Sunday, December 19, 2010
James Stirling Exhibition At the Yale Center for British Art
Curator Anthony Vidler, architecture dean at Cooper Union, discusses "Notes from the Archive: James Frazer Stirling, Architect and Teacher"
KTV House. By Standardarchitecture
The theme of the 2009 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Architecture\Urbanism was "City Mobilization." So Standardarchitecture created Eggs of the City — a pair of mobile living pods designed with China’s enormous population of young migrant workers in mind. Made of fiberglass, the playful egg-shaped units stood on the plaza of Shenzhen’s civic center; one doubled as a bench with a small sleeping area inside, while the other served as a karaoke room. Both were purely experimental, but a third, more fully outfitted variation was later made of bamboo at Standard’s office, by a firm member who, as of press time, had lived there full-time for more than three months.
Picture and text from Architectural Record.com
Friday, December 17, 2010
El Centro Cultural Recoleta festeja sus 30 años junto a sus hacedores
Fotos de commons.wikimedia.org
¨Hoy abre al público una muestra con obras de Clorindo Testa, Fernando Benedit y Jacques Bedel.
Hace tres décadas fueron los responsables de la obra arquitectónica que le dio origen. A partir de hoy, a las 19, la institución festejará su 30° aniversario con una exposición de esos tres grandes realizadores: Clorindo Testa, Luis Fernando Benedit y Jacques Bedel.
En diciembre de 1980, el Recoleta abrió sus puertas a la experimentación artística en un espacio remodelado por los tres artistas/arquitectos, que le dieron nueva función a un edificio que constituye una de las construcciones más antiguas que se conservan en la ciudad, que en el siglo XVIII había pertenecido a los frailes Franciscanos Recoletos y que luego se convirtió en un asilo de mendigos.
Bedel, Testa y Benedit en 1980. Foto de La Nación
Foto de info-recoleta.com
Foto de buenosaires.it
Para este aniversario, "era indispensable convocar a los tres geniales artistas que lo diseñaron", señaló Claudio Massetti, director del Recoleta, institución que pertenece al gobierno porteño. Reunidos por La Nacion, Testa, Benedit y Bedel recordaron la obra que los convocó como arquitectos, en un diálogo en el que el humor y el recuerdo se desplegaron en dosis parejas. "Fue una obra interesante, divertida arquitectónicamente, creo que nos llevamos bastante bien", comentó Benedit.
Hace treinta años, los tres posaron para una serie de fotografías en distintas partes del edificio. "Cuando veo la foto de aquella época lo primero que pienso es ¿y éstos quiénes son? Después me doy cuenta de que somos nosotros", comentó Testa con su habitual jovialidad.
En tanto, Bedel señaló: "Este edificio fue uno de los primeros que se hicieron como restauración, pero no histórica, sino con intervención de ideas contemporáneas, cosa que no tenía muchos antecedentes en esa época. Fue un desafío". También recordó que el Recoleta irrumpió en la escena cultural porteña como un espacio de experimentación artística y de propuestas nuevas que le daba oportunidades a la gente joven desde un ámbito oficial, lo cual era novedoso.
Testa rememoró el llamado que recibieron del entonces secretario de Cultura, Ricardo Freixá, para realizar la obra, debido a que los tres eran arquitectos y artistas. Nunca habían trabajado juntos como arquitectos, pero sí como artistas. Como integrantes del Grupo CAYC, en 1977 habían ganado el Gran Premio de la Bienal de San Pablo.
"Cuando nos convocaron para la obra del Recoleta fue un desafío y un honor, e hicimos el anteproyecto ad honorem ", dijo Bedel. Si bien no volvieron a realizar juntos otra obra arquitectónica, continuaron vinculados en el campo de las artes visuales. En cuanto a los roles durante la construcción del centro, Benedit comentó con humor: "Clorindo llegaba más temprano y lo agarraban a él primero. El era el bueno y yo el malo". En tanto, Bedel agregó en sintonía: "Yo era el jamón del sándwich, hacía de amortiguador entre las dos versiones".
Testa+Bedel+Benedit es la exposición de obras que, hasta el 20 de febrero, se exhibirá en la sala Cronopios del Recoleta (Junín 1930). Una selección que ofrece trabajos de distintas etapas de cada uno de los artistas, a lo largo de estos 30 años. Si bien sus propuestas artísticas son diferentes, hay elementos que los unen, como ellos mismos señalan: una forma parecida de pensar, una constante renovación, y ganas de seguir generando ideas y propuestas.¨
REFERENCIA
Texto tomado del artículo de Laura Casanovas para La Nación, Sección Cultura.
Siga leyendo:
Thursday, December 16, 2010
India to Build 24 Green Cities in Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor
Delhi. Picture posted in the article of inhabitat.com
¨As a rapidly developing country, India still makes heavy use of fossil fuels (especially coal) — however in recent years it has worked to diversify its energy supplies and make its infrastructure ‘greener’. The largest infrastructure project currently underway in the country is the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, and India just announced that it plans to build 24 ‘green cities‘ as part of the development.
The Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor is a major infrastructure project that India is developing with Japan. The project will upgrade nine mega industrial zones as well as the country’s high-speed freight line, three ports, and six airports. A 4,000 MW power plant and a six-lane intersection-free expressway will also be constructed, which will connect the country’s political and financial capitals. The DMIC project is already underway and it will cover six states — Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
The mega-project, which is rumored to cost over $90 billion, is being partially funded by the government along with Japanese loans and investment by Japanese firms. The 24 green cities are designed to boost India’s infrastructure in the smaller towns along this 1,483km corridor, as well as national economic growth and prosperity. A key part of the green city development will improve and repair the basic infrastructure of two major metropolitan cities that suffer from poor roads due to high levels of transport. A large portion of the funding will go into developing better transport facilities and public transport systems.¨
Keep on reading Timon Singh´s article for Inhabitat.com
The New King Abdullah Economic City
A computer rendering of the King Abdullah Financial District on the outskirts of Riyadh.
¨Saudi Arabia — Just off a desert road about an hour’s drive from this port city, an enormous arched gate capped by three domes rises out of the sand like the set for a 1920s silent film fantasy. It is, instead, a fantasy of contemporary urban planning, the site of what one day will be King Abdullah Economic City, a 65-square-mile development at the edge of the Red Sea. With a projected population of two million, the city is a Middle Eastern version of the “special economic zones” that have flourished in places like China.
The city is one of four being laid out on empty desert around this country, all scheduled for completion by 2030. They follow on the heels of the country’s first coeducational university, which opened last year next to the King Abdullah site, and a financial district nearly the size of Lower Manhattan that is rising on the outskirts of the capital, Riyadh.
Architecturally they couldn’t be more dreary and conventional — bloated glass towers encircled by quaint town houses and suburban villas decorated in ersatz historical styles. Their gargantuan scale and tabula rasa approach conjure old-style Modernist planning efforts like the creation of Brasília in the 1950s or the colossal Soviet urban experiments of the 1930s, but these are driven by anxiety over the future, not utopian idealism.
With more than 13 million Saudis — half the population — under 20, the 86-year-old Saudi ruler, King Abdullah, is trying to create more than a million new jobs and 4 million homes within 10 to 15 years. He and his royal clan envision an economy less dependent on oil, run by a new class of doctors, engineers and businessmen who can function in a global marketplace.
To accomplish this feat the Saudi government says it needs to crack the door open to some sort of Western-style modernity — or at least a softer version of the Islam practiced here, with its strictly enforced separation of the sexes, its severe restrictions on the public lives of women and the ever watchful eye of the religious police.¨
REFERENCE
An article by Nicolai Ouroussoff for The New York Times.
Keep on reading
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
YALE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE. Symposia spring 2011
“Middle Ground / Middle East: Religious Sites in Urban Context”
Friday and Saturday, 21 & 22 January 2011
Hastings Hall, Basement Level
Paul Rudolph Hall, 180 York Street
In a part of the word where the intersection of religious traditions has always been at the heart of both cultural identity and conflict, the importance of religious sites for shaping social life – especially in urban contexts – is critical. Religious sites are the outcome of human experiences realized within a particularly dynamic social context, embracing both cultural heritage and modernization. Their tangible and material aspects are among the most fundamental sources of solidarity, practices, beliefs, worldviews and aspirations – what might be called a “hidden cultural synthesis.” Moreover, these spaces are often an important element of the urban matrix within which change is facilitated – one thinks of recent work in such places as Samara, Beirut, Riyadh, Cairo and Jerusalem.
This symposium, co-sponsored by the Yale School of Architecture, the Yale Divinity School, the Yale Center for Middle East Studies, and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, will focus on the role of religious sites representing the three Abrahamic traditions in shaping the urban environments in the Middle East. Recognizing that sacred building – mosques, churches, synagogues, and other holy sites – has often been regarded as representative of patterns of social and cultural division, the symposium seeks to address the centrality of religious traditions, inter-faith relationships, and long practices of learning and tolerance. Leading architects and scholars from a variety of fields and religious backgrounds will examine through a plurality of perspectives the recent paradigm shifts regarding the relationship between architecture and religion and the ways in which religious sites currently engage urban regeneration, economic growth, cultural identity, memory, and the limits of multiculturalism.
Learn more:
CALL FOR PAPERS. Third Architecture. Culture and Spirituality Symposium
The THIRD Architecture. Culture and Spirituality Symposium will take place take place June 29-July 1 at Serenbe, a 1,000 acre community located under 25 minutes drive from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson
International Airport. Serenbe is an unique place that strives to support authentic living, working, learning and playing in celebration of life’s beauty and sanctity, through its nourishment of connections between people, nature and the arts. Its design provides an explicit structure, spatial order, and context for community, ceremonial events, and a strong sense of belonging. John Graham, one of its residents, puts it this way:
“Serenbe is marked by an extraordinary sense of community. What has contributed to this remains something of a mystery: The founder’s vision, the inculcation to the sacred, and the commitment to the principles of sacred geometry in physical design, have resulted in a strong sense of place that attracts residents sharing a commitment to the land, the environment, and to each other. The formula may not be simple, but the results are obvious to all.”
Keep on reading about the Symposium:
Monday, December 13, 2010
Permaculture Floating Tower in Amsterdam
It’s called Permaculture Floating Tower. With the ability to withstand high water levels, and through the design of a floating landscape, this building will stand strong, no matter the weather forecast.¨
Shared by Nicholas Roberts.(Permaculture coop.)
Keep on reading:
http://www.architecture-view.com/2010/12/08/permaculture-floating-tower-in-amsterdam/
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