Zeitschrift
A10
new European architecture #8
Architectural and economic prosperity
There are obvious connections between architectural and economic prosperity. While an economic boom may not necessarily lead to a flourishing architectural culture, a favourable economic climate would seem to be a sine qua non for vigorous architectural development. Ireland, which has experienced tremendous economic growth over the last ten years, is a case in point. Emmett Scanlon’s Irish architecture tour guide in this issue shows just how many interesting buildings have been built in that country in a relatively short space of time. This architectural boom is not just a matter of the availability of capital. Equally important is the confidence in the (near) future that goes hand in hand with this. Construction activity is always a sign of optimism, and it thrives in times of plenty.
Interestingly, the Irish tour guide contains a remarkably high proportion of public buildings. Despite the Europe-wide dominance of free market ideology, the government is still a major commissioner of architecture. Not only in Ireland, but elsewhere on the continent as well. In Estonia, where GDP has doubled over the last ten years, the national art museum, KUMU, was recently completed. This building, reviewed for A10 by Triin Ojari, is Estonia’s largest and most expensive public building since independence.
If European economic growth figures are any indication of where architecture is most likely to flourish in the coming years, then it is clearly the eastern part of the continent. The Baltic states are expecting around 7% growth in 2006, while the prognosis for countries like Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic is approximately 5%.
Growth rates are relative, of course, for despite a negligible increase, Western Europe is still highly prosperous. And this continues to be expressed in new architecture, even in countries that are currently under-performing economically, like Portugal, which fills the cover with CVDB’s theatre in Cartaxo, reviewed by Pedro Jordão. In some areas of Europe, like Switzerland, prosperity is so great that there is even money for an architect-designed cow shed.
But prosperity is not all good news for architecture. There is a downside as well, for where there is money, there is not only a lot of construction but often also a lot of demolition. The most likely casualties of demolition are the buildings that are no longer in their first flush of youth, but are still too young to be considered timeless. Christian Welzbacher describes how and why postmodernist architecture from the 1980s has fallen victim to this fate in Germany; Lukasz Wojciechowski and Roman Rutkowski examine how history is repeating itself in this respect in Wroclaw. Both articles demonstrate the vulnerability of architecture at that point when it is neither new nor timeless, but in that awkward phase when it is regarded as either stylistically or ideologically outmoded. (Hans Ibelings)
On the spot
News and observations
• What appeared on renderings as a translucent design has taken on a more massive form that towers above the environs: the National Library of Belarus in Minsk (BY) is nearing its completion
• The Centre for Central European Architecture (CCEA) promotes „Hungerian, Pollish, Czeck, Austerian, Slowak and Sloven“ architectural talent
• A masterpiece reappears: Aldo van Eyck’s 1960s Sonsbeek pavilion rebuilt in Otterlo (NL)
• Reality check: „four squares in one“ by SLA in Copenhagen (DK)
• Update: four practices that had a hand in raising a debate about the built environment in Malta
• The Berlin Pavilion, a 1950s modernist gem, has got a new lease of life as a Burger King restaurant (DE)
and more...
Start
New projects
• Future Systems lives up to its name with a retro-futuristic design for an apartment building in the Copenhagen harbour (DK)
• Ifau and Jesko Fezer from Berlin won a competition to convert Palais Thinnfeld in Graz (AT) with a plan that refuses to make a spectacular gesture
• Architecture association L’Atalante invited twelve teams of architects to design „Global Models for Local Houses“ in Portugal
• Massimo Acito has built a house in Metaponto (IT), avoiding the use of special effects or coquettish tricks
• For the first time, 2012 architecten have applied their „recyclicity“ building method to a house in Enschede (NL), appropriately located on the spot where a fireworks disaster occurred in 2000
• Sarah Wigglesworth converted a former school building for the Siobhan Davies Cance Centre in South London (UK)
Interview
New Plots
A10’s Claes Sörstedt talks to Julien De Smedt and Bjarke Ingels about Copenhagen-based practice Plot and the splitting up of a highly prolific collaboration
Ready
New buildings
• Wandel Höfer Lorch + Hirsch created a structure to house a permanent exhibition dedicated to a former SS special camp in Hinzert (DE)
• Maria Vives of GDA architects designed an office building in Barcelona (ES) with more individuality than strictly necessary
Inspired by the house he grew up in, Jens Studer built an internally foldable building in Uerikon (CH)
• With four different facades, Kenan Sahovic’s library in Sarajevo (BA) does its best to fit into its surroundings
• The elegant new blocks for Bedales School in Petersfield (UK) by Walters and Cohen might well be capable of seducing both ardent modernists and Prince Charles sympathizers
• CVDB have replaced Cartaxo’s theatre with a new building that makes a strong impression on its context (PT)
• Tallinn's new KUMU museum, designed by Finnish architect Pekka Vapaavuori, is Estonia’s most expensive public building
• Localarchitecture has given a rural typology a contemporary shape with their design for a cow shed in Lignières (CH)
• The first phase of Jestico and Whiles’ extension to London's Central School of Speech and Drama promises well for the future (UK)
• Tomasz Glowacki's fashionably modern house in Gatowice (PL) recalls both traditional Polish barns and country churches
• In a hilly suburb of Budapest (HU), Zsuffa and Kalmár have designed a town hall in the form of an „artificial rock“
• Architect Nicola Probst carefully folded a house in Lugano (CH)
• In Helsinki’s suburbs, Sari Nieminen designed a school that is a village in itself (FI)
• The commission to enlarge Vienna’s Stadthalle, won by architects Dietrich | Untertrifaller, called for both homage and critique (AT)
• American-Romanian Westfourth Architecture has built an office tower that is the highest in this part of Bucharest (RO)
Eurovision
Focusing on European countries, cities and regions
• Less than three decades after its glorious arrival, postmodernism is about to meet its Judgement Day. Christian Welzbacher writes an obituary and makes an attempt to put „PoMo“ in an historical context
• Sixty years after the Second World War, Wroclaw – better known to the rest of the world as Breslau – is still searching for an architectural identity of its own and agonizing over its attitude to the existing architecture
• A10’s Emmett Scanlon takes us for a whirlwind tour of Ireland’s most interesting new town halls, theatres, schools, libraries, arts centres and collective housing, which are gently and persuasively stitching themselves into and onto the existing fabric of Irish towns and villages
• Home: Berger+Parkkinen’s contemporary barn in Vienna (AT)
Instant history
Buildings that already get their share of media attention
Madrid’s new airport terminal, designed by Richard Rogers Partnership and Estudio Lamela, will double the airport’s current capacity of 35 million passengers a year. The negative effect on the immediate surroundings highlights the fact that Rogers’ architecturally magnificent terminal is, by the very nature of its programme, at loggerheads with his ecological commitment
There are obvious connections between architectural and economic prosperity. While an economic boom may not necessarily lead to a flourishing architectural culture, a favourable economic climate would seem to be a sine qua non for vigorous architectural development. Ireland, which has experienced tremendous economic growth over the last ten years, is a case in point. Emmett Scanlon’s Irish architecture tour guide in this issue shows just how many interesting buildings have been built in that country in a relatively short space of time. This architectural boom is not just a matter of the availability of capital. Equally important is the confidence in the (near) future that goes hand in hand with this. Construction activity is always a sign of optimism, and it thrives in times of plenty.
Interestingly, the Irish tour guide contains a remarkably high proportion of public buildings. Despite the Europe-wide dominance of free market ideology, the government is still a major commissioner of architecture. Not only in Ireland, but elsewhere on the continent as well. In Estonia, where GDP has doubled over the last ten years, the national art museum, KUMU, was recently completed. This building, reviewed for A10 by Triin Ojari, is Estonia’s largest and most expensive public building since independence.
If European economic growth figures are any indication of where architecture is most likely to flourish in the coming years, then it is clearly the eastern part of the continent. The Baltic states are expecting around 7% growth in 2006, while the prognosis for countries like Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic is approximately 5%.
Growth rates are relative, of course, for despite a negligible increase, Western Europe is still highly prosperous. And this continues to be expressed in new architecture, even in countries that are currently under-performing economically, like Portugal, which fills the cover with CVDB’s theatre in Cartaxo, reviewed by Pedro Jordão. In some areas of Europe, like Switzerland, prosperity is so great that there is even money for an architect-designed cow shed.
But prosperity is not all good news for architecture. There is a downside as well, for where there is money, there is not only a lot of construction but often also a lot of demolition. The most likely casualties of demolition are the buildings that are no longer in their first flush of youth, but are still too young to be considered timeless. Christian Welzbacher describes how and why postmodernist architecture from the 1980s has fallen victim to this fate in Germany; Lukasz Wojciechowski and Roman Rutkowski examine how history is repeating itself in this respect in Wroclaw. Both articles demonstrate the vulnerability of architecture at that point when it is neither new nor timeless, but in that awkward phase when it is regarded as either stylistically or ideologically outmoded. (Hans Ibelings)
On the spot
News and observations
• What appeared on renderings as a translucent design has taken on a more massive form that towers above the environs: the National Library of Belarus in Minsk (BY) is nearing its completion
• The Centre for Central European Architecture (CCEA) promotes „Hungerian, Pollish, Czeck, Austerian, Slowak and Sloven“ architectural talent
• A masterpiece reappears: Aldo van Eyck’s 1960s Sonsbeek pavilion rebuilt in Otterlo (NL)
• Reality check: „four squares in one“ by SLA in Copenhagen (DK)
• Update: four practices that had a hand in raising a debate about the built environment in Malta
• The Berlin Pavilion, a 1950s modernist gem, has got a new lease of life as a Burger King restaurant (DE)
and more...
Start
New projects
• Future Systems lives up to its name with a retro-futuristic design for an apartment building in the Copenhagen harbour (DK)
• Ifau and Jesko Fezer from Berlin won a competition to convert Palais Thinnfeld in Graz (AT) with a plan that refuses to make a spectacular gesture
• Architecture association L’Atalante invited twelve teams of architects to design „Global Models for Local Houses“ in Portugal
• Massimo Acito has built a house in Metaponto (IT), avoiding the use of special effects or coquettish tricks
• For the first time, 2012 architecten have applied their „recyclicity“ building method to a house in Enschede (NL), appropriately located on the spot where a fireworks disaster occurred in 2000
• Sarah Wigglesworth converted a former school building for the Siobhan Davies Cance Centre in South London (UK)
Interview
New Plots
A10’s Claes Sörstedt talks to Julien De Smedt and Bjarke Ingels about Copenhagen-based practice Plot and the splitting up of a highly prolific collaboration
Ready
New buildings
• Wandel Höfer Lorch + Hirsch created a structure to house a permanent exhibition dedicated to a former SS special camp in Hinzert (DE)
• Maria Vives of GDA architects designed an office building in Barcelona (ES) with more individuality than strictly necessary
Inspired by the house he grew up in, Jens Studer built an internally foldable building in Uerikon (CH)
• With four different facades, Kenan Sahovic’s library in Sarajevo (BA) does its best to fit into its surroundings
• The elegant new blocks for Bedales School in Petersfield (UK) by Walters and Cohen might well be capable of seducing both ardent modernists and Prince Charles sympathizers
• CVDB have replaced Cartaxo’s theatre with a new building that makes a strong impression on its context (PT)
• Tallinn's new KUMU museum, designed by Finnish architect Pekka Vapaavuori, is Estonia’s most expensive public building
• Localarchitecture has given a rural typology a contemporary shape with their design for a cow shed in Lignières (CH)
• The first phase of Jestico and Whiles’ extension to London's Central School of Speech and Drama promises well for the future (UK)
• Tomasz Glowacki's fashionably modern house in Gatowice (PL) recalls both traditional Polish barns and country churches
• In a hilly suburb of Budapest (HU), Zsuffa and Kalmár have designed a town hall in the form of an „artificial rock“
• Architect Nicola Probst carefully folded a house in Lugano (CH)
• In Helsinki’s suburbs, Sari Nieminen designed a school that is a village in itself (FI)
• The commission to enlarge Vienna’s Stadthalle, won by architects Dietrich | Untertrifaller, called for both homage and critique (AT)
• American-Romanian Westfourth Architecture has built an office tower that is the highest in this part of Bucharest (RO)
Eurovision
Focusing on European countries, cities and regions
• Less than three decades after its glorious arrival, postmodernism is about to meet its Judgement Day. Christian Welzbacher writes an obituary and makes an attempt to put „PoMo“ in an historical context
• Sixty years after the Second World War, Wroclaw – better known to the rest of the world as Breslau – is still searching for an architectural identity of its own and agonizing over its attitude to the existing architecture
• A10’s Emmett Scanlon takes us for a whirlwind tour of Ireland’s most interesting new town halls, theatres, schools, libraries, arts centres and collective housing, which are gently and persuasively stitching themselves into and onto the existing fabric of Irish towns and villages
• Home: Berger+Parkkinen’s contemporary barn in Vienna (AT)
Instant history
Buildings that already get their share of media attention
Madrid’s new airport terminal, designed by Richard Rogers Partnership and Estudio Lamela, will double the airport’s current capacity of 35 million passengers a year. The negative effect on the immediate surroundings highlights the fact that Rogers’ architecturally magnificent terminal is, by the very nature of its programme, at loggerheads with his ecological commitment
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