Coop Himmelb(l)au have revealed the first images of their winning entry for the new science and technology museum in Xingtai, the oldest city in northern China. The concept generated by the architects celebrates the scientific aspect and progress of the region and anchors the status of Xingtai as a technological hub and key player in the province.
Writing is an unending dialogue that has been connecting one generation to another, maintaining history, culture, and information. For the National Museum of World Writing, stories were built rather than written.
Just as writing transcends the author to another realms, SAMOO Architects and Engineers have proposed ‘PAGES’, a structure of architecturally-devised scripts that disconnects visitors from the outer world, and introduces them to an exceptional architectural narration.
The Museum of London has unveiled the design for their new West Smithfield home. Designed by Stanton Williams, Asif Khan, and Julian Harrap Architects, the plans showcase the transformation of a campus of beautiful yet dilapidated market buildings into a 24-hour cultural destination. The scheme celebrates the historic buildings of West Smithfield, while creating a unique, memorable visitor experience.
Hey5 has unveiled its design for the National Museum of Finland, an entry for a recent international design competition. The scheme is titled “Suppa,” inspired by the typical Finnish landform where a hollow is created by the melting of buried blocks of glacial ice. The ambition behind the proposal was to create a bold object containing a flexible organizational system to host the museum's demanding international exhibitions.
Studio Libeskind has unveiled details of Ngaren: The Museum for Humankind, a museum dedicated to the story of humans to be situated in the Great Rift Valley, Kenya. Commissioned by paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey, the museum will be the culmination of Dr. Leakey’s work, whose fossil discoveries have helped to reveal how humans evolved. The Museum will be the first center of its kind to present research, discovery, and exploration of more than two million years of human history and the origins of our universe from evolution, biodiversity, overpopulation, to war, disease, and climate change.
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If there is any consistent factor in his work, says Pritzker-winning architect Tadao Ando, then it is the pursuit of light. Ando’s complex choreography of light fascinates most when the viewer experiences the sensitive transitions within his architecture. Sometimes walls wait calmly for the moment to reveal striking shadow patterns, and other times water reflections animate unobtrusively solid surfaces. His combination of traditional Japanese architecture with a vocabulary of modernism has contributed greatly to critical regionalism. While he is concerned with individual solutions that have a respect for local sites and contexts Ando’s famous buildings – such as the Church of the Light, Koshino House or the Water Temple – link the notion of regional identity with a modern imagining of space, material and light. Shoji walls with diffuse light are reinterpreted in the context of another culture, for instance, filtered through the lens of Rome’s ancient Pantheon, where daylight floods through an oculus. Ando’s masterly imagination culminates in planning spatial sequences of light and dark like he envisioned for the Fondation d’Art Contemporain François Pinault in Paris.
Reacting to the influx of gargantuan, iconic museum buildings produced by China’s recent “museum boom,” MORE Architecture aimed to create an intricate, experiential space with their design for Ginkgo Gallery. The gallery, construction on which has now begun, was conceived as a humble merging of art and nature, part of a network of private museums in the Yangtze River Delta. Ginkgo Gallery also houses an auditorium and workshop space in an effort to make art a part of public life and educate children in contemporary art.
Berlin has been a main witness of the greatest cultural, religious, political and artistic transformations of Europe throughout the centuries and its architectural and urban heritage allow us to revisit through its streets, monuments and buildings the convulsive history of this continent. From its origins in the middle Ages it has witnessed the raise of the Prussian Empire and its collapse after the First World War, its resurgence as the Weimar Republic and later the formation of the III Reich. It has seen the horrors of World War II, occupied and divided by a shameful wall for almost 30 years and later, after its fall, it has experienced the reunification of a country to finally establish itself as the most important capital of Europe.
On June 12, 2016, the largest and deadliest act of violence affecting LGBTQ+ people, and one of the deadliest terrorist attacks by a single gunman in modern American history occurred at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. A total of 49 people’s lives were taken that night, 68 others were injured, and hundreds were left permanently affected by the trauma.
In the aftermath, the Orlando community and the world came together to prove that love will overcome fear and hatred. Under this banner, the onePULSE Foundation, an educational nonprofit, was created to memorialize this tragedy and ensure that Pulse’s legacy of love, acceptance, and hope will never be lost.
Architects often find inspiration from the most unexpected places and objects. For Kalliope Kontozoglou, the C6th Cypriot Sphinx in the Louvre Museum and its tilted head were great influence behind her proposal for the International Architectural Competition for the New Cyprus Museum.
To honor the country’s rich historic archeology, and frame Nicosia’s topography, Kontozoglou proposed a multidimensional museum, which aims to weave the city’s topography, the exhibitions, and the public spaces all together in a sequence of ‘narrative landscapes’, promoting dialogue between the visitors, Cyprus’ landscape, and the country’s heritage.
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The Odunpazari Modern Museum (OMM) by Kengo Kuma and Associates will open in June 2019, situated in Eskişehir, a university town in the northwest of Turkey. The OMM will feature an internationally significant collection of modern and contemporary art, showcased within a scheme designed by the architect behind the recently-completed V&A Dundee.
The 4,500-square-meter scheme is defined by a distinctive stacked timber design, drawing inspiration from Odunpazari’s traditional Ottoman wooden cantilevered houses that are synonymous with the district, and pays homage to the town’s history as a thriving wood market. Along with several other city museums in the surrounding area, OMM will create a museum square and public meeting place in the town.
Hungarian firm Építész Stúdió has revealed their design for the New Museum of Transport in Hungary, a scheme which was placed third in an international competition won by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The Építész Stúdió scheme imagined a new structure placed perpendicular to the existing building on the site, with the two buildings intertwined into one system.
The new series of structures manifest as a virtual continuation of the former head building on the street side, with a band-like entrance canopy linking the old and new units on the railway side. Intersecting the old and new buildings, a “Recreation Bridge” connects to the existing static volume to the dynamic additions.
Architecture and design practice Diller Scofidio + Renfro have been selected to design the Hungarian Museum of Transport in Budapest. As the new home for one of the oldest transport museums in Europe, the project will be sited in a former railway yard. The project uses the idea of ground transportation as a central organizing principle, highlighting the central role of the ground in urban planning and infrastructure. The design de-familiarizes ground by excavating, lifting, and cutting to produce unexpected environments.
Snøhetta has designed a new Museum Quarter for Bolzano, Italy that will be home to Ötzi the Iceman. Sited atop Virgl mountain, the project would overlook the city and connect to the new Bolzano cable car. As an open landmark, the Museum Quarter was made to serve as a terrace for Bolzano. The elevated museum and park will include exhibition and collection space around the iconic 5,300-year old glacier mummy.
Turkish practice Melike Altınışık Architects (MAA) has won an international competition for the design of a Robot Science Museum in Seoul, South Korea. Hosted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the competition called for a “world first” museum to support public education in robotics, and increase public interest in robots.
The principles of robotics, science, technology, and innovation have shaped all aspects of the scheme’s design, from form and structure to material and operation. The main character of the museum is to “create its own universe for robots and their visitors,” manifesting as a non-directional, fluid, spherical structure.
Uusi Kansallinen (in English: the New National) is a two-stage, open ideas architecture competition for the design of an Annex to the National Museum of Finland in Helsinki. The competition has been jointly organized by the Finnish Heritage Agency, the National Museum of Finland and Senate Properties.
The new Annex will facilitate the production of large-scale and technically demanding exhibitions for the National Museum of Finland. In addition to exhibitions, its multi-use, easily adaptable spaces will be well suited for a diverse range of cultural, art and recreational events, conferences and other functions.
A maximum prize pool of EUR 220,000 is available for prizes.
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Given the sheer magnitude and influence of its recorded history, Italy as we know it is a surprisingly young country. For centuries, the region was divided between powerful (and sometimes warring) city-states, each with their own identity, culture, and, fortunes, and influence. Some are eternally famous. Rome is a cradle of history and heart of religion; cool Milan is a hub of contemporary fashion and design; Florence is synonymous with the Renaissance and all the epoch’s relationship to the arts.
Turin’s history is arguably less romantic. The small city in Savoy, a north-Italian region bordering France, has established an identity as an industrial powerhouse. It is home to FIAT and some of Italy’s finest universities; the streets are dotted with works by Nervi, Botta, and Rossi. But despite the design pedigree, perhaps nothing better illustrates the region’s faceted history better than Castello di Rivoli.
.jpg?1564809225 "© SAMOO Architects and Engineers")
_Asif_Khan.jpg?1562074898 "© Asif Khan")
.jpg?1548948676 "© Dave Southwood")
.jpg?1548949093 "© Dave Southwood")
.jpg?1548948182 "© Dave Southwood")
.jpg?1548948366 "© Dave Southwood")
.jpg?1555434139 "Koshino House, Ashiya-shi / Japan. Image © Kazunori Fujimoto")
_(2).jpg?1553001038 "© Kengo Kuma and Associates")
_(4).jpg?1553001120 "© Kengo Kuma and Associates")
_(3).jpg?1553001082 "© Kengo Kuma and Associates")
_(6).jpg?1553001198 "© Kengo Kuma and Associates")
.jpg?1548265246 "Castello di Rivoli / Andrea Bruno (Refurbishment). Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu")
.jpg?1548265270 "Castello di Rivoli / Andrea Bruno (Refurbishment). Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu")
.jpg?1548265404 "Castello di Rivoli / Andrea Bruno (Refurbishment). Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu")
.jpg?1548265416 "Castello di Rivoli / Andrea Bruno (Refurbishment). Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu")