Neri & Hu, Aranya Art Center, Qinhuangdao (China)

Shanghai paradigm. With its babelic chaos and constant mutation, Shanghai is one of the world’s new frontiers, a reality which Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu learn from to produce rigorous works that pursue order without ignoring their urban and cultural contexts, as shown by the six buildings now featured in Arquitectura Viva, which bring the spirit of China’s most cosmopolitan city to other parts of the country.

For its part, this issue’s dossier presents three funerary spaces that illustrate different ways of engaging with the beyond: the Funerary Chapel in Ingelheim am Rhein (Germany) by Bayer & Strobel Architekten, the Crematorium in Thun (Switzerland) by Markus Schietsch Architekten, and the Temple of Cremation in Parma (Italy) by Zernani Associati.

In the Art and Culture section, Andrés Jaque examines the real-estate development that Silvio Berlusconi chose for his last public appearance, the seed of his business empire, and Luis Fernández-Galiano pays tribute to the humanist engineer Julio Martínez Calzón in the wake of his death. The usual News and Books sections are complemented with an account of the parallel efforts of Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak of India – who passed away a few months ago – and Prof. Alexander Kira of the United States to reform the everyday use of toilets.

Order Arquitectura Viva 258