Rafael Viñoly: The Latest Architecture and News

Rafael Viñoly Architects’ Tokyo International Forum has been honored with the prestigious AIA Twenty-five Year Award. Celebrating its “distinctive transparent character and capacity to engage with the public in the largest metropolitan area in the world.” Rafael Viñoly Architects was first selected to design the structure through Japan’s first international design competition facilitated by Kenzo Tange, the architect of Tokyo’s City Hall and the first Japanese laureate of the Pritzker Prize.

Rafael Viñoly Architects has released new renderings of their design for the new international terminal at Aeroporto Amerigo Vespucci in Florence, Italy. According to the architects, upon completion, the new terminal is expected to welcome over 5.9 million passengers a year, becoming one of the largest airports in the Tuscany region of Italy. In a nod to the Tuscan traditions of winemaking, the terminal’s rooftop features a 19-acre productive vineyard. The project is divided into two construction phases, with the first one scheduled to be completed in 2026, and the second in 2035.

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On March 2, 2023, Rafael Viñoly passed away at the age of 78, leaving behind a legacy of bold and imposing designs that shaped the skyline of cities across the globe. He is internationally recognized for works such as the Boston Convention Center, which redefined urban space in the American city, the new Carrasco Airport in Montevideo, and the controversial 20 Fenchurch Tower in London.

Paul Clemence has released images of the Amaris mixed-use development in Washington D.C., one of the latest works completed by renowned Uruguayan American architect, Rafael Viñoly. The photographic series reveals a distinctively shaped curvilinear building opening towards public spaces along the Potomac River. The volume is created to accommodate residential units with generous views toward the surrounding landscape, marking the terminus point to a row of new buildings in The Wharf development.

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The world of architecture is mourning the death of the renowned Uruguayan-American architect, Rafael Viñoly, who passed away at the age of 78. With more than half a century of experience in the profession, Viñoly was known for his bold and imposing designs that were built in various cities around the world.

Rafael Viñoly's 125 Greenwich Street skyscraper in downtown Manhattan has topped out. The 912-foot-tall luxury condominium skyscraper was designed as a slender structure with exposed concrete columns. Rising 88 storys, the project includes a curved glass façade to enhance the panoramic views of the Hudson River, the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center Complex, and the New York City skyline.

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The World Architecture Festival (WAF) has announced their program for the 2017 edition focusing on the theme of “Performance.” An incredible list of speakers including Alison Brooks, Charles Jencks, Pierre de Meuron and France Kéré will feature across 3 days from November 15^th to 17^th at the Arena Berlin, Germany. Conferences, city tours, lectures and critiques of the shortlisted projects from the 2017 WAF awards are among the events scheduled for the festival.

The seminars, speeches, debates and discussions will examine “the topic of performance from the perspectives of housing, public spaces, festivals, cultural institutions and new technologies.”

Videos

In a review of Rafael Viñoly Architects' 20 Fenchurch Street, which is also known as the 'Walkie-Talkie' or 'Walkie Scorchie' after it emerged that its façade created a heat-focusing ray strong enough to melt cars, Rowan Moore questions London's preoccupation with iconic buildings and its money-driven planning schemes. Using 20 Fenchurch Street as a key example, Moore argues that not only does the building seem "to bear no meaningful relationship to its surroundings," but its Sky Garden - a terrace at the top of the building which claims to be "the UK’s tallest public park" - is a symbol of a bewilderingly unbalanced economy.

Work to alter Rafael Viñoly Architects' 20 Fenchurch Street - dubbed the Walkie Talkie due to its unusual shape and then the "Walkie Scorchie" after it created a heat-focusing ray strong enough to melt cars last summer - is due to start later this month, after planning permission for the additions was granted in April. The alterations, also designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects, will see horizontal aluminium louvres added to the glass facade between the 3rd and the 34th floor to ensure that the reflective "death ray" effect is not repeated.

More on the building after the break

Videos

New York's Park Avenue Armory, originally built in 1861 for the Seventh Regiment of the National Guard and restored by Herzog & de Meuron in 2007, is about to be temporarily taken over by Rafael Viñoly. On April 30th 2014 Artvest Partners will launch Spring Masters New York, "a fair for art produced between antiquity and the 20th century, which corresponds with Christie’s and Sotheby’s signature Impressionism and modern art auctions". Viñoly's hexagonal grid of exhibition rooms will fill the 55,000 square foot Drill Hall in an attempt to break with the monotony of the rectangular grid format.

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Why is the "Walkie Talkie" melting cars? Well, according to its architect, Rafael Viñoly, it's not because of the building's shape or material, but rather "the superabundance of consultants and subconsultants" that UK law requires.

As reported by BD Online, Viñoly admitted that the building's unusually hot solar reflection (or "death ray," as many headlines are calling it) had been predicted early in the design process; however, it was thought it would only reach a temperature of 36 degrees, "but in fact it’s 72."

Viñoly then went on, placing blame on the consultant-heavy nature of design in the UK: “One of the problems that happens in [...London] is the superabundance of consultants and sub consultants that dilute the responsibility of the designers until you don’t know where you are.”