The Cultural Center of the Philippines’ masterplan states that ”The CCP Complex shall be a center for arts and culture in Asia. Primarily, it shall be the centerpiece of artistic expression of the Filipino soul and spirit, created for the Filipino artist and all sectors of Philippine society. The CCP Complex shall be the major cultural, ecological and tourism landmark of the Philippines. It shall be a home for the Filipino artist and an urban oasis for the Filipino people.” In relation to this vision, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, recently held a design competition for two new iconic buildings within it’s complex –a New Performing Arts Theatre, and an Artists’ Center, located within the Arts Sanctuary Cluster of the 62 hectare property. Buensalido Architects recently shared with us their entry for this competition.

This week, with the help of our readers, our Architecture City Guide is headed to Paris. For centuries Paris has been the laboratory where innovative architects and artists have come to test their ideas. This has created a city that has bit of everything. Where the architecture of some cities seems to undergo phases of punctuated equilibrium, Paris’s architectural fossil record gives an impression of gradualism; all the missing links are there. This makes it easy to trace the origins of the most contemporary ideas throughout history. Nothing seems to come out of nowhere. If you look around you kind find the design’s inspiration running through the city’s Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Rocco, Neo-Classical, Empire, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Modern, Post-Modern, and Contemporary Architecture. Seen in another context, many of Paris’s buildings might seem out of place, but the bones of this city support the newest iterations on the oldest and most profound questions. The 24 contemporary designs that comprise our list probably should not be viewed outside of this context, even though that is the stated goal of some of the designs.

As the most visited city in the world and arguably the capital of culture, it is impossible to capture the essence of Paris in 24 modern/contemporary designs. Our readers supplied us with great suggestions, and we really appreciate the help and use of their photographs. The list is far from complete and we realize that many iconic buildings are not yet on the list. We will be adding to it in the near feature, so please add more in the comments section below.

The Architecture City Guide: Paris list and corresponding map after the break.

What turns a residential space into a home? Its decoration? Its objects? The people sharing that space? All the memories stored in it? Estudio Guto Requena asks the participants to answer this question until July 17th by twitter @umacasaumlar and help them to construct their interactive wallpaper at Hyundai Mostra Black Exhibition in Sao Paulo. The interactive ambient “What turns a house into a home?” seeks to instigate the visitors to thinking about the significances and subjectivities associated with our houses.

DATA proposal for the extension of the Serlachius Museum Gösta consists of a building characterized by its sober and quiet aesthetics compatible with its unique cultural environment, a peaceful and preserved bank of a lake. This new construction with the tonality associating the wood lights fairness with glass and the white concrete thus offers a serene architecture which proposes sights tallied on the 360 degrees of the horizon. Installed tangentially with the northern frontage of the manor, it is relatively low and without salient angles. The effort is related to the construction of a unit architectural object in dialogue with its close environment.

The design of the Museum of Troy at Çanakkale has been carried out by the atelier RTA-Office, led by Santiago Parramón with offices in Barcelona and Shanghai, in collaboration with the Turkish atelier DOME Partners (Istanbul). The aim is that the building rises in the Turkish area of Çanakkale but aspires to be a global focus through its expression and display of the culture of a civilization. A project that will act as a generator for social activity, research and culture.

The key concept of this project was to create not only a building but also a new meaningful city space connecting the people, the place, its history and their music. The building delimits the boundaries of the plot, enclosing an expanse of green at its core: a garden that is urban yet isolated from the hubbub of the city.

This new library building design by Akant Tasarim & Restorasyon is desired to be built in addition to Rami Old Military Barracks Restoration Project with a new city museum function which is included in the Istanbul 2010 cultural capital city of Europe program. The Rami Library brings a new perspective to the understanding of librarianship in a national cultural community, and is also totally open to the international community. The building consists of four main parts: library, foyer, event, and auditorium.

Chris Pommer will be speaking on a panel with Michael Awad and Samantha Sanella this weekend. The discussion will center on building downtown culture, in the context of the Revitalization of Viljo Revell’s archetypal City Hall and Square. Join the discussion – and check out the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition – NOON ON SUNDAY, 10 July 2011, in the City Hall Rotunda. (The Podium Roof Garden is in full bloom, too, so bring your lunch and enjoy the sun up there.)

Adrian Lahoud and Samuel Szwarcbord shared with us their honorable mention entry for the recent Geopolitical Borders Competition organized by Think Space and judged by Teddy Cruz. This project is about two lines, one existing and one proposed. The first line is invisible. It runs horizontally from east to west across the Mediterranean Sea. Like the contour lines on a weather forecast, it bends and twists according to the vast differentials of pressure between North and South. From the perspective of the African continent, Europe holds a minimal promise of opportunity that cannot be found at home. From the point of view of Europe, North Africa represents a local pool of labor power, ready to be dipped into at will, a steady reserve of energy (increasingly solar) and kilometers of unspoiled coast ready for development. Like any bad relationship, the asymmetry is secured through structural violence. This violence must be flexible enough to accommodate the contradictions and dynamics of both parties. Changing domestic imperatives, economic demands and legal requirements form plastic limits through which the stability of the line must be coordinated.

Massar was initiated in 2005 by the Syria Trust Development as a national educational and cultural program for children and adolescents. The central project of the program in Damascus is Massar Rose Science Center, which was designed by the Danish architect Henning Larsen and is currently under construction. The landscape featured here was designed by Atelier Loidl.

Can the experience of art be enhanced through architecture?

White walls + Isolated Rooms = Good museum? Eero Lunden Studio’s design of the Serlauchius Museum extension seeks to deviate from that mantra by developing an architecture that directly facilitates human interaction with art. It is Eero Lunden Studio’s belief that the experience of art can be enhanced through innovative architecture and new spatial experiences. The design of the Maison Promino seeks to achieve two main goals: to create an inspiring piece of architecture that will enhance the image of Serlachius Art Museum globally and to provide a truly unique museum experience by connecting visitors with the art like never before.

We recently found this video on Architecture Record’s website that features Steven Holl talking about his design for the Knut Hamsun Center. This design has been honored with many prestigious awards including the North Norwegian Architecture Prize and the 2011 Byggeskikkprisen.

Aurora is the title of Henning Larsen Architects’s entry for the new university hospital in Odense, Denmark. It was recently named among the three finalists. The iconic building complex provides an ideal framework for quality healthcare in the region of southern Denmark. The new Odense University Hospital (OUH) embodies an innovative building of high architectural quality, designed to meet the requirements and challenges of tomorrow. Like the goddess Aurora, the hospital finds renewal in the transition between old and new – and the conversion from tradition to modernity. The human scale supports the conception of the hospital as ”the good host” and a place where patients and visitors can easily orient themselves and feel at home. When approaching Aurora, you are met by an inviting and recognizable urban scale, where the complex is divided into varied units with each their clear entrance and reception area.

Adjacent to a central transportation artery for the city of Beirut, and situated at the nexus of two urban fabrics, this design negotiates issues of scale, unit diversity, views and zoning regulations. Stacked glass boxes emerge from a massing, which is positioned to maximize buildable area.

Machado and Silvetti Associates shared with us their entry for the Olympic Port Competition that came in fourth place. This project proposal for the 2016 Olympic Media Village in Rio de Janeiro includes housing for 11,000 people, retail and office space, a 5-star hotel and a convention center. To accommodate post-Olympic marketing of the buildings the entire residential and office program has the capacity to be transformed from a hotel setting with individually accessed bedrooms and private baths to two- and three-bedroom apartments and leasable tenant space.

Next week we will be taking our Architecture City Guide to Paris and we need your help. To make the City Guides more engaging we are asking for your input on which designs should comprise our weekly list of 12. In order for this to work we will need you, our readers, to suggest a few of your favorite modern/contemporary buildings for the upcoming city guide in the comment section below. Along with your suggestions we ask that you provide a link to an image you took of the building that we can use, the address of the building, and the architect. (The image must be from a site that has a Creative Common License cache like Flickr or Wikimedia. We cannot use images that are copyrighted unless they are yours and you give us permission.) From that we will select the top 12 most recommended buildings. Hopefully this method will help bring to our attention smaller well done projects that only locals truly know. With that in mind we do not showcase private single-family residences for obvious reasons. Additionally, we try to only show completed projects.

Holm Architecture Office (HAO) recently shared with us their entry for the Pulsen Community Center in Balling, Denmark. The Pulsen Community Center unites an array of health and sports-oriented facilities under one roof. A combination of baths, fitness areas, doctors’ offices and community gathering spaces, the design creates a unique new building type that aims to promote interaction and creativity among the citizens of Balling.

This is a short video giving a brief history of JDS Architects, founded by Julien De Smedt, co-founder of PLOT with Bjarke Ingels. Julien takes us down memory lane and explains the past and present of his career from Skateboarding to Architecture and the issues that interest his office today. More videos can be found on their vimeo site.