Open Source architecture, a growing building and architecture made of clouds - Nine Articles from Tokyo Designers Week 2008
I filed two stories for Metropolis from my stylish studio flat at Hotel Claska, and over the next three months wrote seven more articles for various international magazines (Mark, Azure, Metropolis and others) about up and coming designers, new architecture and events around the city. Click here to read more.
Postcard from Cordoba: Cordoba Mosque, Spain, ArchitectureWeek.com
The Great Mosque of Cordoba, Spain (also known as La Mesquita) is a famous architectural and cultural collage. It is a dizzying blend of Moorish arches and Gothic spires, frequently illuminated by the flashbulbs of hoards of tourists. The history of the building is also an amalgam: Between 784-786, the Great Mosque of Cordoba was built on the site of the Visigothic church San Vicente, which itself had been built over the ruins of an early Roman temple. In 1236, with the reconquest of Spain, the mosque was converted to a cathedral and, for nearly 300 years, local Christians worshipped in this striking Islamic structure, objecting to any fundamental changes to its fabric. In the 1600s, however, a Gothic cathedral was constructed — inside the mosque. Read more here.
'London Calling' New London Architecture, Clear Magazine
Perhaps it started with the completion of Norman Foster’s aerodynamic ‘Gherkin’, in 2004, lauded as London’s greenest skyscraper with a form that became an instant classic on the London skyline. The new proposals have some of the flair of the Gherkin, and are beginning to attract the same international attention before they are even built. Richard Rogers’s ‘Cheese Grater’ building, a wedge shaped tower that tapers away from protected views of St Paul’s rises 48 floors above the city and is due to start on site later this year. Renzo Piano’s proposed ‘Shard’, a sky-scraping office block near the South Bank, resembles a giant sliver of crystal. Also nearing planning permission is the futuristic ‘Walkie Talkie’ building by Rafael Vinoly, so named for its bizarre, ’blobby’ form that looks like an out of scale toy. Vinoly’s designs would feature a multi-story sky garden, and potentially 45 floors of office space. Not to be outdone, Kohn Peterson Fox’s ‘Helter Skelter’ tower building, at a proposed 288 meters high, is set to become the tallest building in the city if it passes planning approval, its iconic form clad in a winding, wrapping façade. These landmark buildings are just a part of the dozens of major new developments planned for the capital by 2012... Read more in Clear 26.
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Postcard from Khirki: Khirki Mosque, India, Architectureweek.com
Khirki Village, a small "urbanized village" to the south of New Delhi, conceals Khirki Mosque, one of the city's most famous archaeological monuments. Notable for its unusual architectural style, the mosque's roof has four large openings, creating courtyards for light to penetrate into the monumental, red, sandstone building. The most dramatic views are from the roof — where a vast landscape of domes creates a forbidden playground for local children and breathtaking views of the surrounding village. The village takes its name from the mosque — khirki means "lattice windows." There are over 40 of these intricate stone screens on the exterior of the building. Read more here.
New Toronto Architecture, Oyster Magazine
A ‘flying tabletop’ for the art school, a fractured ‘crystal’ for the provincial museum and giant concrete lecture pods suspended in the University’s Pharmacy building: Toronto, Canada is in the midst of an architectural renaissance of epic proportions. Currently home of tacky high-rise condominiums and boring office towers, the city is long overdue a massive urban change. Leading international star-architects Will Alsop, Lord Foster, Daniel Libeskind and Frank Gehry are making a major impact on the skyline and within a year or two, downtown Toronto’s cultural infrastructure will be radically remodelled. Last spring, architectural maverick Will Alsop (known for his wacky and colourful Peckham Library in South London) completed his ‘flying tabletop’ design, a two story ‘teaching’ box suspended 40 meters above a small public park, an addition to the Ontario College of Art and Design. With skinny gravity defying legs, and a black and white checkerboard façade, it has been labeled variously ‘retro’ and ‘futuristic’ --it seems the public are at a loss to develop a fitting response to this new architectural language. Read more in Oyster Magazine Fall 2006.