Thanks to their loud, brash, and nocturnal nature, rock concerts are often held in dark bars and nightclubs designed to withstand the abuse of rowdy fans and guitar-smashing rockers. But as musicians earn a following, they eventually graduate from beer-soaked basements to prestigious theaters, outdoor amphitheaters, arenas, and stadiums. For performers and music fans alike, playing or attending a show in a space like Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, Madison Square Garden or Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater can be a momentous, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that ties together the sublime power that great music and architecture can both evoke. As rare as these opportunities are, an exclusive group of iconic musicians have managed to reach an even higher level of prestige by organizing one-off performances amid humanity’s most treasured historical sites—from the Acropolis and ancient Mayan cities to the Colosseum and the Eiffel Tower.
While these special concerts have given fans the chance to experience music history firsthand, many have also been mired in scandal as local officials and residents have raised concerns about potential damage to the sites or inappropriate commercial misuse of treasured cultural landmarks. Despite these legitimate and often justified concerns, these nine iconic sites have hosted some of the most ambitious concerts in the history of popular music:
The well-known saying “all roads lead to Rome” seems to be true--at least, that’s what Moovel Lab, a team from Stuttgart dedicated to urban mobility research, points out. Titled "Roads to Rome," the project has mapped out over-land routes across Europe that converge to the city.
From a grid of 26,503,452 square kilometers covering all of Europe, the researchers defined 486,713 starting points that were superimposed on the continent's street map. Then an algorithm was developed for the project that calculated the shortest route between each of the points and the Italian capital.
VeloNotte, international urban history startup on two wheels, celebrates its 10th anniversary of their nocturnal tours with an exhibition-workout in the Schusev Museum of Architecture in Moscow. Just a few steps from Kremlin, Velonotte converts the room of the 18th-century mansion into a cycling studio. Once you start to pedal the journey will bring you to one of the cities that the project explored so far with speakers like Richard Rogers, David Adjaye, Richard Burdett, Peter Ackroyd, Vladimir Paperny, Jean-Louis Cohen. The exhibition will feature amateur videos selected by curators from the posts of the more than 100,000 participants of Velonotte
The city of Rome attracts millions of visitors each year to explore its ancient ruins and to learn about how the culture and architecture has transformed over thousands of years. Now, after many years of tedious construction, visitors will be able to see the city as it has never been seen before, through a 1:250 model of imperial Rome, known as the Plastico di Roma Imperiale. The plaster model, which was commissioned by Mussolini in 1933 and completed in 1971, depicts Rome as it stood in the 4th century under the reign of Constantine I.
THE SCHOLARS’ PRIZE IN ARCHITECTURE is an exciting and valuable opportunity for an early-career architect or post-Part II student of architecture to spend three months in Rome, and be a member of a vibrant residential community of architects, artists and researchers. It allows the winner to pursue and complete a creative, intellectually coherent and focused architectural project in and based on the city of Rome or its environs.
On the occasion of the centenary of Finland's Independence (Suomi 100), Rome’s Casa dell’Architettura is to host the “Architecture in Finland. From Alvar Aalto to new generations. Talk with Avanto Architects and Design Office KOKO3” conference on Tuesday 17th October 2017.
For the first time in more than 40 years, visitors will be able to access the uppermost levels of Italy’s most popular historical site, the Colosseum, following the completion of a major restoration project.
Beginning November 1st, guided tours will take ticketed guests to the remaining sections of the fourth and fifth levels of the stadium, rising as high as 120 feet above ground level.
We can all recognise the great architectural landmarks of Ancient Rome: the Pantheon, the Colosseum, Trajan's Column – but do you know how they originally appeared or, perhaps more interestingly, how they sat within the context of the historic city? In this captivating 14-minute-long virtual fly-through by the Kahn Academy and Smarthistory, a YouTube channel dedicated to historical video essays, the ancient splendor of the Eternal City (at around 320AD) is presented alongside expert commentary.
https://www.archdaily.com/871002/marvel-at-the-scope-scale-and-splendor-of-ancient-rome-with-this-virtual-fly-throughAD Editorial Team
Architectural landmarks can define a city. A mention of Paris conjures images of the Eiffel Tower, whilst no description of Sydney is complete without mentioning its inspiring Opera House. How disorientating it must be, therefore, to encounter a familiar architectural wonder far removed from the city, or country to which it belongs. As it happens, many of our most famous structures have their own "twins," heavily-inspired by their originals, that you may not have been aware of.
Adam Eastland/Alamy. Image Courtesy of Laurence King Publishing
A wayward force of the High Renaissance, Baroque was broken in by Michelangelo in Rome in the sixteenth century before being given full rein by Bernini and Borromini in the seventeenth. Characterized by curves, domes, broken pediments and a gloriously inventive play on classical detailing, at its theatrical zenith it was thrilling architectural opera – far from the chaste and graceful classicism that both preceded it and ousted it in the eighteenth century. Deeply romantic, it also had something of the subversive about it.
Rome-based Schiattarella Associati has unveiled its designs for the King Fahd International Stadium, a refurbishment project that will modify the existing structure, located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to accommodate almost 50,000 spectators.
In order to link the ground level with the concourse level of the structure, the design focuses on creating an artificial hill at the base of the stadium.
This reconstruction is primarily of language. The architects draw from archives—mental, digital or printed on paper—distant from the typical parametric and highly schematic rationales that characterized the last thirty years of design in architecture. Within the theoretical system that drives architectural composition, these archives inevitably become homages, references, and quotes.
Space Needle / John Graham & Company. Image Courtesy of Wikimedia user Rattlhed (Public Domain)
Buildings, perhaps unlike any other art form or edifice, have a capacity to influence or become part of a place's cultural identity and history. Defining an architectural monument is, however, an ambiguous exercise – most of their ilk only reach this status years after completion. AD Classics are ArchDaily's continually updated collection of longer-form building studies of the world's most significant architectural projects. Here we've assembled five structures and buildings which, often aside from original intentions, embody that most ephemeral feeling: a sense of progress.
https://www.archdaily.com/802463/ad-round-up-5-monuments-to-progressAD Editorial Team
