Cultural: The Latest Architecture and News

One of the greatest Mediterranean Ports is about to be transformed. Work has begun on the Old Port of Marseille as part of a series of regeneration projects to be completed in time for the city’s inauguration as European Capital of Culture in 2013. Based on French landscape architect Michel Desvigne’s and London-based architects Foster + Partners’ competition-winning master plan, the project will reclaim the quaysides as a civic space, creating new informal venues for performances and events, while traffic is relocating traffic to a safe, semi-pedestrianised public realm.

Lord Foster stated, “I know the harbor at Marseille well and it is a truly grand space. This project is a great opportunity to enhance it using very simple means, to improve it with small, discreet pavilions for events, for markets, for special occasions. Our approach has been to work with the climate, to create shade, but at the same time to respect the space of the harbor – just making it better.”

Designed by Henning Larsen Architects and Batteriid Architects, the Harpa Concert Hall was one of the finalists for Building of the Year. On the border between land and sea, the Center stands out as a large, radiant sculpture reflecting both sky and harbor space as well as the vibrant life of the city. This is all very elegantly represented in Pedro Kok‘s video which gives us more insight to the building from multiple viewpoints.

Planned for completion in 2014, the iconic United Nations Headquarters (UNHQ) is in the middle of a $1.876 billion refurbishment project, known as the Capital Master Plan, which seeks to update the aging building with a more safe, modern and sustainable work environment. Located on the 18-acre site that was donated by John D. Rockefeller in the 1950s, the Manhattan UNHQ was designed by an international team of eleven architects who worked together in a post-World War II world to create an landmark building through collaboration rather than competition.

Continue reading for more details on the Capital Master Plan. 

The people of Aberdeen, Scotland have voted in favor of the £140m Aberdeen City Garden redevelopment proposal designed by the New York-based practice Diller, Scofidio & Renfro (DS+R), in collaboration with local architects Keppie Design and Philadelphia landscape architects OLIN.

DS+R plans to redevelop the nineteenth-century Union Terrace Gardens with a Granite Web that intends to “fuse nature and culture into a vital social network at the heart of the city” with an “elastic web of three-dimensional interconnections” that spans across the six-hectare site. Continue reading for more information.