1. When he was young he collaborated with the director Jan de Bont, whose credits would later include Speed and Twister.
2. Koolhaas dates his desire to become an architect to a speech he delivered to a group of architects at the University of Delft when he was 24.
3. The drawings from his final project at the AA are the most requested items from MoMA's Architecture and Design collection. (Smithsonian Magazine)
Rem Koolhaas, one of today's most celebrated architects, has lived a significant year. With the closing of his much-talked about Venice Biennale just days away, the Dutchman also turns 70 years old this coming Monday.
Federico Babina is back, this time bringing some cinematic life to the world's most well known modernist interiors with ARCHILIFE. "I have never liked the lack of life in the architectural representations that are often aseptic, clean and neutral," explains Babina. "I often enjoy imagining what life would be like in these static images."
The images show history's most famous film stars living out their daily routines in some of our favorite homes, bringing "the banality of everyday life" to these myths of both Architecture and Cinema. "We are used to perceiving and reading architecture as a set of almost metaphysical spaces. In a similar way we see the actors as characters and not as people," he says. "I wanted to try to reverse these patterns: to transform the interior into 'houses' and the actors into 'people'."
From Marilyn and Mies to Caine and Kahn, the stars get a home to match their temperament, in which to relax, watch TV, meditate - and yes, to clean and tidy too.
See the full set of 17 ARCHILIFE images after the break - and just in case you missed them, check out Federico Babina‘s other popular illustration sets: ARCHIWINDOW, ARTISTECT, ARCHISET, ARCHIMACHINE, ARCHIPORTRAIT, ARCHIST, ARCHIBET and ARCHICINE.
UPDATE: The Jury has selected Jeremy Jacinth and Luliana Teodora Amza as the winners of the £600 scholarship to participate in the GIPpy workshop at the AA Visiting School in Santiago, Chile.
What does Soviet Union architecture have to do with Chilean astronomy? A lot more than many realize. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union manufactured three Grand Passage Instrument telescopes (GIPpy), and their accompanying domes in Saint Petersburg. Unfortunately, they fell into ruin after the Soviet astronomical mission’s departure from Chile following the 1973 military coup d-etat. Now, however, the Architectural Association Visiting School in Santiago, Chile, in partnership with the Pontifical Catholic University, will host a 10-day workshop in January on the GIPpy telescopes. The workshop is organized by the team that was recently awarded the Silver Lion at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale for their work on Soviet prefabricated housing in Chile, and we’ve teamed up with the Architectural Association Visiting School to give away two £600 scholarships to attend the workshop!
For more information on the workshop and to find out how to enter to win a scholarship read on after the break…
The Pantone Hotel, a seven-story hotel in Brussels with decor inspired by the famous Pantone color system, opened for business in 2010, but these candy-colored images of its multi-hued rooms were new to us. Designed by interior designer Michel Penneman and architect Olivier Hannaert, and photographed by Sven Laurent, the Pantone Hotel serves up 59 rooms in a wide variety of color schemes, perfected by Pantone's authoritative color matching system. It is the apotheosis of the company's transition into manufacturing lifestyle products, with the "Pantone Universe" range containing everything from mugs to cufflinks, all colored to an exact specification with their identifying code.
“I work a little bit like a sculptor. When I start, my first idea for a building is with the material. I believe architecture is about that. It’s not about paper, it’s not about forms. It’s about space and material.” - Peter Zumthor
Over the past several years, ArchDaily has become the main source of inspiration, knowledge, and tools for architects across the US, and it’s precisely for this reason that we are driven to improve our applications and develop new initiatives day after day.
CEMEX’s annual Building Awards recognize the best in architecture and construction both within Mexico as well as internationally, highlighting innovative design and building and construction techniques across nine different categories. International finalist projects this year range from Frank Gehry’s Biomuseo in Panama to Plan B Arquitectos’ Click Clack Hotel in Bogotá, Colombia.
In his latest series, ARCHIWINDOW, Federico Babina draws some inspiration perhaps from the headline exhibition the Venice Biennale, investigating some of the most famous window designs architecture has to offer. Babina simply says it is "a little reflection about architecture and the elements that compose it."
The images reveal how expressive the element of the window can be, as many of the 25 signature designs will be instantly recognizable for die-hard architecture fans, while others may reveal a previously-unrecognized trend in the work of a particular architect.
"The windows are the eyes of architecture. Through the windows enters the light and shadow that creates spaces. The windows invite us to enter the landscape, and are the cracks through which to spy on architecture," writes Babina. "I tried to transform a detail into the protagonist to emphasize its expressive capacity. A single window can open up a world of information. It allows you to lean out to find clues of the stylistic and linguistic aesthetics of architecture."
Take a look at all 25 drawings in the ARCHIWINDOW series after the break. And don’t miss Federico Babina‘s other (very popular) illustration sets: ARTISTECT, ARCHISET, ARCHIMACHINE, ARCHIPORTRAIT, ARCHIST, ARCHIBET and ARCHICINE.
It is a common complaint among architects that, unlike other manufacturing systems, the way we build has remained essentially the same for hundreds of years. This presents a huge number of challenges, not only to architects but also to their clients and to contractors, with disputes over unexpected costs and time overruns - resulting in a system where contractors, clients and architects often see each other as adversaries rather than as members of a team.
The world of commercial architecture has at least gone some way to a solution: many large projects financed by developers or by the government are covered by construction bonds, which tie all parties down to a contract, and provide insurance against unexpected expenses and overruns. But what about the architects who work for small private clients? Now, thanks to a company called Bolster, designers on smaller projects can have the insurance used to streamline major projects - as well as a client matching service which can help architects and contractors find work.
Find out more about Bolster, and what it can offer architects, after the break
Chile is recognized internationally for the quality of its architecture, even though its most lauded projects are not often found in urban areas. At a time when the true potential of Chilean architecture seems absent from the South American country's cities, Alejandro Aravena | ELEMENTAL has designed a conceptually - and physically - dense project in Santiago.
UPDATE: Submissions are now closed. We will contact the winner in the week.
Next month, the annual Greenbuild International Conference and Expo is coming to the Big Easy for three days of speakers and educational workshops that discuss sustainable architecture. If you haven’t booked your ticket already, here is a chance to attend the event free of charge!
reThink Wood is offering a full pre-paid pass to Greenbuild this year ($700 value) to one lucky ArchDaily reader. The winner will also be able to meet with architects on-site that are passionate about the green movement and reducing the environmental impact of buildings through innovative design with wood.
To win, just answer the following question in the comments section before September 26 12:00PM EST: "Which architecture firm(s) are doing the most innovative green designs with wood today?"
Imagine: After three years of careful dismantling, moving, painstakingly re-assembling and most importantly, restoring, John Notman’s historic Athenæum building has finally arrived at its new location in Fairmount Park, where it will serve as the headquarters of the newly formed Philadelphia chapter of the Friends of Brownstone (PhilaFOB). Flush with government funding from lottery and fracking revenue, PhilaFOB made the Athenæum Board of Directors an offer it couldn’t refuse. So now, for the first time since 1845, the lot at 6th & St. James Streets is vacant, and the Athenæum, still a vital independent lending and research library, with growing architectural and design collections, must re-imagine itself without its historic building. Given its location and its corporate purposes, what might a mid-21st century Athenæum look like?
Our friend Federico Babina's latest illustrations blur the lines of art and architecture in this series: ARTISTECT. These 25 images, he explains, represent "possible and impossible encounters between artists and architects," emphasizing the "probable and improbable connections between forms of expression and aesthetic languages sometimes distant and sometimes very close."
In this exercise of overlapping styles, it is perhaps easier at first glance to identify the artist. But careful inspection of these stunning drawings reveals the idiosyncratic and stylistic tendencies of some of our most beloved architects.
Babina writes, "The project’s main idea is to reinterpret famous paintings using a brush soaked in architectural tints…These images are a metaphor for an imagined and imaginary dialogue between creative minds: Le Corbusier talks with Picasso and Kandinsky discusses with Wright... The wires that connect and intertwine this relations can be thin and transparent or robust and full-bodied."
Take a look at the entire ARTISTECT series after the break. And don't miss Federico Babina's other (very popular) illustration sets: ARCHISET, ARCHIMACHINE, ARCHIPORTRAIT, ARCHIST, ARCHIBET and ARCHICINE.
Articles on China’s building boom often highlight the property bubble, megalomaniac planners, governmental corruption and private graft, substandard building practices and the destruction of the nation’s cultural heritage.
In Mark #51, we interviewed four Chinese architects on four aspects of China’s building practices to reveal the mechanisms at the foundation of this unedifying image. Li Hu offers his thoughts on architecture, Liu Yuyang on urban planning, Li Xiaodong on aesthetics and Liu Jiakun on construction processes. What can we learn from their experience?
EL CROQUIS, number 173, a monograph on MVRDV, is the third monograph produced by the publisher on this office established in Rotterdam. The current publication collects MVRDV's most significant works from 2003 to the present −presented in full with several construction plans, and a profusion of photographs and sketches. The monograph is prefaced by an interview with MVRDV by the architects Charles Bessard and Nanne de Ru, and a critical essay on their work by Aaron Betsky.
Among the buildings and projects featured the most remarkable ones are the Gemini Residences, the Parkrand apartment building in Rotterdam, the rooftop house extension Didden Village in Rotterdam, the Balancing Barn holiday house in Thorington, the Book Mountain in Spijkenisse, the mixed-use centre Glass Farm in Schijndel and the shopping centre Chungha Building in Gangnam.
In honor of World Photo Day (August 19th) ArchDaily wanted to thank the photographers who bring to life the projects that we publish every day. So we asked architects to weigh in on the work of some of our most-appreciated architecture photographers. Here, Alberto Campo Baeza writes on behalf of Javier Callejas.
In honor of World Photo Day (August 19th) ArchDaily wanted to thank the photographers who bring to life the projects that we publish every day. So we asked 15 architects to weigh in on the work of some of our most-appreciated architecture photographers. Here, Steven Holl writes on behalf of Iwan Baan.
In honor of World Photo Day (August 19th) ArchDaily wanted to thank the photographers who bring to life the projects that we publish every day. So we asked architects to weigh in on the work of some of our most-appreciated architecture photographers. Here, WMR Arquitectos writes on behalf of Sergio Pirrone.
