The Reichstag in Berlin was built by Paul Wallot 104 years ago. It was no great architecture for the Parliament of the German Empire, and the building raised controversy it its day, as did its location on a curve of the river Spree, close to the olde
It is not surprising that the British feel a sort of proprietary interest in the passage of time: with Greenwich as the home of the prime meridian, they tend to see keeping track of time as a housekeeping duty they have to perform for the rest of the
Rafael Moneo has been described as an architect who is not interested in cultivating a personal style. Antón Capitel, said that Moneo takes the discipline as “the reflective use of diverse resources, in search not of an architecture of its time, but
Stanislaus von Moos A veces la arquitectura logra conjurar la quintaesencia de un lugar: un espléndido emplazamiento en el paisaje, una herencia histórica, una interiorización cultural o incluso las premisas de su propia gestación. Todo queda absorbi
During the process of negotiations for the independence of the French territory of New Caledonia, and per its request, the government of the metropolis took on the commitment of building in Nouméa a center in the memory of the political leader Jean M
Claudia Kugel Como escenario para el entretenimiento de masas, la sala de cine ha resultado ser una tipología asombrosamente adaptable. Ha sobrevivido a los efectos de dos guerras mundiales, a la televisión, al vídeo, a la disminución del público, a
Richard Ingersoll Daniel Libeskind es uno de esos raros protagonistas de la cultura arquitectónica—un poco como Piranesi en el siglo XVIII o Chernijov durante la primera década del bolchevismo— cuya fama como maestro gráfico ha jugado un papel clave
«Todo, fuera personal o no, me resultaba una carga insoportable. La domesticidad, más que nada. No sabía lo que quería. Adoraba amis hijos; amaba mi hogar. Un verdadero hogar es el ideal más alto de un hombre; aun así... Bien, para conseguir la liber
Mary tiene motivos para estar enfadada. La viuda de James Stirling propuso al historiador Mark Girouard la redacción de una biografía del arquitecto británico, fallecido en 1992. Tras cinco años el libro ha visto la luz, y el retrato que ofrece del q
En 1992, la editorial Gili publicó una monografía de John Pawson, un británico con el alma zen discípulo de Shiro Kuramata. Pawson es autor de una obra escasa y exquisita, que se identifica con el minimalismo elegante y urbano de Calvin Klein, para e
A pesar de su título y de que en la portada no aparezca el nombre de la fotógrafa Hélène Binet, y por mucho que contenga también planos y dibujos, el primero de estos volúmenes es más un libro de fotografía que de arquitectura. Es el resultado eviden
Estos exponentes de la ‘nueva simplicidad germana’ hablan alemán, pero son suizos (de Basilea) y tienen una forma de hacer consolidada a través de dos generaciones: la del padre, Markus, que fundó su estudio en 1942, y la del hijo, Roger, que se inco
Aceptar sólo el volumen de trabajo que le permita controlar personalmente cada proyecto hasta su último detalle, y circunscribirse a un área geográfica conocida y amada como Galicia no es la menos importante de las lecciones que nos ofrece Manuel Gal
Beth Galí ha terminado en la ciudad holandesa de ‘s Hertogenbosch un edificio comercial y la remodelación del centro histórico con un proyecto genuinamente barcelonés, de pavimentos detallados y elegante mobiliario urbano. El Museo Het Kruithuis le h
Autor de uno de los edificios más bellos de la arquitectura española reciente, la biblioteca de la UNED en Madrid (véase AV 45-46), y de una obra caracterizada por la contención y la serenidad, José Ignacio Linazasoro (San Sebastián, 1947) es un clar
El Colegio de Arquitectos de Almería ha dedicado la última monografía de su serie ‘Documentos de Arquitectura’ a Francisco Mangado. En lugar de publicar una selección de distintos trabajos, el arquitecto navarro ha optado por reunir sus proyectos dom
Los 200.000 ecus con los que está dotado el premio danés Carlsberg, que ha celebrado su tercera edición, lo convierten en el más sustancioso de los grandes galardones internacionales de arquitectura. El primer agraciado con el Carlsberg fue, en 1992,
La ampliación del Ayuntamiento de Murcia, recientemente terminada por Rafael Moneo, se encuentra en la plaza más importante de la ciudad, la del Cardenal Belluga, delimitada por el Palacio Episcopal y la gran fachada barroca de la catedral. Frente a
The German general elections have prompted the discussion of the future of symbolic projects like the Holocaust memorial in Berlin.
Silencio y extravío son dos elementos que configuran el alma veneciana. Quienquiera que se haya encontrado vagando, lejos de San Marcos, por el dédalo de calles y canales que forma Venecia, se habrá sentido invadido por una placentera sensación de ex
Synopses
Singular Works.The prestige of their authors, the political significance of the projects and the emblematic character of their locations makes these three still unfinished works exceptional. They are Norman Foster´s remodeling of the Reichstag to house the Parliament of the new reunified Germany; the gigantic exhibition dome that Richard Rogers is building on the Greenwich peninsula in London to celebrate the change of millennium; and the crystalline rocks of Rafael Moneo´s project beside the mouth of the River Urumea, which will accommodate the new congress center of San Sebastian.
Contents
Sebastian Redecke
Resurrection and Symbiosis
Foster’s Reichstag
Paul Goldberger
The Measure of Time
Rogers’s Millennium Dome
Joan Sabaté
Dense Transparency
El Kursaal de Moneo
Buildings: Projects and Realizations
Applied Technologies. Jean Nouvel handles industrial vocabulary with precision in a large cultural container crowned by an interminable roof plane that reflects the waters of Lake Lucerne; and Renzo Piano uses contemporary techniques to build on the most characteristic elements of vernacular tradition in another cultural center in New Caledonia.
Architecture
Stanislaus von Moos
Special Effects
Nouvel in Lucerne
François Chaslin
The Fragile Cathedral
Piano in New Caledonia
Sharp Angles. The Austrian studio Coop Himmelb(l)au completes a cinema complex in Dresden within two spectacular tapered volumes of concrete and glass; and the Polish architect Daniel Libeskind resorts to a language of unstable planes and rough finishings to give Osnabrück a museum dedicated to the painter Félix Nussbaum, a victim of the Nazi Holocaust.
Claudia Kugel
Iceberg and Bunker
Coop Himmelb(l)au in Dresden
Richard Ingersoll
Passage with no Exit
Libeskind in Osnabrück
Books, Exhibitions, Personalities
Matter and Place. Peter Zumthor has been awarded the Carlsberg Prize for his material and transcendent oeuvre; and Rafael Moneo again defends the rapport with place in his latest Spanish work, the City Hall in Murcia.
Art / Culture
François Chaslin
Zumthor, Carlsberg Prize
Antonio González Serna
Interview with Rafael Moneo
Landscapes of Memory. Peter Eisenman has designed an ordered labyrinth in memory of the victims of the Holocaust; and David Chipperfield will extend the Venetian cemetery of San Michele with a quiet proposal. Luis Fernández-Galiano
Berlin: Labyrinths of Order
Francesco Fresa
Venice: the Island of SilenceThe Biography Genre. The significance of architects is revised through stories that combine their works and life, as in the autobiography of F.L.Wright, now in Spanish, and in the recent polemical biography of James Stirling.
Focho’s Cartoon
Carlos Raúl Villanueva
Various Authors
Books
Interiors, Design, Construction
Women in Plural. The IBA exhibition in Berlin inspired this project, which is nearly finished, in the Japanese city of Gifu. Within an urban plan drafted by Arata Isozaki, four architects – two Japanese, one North American and one British–, all of them women, were invited to design social housing, staying strictly within the limits which are imposed by a linear block.
Technique / Style
Carlos Verdaguer
Social Housing in Gifu
• Kazuyo Sejima
• Akiko Takahashi
• Elizabeth Diller
• Christine Hawley
To close, Ignacio Paricio and Jaume Avellaneda offer an extensive analysis of the expressive and constructive possibilites of stone veneers; and Adela García-Herrera notes the different, almost opposing visions offered by two simultaneous events - the first Ibero-American Arquitecture Bienal and the first edition of the Mies van der Rohe Prize for Latin American Architecture. I. Paricio y J. Avellaneda
Stone Veneer
English Summary
Singular Works
Adela García-Herrera
Latins and Americans
Luis Fernández-Galiano
All singular works are rather plural. Singular they are because of their unique locations, which are frequently exceptional in historic character or urban visibility; because of their special uses and programs, which are often accompanied by extraordinary budgets and unexpected technical feats; and because of their specific symbolic demands, which generally lead to a quest for formal originality and an extremely individual language. But these singular works are quite plural. Plural they are because of their geographical or emblematic centrality, which draws the attention of very broad social groups; because of their technical and organizational complexity, which inevitably implies the choral intervention of a large number of specialists; and because their unmistakable forms are inserted in the uproar of conflicting languages, whose profusion of proposals creates a crowded panorama of signs where it is difficult to distinguish voices from echoes.
These very plural singular works represent high-competition architecture. The exacting nature of their requirements, the generosity of the resources available to them and the visibility of their results make them a testing ground and a showcase for innovation. Occasionally they are criticized for the extreme character of their technical or formal solutions, which hinder their pedagogical diffusion; but without such demanding exploration they would not be able to give rise to the ideas which end up being part of everyday practice. Other times they are deplored for the narcissistic character of their individual authorships; but the nominal author is only a fraction of a submerged iceberg of talent, and the buildings arise from a collective choreography. And often they are censured for their spectacular haute couture, which carries an excessive penchant for spotlights and catwalks, without understanding that such exhibitionism is inseparable from the novelty of their achievements and the fecundity of their influence.
As buildings and events, singular works draw attention from the very beginning. Controversial when still on the drawing board, and more energetically debated if they impose themselves over other projects in a competition, some of these constructions keep up the temperature of criticism until completion, upon which the building becomes subject to the final judgment of users and visitors. During this long slow process, there are low moments during which the promise of the work becomes blurred; but there are other moments, more numerous perhaps, when its virtues are presented under a rare light, and the work acquires an emotive and exemplary quality that is not always maintained to the end. Such singular moments also form part of this plural architecture, and the determination to record them is a stubborn and maybe futile effort. But no one told Sisyphus to carry water in a basket.
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