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Modern Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

A Modern Affair at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice

A special night to support DOCOMOMO US/New York Tri-State, honor the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice for the renovation of its landmark building, and celebrate the legacies of Kevin Roche and Dan Kiley.

16 Projects that Push the Free Plan to its Limits

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Miniso Mexico Office / Grupo Lateral Arquitectura y Construcción. Imagem: © Camila Cossio

Modern architecture, visible in contemporary production, is usually related to the use of guidelines established by Le Corbusier's five points of architecture. Despite being widely known and debated for years, these points continue to be revisited and rethought in projects from various places and contribute to the creation of interesting buildings in various programs.

Modernist and Post-Modernist Architecture Through the Lens of Skyler Dahan

Modern architecture emerged during the late 19th - early 20th century to break away from historical styles and create structures based on functionality and novelty. Regardless of the style's prominence, post-modernist architecture emerged a few decades later as a reaction to modernism's uniformity and formality, adding complexity, asymmetry, and color into architecture.

During a recent trip to Europe, Los Angeles-based photographer Skyler Dahan put together a photo-series of the two architecture styles, shooting Aldo Rossi and Carlo Aymonino’s Gallaratese Housing II, along with other modernist and post-modernist buildings across Milan, Brittany, and Oslo.

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Terrazzo is Back: Production, Installation, and Samples in Architecture

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Focal Length / RENESA Architecture Design Interiors Studio. Image © Suryan//Dang

Terrazzo is made by combining a cement base (sand, water, and cement) with a mixture of ground minerals - like marble, granite, and quartz - and can be applied to almost any surface, vertical or horizontal. The technique, produced using a completely hand-crafted method, was used worldwide in the construction of modern buildings and is noted for its durability, resistance (to water and abrasion), and easy maintenance. This made it a go-to material in the creation of flooring for houses and the common areas of residential and office buildings.  

Today, terrazzo is experiencing a revival as one of the key trends in contemporary architecture. Here, we will discuss the whats and hows of terrazzo and illustrate some of its uses in current projects. 

How Two Getty Initiatives Are Saving Global Modernist Heritage

This Article was originally published on Metropolismag.com.

The Conserving Modern Architecture Initiative (CMAI) and Keeping It Modern grant are dedicated to supporting new methods and technologies for the conservation of Modernist buildings.

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10 Buildings That Helped Define Modernism in New York City

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211 East 48th Street, Midtown East, William Lescaze, 1934. Image © Mark Wickens

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This Article was originally published on Metropolis Magazine here.

The story of architectural Modernism in New York City goes beyond the familiar touchstones of Lever House and the Seagram Building.

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Eighty-five years on, the little white town house on East 48th Street by William Lescaze still startles. With its bright stucco and Purist volumes, it pulls the eye away from the do-nothing brownstones on one side and the noirish sub-Miesian tower on the other. The machined rectitude of its upper floors, telegraphed by two clumsily large spans of glass block, is offset by the freer plastic arrangement of the bottom levels. Le Corbusier’s five points are in evidence (minus the roof garden), suggesting an architecture ready to do battle. Built in 1934 from the shell of a Civil War–era town house, this was the first Modernist house in New York City, and its pioneering feeling for futurity extended to its domestic conveniences. (A skeptical Lewis Mumford noted its central air-conditioning.)

Discover Pritzker Prize Laureate Gottfried Böhm's Brutalist Church in Brazil

Gottfried Böhm is a German architect who was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1986. His father, Dominikus Böhm and his grandfather Alois Böhm were both architects, as well as three of his sons, among them, Peter Böhm. Few people know that he has two projects erected in Brazil, in Brusque and Blumenau - two cities highly influenced by German culture. Photographer Ronaldo Azambuja shared with us his series of photographs of the mother church Igreja Matriz São Luiz Gonzaga in Brusque. The text was written by Angelina Wittmann, architect, and researcher.

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Amey Kandalgaonkar Reimagines Traditional Chinese Pagodas for a Modernist Era

Amey Kandalgaonkar has unveiled a project which reimagines the traditional Chinese pagoda in a modernist style. The Shanghai-based designer created the fictional reinterpretation as a homage to a building form largely untouched by Modernism, featuring raw brut concrete, minimal ornamentation, and bold geometric moves.

Architectour Guide London: The Urban Explorer's Guide/2018

The new series of city guides for architects by Architectour brings to life the lost essence of travel and discovery. A compilation of exciting places – known and not so known – arranged in an innovative way: a continuous scenic itinerary, which is fun to follow and is full of quirks and surprises along the way. Hand-drawn sketches by architect and author Virginia Duran are the personal touch of the book, revealing the essential without spoiling what is a traveling delight: our first impression of a place.

The Absurdity of Beauty by Form4 Architecture

John Marx, AIA, Co-Founding Principal and Chief Artistic Officer of Form4 Architecture, has debuted The Absurdity of Beauty: Rebalancing the Modernist Narrative, which challenges the philosophies of Modernism and posits how these discussions can inspire a new era of urbanism and abundance.

Oscar Niemeyer's Rachid Karami Exposition Site Crumbling after Years of Neglect

Lebanon is home to several outstanding structures, influenced by centuries of architectural styles. However, one of the most intriguing projects in the Middle Eastern country lies in the northern city of Tripoli, a culturally-rich historical city with structures once inhabited by Romans, Crusaders, Phoenicians, and Ottomans. The Rachid Karami International Exhibition Center, designed by Oscar Niemeyer, reflects the slow deterioration from Lebanon’s pre-war golden age to post-war depression. The country's iconic modernist site has suffered after years of neglect and reportedly will require upwards of 15 million dollars to restore.

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An Architectural Guide to Guatemala City

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© Andrés Asturias

This guide is not a catalog. It is an open invitation to walk around the city and learn more about the architecture in Guatemala City.

The Guide to Modern Architecture in Guatemala City was written by Raúl Monterroso, Gemma Gil, and photographed by Andrés Asturias. In partnership with The Cultural Center of Spain in Guatemala, the guide addresses a descriptive analysis of 35 buildings, structured in five different routes, with the aim of not only synthesizing a series of physical characteristics but to provoke a reflexive, analytical and critical observation of the environment.

As Raúl Monterroso points out, while he shares five sites that every architect must visit, the goal is to introduce people to Guatemala's modern movement. It is an invitation to walk through the city and identify it with a different built heritage, however one that also shapes the landscape and fits into the urban context. Learn more about modern architecture in Latin America, below.

Exhibition: Living with Buildings

How does our built environment affect us? This major exhibition spanning two galleries examines the positive and negative influence buildings have on our health and wellbeing. From Dickensian London to the bold experiments of postwar urban planners, and from healing spaces for cancer patients to the role architecture can play in global healthcare provision, we look anew at the buildings that surround and shape us.

Material and Immaterial Poetry: The Work of Lina Bo Bardi

Italian-born architect Lina Bo Bardi is one of the most important figures of Brazilian design. Her ability to blend architecture, politics and popular culture made her an icon throughout the country and world, while her relentlessness to break from traditionalisms made Brazil the ideal location for her work.

Bo Bardi's architecture incorporates both materiality and culture. In addition to the concrete and solidified elements, she designed pieces based on cultural factors and intense political discussions. She wished to break the barriers between intellectuals and everyday people.

Ornament, Crime & Prejudice: Where Loos' Manifesto Fails to Understand People

This article was originally published on CommonEdge as "African Architecture: Ornament, Crime & Prejudice."

MODERN EAST: Build Your Own Modernist DDR

Omnipresent plattenbau housing estates, monumental hochhäuser, cosmic milk bars; the post-war East Germany was rebuilt on concrete foundations to stand for the new modernity and shape the unique and no less controversial urban landscape of German Democratic Republic.

MODERN EAST: Build Your Own Modernist DDR is the new book by Zupagrafika celebrating socialist modernist and brutalist architecture of the former East Germany and allows you to playfully reconstruct some of the most intriguing edifices erected between early 1950s and late 1980s - from the massive plattenbauten of Rostock, through the icons of DDR-Moderne, like Kino International or Haus des Berliner

Brutal Britain: Build Your Own Brutalist Great Britain

High-rise tower blocks, prefab panel housing estates, streets in the sky, new towns; some of the concrete constructions that once shaped the cityscapes of post-war Britain have stood the test of time, while others are long gone.

‘Brutal Britain’ by Zupagrafika (also author of ‘Brutal London’) celebrates the brutalist architecture of the British Isles, inviting readers to explore the Modern past of Great Britain and rebuild some of its most intriguing post-war edifices, from the iconic slabs of Sheffield`s Park Hill and experimental tower blocks at Cotton Gardens in London, to the demolished Birmingham Central Library.

Opening with a foreword by architectural

Why do Beautiful Things Make us Happy - And Why Does Modernism Make us Sad?

A recent exhibition at the MAK Vienna - Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, is showcasing the works of Sagmeister & Walsh, a NYC-based design firm investigating what makes beauty so appealing.

Titled "Beauty," the exhibition explores the notion that beauty operates as an independent function, and that in itself, it can be the primary motive for architecture: form is a function. In collaboration with the YouTube channel and design studio Kurzgesagt (In A Nutshell), this video released along with the exhibition explains why beautiful things make us happy.

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