analysis of interpersonal interaction, is the office’s urban planning.
To find out what creative work environments can learn from the composition of cities, keep reading after the break...
https://www.archdaily.com/367700/can-architecture-make-us-more-creative-part-ii-work-environmentsJonathan C. Molloy
Daniel Libeskind has been selected among two other renowned artists to design the Ohio Statehouse Holocaust Memorial in Columbus. The 18-foot tall memorial brushed stainless-steel memorial will be punctuated by the six-pointed Star of David and accompanied by a 40-foot walkway with words etched in limestone.
By the acclaimed director Jia Zhangke, 24 City cannot be considered a documentary, since actors perform in most of the scenes; however, this Chinese film realistically shows the dissociation between the rapid urban development and a population that seems to be victimized by globalisation.
The film is focused on the workers at Factory 420, a complex designed and deployed by the government for military purposes and used as a factory for producing and repairing mechanical elements for the army. This whole area became a city in itself, housing generations of factory workers. When the space is converted to 24 City, a complex to accomodate hundreds of luxury apartments, the entire site is demolished. 24 City tells the workers' stories in the midst of this transformation.
How should we consider these kinds of mono-functional cities and what could/should be their futures? Let us know in the comments below.
Architecture is inseparable from planning, and the huge challenge for the current generation is the growth and shrinkage of cities. Some cities, mainly in the Southern Hemisphere, are growing at exponential rates, while former global hubs in the northern are turning into countrysides. In the south, populations are still growing a lot, while populations are dwindling in Europe, Russia and North East Asia. The dream of the Bilbao effect was based on the hope that there might be a quick fix to both of these problems. Well, there is not.
A decade ago, few people even recognized this was a real issue and even today it is hardly ever mentioned in a political context. As a politician, you cannot say out loud that you have given up on a huge part of the electorate, or that it makes sense for the national economy to favor another part. Reclaiming the agricultural part of a nation is a political suicide issue whether you are in Europe or Latin America. And investing in urban development in a few, hand-picked areas while other areas are desolate is equally despised.
The one person, who is consistently thinking and writing about this problem, is Rem Koolhaas, a co-founder of OMA.
When Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times, gives a bad review there is the sense that he is essentially dismantling a building, chipping its façade apart, like breaking down some charade in defense of the public’s honor. Like a hired killer he disappears the architecture, but at the same time heightens its visibility in the culture.
This ability, to provoke in such ways, is precisely why Thom Mayne would like to bar Mr. Hawthorne from taking a crack at reviewing the new building he and his firm, Morphosis designed for the firm’s new offices.
On a recent tour of the new digs, Mayne, as reported in The Architect’s Newspaper, was overheard saying, “There are no good writers in Los Angeles” and “All local writers are horrible.” To add further insult, he wants a science writer to cover it. That should be a short review.
The potential to generate energy is hidden in many places, from skyscrapers to ski-slopes. But new research is showing that a potent source of energy is hiding right beneath our noses, or feet to be more specific.
What has the internationally awarded Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) to do with Friederich Nietzsche and Charles Darwin? Quite a lot, according to founder Bjarke Ingels, who has created a powerful mixture of Nietzsche and Darwin as the philosophical foundation of BIG’s architecture.
Read Anders Møller's fascinating article on BIG's unusual philosophy, after the break...
Houston, Texas; Flickr User JoeInSouthernCA; Licensed via Creative Commons
Despite the romantic notion about cities that develop organically have a rich diversity of form and function, we cannot overlook the deadly side effects of negligent city planning. As Christopher Hume of the Toronto Star points out, last month's tragic fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas is a grim reminder that planning has a time and place and its ultimate utility resides in the initiative to protect residents and make for healthier communities. The tangle of bureaucracy associated with planning, zoning and land use regulations can give any architect or developer a massive headache. In some cases, the laws are so restricting that diverging from bulk regulations becomes very limiting.
This year, the LampLighting Solutions 2013 celebrated its 5th version. The awards are organized by LAMP, an architectural technical lighting company, specialized in, advising on and designing efficient solutions adaptable to any project by way of innovative and competitive products and services.
Lamp Lighting Solutions Awards 2013 closed its registration period with record on all the previous editions, with a total of 608 projects submitted from 52 countries and 61% internationalization.
Image of Thomas Jefferson Memorial courtesy of shutterstock.com
This blog was written by Doug Wingall, the President of HDR Architecture, for the AIA Blog Off on the theme “What does architect as leader mean to you?” It was originally published on HDR Architecture's blog BLiNK.
Architects and designers are trained in school to be creative and critical thinkers. We are shaped and molded into being the purveyors of ideas that can have a positive influence not only on the built environment, but society in general. By the very skills and talents which architects and designers possess, we are inherent problem solvers.
In fact, one of our country’s greatest politicians, Thomas Jefferson, believed that architecture embodied the soul of his new country–a building was a metaphor for American ideology, the process of construction equal to the task of building a nation.
So why aren’t there more architects and designers working on the national and global stage to solve pressing social, environmental and economic challenges? Currently, lawyers comprise 37 percent of all U.S. senators and nearly 24 percent of all U.S. congressmen. Banking and business occupations account for 20 percent of the Senate and 22 percent of the House. According to the AIA, in the last 50 years, only one architect has served in a national capacity: U.S. Congressman Richard Swett, who represented New Hampshire from 1990 to 1994.
Why aren’t there more architects on a national or global leadership level influencing the policy that ensures positive change?
The architecture that sunk the architecture school. Thom Mayne's $111 million New Academic Building. Via Wikipedia
Beginning in 2014 The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (known more commonly as Cooper Union), the famed New York City college, will start charging tuition.
For more than 100 years, Cooper Union, which includes a prestigious architecture school, has been “free” (full-tuition support to all students). As such it has always stood apart, charting its own path and following its own independent mission. That Cooper Union is now dead.
For Cooper Union to have survived it would have had to remain simpleminded. And I mean this in the most flattering way.
