cultural-center

• Architects

  Hans Scharoun

• Location

  Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße 1, 10785 Berlin, Germany

• Architect

  Hans Scharoun

• References

  greatbuildings.com, wikiarquitectura.com

• Project Year

  1963

• Photographs

  Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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• Architects

  Zhejiang University Urban-Rural Planning&Design Institute

• Location

  Yunqi Town, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

• Architecture Groups

  Adjacent Design, Zhejiang University Urban-Rural Planning&Design Institute

• Collaborating Architects

  Zhejiang Province Institute of Architectural Design and Research

• Lead Architects

  Di Ma, Xin Jin, Lianping Mao

• Construction Team

  Zhejiang Provincial Yijian Construction Group LTD.

• Design Team

  Sheng Jiang, Jialiang Zhang, Weifen Shen, Shang Wang, Mengjun Mao

• Structural Design

  Jian Jiao, Yunjun Lu, Wuqiang Feng, Guozhi Peng

• Area

  66680.0 m2

• Project Year

  2017

• Photographs

  Lianping Mao

This article was originally published on May 25, 2015. To read the stories behind other celebrated architecture projects, visit our AD Classics section.

Before the impossibly “super-thin” tower became ubiquitous on the Midtown Manhattan skyline, Raimund Abraham’s Austrian Cultural Forum challenged the limits of what could be built on the slenderest of urban lots. Working with a footprint no bigger than a townhouse (indeed, one occupied the site before the present tower), Abraham erected a daring twenty-four story high-rise only twenty-five feet across. Instantly recognizable by its profile, a symmetrical, blade-like curtain wall cascading violently toward the sidewalk, ACFNY was heralded by Kenneth Frampton as “the most significant modern piece of architecture to be realized in Manhattan since the Seagram Building and the Guggenheim Museum of 1959.” [1]

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This article was originally published on November 25, 2014. To read the stories behind other celebrated architecture projects, visit our AD Classics section.

Architects have never enjoyed a position of such supreme prominence as they did in the worldview of Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller. To him, architects alone were capable of understanding and navigating the complex interrelationships of society, technology, and environment as viewed through the comprehensive paradigm of systems theory. Architecture, in this model, was intended to exist in close contact with both mankind and nature, playing civilization’s most critical role in elevating the state of humanity and promoting its responsible stewardship of the environment. Emerging from the ethical positivity of postwar modernism, this melioristic perspective marks perhaps the zenith of optimism’s ascent in mid-twentieth century thought, and gave Fuller a uniquely moral blueprint for his revolutionary designs.

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Lithuanian city Panevezys will have a new cultural hub thanks to the winning design of architecture firm, IMPLMNT. The proposed design of the Stasys Eidrigevicius Arts Centre, which will be built in the northern part of the city center, won the competition due to its function, location, architecture, and the social/economic value it will be adding to the city.

The center will take the place of an existing movie theater, a historic landmark in the Lithuanian city. After performing structural analysis on the existing theater, a study of the conditions indicated that it can no longer be preserved or saved. Keeping in mind the importance of the movie theater to the city, the architects at IMPLMNT decided to draw inspiration from the existing building, as well as use its proportions to create the newly-designed structure.

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Oslo-based architecture firm Ekberg Lous Arkitekter have designed Norway’s first World Heritage Visitor Center, after having won the open international architectural competition in 2008. Following the competition, the project was halted for seven years due to a lack of funding, but has been given the green light in 2015 with revised plans and a new site. The center, which will be built on the tip of the northern shore of Vega Island, is expected to be a gathering point for both locals and foreigners. It will provide visitors with knowledge about the natural and cultural values of the Vega Archipelago and world heritage sites in general. The center is set to be open in spring 2019.

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• Architects

  Architectural Design & Research Institute of Zhejiang University

• Location

  Intersection of Jiuzhou Street and Jiquan Road, Linan District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

• Principle Architect

  Danshen Dong

• Project Team

  Jian Chen, Jian Ni, Yi Cai

• Structural Engineer

  Gang Gan, Jianlu Zhou, Jiepan Shen

• MEP Consultant

  Yi Yang, Ping Li, Nan Li, Bing Jiang

• Quantity Surveyor

  Yunfeng Wang

• Area

  74986.0 m2

• Project Year

  2015

• Photographs

  Qiang Zhao

UNStudio has been selected as the winner of the largest ever private initiative architectural competition to be held in France – for the keystone ‘Centre Culturel’ of the new EuropaCity development currently being developed in the Triangle de Gonesse region just north of Paris.

As a brand new ground-up district, in 2017 EuropaCity launched a call for the design of 8 key buildings to be located within BIG’s competition winning master plan, including a concert hall, hotels, contemporary circus and exhibition hall. UNStudio was chosen to design the new Centre Culturel Dédié Au 7è Art, which will house a cinema complex and “cultural laboratory.”

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SPF:a has revealed their design for the new Anaheim Performing Arts Center (APAC) to be located adjacent to Angels Stadium in Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle District. The $500 million, 500,000-square-foot cultural campus will contain three theaters and a range of culture and entertainment program elements, housed within striking buildings inspired by the orange tree.

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Clément Blanchet Architecture has been selected as the winner of an international competition for the design of a new cultural center to be located in the Paris suburb of Gonesse, France, beating out proposals from Bernard Tschumi & Moreau Kusunoki.

Named Circus³, the facility features a unique tensile roof evocative of a circus pavilion, and will house a 1,500 seat theater for a variety of cultural performances and events.

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From Greek architect and photographer, Yiorgis Yerolymbos comes a book which captures the construction process of Renzo Piano’s Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre in Athens, Greece. Yerolymbos carefully documented every moment where the superfluous Olympic parking lot became a cultural center and sloping park with waterfront views. For almost a decade, and from every angle, the photographer watched the site transform. Birds-eye imagery proved to be some of the most captivating. As photographs, they manage to possess the characteristics of an architectural drawing.

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• Architects

  Maki and Associates

• Location

  1187 Wanghai Rd., Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China

• Architect in Charge

  Fumihiko Maki

• Design Team

  Tomoyoshi Fukunaga, Tatsutomo Hasegawa, Yasuko Okuyama, Yoshihiko Taira, Kazuo Sato, Kei Ito, Michael Sypkens*, Hiromi Kouda* (*former staff)

• KMDW

  Hiroto Kobayashi, Yiqing Wang, Taishi Kawada

• Area

  73918.08 m2

• Project Year

  2017

• Photographs

  Shuixiang, Studio Onsite

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• Architects

  TAOA

• Location

  Yu Ming Lu, Mingshan Qu, Benxi Shi, Liaoning Sheng, China

• Architect in Charge

  Lei Tao

• Design Team

  Bozhou Kang, Zhen Chen

• Area

  4000.0 m2

• Project Year

  2016

• Photographs

  Zhi Xia

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• Architects

  Shenzhen Huahui Design Co. Ltd

• Location

  Beicheng New District, Hefei, Anhui, China

• Architect in Charge

  Xiao Cheng

• Project architect

  Yin Shibo, He Qifan, Mao Weiwei

• Owner

  Hefei Vanke Real Estate Co.,Ltd&& Suzhou New Real Estate Group Co., Ltd

• Owner management team

  Chen Zhuo, Ren Muyuan, Tan Xiang, Zou Xiang

• Area

  3400.0 m2

• Project Year

  2017

• Photographs

  Yao Li, Sui Sicong