Photographer: Flavio Bragaia | ArchDaily

Staging Culture: The Architect as Curator

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Architecture has never been confined to the act of building. It constantly negotiates between material practice and intellectual reflection, yet throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, many architects felt that the built project alone was insufficient to address the full range of questions facing the discipline. Economic pressures, political contexts, and programmatic demands often narrowed the scope of practice.

What is Good Architecture?

Christele Harrouk — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 03:30:00 +0000

Exploring materiality, contextuality, and approach, our editors developed thought-provoking articles seeking to question and describe some of the aspects that make any Architecture, a good one.

The Myth of Pure White Architecture: How Architects of Modernity Used Color

Maria-Cristina Florian — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 07:30:00 +0000

Given that the architects of modernity were in search of purity of form, it stands to reason that the image of this modern architecture is almost inevitably rendered in white in the collective imagination. Relieved of superfluous decorations, modern architecture became associated with the predominant use of white surfaces to highlight the volumetric composition. Combined with the concept of “material truth” first articulated by Victorian critic John Ruskin, white-colored architecture is often understood as straightforward, clear, and sincere.

Luxury Living Through the Ages, From the Castle to the Villa

Luke Fiederer — Fri, 02 Sep 2016 04:00:00 +0000

Although societies have transformed through the ages, wealth never truly seems to go out of style. That said, the manner in which it is expressed continually adapts to each successive cultural epoch. As a consequence of evolving social mores and emerging technologies, the ideal of “luxury” and “splendour” sees priorities shift from opulence to subtlety, from tradition to innovation, and from visual ornamentation to physical comfort.

IconicHouses Website Celebrates the House Museum

Holly Giermann — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

IconicHouses.org is a database that aims to connect people with the 20th century's most architecturally significant houses, specifically those that have been converted into house museums. The organization aims to not only highlight these incredible structures to make the public more aware of them, but also prevent their demolition through conservation and fundraising efforts.

6 Modern Pyramids that Show Timeless Geometry is Here to Stay

James Hinton — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 01:00:00 +0000

If you were a Greek tourist in the 1st century BCE you would likely have had something in your hand that would be quite familiar here in the 21st century. A guide book. The most popular guide book of the Hellenic world listed seven wonders of the world that should be visited by any Greek traveler.

AD Round Up: Happy Bastille Day!

Connor Walker — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The fourteenth of July is Bastille Day, a day that commemorates the start of the French Revolution. Named for the fortress prison that was stormed by revolutionaries on July 14^th, 1789, Bastille Day is celebrated globally both by France and her former colonies, as well as many cities in the US. In honor of this historic date, we’ve compiled some of our favorite French projects from the past few years. In this round up you’ll find classics such as the Villa dall’Ava by OMA, as well as fantastic works like Nova Green by Agence Bernard Bühler, Pontivy Media Library and Louviers Music school by Opus 5 architectes, Platform Architecture’s Aquitanis Headquarters, L’Atoll Angers by Antonio Virga Architecte and AAVP Architecture, a Parking Attendant’s Pavilion by Jean-Luc Fugier, Kengo Kuma’s Aix en Provence Conservatory of Music, and Origami by Manuelle Gautrand Architecture. Joyeux quatorze juillet!

Unified Architectural Theory: Chapter 4

Nikos Salingaros — Sun, 25 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

We will be publishing Nikos Salingaros’ book, Unified Architectural Theory, in a series of installments, making it digitally, freely available for students and architects around the world. The following chapter discusses the complexity of form languages and describes how to use the form language checklist to measure these complexities. If you missed them, make sure to read the introduction, Chapter One, Chapters 2A and Chapter 2B, and Chapter 3 first.

9 Architects Reflect on the Homes That Most Inspired Them

Nalina Moses — Thu, 01 May 2014 01:00:00 +0000

Where do you receive inspiration? Nalina Moses asked the question to nine contemporary residential architects, asking each to choose one residence that had left an impression on them. The following answers were first published on the AIA’s website in the article “Homing Instinct."

Kikutake's Sky House: Where Metabolism & Le Corbusier Meet

Michael Holt — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 10:30:00 +0000

In this article, first published in the Australian Design Review as "The Meeting of East and West: Kikutake and Le Corbusier", Michael Holt outlines the cross-fertilization of ideas that helped spawn the Japanese Metabolist movement, focusing on how Le Corbusier's ideals were key in the design of one of the movement's most enigmatic projects, Kiyonori Kikutake's Sky House.

London Calling: Public Architecture, Inside Out

Simon Henley — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

By its very nature, architecture has an obvious, and powerful, public presence. No matter who commissions buildings, they form the material backdrop of public life; the design of every building impacts towns and cities and the experience of those living and working in them. Architecture, though, is more than a stage-set. While, all too often, designed “iconic” buildings are indeed objects, and often vanity projects designed to show off the aspirations and egos of certain clients and architects, the space both inside and around these buildings, like most others, is public space: shared space, space used by communities of people, and space that often has psychological and emotional effects on very many of us. Think of shops, department stores, banks, offices and the many other buildings that, privately owned, play important roles in everyday public life.