2A Magazine is pleased to announce the second annual 2A Asia Architecture Award; 2AAA 2016, which celebrates “Innovative Architecture in Asia”. Accordingly, the Award is for recognition of an individual's or group's substantial contribution to today’s architecture in Asia in terms of contemporary challenges of the field in the region and lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture.
The Burj Khalifa might get all the headlines today, but for nearly half a century before it was built, some of the tallest structures in the world were actually in North Dakota, in the form of TV masts. In this post originally published by re:form on Medium, Casey Tolan investigates the threatened industry that once gave the world some of its most heroic structures.
Name the tallest structures in the world. Maybe flashy skyscrapers in China or the Gulf States come to mind. Or maybe you’re thinking of U.S. icons like One World Trade Center in New York or the Willis Tower in Chicago.
You’re almost certainly not thinking of TV towers. But dozens of nearly anonymous towers around the United States, most in small rural communities, dwarf all but the tallest man-made structures in the world.
In 2011, China had more people living in urban areas than rural areas for the first time in its history, and recent government statistics show that around 300 villages disappear per day in China. Yet in the face of rapid urbanization, a “back to land movement” is now also emerging. A new mini-documentary by Sun Yunfan and Leah Thompson, Down to the Countryside, looks at urban residents who, fed up with city life, are looking to revitalize the countryside, while preserving local tradition. The documentary follows Ou Ning, an artist and curator, who moved from Beijing to the village of Bishan, in Anhui province, in 2013. Ning considers himself part of China’s “new rural reconstruction movement,” and the documentary shows his quest to develop the rural economy and bring arts and culture to the countryside.
Learn more about the film on China File and check out an interview with the directors on CityLab.
When you abandon the countryside in favour of the city, what do you leave behind? In a recent essay for Icon Magazine, OMA co-founder Rem Koolhaas deliberates on the intersection between the two, arguing that "our current obsession with only the city is highly irresponsible because you cannot understand the city without understanding the countryside."
