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ArchDaily Interviews: The Latest Architecture and News

AD Interviews: Ma Yansong / MAD

While we were in Beijing, we had the opportunity to visit an architect who we have been following for quite some time: Ma Yansong, founder of MAD.

AD Interviews: Richard Hassell / WOHA

During the 2012 World Architecture Festival held in Singapore, we had the opportunity to interview Richard Hassell, one of the founders of the highly acclaimed practice WOHA.

AD Interviews: WE Architecture

WE Architecture is a young firm based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Started by partners Marc Jay and Julie Schmidt-Nielsen in 2009, the practice is focused on public competitions and consultancy, along with teaching at the Royal Danish Academy. The partners studied in Denmark, but shaped their professional career working abroad in New York and Barcelona.

AD Interviews: Andrew Grant

During the World Architecture Festival, held this October in Singapore, we had the opportunity to interview one of the UK’s most succesful landscape architects: Andrew Grant. On the occasion, the project, Gardens by the Bay, in collaboration with Wilkinson Eyre Architects, was awarded the World Building of the Year Award.

AD Interviews: San Rocco at the 13th Venice Biennale

During the 13th Venice Biennale we had the chance to interview the team behind San Rocco: Matteo Ghidoni, Giovanni Piovene and Pier Paolo Tamburelli.

Venice Biennale 2012: Wunderkammer / Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects

At the gardens of the Arsenale designed by Piet Oudolf, a small pavilion, the Casa Scaffali, encloses a fantastic world of smells, textures and artifacts, a Wunderkammer (wonder-room) curated by NY-based Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.

A special group of architects and artists from around the world were invited to share the artifacts that inspire them, shipped in boxes to the Biennale.

We had the chance to interview Tod Williams and Billie Tsien during the opening of Wunderkammer, and we also got a chance to see them both and their team setting up the installation during the previous days, a special atmosphere as they were opening these boxes now turned into chests full of surprises.

Venice Biennale 2012: Wunderkammer / Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects - Image 11 of 4
© Nico Saieh

The group includes Anthony Ames, Marwan Al Sayed, Matthew Baird, Shigeru Ban, Marlon Blackwell, Will Bruder, Wendell Burnette, Johan Celsing, Taryn Christoff and Martin Finio, Annie Chu and Rick Gooding, W.G. Clark, Brad Cloepfil, Chen Chen and Kai Williams, Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio and Charles Renfro, Peter Eisenman, Steven Holl, Stephen Iino, Toyo Ito, Bijoy Jain, Claudy Jongstra, Diébédo Francis Kéré, Jennifer Luce, Thom Mayne, Richard Meier, Murray Moss, Glenn Murcutt and Wendy Lewin, Enrique Norten, Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey, Juhani Pallasmaa, Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam, Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe, Karen Stein, Elias Torres and José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Ursula Von Rydingsvard, and Peter Zumthor.

Text from the architects after the break:

AD Interviews: Jordi Badia / BAAS

We had the chance to interview Catalonian architect Jordi Badia at the Vogadors: Architectural Rowers exhibit at the 13th Venice Biennale.

AD Interviews: Norman Foster

Norman Foster is undoubtedly one of the most influential architects of our time. Since establishing his award-winning practice in 1967 – originally titled Foster Associates – the Pritzker Prize laureate has grown Foster + Partners into an international powerhouse, with project offices in more than twenty countries.

ArchDaily Interviews Tomas Koolhaas, Director of 'REM', and features Exclusive New Clip

Cinematographer Tomas Koolhaas, son of notorious Rem Koolhaas, has shared with us his latest clips from the feature length documentary film, REM. Set to debut in 2013, the motion picture breaks away from conventional approach to filming architecture and exposes the raw, human experience of Dutch architect’s most famous projects. As Tomas describes, REM gives the audience “a rare insight into the reality of the hidden internal life of the buildings”.

ArchDaily had the chance to discuss the film with Tomas. Continue after the break for the complete interview and another small preview of the film!

Venice Biennale 2012: SPAINLab / Spain Pavilion

Ensamble Studio

SPAINLab, the name of the exhibit, looks to expose the research process behind the works of contemporary Spanish Architects:

Venice Biennale 2012: SPAINLab / Spain Pavilion - Image 22 of 4
© Nico Saieh

More photos about the pavilion and description from Anton and Débora after the break:

AD Interviews: 5468796 Architecture & Jae-Sung Chon, Migrating Landscapes

We interviewed Winnipeg- based 5468796 Architecture (Johanna Hurme + Sasa Radulovic) and Jae-Sung Chon (Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba), the team that curated the “Migrating Landscapes” exhibit at the Canadian Pavilion for the 13th Venice Biennale. The Migrating Landscapes Oganizer (MLO) invited, through a national competition, young Canadian architects and designers from a wide range of cultural and educational backgrounds to create scale models of ‘dwellings’ and accompanying videos that draw on cultural memories.

AD Interviews: Reiser + Umemoto

Since it’s founding in 1986, Reiser + Umemoto, RUR Architecture P.C. has become a widely published, internationally recognized practice with a diverse collection of projects ranging in scale. On multiple occasions, the firm has been awarded for their contributions to architectural practice and theory – the most recent being The Cooper Union’s 2008 Presidential Citation and the 2011 John Hejduk Award – as they treat “each project as the continuation of an ongoing inquiry, delving into relationships among architecture, territory and systems of distribution.”

AD Interviews: Renzo Piano - Part III

Part IPart II – Part III

AD Interviews: Renzo Piano - Part II

Part I – Part II – Part III

AD Interviews: Renzo Piano - Part I

Part I – Part IIPart III

AD Interviews: Sergei Tchoban & Sergey Kuznetsov (SPEECH) i-city at the Venice Biennale

During the opening of the 13th Venice Biennale, we had the chance to talk with Sergei Tchoban and Sergey Kuznetsov, partners at SPEECH and curators of i-City, the Russian pavilion, awarded with a Special Mention at the Biennale.

AD Interviews: The Japan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale / Toyo Ito, Akihisa Hirata, Sou Fujimoto

During the opening of the Venice Biennale, we had the chance to sit down and talk with the curator and participants of the Japan Pavilion, awarded with the Gold Lion.

In the following videos you can see Toyo Ito, curator of “Architecture. Possible Here? Home-for-all”, along with collaborators Akihisa Hirata and Sou Fujimoto, discussing what Architecture means to them, the role of architects in our society, and how they approached the Biennale’s theme “Common Ground” on this particular exhibition, which reunites Japanese architects and an architectural photographer collaborating on the design of houses for those affected by the 2011 tsunami.

We thank the Japan Foundation for this interview.

Akihisa Hirata and Sou Fujimoto videos after the break:

Venice Biennale 2012: Meeting Lines / Ateliers Jean Nouvel + Habiter Autrement (Mia Hägg)

Venice Biennale 2012: Meeting Lines / Ateliers Jean Nouvel + Habiter Autrement (Mia Hägg) - Image 4 of 4
© Nico Saieh

Jean Nouvel and Mia Hägg presented “Meetings Lines” at the Venice Biennale. For ‘Common Ground’ they decided to show their finalist project for the Slussen Masterplan competition, an ambitious urban design project that seeks to replace much of the degenerated water and transportation infrastructure in the heart of Stockholm. The project proposes three different public spaces, designed as living links for the city, inspired by infrastructure such as the Rialto Bridge in Venice.

More about the exhibit after the break.