“The desert has enslaved me, and I am happy to say that I am still astonished to find that this is so,” writes Reyner Banham in this book, one of the last he wrote during his lifetime, not in his usual role as an architectural historian, but as a “desert fanatic”—a visitor intrigued and bewildered by the arid lands of the American Southwest.
In this book, French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, winners of the prestigious 2021 Pritzker Prize, present their work through three concepts, each illustrated by a specific type of content. In a conversation with Enrique Walker, they explain the thinking behind their entire body of work, particularly through one of their most significant projects: the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
History will likely remember 2020 as a turning point. Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the relentless advance of the Anthropocene and cast doubt on the capitalist development model. Locally, meanwhile, the principles that have governed us for the last four decades were also called into question, to the point of necessitating a new beginning.
"Mucho cuento: Relatos de arquitectos" brings together 20 stories by prominent figures in the Ibero-American architectural scene, offering a completely new perspective on them—through fiction. The collection includes pieces that border on surrealism, fable-like narratives, first-person accounts, drama, comedy, utopias, an epistolary story, mythology... and, of course, the occasional reference to architecture.
“Our lives unfold through an exchange of nutrients with plants, even if we only remember them when it is time to water them. In one way or another, they are there, allowing us to continue existing here on this planet. However, forty years after the television broadcast of the series Cosmos, it seems we still do not understand plants as a fundamental part of our lives. We continue to view them as a mere source of energy or a raw material to be exploited (capable of defining vast economic sectors); we instrumentalize them when asked to explain the origins of architecture, or we even use their color to tint our projects and ventures with labels like “green,” “ecological,” or “sustainable”; yet it is not common for us to think about them—and with them—when designing. Perhaps to begin settling that debt, in this issue of ARQ magazine, we are seeking essays, projects, and research that challenge the secondary role we have assigned to vegetation, or that demonstrate new ways of including vegetation in architecture, with the minimum condition of moving beyond the paradigm of the primitive hut, as we believe it is time to take a step beyond their mere allegorical instrumentalization.”
In antiquity, architects sought to defy the passage of time through their solid constructions. This chimera was challenged at the beginning of the 20th century by the Futurists' concept of planned obsolescence: “Houses will last less time than we do... Each generation must build its own city.”
This text explains how time has become an active material in the work of the contemporary architect. Architecture, like music, literature, or film, is a temporal discipline. We will see how, during the Renaissance, architecture became aware of its own history. We will also see how, with Palladio, the printed page became a more effective medium for conquering the future than the built reality itself. However, the true shift arrived in the 20th century, when a new temporal consciousness—infiltrating from the sciences, the arts, and the media—began to transform architectural discourse in the second half of the century. From the assimilation of space-time to the cinematic time-image or the spectacular time of capitalism, the author proposes a journey through the multiplicity of time, which inevitably reverberates in contemporary architecture.
Women have pioneered new ways of practicing, not only by specializing in peripheral and often transdisciplinary subjects but also by proposing new forms of business organization that generally facilitate a better balance between professional and personal life. These working methods, in the face of a reassessment of production and business models, as well as workplaces and schedules, are fundamental to addressing the challenges of a profession that—in the midst of an internal transformation—is confronting the need for economic, social, and environmental sustainability.
"The City Inside the House" is a collection of essays by various authors written during the 9th edition of the URBANBATfest architecture, urbanism, and social innovation festival. The experience of lockdown—spending so much time in our homes—has forced us to focus on the domestic sphere, a concept that has gained particular relevance in current reflections, research, projects, and public policy.
This book explores the enormous impact of medical discourse and imaging technologies on the formation, representation, and reception of 20th-century architecture, while challenging the conventional understanding of modern architecture by proposing that it was shaped by the dominant medical obsession of its time: tuberculosis and its primary diagnostic tool, the X-ray.
"Arquitectura Popular is not a book about 'popular architecture'—though that would be a great subject. Instead, this book summarizes my quest to make architecture popular. In other words, I strive to make my designs accessible to everyone. Because they are simple, affordable, and mass-producible. I believe that architectural design possesses virtues that can improve people's quality of life, and there should be no barriers to that." Alejandro Soffia begins his book with these words, emphasizing the importance of access to architecture and how it directly impacts quality of life.
Opportunity is a decidedly optimistic, positive word that brings to mind that ideal moment when everything is possible. However, it also has a dark side, as it is frequently linked to the negative concept of crisis. This duality seems to be an essential condition for defining the value of an opportunity as inversely proportional to that of its opposing crisis. In this sense, the proposal of VAD could not be more relevant at a time when we, as a society, are facing one of the greatest and most universal crises in living memory.
“Pension Hotels in the City of Buenos Aires: Housing Precarity, Evictions, and Organizational Processes in the Constitución Neighborhood” is a book published by the Fundación Tejido Urbano. It emerged from the Buenos Aires Publica open call, an initiative that seeks to support research and innovative actions that can guide specialists and decision-makers toward solutions and tools aimed at reducing the housing deficits of our metropolis. The book’s author is María de la Paz Toscani, who holds a degree in Social Work and a PhD in Social Sciences from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires.
"Architecture, Modernity, and Project: The Work of Miguel García Fernández" seeks to highlight the history and development of modern architecture in Chile's southernmost region through the projects and ideas of this unique architect.
The Alberto Cruz C. Foundation, in collaboration with the Amereida Cultural Corporation and the School of Architecture and Design at the PUCV, hosted a seminar focused on the architectural work of Cruz Covarrubias, which transcends and complements his career in academia.
"Perhaps architecture is nothing more than the art of building climates that artificially correct what nature presents in its path," as Vitruvius maintained. For Swiss architect Philippe Rahm, architecture exists because the natural climate is often inhospitable to humans: too hot or cold, too dry or humid, too dark or sunny. Architecture must soften, intensify, mitigate, and regulate the natural climate to make it habitable.
In January 2021, Phaidon published Radical Architecture of the Future, which presents the world's most inspiring, innovative, and advanced architecture, offering new ways to view, understand, and build our environment and the spaces that surround us.
Through a panel discussion featuring four expert perspectives and an audience of architects, urban planners, academics, and other industry stakeholders, the Association of Architecture Offices (AOA) presented the 44th issue of Revista AOA. This edition focuses on Santiago’s iconic Plaza Baquedano, tracing its history, past renovation attempts, the social unrest, and the subsequent transformations it has undergone.