Wildlife Refuge and Water Tank, Luxembourg (Luxembourg)

The formal and programmatic daring demonstrated by Atxu Amann, Andrés Cánovas, and Nicolás Maruri is patent in their colorful dwellings that liven up the Madrid outskirts as well as in the lightweight Spanish Pavilion at the Expo in Dubai, but the trio has managed to maintain that provocative attitude even when the occasion demands sensitivity to a delicate context or compliance with strict regulations, as we can see in their continued work in Cartagena and Luxembourg, respectively, which Arquitectura Viva presents here.

In the issue’s dossier, four works show that consolidating small historical remains can breathe life back into them, and thus ensure that they continue to play an active part in local memory: Arturo Franco’s Casa das Silvas in the A Coruña town of Panchés, Martino Picchedda’s House of Traditions in the Sardinian village of Simala, Brandlhuber+Manfred Pernice’s reconversión of a stable in the Polish locality of Ninikowo, and Medprostor’s covering of the remains of a Carthusian church in the Slovenian village of Žiče.

The Art and Culture section has the imminent centenaries of two masters in mind as it extols their architectural and intellectual legacy: Eduardo Prieto ponders the lasting relevance of Robert Venturi’s postmodern ideas, while Joaquín Medina Warmburg points out Frei Otto’s pioneering contributions in light of current ecological standards. The usual News and Books pages are complemented with a colophon where José Manuel Sánchez Ron calls for a Europe united in its communitarian values and cultural tradition.

Order Arquitectura Viva 273