Archigram archives

Even though the work of Archigram is mainly unbuilt, there's no doubt that they've been extremely influential. There have been loads exhibitions, books and magazine articles on their work; presumably every school of architecture has had at least one lecture series or seminar on them; they've received a RIBA gold medal in 2002 (28 years posthumously); and a vast number of famous (and slightly less famous) architects claimed their influence on their work.

Now there's a comprehensive guide on their work, which you can browse from the comfort of your home. EXP, the Research Centre for Experimental Practice at the University of Westminster, set up a website called the Archigram Archive Project. And the amount of information to be found on the site is huge! You can see the contents of the legendary magazine or read up on the people behind archigram. But, most importantly: there are over 200 projects by Archigram on the site, organized by year.

So if you are only slightly fascinated by Archigram, this website is worth checking out. And if you are avid appreciator on the kooky retro-futuristic, conceptually smart projects by this team, you can litereally spend hours on this site. Like I did...

Nordic Watercolour Museum Ateliers

Nomen est omen, is what the proverb proclaims. Or, in this case: the program is the image. I mean, doesnt this image look a lot like a watercolour painting? These are the ateliers of the Nordic Watercolour Museum, in Skärhamm (Sweden), designed by Niels Bruun & Henrik Corfitsen arkitekter. As a play on the type of the local buildings, they are combining land with water, being attached neither of the two completely. Each of the units is relatively simple, about 60 square metres of atelier and bedroom spaces, but the look of the entire structure, in combination with the landscape, is just wonderful.

Sculpting yet another museum

The Guggenheim Museum is a brand. It's a world-wide concept of museums. It doesn't even matter that much what is on display, it's about the brand of the museum. And a big part of the the branding exercise has to do with spectacular architecture. For instance, the Guggenheim in Bilbao is world-renowned, but that's mostly because of the spectacular building by Frank Gehry. Probably, more people know the building than the items on display. And the concept is expanding ever more, all over the globe. The latest addition is a plan for a new Guggenheim Museum in Vilnius (Lithuania).

Well, maybe calling it "a plan for a new museum is stretching the truth a bit. There has been a feasibility study for the establishment of a new museum in Vilnius, in a joint project by the Guggenheim Foundation and the Hermitage Museum. And as those things go: the organisation went for big shot, famous architects to come up with an awe-inspiring, iconic building. So they commissioned Libeskind, Fuksas and Hadid for this museum building. And the three of them came up with signature, impressive icons. Libeskind strayed from his regular "stacking boxes in a faux symbolic language", Fuksas went for a rather becoming "contemporary plastic-looking blobby animal", and Hadid... well, she just did the same as always. Organic, dynamic structures, very elegant with odd-shaped windows. I can understand why she won this competition. And I'm sure that it'll be an amazing building, if built.
But the thing is - and I never ever thought that I would say this - it's so damn safe! It's not so much a signature, it's just more of the same. Sure, it's spectacular and beautiful, but it's not that refreshing anymore. I've seen Hadid do this multiple times before. Not to mention the groups of followers and copiers who are doing lesser versions of this kind of stuff.

So, just for novelty sake, I'd rather have seen the proposal of Fuksas being built. It's slightly over the top, it's less elegant (and possibly less iconic), but it would've been a new direction. I'm not sure whether it would've been better, but any kind of experiment has the potential of failure in it. And I just applaud experiment - which the proposal by Hadid clearly isn't...





All the images are from The Architects' Journal

Caixa Forum - Herzog & De Meuron

It's more than likely that the Caixa Forum building in Madrid will get extensive coverage just about average. It's probably even better to say that the project already has had more than it's fair share of publication - even before it was actually finished. Really, there has been an almost constant stream of images and such. Mostly about the exterior of the complex. And honestly, it looks great. Whether it's the vertical garden (courtesy of the almighty Patric Blanc), or the perforated weathering copper (or is it steel after all, I'm not sure?). Or the way these new materializations relate to the old, existing structure. The interior, thus far, has been a bit less exposed - which is logical considering the fact that the building wasn't open yet. But since the cultural complex (consisting gallery spaces, auditorium and the lot) has been opened recently, a steady stream of photos has been seeing the light of day. For instance, these images that I found on flickr. They show the fantastic entrance zone, one of the spectacular staircases and the subtle way the light penetrates the perforated skin. This is defenitely a building that gets a high position on the "must see" list...

Fundação Iberê Camargo - Alvaro Siza

There are litterally multiple projects from Alvaro Siza that I could write about here. The Fundação Iberê Camargo, a museum in Porto Allegre (near Sao Paulo) is one of them. The museum is designed for the work of the deceased Brazilian artist Iberê Camargo. The site the building is erected upon was rather difficult: the plot was surrounded by 25metres high cliffs (on three sides). On the fourth side, there was the river Guaíba. But between the museum and the river was a much travelled road, which made the question of how to access the museum a difficult one. On top of that: the plot had a rather awkward triangular shape. Accessing the plot from the top (the plus 25 metres level) didn´t amount to much, mainly because there was no place to park there.
The solution that Siza came up with was sloping path that is part of the facade. Part of the circulation is inside the museum, the other part makes up the expressive face of the museum. From the inside, there are rather small openings cut in these walls, to frame certain views of the exterior. Exactly because of the small size of them, the building creates a tension between inside and outside: too much openness would have made theview on the landscape much less appealing for the visitor. All theis makes for a very sculptural building, which expresses its contents, its plot and its architect, all in unison.

Nelson-Atkins Museum - Steven Holl

Steven Holl has a talent for designing great museums. The Nelson-Atkins museum of art in Kansas City is just that: a great museum. The addition to the existing building (called the Bloch building) is formed as five objects (lenses) spanning between the existing building and the sculpture park outside. The movement between the new objects and the landscape forms a changing view and also an addition to the old building when it comes to experience.
The fact that Holl speaks of "lenses" for the five objects in the park also has to do with the interior quality of them: they all filter light in a different way.

And here we come to the part that Holl has done quite brilliantly in the Nelson-Atkins museum: the interplay of inside and outside. From the exterior, the museum looks like a monolithic object, while from the inside there is a whole different world of different kind of exhibition spaces.
From the outside, at night, the building parts look like gigantic lamps in the landscape. From the inside, the large blocks fall apart into spectacular spatial fragments.

Want to see more? check out stevenholl.com

Janus (Stadtmuseum) - MLZD

In the small Swiss town of Rapperswil-Jona, there is the need for a new city museum (stadtmuseum), on an infill site between two medieval buildings. Swiss architects MLZD came up with a spectacular gem, that denies the surroundings in form and materialization, but at the same time respects the surrounding building. The thing is: such a plan only works in a coherent site, such as a historic city center. And they took advantage of this completely, shaping the architectural body to work around the openings in both the neighboring buildings.
In the interior, this provides for different exhibition spaces, each with an identity of its own. It's no wonder that MLZD won the competition with this scheme, I think.

more? see http://www.mlzd.ch

Kolumba art museum - Peter Zumthor

In the centre of Cologne (Germany), Peter Zumthor has transformed the ruins of Kolomba for the new building of the Cologne Diocese Museum. Zumthor has integrated the parts of the ruins into a new structure, building on the foundations of the old building. By not reconstructing it, but really making a new structure, with a new kind of texture. It is really challenging ruins like this - respecting them, but not deifying them - but it's amazingly done in this case. The new place has a superb atmosphere, but at the same time reminds of the memory of the place. Zumthor just has a way of building really tactile, sensitive buildings, and this is another gem in his oeuvre.

I stumbled upon this project on world architecture news.com.

Mercedes Benz Museum - UN Studio

This building has been published a zillion times - and I therefore assume that I don't have to introduce the building to you: the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart. I could now sing the praise of UN Studio for this building or I could bring something else to your attention: the lifts in the building crawl up the walls, looking like they are straight out of a James Bond movie...

the picture is made by Thomas Leerberg. He has quite a few nice architecture photos on his flickr profile.

Svalbard University Research Centre - Jarmund/Vigsnæs Architects

The Svalbard University Research Centre is on located in quite a harsh climate, somewhere on an island in the north of Norway. The artic weather conditions are rather demanding of a building, and with this project the architects respond in a rather specific way. For instance, the volume of the building hovers above the ground on pillars so as not to disturb the permafrost-sealed soil on which its foundations rest.
The polygonal shape is not only intriguing looking and fitting the landscape of its surroundings, but is actually streamlined according to wind loads and wind efficiency.

The programme of the building is also responding to the harsh climate: inside the fragmented volume is an inverted campus of various functions under one roof. Well, that makes sense, since the climate doesn't quite supply a nice atmosphere for cosy inside-outside relations. The interior is just as intriguing in form as the outside, with loads of spacial extremities and visual relations between the parts.


More images can be found on the website of Jarmund/Vigsnæs Architects.