Last December, ArchDaily revealed the winners of the Architect’s Eye Photography Competition. Now, in celebration of the 2012 London Festival of Architecture, the winners of the the competition will be exhibited at the Roca London Gallery beginning June 23rd in Chelsea, London as part of a Launch Event, Exhibition and Discussion Panel. International Art Consultants (IAC) hosts the competition in recognition of architects’ passion for photography. Last year’s 19 finalists and winners will be on view to the public at the gallery until July 8th.
The new exhibition space Rooms for Glass (Le Stanze del Vetro) in Italy, designed by Selldorf Architects, will open this summer in August 2012. The first exhibit to inaugurate the space will be Carlo Scarpa. Venini 1932–1947, a collection of over 300 glassworks by architect Carlo Scarpa. The exhibit will run until November 29, 2012, after which Rooms for Glass will continue showcasing the art of Venetian glassmaking in the 20th century with other exhibits.
Today we had the chance of attending the opening of this impressive exhibition. As we mentioned previously some weeks ago, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London prepared this event focused on the work of the British firm Heatherwick Studio, responsable for the last Shanghai 2010 British Pavilion, as well as the Rolling Bridge, or the New Bus for London that was just released in the 38 route. The exhibition comprises a large range of different scales of design, going from specific objects or furniture, to large infrastructural and urban projects. It will be open for the public from next Thursday 31st.
While the excitement builds for the Olympic Games this summer, London is also preparing for their Design Festival of mid-September. In a joint effort between Arup and Sound and Music, the installation at Trafalgar Square will focus on the idea of design you cannot see by creating a black rubberized portal that will transport visitors to inaccessible places and remote environments through a series of three-dimensional soundscapes created by leading musicians and sound designers. By isolating the sense of sound, visitors will be submerged in a completely new environment as they stand in one of the busiest squares in the world.
Taking place now until September 16, 2012, the Vitra Design Museum is exhibiting “Gerrit Rietveld – The Revolution of Space”. The Dutchman Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964) was one of the most important designers and architects of the 20th century. Today his work is primarily associated with his two most famous designs, which have become icons of modernism: the Red-Blue Chair (1918/1923) and the Rietveld-Schröder House (1924). But this exhibition shows that Rietveld’s oeuvre contains many more facets that deserve to be rediscovered. This is the first major retrospective on Gerrit Rietveld to be presented to the German-speaking public since 1996. Comprising around 320 objects – including furniture, models, paintings, photographs, films and approximately 100 original drawings and plans – it offers a comprehensive overview of the Dutch designer’s work. For more information on the exhibition, please visit here.
General Manifold is an immersive architectural environment installed in the abandoned Federal Screw Works factory complex in Chelsea, Michigan. This installation was the centerpiece of a collective exhibition organized by the architectural collaborative Spatial Ops and students from their Meta Friche research seminar at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.
Continue after the break for images and the architect’ project description.
Yasuaki Onishi, who is known for his art throughout Japan and internationally, currently has an installation on exhibit in the Rice Gallery in Houston titled, ‘Reverse of Volume RG’. On display until June 24, he uses plastic sheeting and black hot glue to create a monumental, mountainous form that appears to float in space. In using these simple materials, he is able to successfully meditate on the nature of the negative space, or void, left behind. More images and project description after the break.
Constructed from non-architectural artifacts, Yevrus 1, Negative Impression is a disposable architecture of literal references that calls into question the contemporary architectural vogue for digital complexity and abstraction. The cast impressions of 1973 Volkswagen Beetles and speedboats unite to form a strong structural whole that serves as a lookout tower in the SCI-Arc Gallery. More information after the break.
The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture – a non-profit international arts space based in Moscow founded by Daria Zhukova – has unveiled plans for a new building in Gorky Park. Designed by OMA, Garage Gorky Park will renovate the famous 1960s Vremena Goda (Seasons of the Year) restaurant, a prefabricated concrete structure that has been derelict for more than two decades. Garage is expected to complete and occupy this 5,400-square-meter building sometime next year, with plans to later expand to the nearby Hexagon pavilion (or Machine Pavilion).
Rem Koolhaas: “We were able, with our client and her team, to explore the qualities of generosity, dimension, openness, and transparency of the Soviet wreckage and find new uses and interpretations for them; it also enabled us to avoid the exaggeration of standards and scale that is becoming an aspect of contemporary art spaces.”
CIVITAS, the organizer of the Reimagining the Waterfront, has announced the winners of the ideas competition for the design of the East River Esplanade between 60th and 125th in New York City bound by the East River to the East and the FDR Drive to the west. Joseph Wood of New Jersey, USA; Takuma Ono and Darina Zlateva of New York City, USA and Matteo Rossetti of Italy claimed first, second and third prize respectively. The competition aspires to bring to new and fresh ideas to the conversation about this waterfront, which over the years has had many issues of disrepair. Anyone who has attempted to bike down this path can appeal to just how unpleasant it can be – massive potholes that take up the whole path, traffic rushing by just a foot away just beyond a shoulder (which is not provided everywhere) and cobbled paths that create a bumpy ride. The proximity to the East River, and the views of Randall’s Island, Queens, Roosevelt Island and the Queensboro Bridge are its saving grace.
There have already been many talks about the state of the East River Esplanade, particularly that it stops abruptly at East 53rd street at the foot of the Queensboro Bridge and starts up again around East 38th street. Last summer MAS, an organization in NYC that advocates for intelligent urban planning, design and preservation, hosted a day-long charette to design an esplanade along the ConEd piers located between East 38th and East 41st Streets. MAS appealed to the community for ideas for “The Next Great NYC Waterfront” and worked alongside W Architecture and Landscape Architecture to produce a report, which can be found here. With CIVITAS’s competition, the issues are again acknowledged to continue brainstorming the future of the waterfront.
The Architect’s Newspaper reviewed the competition winners in an article by Tom Stoelker, which are imaginative and considered. The proposals of the winners and honorable mentions will be exhibited at the Museum of the City of New York between June 6th and September 2012 which will give the public access to some possibilities for the future of the East River Esplanade.
Join us after the break for more on the proposals.
Sponsored by Cannon Design, the ‘(un) Made in China’ Exhibition will be taking place April 20 – June 20 at the ide@s gallery in Shanghai, China.Thirty years of unprecedented growth have transformed China’s built environment and given it the reputation as a land of opportunity for architects today. While much attention – and some criticism – has been focused on major completed works, little is known of those projects that disappear, fizzle out, or sit abandoned in spite of the rich tradition within architecture of both celebrating and criticizing unbuilt work. “(un) Made in China” seeks to bring light to these could-have-been-transformative projects and the experiences they produced. At its heart is a series of interviews conducted with 12 international architecture practices, which generate a wealth of interesting, insightful, and often humorous accounts and accompanying these are architectural models and images of the unrealized projects. For more information, please visit here.
The MAS (Museum by the river), a must seen building itself, is currently exhibiting the Founder Pavilions, which give curious spectators a look at the here and now and into the future. In close cooperation with the Founders, Crepain Binst Architecture carefully designed a sophisticated setting symbolizing the unique character and essence of each Founder. Still, every pavilion is an added value to the whole MAS-experience. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Breaking Ground: Chinese American Architects in Los Angeles (1945-1980) at the Chinese American Museum (CAM) is an exhibition that focuses on four Chinese American architects that have transformed parts of Los Angeles with iconic buildings and distinct design styles. The work will be on display until June 3rd 2012 and feature architects such as Eugene Choy,Gilbert Leong, Helen Liu Fong andGin Wong.
Breaking Ground is part of Pacific Standard Time, a collaboration created by Getty in which sixty cultural institutions will tell the story of the birth of LA art scene over the course of six months beginning October 2011. Breaking Ground at CAM LA tells the story of the skyline and the changing built environment through the perspective the four prominent Chinese American Architects.
Pedro E. Guerrero: Photographs of Modern Life at Woodbury University Hollywood Gallery (WUHO) is on view through April 25. The show is the first extensive exhibition on the West Coast of Guerrero’s career as an architectural photographer. Curated by Anthony Fontenot and Emily Bills, JSI director, Pedro E. Guerrero: Photographs of Modern Life will highlight the diversity of Guerrero’s subjects taken over seven decades. During that time, he captured the architecture of Marcel Breuer, Philip Johnson, Edward Durell Stone and Eero Saarinen. His wide ranging work included portraits of architects as well as commercial work for House & Garden, Vogue, the New York Times Magazine and Architectural Record. He is perhaps best known for his close relationship with Frank Lloyd Wright. The exhibition will feature Guerrero’s illuminating portraits of Wright, including twelve photographs of the architect’s hands demonstrating the difference between organic and conventional architecture at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Continue reading for more.
d3 is pleased to announce the winners of the 2012 Housing Tomorrow competition. The annual competition promotes the exploration of contextual, cultural, and life cycle flows that offer new housing strategies for living in the future. Sponsored by New York-based d3, the competition invites architects, designers, engineers, and students to collectively explore innovative approaches to residential urbanism, architecture, interiors, and designed objects.
d3 recognizes innovative strategies that challenge conventional housing typologies with emerging planning strategies, advanced technologies and alternative materials. Competition submissions for 2012 reflect forces of globalization and adaptation, as well as the changing nature of visualization in academia and professional design practice. As an annual competition, d3 Housing Tomorrow seeks to identify and celebrate emerging voices and visionary proposals that connect housing with people, context and ecologies.
Continue after the break to view the three winners and twelve honorable mentions selected by the jury.
Being held at the Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyväskylä, Finland, the exhibition for the latest works by artist Ola Kolehmainen is currently on display until July 29th. A contemporary artist of international importance, Kolehmainen is known for his large abstract architectural photographs. With his work mainly associated with Aalto buildings, has been visiting Aalto buildings for years in order to become familiar with them – from Paimio Sanatorium to the Villa Mairea, to Säynätsalo Town Hall and Imatra, to buildings in and around Jyväskylä and finally to Viipuri Library. In his works, Kolehmainen is reaching out for a space-time experience on the other side of the picture plane. For more information on the exhibition, please visit here.
From March 20 – May 11, the “American City: St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design” exhibition will be up at the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) in downtown Chicago. The show consists of 83 large prints of over 40 historic buildings in St. Louis, including acclaimed landmarks such as Louis Sullivan’s Wainwright Building, James Eads’ Eads Bridge, Eero Saarinen’s Gateway Arch and Tadao Ando’s Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts Building. The timeline stretches from 1839 to 2010. The show is being staged in the Willis’ ground floor atrium and lobby and is free to the public. More information on the exhibition after the break.
Exhibited from April 6 – Mary 13, the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is pleased to present “Towards Comfo-Veg,” a large scale, site-specific installation designed for the SCI-Arc Gallery by architect and artist Peter Cook and partner Gavin Robotham of London-based CRAB Studio. Building on CRAB’s internationally recognized experimental work, Towards Comfo-Veg introduces an almost completely light-tight, multimedia experiential space welcoming visitors through a single point of entry and leading towards hints of an invented and dreamlike world. More information after the break.