On the spot

News and observations:
• Another German Gehry: museum MARTa in Herford (DE)
• Jakriborg (SE): how a replica of a Hanseatic city can seem more original than the archetype
• Ambitious art cube: the ARoS museum for modern art in Aarhus (DK)
• Lloyd Hotel and restaurant Werck in Amsterdam (NL)
• and much more...

Start

New projects:
• Car parks, Lisbon (PT)
• Cité du Design, Saint-Étienne (FR)
• Shopping centre, Budapest (HU) by György Fazakas and Jean Paul Viguier
• Olympic Loop, Paris (FR) by NL Architects
• Viewing platform, Aurland (NO) by Todd Saunders and Tommie Wilhelmsen
• National Library, Minsk (BY) by Viktor Kramarenko and Mikhail Vinogradov
• Youth hostel, Prora (DE) by Atelier Kempe Thill

Interview

Wouter Vanstiphout interviews Sam Jacob of London-based office Fat.

WV: “The first thing I knew about you was a slogan you were using: „Kill the Modernist Within“. Is he dead already?”
SJ: “I wish he was. He’s like Rasputin – shot, stabbed, poisoned, but still getting up for more. It sounds aggressive, but it was more of a self-help thing. Like standing in front of the mirror and saying „I LOVE ME“ twenty times each morning. The magic mantra was supposed to curb the voice inside that peers out, looking at what you’re designing and says „you can’t do that, stop doing this, that and the other“ and so on – a kind of moral cop planted within by architectural education.”

Ready

New buildings:
• Fire station, Nanterre (FR) by Jean-Marc Ibos and Myrto Vitart
• „Im Birch“ school, Zurich (CH) by Peter Märkli
• Library, Lisbon (PT) by Fernando Martins
• Slender/Bender, Berlin (DE) by deadline architects
• Museum of Occupations, Tallinn (EE) by Indrek Peil and Siiri Vallner
• Apartment and veterinary practice, Luxembourg, by Nico Steinmetz and Arnoud de Meyer
• University Library, Azores, by a.s*
• Technorama, Winterthur (CH) by Dürig & Rämi
• Maritime Youth House, Copenhagen (DK) by PLOT
• VIT showroom, Asperhofen (AT) by Querkraft Architects

Eurovision

• News from the Italian interior: Mirko Zardini, curator of the Italian exhibition at this year's Venice Biennale, describes what's taking place behind closed doors.
• Architectural tour guide: Luigi Prestinenza gives a guided tour of the best buildings in eastern Sicily

Instand history

Jean Nouvel's Agbar Tower in Barcelona makes a clear reference to Montserrat and the Sagrada Familia. „This architecture could be a distant echo of age-old Catalan obsessions with form, borne on the wind that blows from Montserrat“