Will Zaha Hadid be able to change the boring architecture of California?

Zaha Hadid´s project for Elk Grove Civic Center, California

As I said in a previous post, all Californian architecture is the same. A shopping is like a pharmacy, and it´s like a house, like a market, and so on. Specially in young cities like Huntington Beach. And then, inhabitants and City Council members, who have to take decisions, do not know anything else but the same stucco on post modern architecture everywhere.

It´s very funny for me to read about this issue in Elk Grove, and I´m not defending arch. Zadid´s building, I´ve seen only this squid-picture, but I can imagine upset people shouting at the City Council, insulting the proposed project for the Civic Center.

Let us read some paragraphs from the New York Times.

Old town Elk Grove, California. Is this the architecture the City is proud of? I´ll have to visit Elk Grove and see for myself.... Picture from interwestgrp.net

¨The firm owned by the internationally renowned architect Zaha Hadid is in high demand these days, designing projects in Hong Kong, Milan and Seoul, not to mention the London Aquatics Center, the swimming arena for the 2012 Olympics.

But one of the firm’s smaller clients, the city of Elk Grove, population 153,000, recently conjured far different kinds of aquatic life when members of the City Council and the public chose words like “squid,” “octopus” and “starfish” to describe the latest renderings for a proposed civic center.

Other descriptions were more alien than aquatic. One councilman described the architectural study as “an animal from a different planet,” while the mayor, Steven Detrick, said he was expecting “to hear the theme from ‘Star Wars’ to start playing” during the presentation. None of these comments were intended as compliments.

But it wasn’t always this way.

As the economy inches back toward stability, some cities are beginning to dust off their pre-recession playbooks and dream big again. And few cities were moving as quickly before the financial crisis as this Sacramento suburb, which the Census Bureau proclaimed America’s fastest-growing city in 2006.

It was then that Elk Grove, incorporated in 2000, held an international design competition to create a master plan for a $159 million civic center complex on 78 acres. The project was to include a performing arts center, library, youth sports complexes, convention space and more. The council hoped that an iconic piece of architecture could vault the young city to higher heights, à la Bilbao in Spain and its Guggenheim museum.

And so, this suburban community where City Council agendas have included discussions on topics like how to deal with rampant beaver dams, chose Ms. Hadid, a Baghdad-born, London-based architect known for soaring biomorphic shapes that make Frank Gehry’s work look tame.

The mayor was thrilled that they had landed such a big fish. “We hit a home run on this one,” gushed James Cooper, the mayor at the time. “The citizens are so excited. The big thing is to let her be an architect and not stifle the process. We want her to think of something different. This is a new chapter in Elk Grove’s life.”

It was a chapter, though, that ended with the recession. And the idea gathered dust until last summer, when the city resumed its relationship with Ms. Hadid’s firm to fashion the center’s master plan, the process in which the scale and proximity of the structures is determined, though the actual design of individual buildings will be decided later.

But one important factor had changed since she was first selected. Three of the five City Council members were new, and one of the most vocal opponents of the Hadid selection in 2006 was now mayor.(...)

One unabashed fan is the city’s planning director, Taro Echiburu, who expects to start a new competition for the design stage this summer and hopes that Ms. Hadid’s firm will participate. “I loved the designs,” he said. Informed, however, that the mayor said he was unlikely to support any project proposed by Ms. Hadid’s firm, Mr. Echiburu insists that he still hopes for the best. “I’ll be disappointed if this ends up as Anytown, U.S.A.,” he said.¨

Elk Grove library. From interwestgrp.net

Elk Grove City Hall. From interwestgrp.net

After seeing the pictures above of ¨Anytown USA¨, I can understand why citizens reject Mrs Hadid´s project. Thanks God there´s still planner Echiburu to defend something new, maybe a little adjustment to the squid shape would be enough???

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/us/01hadid.html?_r=3&ref=us

The public space in Western Africa

Street in Accra Ghana. Photo by Stacey Passmore

As I´ve stated so many times, cultural values should always be present at the moment of designing a city, a town or even a small intervention. Of course we´d like to add open spaces, plazas, everywhere, and this is the last tendency of landscape urbanism, but in some places, like Western Africa, it wouldn´t be acceptable.

Here, some paragraphs from the excellent article by Stacey Passmore, for re:place Magazine, and the link below to read it in full:

Black Star Square, in Ghana. Photo by Stacey Passmore

¨Of the 163 public spaces included on the Project for Public Spaces’s list of “The World’s Best” only a single nomination is located on the African continent (Greenmarket Square in Capetown, South Africa). The other 162 parks, squares and plazas are European, North American and a handful are South or Central American. Is the absence of African pubic spaces on this list due to lack of recognition? Does this expose a European cultural proclivity for public space? Or perhaps there are not enough African public spaces that meet the standards of this review, which is a cultural standard in itself. At best, we must recognize that the details of African urbanism, such as public space and parks, are relatively un-discussed, and therefore may have an untold story.(...)

It would also be easy to make an assumption that the lack of public spaces is relative to the lack of resources. However, during urban design conversations with Ghanaians and Nigerians, it became clear to me that the discourse on the existence (or absence) of formal public spaces and urban parks often has an underlining cultural bias, and is specifically a doctrine of the Western town planning tradition. (...)

As we discussed public spaces further, my Ghanaian colleagues (urban planners, architects and engineers) argued that parks were not important in their culture, and that they were a feature brought by Europeans. They expressed concern that the open spaces would be taken over by kiosks and vendors, and also reminded me that activities like picnics on grassy lawns were more a British tradition than a Ghanaian one. As it became clear that Ghanaians had a different perspective on the role of open space and parks in their city, they recognized that special public spaces do exist, but that they were more informal than planned, like the Black Star Square. Thus, in spite of some opposition to the idea of formal public spaces, my West African friends do acknowledge social spaces and a places for common ground - and this is found in the streetscape.

Streets, though structurally different from parks or plazas, fulfill the same social need and become the ‘living tissue’ of West African placemaking. As sites for ceremonies such as funeral processions, masquerade, games and play, club meetings, and weddings, streets are equitable and accessible. Because many ceremonies and festivals are processions and take over the streets, it allows the whole community to participate (or at least observe), with crowds spilling and carrying the movement of the event. We saw informal spaces such as taxis parks, street kiosks, markets, beaches, and football pitches fulfilling the same use. The consistently high temperature also makes it very difficult to want to spend much time in a large un-shaded open area, thus trees are extremely powerful attractions that automatically create informal gathering spaces; the wide branches forming the space of an outdoor room. Larger conservation-style parks exist, but they are disjointed from daily life and are treated like sanctuaries, (Kakum or Mole in Ghana) functionally operating for tourists.¨

http://regardingplace.com/?p=11141

Eduardo Souto de Moura wins the Pritzker 2011

Paula Rego Museum

Braga Stadium

Burgo Tower

The 2011 Pritzker Prize has been awarded to the Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, it was announced on Monday. While he is largely unknown in the United States and has built little outside Portugal, his understated modernist works have been widely published in European journals, and he has been an influential teacher at the University of Porto and as a visiting professor at Harvard and in Dublin, Zurich, Lausanne, Paris and elsewhere. The designation of this mid-career architect confirms the Pritzker's commitment to the more subtle values of craft, local scale, and sensibility over architectural extravagance in recent years.

Based in the northern city of Porto, Souto de Moura, 58, was overshadowed in his early career by Alvaro Siza, Pritzker winner in 1992, for whom he worked for five years and with whom he remains close (the two have collaborated on several projects and their studios share a Siza-designed building in Porto). But over the last decade, his work has evolved from the discrete, Miesian vocabulary of his early projects to establish a distinctive voice of his own.

His 1999 Courtyard Houses in Matosnhos, near Porto, with their high walls and interior courts and gardens, look like closed warehouse blocks from the outside, and could be seen to adhere to the severe restraint of Mies van der Rohe’s court-house typology in order to elude any trace of Siza's Baroque modernist lyricism. But in more recent works, including the 2004 Braga Soccer Stadium, the 2007 Burgo Tower in Porto, and the 2009 Paula Rêgo Museum in Cascais, all in Portugal, he has broken free of a strictly Miesian model without renouncing the strong, closed geometric forms, the honest use of materials, especially concrete, and the innate restraint of his early work, which allows his buildings to enter into dialogue with their surroundings.(...)

In its press statement, the jury for the Pritzker Prize describes the architect’s work as follows: “Eduardo Souto de Moura's architecture it is not obvious, frivolous, or picturesque. It is imbued with intelligence and seriousness. His work requires an intense encounter, not a quick glance. And like poetry, it is able to communicate emotionally to those who take the time to listen. ... His oeuvre is convincing proof of the modern idiom’s expressive potential and adaptability to distinct local situations."

Cinema house for Manoel de Oliveira

House in Bom Jesus

House in Serra de Arrabida

Eduardo Souto de Moura

Excerpts and pictures from:

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2011/03/110329pritzker_eduardo_souto_de_moura.asp

Sharing Motorola future in 1961

I´d like to share this post from http://community.livejournal.com, there are some paintings by Charles Shridde for Motorola, showing the ¨future¨ as imagined in 1961. Here, an example and the link below.

http://community.livejournal.com/retro_futurism/483556.html

What is Guerrilla Gardening?

Some months ago, I´ve seen a front lawn with an intensive plantation, that included vegetables, in Dana Point. I like this intention of planting everywhere in the neighborhoods, though it´s not always so ¨pacific´..... Let us see what Guerrilla Gardening is:

¨PURPOSE:To introduce more greenery and gardening into the urban environment.

OVERVIEW:First coined by Liz Christy and her Green Guerrilla group in 1973, guerilla gardening is now an international movement. Although there are many per-mutations, guerrilla gardening is the act of gardening on public or private land without permission. Typically,the sites chosen are vacant or underutilized properties in urban areas. The direct re-purposing of the land is often intended to raise awareness for a myriad of social and environmental issues, including sustainable food systems, improving neighborhood aesthetics, and the power of short-term, collaborative local action.When applied to contested land, guerilla gardeners of-ten take action under the cover of night, where veg-etables may be sowed, or flower gardens planted and cared for without incurring great risk. Guerilla gardening is an exellent tactic for instantly im-prove an urban neighborhood. Often times, gardens are cared for years after they were first created illegally. In-deed, the first garden started in vacant New York City lot by the Green Guerilla’s became so loved that it is now maintained by volunteers and the New York City Parks Department. This is how tactical urbanism is in-tended to work.¨

From ¨Tactical Urbanism¨, p. 11

http://www.scribd.com/doc/51354266/Tactical-Urbanism-Final

The science of architecture

¨THE Science of Architecture, followed out to its full extent, is one of the noblest of those which have reference only to the creations of human minds. It is not merely a science of the rule and compass, it does not consist only in the observation of just rule, or of fair proportion : it is, or ought to be, a science of feeling more than of rule, a ministry to the mind, more than to the eye. If we consider how much less the beauty and majesty of a building depend upon its pleasing certain prejudices of the eye, than upon its rousing certain trains of meditation in the mind, it will show in a moment how many intricate questions of feeling are involved in the raising of an edifice; it will convince us of the truth of a proposition, which might at first have appeared startling, that no man can be an architect, who is not a metaphysician.¨

REFERENCE:

The Poetry Of Architecture Cottage, Villa,Etc (1881). By John Ruskin under the name of ¨Kata Phusin¨. P.1

Read the book:

http://www.archive.org/details/poetryofarchitec005277mbp

What is Tactical Urbanism?

A better block

Here I invite you to read the book at scribd.com ¨Tactical Urbanism¨, by MIKE LYDON, DAN BARTMAN, RONALD WOUDSTRA, AURASH KHAWARZAD

¨Improving the livability of our towns and cities commonly starts at the street, block, or building scale. While larger scale efforts do have their place, incremental, small-scale improvements are increasingly seen as a wayto stage more substantial investments. This approach allows a host of local actors to test new concepts before making substantial political and financial commitments.Sometimes sanctioned, sometimes not, these actions are commonly referred to as “guerilla urbanism,” “pop-up urbanism,” “city repair,” or “D.I.Y. urbanism.” For the moment, we like “Tactical Urbanism,” (...)

Parking day

Pavement to plazas

In short, tactical urbanism interventions create alaboratory for experimentation. Case studies from across North America reveal the benefit of taking an incremental approach to the process of city building. To be sure, long term change often starts with the process of trying something small. Upon implementation, results may be observed and measured in real-time. And when done inexpensively, and with flexibility, adjustments maybe made before moving forward.¨

Pop-up cafes

Keep on reading:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/51354266/Tactical-Urbanism-Final

20 Must-see cathedrals

St Basil´s cathedral. From http://www.moscow.info/

Sharing from Web Design Schools Guide:

¨Just as the splendor of the natural world is often overlooked, so too is the beauty and magnificence of our manmade world neglected. Everyday we pass through our lives without ever really noticing or taking in the beauty of the world around us: with eight-hour work weeks and ever growing schedules, there is always something to distract us from the beautiful intricacies of the expansive cityscapes we call home. The creativity and inspiration that goes into some of the most beautiful buildings in the world is, to say the least, astounding. Architects spend years planning and designing the impressive buildings that make up our immediate world. Whether you are a seasoned architect drafting and blueprinting your own building designs or an aspiring architect just entering design school, anyone can appreciate the outstanding and awe-inspiring architecture of the following 10 cathedrals found throughout the world.¨

http://www.webdesignschoolsguide.com/library/20-must-see-cathedrals-for-architecture-buffs.html