Music is a vital connection to culture. While it serves as a source of entertainment, it is also a medium for communicating ideas and expressing artistic creativity. Through romantic, social, political, or historical themes, every song evokes memories and emotions.
Although there is an endless array of genres today compared to decades past, music still allows us to travel the world without leaving home through its lyrics and music videos. With this in mind, we have compiled a list of 10 songs that not only feature the names of cities in their titles, but also, through their lyrics and visual storytelling, capture the essence of each place—whether capitals or not—bringing to life the magic of their architecture and streets.
Foundations are certainly not the structural elements on which architects spend the most time during the design process. Since they are typically underground and serve a strictly technical purpose, this decision is usually left to structural engineers. However, foundations play a crucial role in construction, as they are the structural elements that transfer building loads to the ground.
The Catalan archipelago is shaped, across almost its entire length, by a small mountain range running along it, rising from the coastline tangent to the sea to form cliffs, and extending barely a dozen kilometers at its greatest extent.
The architecture native to this coastal strip of land is repeatedly categorized as Catalan architecture, thereby overlooking and overshadowing the architecture of the inland—dark, somber, heavy, and intensely material. An architecture—that of the interior—of slow digestion, backlights, and still air, carrying a different scent.
To the northeast, we find a region where beech trees stand still, growing at a lower altitude than anywhere else in the country. Where the light is softer, more diffused; where shadows are both fainter and deeper. Where it rains differently. Where people speak differently. Where the masias are different. There they live. There they work. We are speaking of Olot. We are speaking of RCR.
Accelerating the fight against climate change and social inequalities depends on cities. Photo: Daniel Hunter/WRI Brasil
The greatest force in the fight against climate change lies in the hands of cities. This is where most people live and where the global economy drives forward. However, according to the new report by the New Climate Economy, titled "Unlocking the Inclusive Growth Story of the 21st Century: Accelerating Climate Action in Urgent Times," urban areas are not leveraging their transformative potential to promote sustainable development. Ultimately, this could mean missing our final opportunities to reduce poverty and halt climate change.
https://www.archdaily.com/1113695/cities-need-ambitious-action-to-promote-sustainable-developmentWRI Brasil
The modernization of Bogotá between 1940 and 1970, captured through urban and architectural photo essays, has been documented in various books, magazines, and photobooks of the era, as well as in the city's public and private archives. These images reveal an intentional, even critical, approach to how modern architecture reconfigured city centers, bridging new buildings and urban spaces with the existing cityscape.
When analyzing the impact of photojournalism, it is essential to examine the work of Sady González, Manuel H. and Daniel Rodríguez. In their work, architecture and the city serve as the backdrop for scenes of urban life, figures, historical events, and daily activities; their photographs offer an indispensable visual record for understanding the city's transformation and its historical context.
When discussing cities like Amsterdam, we inevitably recall its network of canals and streets interwoven with water. Yet water is also one of the most pressing challenges the city faces. With 60% of its territory below sea level, climate change—and the rising sea and river levels that come with it—is a matter of survival not only for Amsterdam, but for the entire country.
Designed by Fabián Leiva, the Floating Cemetery project was selected as one of the 10 winners in the Thesis Project category of the 2018 Arquitectura Caliente Competition (CAC 2018), a Chilean contest organized by Grupo Arquitectura Caliente and funded by the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage.
In 2004, the Ralco reservoir in the Biobío Region was unexpectedly and irreversibly flooded, burying the local Pehuenche community's cemetery beneath its waters. Following years of trying to recover the bodies, studies demonstrated that salvage was unfeasible, leaving the inhabitants helpless in the face of the millions of cubic meters of water separating them from the cemetery. This situation sparked the idea to create a space in memory of a sacred, violated, and unrecoverable site—one that would bring the community closer to their deceased and eternally condemn the event.
The term ‘right to the city’ was on the lips of participants in the June 2013 protests, which were sparked by public transit fare hikes across several Brazilian states. It was also emblazoned on banners hanging from occupied vacant towers and abandoned buildings by the Ocupe Estelita movement, which has fought since 2008 to preserve the José Estelita Pier in Recife. Abroad, the phrase was splashed across Turkish signs when trees were felled in Istanbul’s Gezi Park to make way for a shopping mall.
But what, after all, does the right to the city actually mean—an expression vehemently invoked by social movements in recent years and one that, in Brazil, gained territoriality following the 2013 mobilizations?
Futura identidade visual da Oxford Street pedestrianizada ainda não está pronta. Imagem: TfL. Image Cortesia de TheCityFix Brasil
This month, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan released the draft of the new plan for the city which, according to him, marks a clean break from previous strategies. And he is not exaggerating, given that the targets to be pursued by 2029 include a near-total ban on new parking spaces and the construction of 650,000 new homes. While the plan is still in its initial draft, the British capital's efforts to curb air pollution are pushing forward the pedestrianization of one of its main central thoroughfares, Oxford Street, and even betting on biofuel derived from coffee to power buses across the country.
Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza. Image Cortesía de COAM
Architect Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza is undoubtedly a pivotal figure in 20th-century Spanish architecture. Designer of iconic works like Torres Blancas and the current Castellana 81, Sáenz de Oiza was twice awarded the National Architecture Award (1946 and 1954), served as Director of the Madrid School of Architecture (1981–1983), and was a figure whose work and theoretical reflections shaped the course of the Modern Movement in Spain.
This year marks the centenary of his birth in the town of Cáseda (Navarra). To celebrate this milestone, the 15th Architecture Week will pay tribute to him with a major exhibition charting his entire career. Titled Centenario Sáenz de Oiza. 1918-2018 (Sáenz de Oiza Centenary. 1918-2018), the exhibition is organized by the COAM Architecture Foundation in partnership with the Directorate-General for Architecture of the Ministry of Development, and curated by his children, architects Vicente, Javier, and Marisa Sáenz Guerra.
Banco Holandés / Rafael Vélez Calisto. Image Cortesía de J. Paredes para Rafael Vélez Calisto
The 1970s and 1980s witnessed a new urban image in the Ecuadorian capital. Rafael Vélez Calisto graduated in 1970, going on to become one of its most prominent and prolific architects. He expressed his architecture for a thriving country and capital that offered unique opportunities to professionals, driven by oil exploitation, the growth of the public and private sectors, and rapid urban expansion.
The capital shifted the profile of its main corridors, gradually shaping itself as a vertical city. Along Quito's Avenida Amazonas, the dominant presence of large, still-functional estates gradually disappeared, replaced by high-rise buildings (1)—an urban landscape that continued to spread along new arteries toward the north.
In these areas, several of his notable, contemporary, and cosmopolitan buildings stand out.
Originally published in Metropolis Magazine as El Equipo Mazzanti Heals a Gash in Bogotá’s Urban Fabric. With a Patchwork of Verdant Gardens, Anna Fixsen writes about Bicentennial Park in Bogotá. "Once a lightning rod for controversy, the innovative park now reconnects two areas at the heart of the city's historic center," she writes.
It is impossible to experience Bogotá without encountering the aura of Rogelio Salmona. Perhaps more than any other architect, Salmona shaped the urban identity of this Andean city through civic and poetic buildings. From a small balcony in his last office—located at the top of a tower he designed himself—a tableau of Salmona's legacy unfolds: directly ahead, the massive volumes of the Torres del Parque, a three-tower residential complex completed in 1970; and to the south, MAMBO, the Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá.
Located on São Paulo's most iconic avenue, after eight years of construction, the new Sesc Avenida Paulista branch finally opened its doors last Sunday, April 29. Guided by the triad “Art, Body, and Technology,” the institution—which expects approximately 18,000 visitors per week—has already seen these expectations begin to materialize.
The Sustainable Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance's new platform brings together tools to help urban managers build more sustainable cities. Photo: Taís Policanti/Flickr
By 2050, more than two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities – hubs that catalyze economic, cultural, and political progress, but also consume vast resources and account for 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions. To avoid catastrophic climate change while ensuring a prosperous and sustainable future, we must act quickly.
https://www.archdaily.com/1113777/new-digital-tools-help-urban-leaders-turn-ideas-into-actionMark Watts e Ani Dasgupta
The concept of Complete Streets has gained prominence in recent years and has arrived in Brazil bringing the vision that streets must be planned, designed, operated, and maintained to allow safe, convenient, and comfortable travel for all users, regardless of age, ability, or mode of transportation.
Based at the Universidad Europea de Valencia, MArch. Architecture, Design and Innovation offers postgraduate training in Architecture and Design through three educational programs.
Starting in May, Argentina reaffirms its presence at the Venice Biennale with an invitation to critically rethink the territory.
The "Imagined Lines" exhibition in the Argentine Pavilion, Horizontal Vertigo, curated by architects Javier Mendiondo, Pablo Anzilutti, Francisco Garrido, and Federico Cairoli, is a proposal to rediscover the territory as a collective construction—based on the potential of the relationship we perceive between territory and society—understanding architecture through its capacity to spark unexpected possibilities in each project.
Explore the selected projects and a statement from the curators below.
Pavilhão da Utopia. Image Cortesia de Eduardo Longo
Describing the work of an architect is sometimes an arduous task. Categorizing a production based on the various criteria to which a body of work is tied often subjects it to the constraints of its historical context. Eduardo Longo, however, represents a clear exception, as his work actively rejected the prevailing principles of his time in pursuit of continuous experimentation. Entering the School of Architecture and Urbanism at Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie in São Paulo in 1961, he encountered a unique moment in Brazilian architecture: the formation of the so-called “Escola Paulista” (São Paulo School) alongside national political instability, marked by the onset of the military dictatorship and the construction of the new federal capital, Brasília.
As a student, he distanced himself from the canons of the Escola Paulista, seeking instead to experiment and foster new architectural discourse. Against this backdrop, during his fourth year of university, Longo designed the Mar Casado beach house. Intended for his aunt and uncle, the project was heavily criticized by both faculty and peers due to its “independent way of interpreting architecture” [1] and its structural configuration—which featured a non-orthogonal design with acute and obtuse angles beneath a multifaceted roof—openly defying Paulista Brutalism. Despite the backlash, the house was built and eventually gained recognition: art critic Pietro Maria Bardi praised its relevance in 1967, followed by a feature in *Domus* magazine in 1968 and its inclusion in Yves Bruand’s seminal 1981 book [2].
Media and technology have been revolutionizing content creation across diverse niches, and architecture is no exception. YouTube channels, television shows, and specialized playlists on architecture and urbanism are just a few examples. Over the last few years, however, podcasts have emerged as a powerful alternative. Unlike other media, podcasts are an audio-only format shared across a wide range of platforms—from specialized websites to blogs. Today, there are countless listening options available, both Brazilian (as listed below) and international, as previously published by ArchDaily.
Finding specialized podcasts can be a daunting task. To help, we have gathered a list of nine Brazilian podcast channels for you to listen to. Put on your headphones and check them out:
The Son Jarocho Documentation Center is a cultural venue in the city of Jáltipan de Morelos. Dating back to 1998, its former headquarters suffered severe structural damage during the 2017 earthquakes in Mexico, which affected several regions. As a result, municipal authorities determined that it was necessary to rebuild the facility.
Bringing this project to fruition required the involvement of various institutions and fundraising events. Among these was a campaign led by Mexican singer Natalia Lafourcade titled 'Un Canto por México' in Anaheim, California.
Brazil's National Urban Mobility Policy (PNMU), the requirement for municipal mobility plans, investments in cycling infrastructure, not to mention the new mobility services that hit the streets every day—the sector has undoubtedly made significant strides in recent years. Nevertheless, numerous challenges remain.
https://www.archdaily.com/1113776/3-challenges-for-sustainable-mobility-in-brazilian-citiesWRI Brasil
Colonia del Sacramento, on the shores of the Río de la Plata in southern Uruguay. From the ferry—if arriving from Buenos Aires—one can spot the famous lighthouse rising above a cluster of historic stone houses and cobblestone streets; a historic center declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which features not only a colonial and post-colonial architecture blending Spanish and Portuguese influences, but also compelling restoration and renovation projects that demonstrate a thoughtful embrace of Uruguayan memory.
Its architectural landmarks emerge naturally from an atmosphere frozen in time as you explore the city on foot along its waterfront and green spaces. Below, discover a list of 10 sites you should visit.
Together with an archaeologist and a visual artist, the team led by architect and University of Chile academic Claudia Torres has documented a series of industrial ruins in rural areas throughout Chile for the project “From Noise to Silence: Valuing Industrial Ruins in Rural Areas,” a research project funded by Fondart 2017.
With a diameter of 100 meters and the capacity to service 36 steam locomotives simultaneously, the authors of this article—Claudia Torres, Sandro Maino, Ricardo Labra, Valentina Soto, and Laura Gallardo—argue that the San Rosendo railway workshops must be declared a Historical Monument in Chile.
From the viewpoints of the town of San Rosendo (Chile), the railway workshop complex can be appreciated in all its splendor, situated at the foot of the town, on the banks of the Biobío River, and connected to the imposing railway bridge that crosses the Laja River.
GENTE – Experimental Gymnasium of New Educational Technologies, located at the André Urani school, in the Rocinha community (RJ). Photo credit: Agência Grupo do Rio.
Over 469 years after the construction of the first Brazilian school—built in Salvador, Bahia, by Jesuits who taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and Catholic doctrine—school architecture remains indistinguishable within the urban fabric of most Brazilian cities. Characterless and rigid buildings, unable to connect with their surroundings due to enclosing walls, were once described by architect Mayumi Souza Lima as "structures [that] could just as easily be meant for children, bags of beans, or cars, since they are merely covered areas, with a ceiling and a floor."