Cultural: The Latest Architecture and News

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SO-IL, in collaboration with FREAKS freearchitects, has been selected as the first-prize winner of a competition to reinvent the historic Site Verrier in France. Located in the Northern Vosges Natural Park, the updated plan addresses three elements of the site's industrial past while providing a dynamic space for cultural interaction and historic exploration of Site Verrier's glass factory days.

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This sculptural memorial by SO/AP Architectes, located at the center of what was the Warsaw Ghetto, commemorates the history and memories of the Polish nation by uniting its oppressive and heroic pasts in one form. Simultaneously representing the Jewish and non-Jewish population, the serpentine structure symbolizes the entirety of the Polish people to strengthen their identity as one collective community.

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The Bengal Foundation has begun work on its Contemporary Arts and Crafts Museum, Bangladesh's first private museum of its kind. The ambitious complex will house multi-media works from the organization's founder Abul Khair's private collection, pieces by local artists, a sculpture garden, and a boat museum to celebrate the various cultural arts of local residents.

Learn more about the museum's design, after the break.

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RTA-Office has released its first-prize winning proposal for the Wuhu Urban Planning Exhibition, Office, and Archive. The design stems from the idea of an “urban cultural container,” holding both knowledge and space, and extracts its sculptural form from the surrounding mountainous landscape.

Pushing for the Exhibition Hall to be a recognizable landmark, the design is largely driven by its surrounding context. The building as a whole derives its shape from the rocky faces of the nearby Yashan Mountain, giving it a strong sense of place. Similarly, the structure is divided into three distinct sections all grounded by a central public space, each informed by the same rocky inspiration. The cracks in the rocks’ surfaces are mirrored in the irregular entrances and windows carved into the building’s volumes.

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Herzog & de Meuron have unveiled the design for their Slow Food Pavilion, due for completion by the 2015 Milan Expo in May. Showcasing the work of Carlo Petrini's Slow Food organization, the pavilion promotes the global organization's vision of universal access to "good, clean and fair food."

Sited on a triangular piece of land in the Eastern end of the Expo's central boulevard, the pavilion uses a a triangular configuration of tables to evoke what Herzog & de Meuron describe as "an atmosphere of refectory and market."

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