The Architecture of the City

Waterside cafe at the Kontum Indochine Hotel in Vietnam designed by Vo Trong Nghia Architects and filled with conical bamboo columns.

This article, by David Brussat of The Providence Journal’s editorial board, first appeared at providencejournal.com. In a rating of energy efficiency by the Environmental Protection Administration, New York’s venerable Chrysler Building scored 84 out of 100 points; the Empire State Building, 80; but the modernist 7 World Trade Center scored 74 (below the cutoff of 75 for “high efficiency”); the Pan Am Building, 39; Lever House, 20; the Seagram Building, 3. 

The New York Times reported this story last Dec. 24 under the headline "City's Law Tracking Energy Use Yields Some Surprises."

It was no surprise to Nikos Salingaros and Michael Mehaffy, who have investigated why modern architecture thrives despite its inability to live up to any of its longstanding promises -- aesthetic, social or utilitarian.

Site officiel de la revue internationale d'architecture 'LE CARRÉ BLEU'

Des architectes de réputation mondiale ont collaboré à la revue et beaucoup de projets initialement décrits dans 'Le Carré Bleu' ont été réalisés par la suite. Par exemple:

université libre de Berlin (équipe Candilis Josic Woods)cité universitaire d'Urbino en Italie (Giancarlo de Carlo)centre linéaire de Rotterdam (J.B. Bakema)

Les contributions variées au 'Carré Bleu' peuvent étre regroupées sommairement en trois catégories:

accent sur la forme architecturaleaccent sur la fonction (sociale)accent sur la structure constructive

Ayant un long passé de militant politique, je compte parmi les élus et responsables politiques beaucoup de proches et d’amis. Sur les réseaux sociaux (Facebook ou Twitter), je les vois se féliciter à longueur de temps de constructions dont ils sont les instigateurs, les maîtres d’ouvrage, les partenaires ou un peu moins de tout ça. A chaque fois ou presque, je me sens obligé de leur rappeler de citer l’équipe de maîtrise d’oeuvre et plus précisément le nom de l’architecte de l’opération. Peu d’entre eux me répondent car peu d’entre eux connaissent le nom du ou des concepteurs. Cette situation peu flatteuse ne fait que souligner un manque d’amour et de reconnaissance que la France a pour ses architectes.

Architects: GEO Arquitectos
Location: Alcobendas, Madrid, Spain
Architects In Charge: Álvaro Galmés, Arturo Grinda, Miguel Olazábal
Area: 2,570 sqm
Year: 2011
Photographs: Miguel de Guzmán

Architects: Takato Tamagami
Location: Sapporo, Japan
Structural Engineering: S.FORM / Akira Ouchi
Contractor: MORINAGA Co.,Ltd.
Area: 131.0 sqm
Year: 2013
Photographs: Masaya Yoshimura

Fears of a 'towering inferno' disaster in the Gulf are growing after fires left residential buildings gutted in the United Arab Emirates cities of Sharjah and Dubai, reports the BBC's Bill Law.

One expert in the UAE has estimated that 70% of the high-rise buildings there have panel facade cladding made of a combustible thermoplastic core held between two sheets of aluminium.

Architects: Cobaleda & García Arquitectos
Location: Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain
Architect In Charge: Luciano Cobaleda Hernández y Raúl García García
Structures: José Miguel Melo
Technical Architect: Ramón Chivite García
Area: 400 sqm
Year: 2012
Photography: Courtesy of Cobaleda & García Arquitectos

In the largest battle of the Spanish Civil War, Nationalists and Republicans fought for more than five months near the town of Corbera d’Ebre. Besides the death of thousands of soldiers on either side, the Battle of the Ebro resulted in the destruction of the town. In the aftermath, it was decided to keep the church atop the hill in its ruined state to serve as a memorial.

In order to better preserve this monument, architect Ferran Vizoso (along with Núria Bordas, Jordi Garriga, and David Garcia) was enlisted to design a canopy for the site. The new canopy protects inhabitants, as well as the church’s masonry, from wind and rain while also moderating temperature. The resulting space is thus between interior and exterior, old and new.

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (m. 1967).  

The petition is partly an effort to combat the field’s chronic misogyny. In a recent interview inArchitect magazine, Brown described decades of pinprick humiliations: clients who ignored her and talked only to Venturi, get-togethers at all-male clubs, a request to step away from a group of architects that was posing for a photograph, accusations that she was resentful, shrewish, and demanding. Today a less-candid sexism comes out in the numbers: Women make up about half of all architecture students but only 17 percent of practicing architects. Zaha Hadid remains the only woman to win the Pritzker on her own. And although Kazuyo Sejima, the female co-founder of Sanaa, did win along with her younger (male) partner Ryue Nishizawa in 2010, the next year’s prize once again went to the male half of a two-person partnership: the Chinese architect Wang Shu, but not his wife, Lu Wenyu. (Women are reaping other laurels, though: the first $100,000 Wheelwright Prize has just been awarded to the 35-year-old Brooklyn architect Gia Wolff.)

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Les concours d'architecture ont fait de la France un eldorado pour les cabinets étrangers. La création hexagonale s'en trouve pénalisée sur son propre terrain, alors même qu'elle peine à s'exporter.

Architects: Op.N
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
Project Team: Ali Fard and Ghazal Jafari
Year: 2013
Photographs: Courtesy of Op.N

Architects: AM Architecture
Location: Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia
Architect In Charge: Andrew Mellios
Graduate Architect: Antry Lau
Area: 205.0 sqm
Year: 2012
Photographs: Dianna Snape

Queensland’s Cox Rayner Architects has won an international competition to design the National Maritime Museum of China.

Dedicated to football and designed by Proiect Bucuresti, the new 40,000-seat Craiova stadium will replace the existing “Ion Oblemenco” stadium on the site in Romania. As a tribute to the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, the form of the main roof lines were inspired by his work entitled “Miss Pogany”. The external volume obtained is expressive in daylight and the enhancement of architectural lighting at night will emphasize the building when viewed from the center of the town. The building will be iconic in the city and will be, along with other components of the sports complex, a modern insertion that will boost the development of the local area.

Architects: H-Architecture
Location: Yeosu, Korea
Architect In Charge: H-Architecture
Year: 2012
Photographs: Courtesy of H-Architecture