Video: The Latest Architecture and News

Last night German architect Frei Otto was selected as the 2015 Pritzker Prize Laureate, the second German to win the award and the first to receive the award posthumously. The video above shows the impressive construction process of Otto’s German Pavilion at the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal (although unfortunately without sound).

Covering an area of 8,000 square meters, the pavilion featured a large, steel mesh web suspended over eight steel masts, which were located at irregular intervals and supported by anchored cables located outside of the structure.  A transparent polyester fabric was then placed over the mesh roof, creating a tent.  The whole construction took only six weeks. 

Videos

Following our top 40 Architecture Docs to Watch in 2014 and our favourite 30 Architecture Docs to Watch in 2013, 2015 is no exception! Our latest round up continues to feature a fantastic range of films and documentaries telling the tales of unsung architectural heroes and unheard urban narratives from around the world. This entirely fresh selection looks past the panoply of stars to bring you more of the best architectural documentaries which will provoke, intrigue and beguile.

From a film which explores one man's dream to build a cathedral (#4) and a simultaneous history of and vision of Rotterdam's future (#7), to a tour of the world's last surviving squatter town in Copenhagen (#14) and A Short History of Abandoned Sets in Morocco (#16), we present - in no particular order - thirty freshly picked documentaries for you to watch in 2015.

We teamed up with Building Pictures, Filipa Figueira and Tiago Vieira to feature weekly episodes of their video series “Arquitectura à Moda do Porto,” which highlights Porto’s most significant buildings over the last 20 years.

The series was launched in December 2013 and is comprised of 10 episodes, each focusing on a different theme: light, stairs, balconies, nature, textures, doors, windows, skylights, pavements and structures.

Last week we presented the series’ fifth episode on Porto’s textures, and now we present Episode 6 – Doors. Read the producers’ description of the video after the break.

We teamed up with Building Pictures, Filipa Figueira and Tiago Vieira to feature weekly episodes of their video series “Arquitectura à Moda do Porto,” which highlights Porto’s most significant buildings over the last 20 years.

The series was launched in December 2013 and is comprised of 10 episodes, each focusing on a different theme: light, stairs, balconies, nature, textures, doors, windows, skylights, pavements and structures.

Last week we presented the series’ fourth episode on Porto's natural environment, and now we present Episode 5 – Textures. Read the producers’ description of the video after the break.

"Big things don't happen overnight," says architect Rob Quigley, speaking to Breadtruck Films, "and civic buildings certainly don't happen overnight." The words ring true in the context of Quigley's San Diego New Central Library, which opened in 2013 following a protracted 17 year period of design and construction. After conceiving of the design in 1996, Quigley's plans for the library were "put on the back burner" when planning authorities chose to halt construction on the project in favor of a new ballpark. Construction eventually recommenced years later, in what has since been described as "absolutely a surreal experience."

In this video Quigley describes the driving force of "creating an architecture that responds honestly and authentically to who we are," and how the library has come to be a "symbol of [San Diego]'s commitment to learning and literacy." 

With almost half of the world’s wealth owned by 1% of the population, the spatial and physical effects of this inequality are becoming more pronounced in the world’s cities, and mitigating this polarization of society is an increasingly pressing issue. A new project led by the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, in collaboration with Architects without Borders and Emergency Architecture & Human Rights.DK, is addressing this issue in Chile, with a development project proposal for Santiago’s largest unofficial settlement.

ArchDaily has teamed up with Building Pictures, Filipa Figueira and Tiago Vieira to feature weekly episodes of their video series “Arquitectura à Moda do Porto,” which highlights Porto’s most significant buildings over the last two decades.

The series launched in 2013 and is comprised of 10 episodes, each focusing on a different theme: light, stairs, balconies, nature, textures, doors, windows, skylights, pavements and structures.

Last week we featured the series' first episode about Porto's shimmering lights, and now we present Episode 2 - Stairs. Read the producers' description of Episode 2 after the break. 

In conjunction with "Contemplating Basics," the 35th Aedes Architecture Forum's exhibition of work by Beijing-based ZAO/standardarchitecture, Reframe presents an interview the firm's founder, Zhang Ke, and Dr Eduard Kögel, an Urban Planner and critic from Berlin.

In 1970 the BBC followed architects Alison and Peter Smithson through the construction of their seminal housing project, Robin Hood Gardens (London). The impact of their architecture continues to resonate well into the 21st century, most recently in the British Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Biennale. Robin Hood Gardens was demolished in 2013, bringing an end to the Smithson's utopian vision. Listen to Alison Smithson explain the European Housing Condition (as the vision stood in 1970), the state of British infrastructure as it was, and hear Peter Smithson discuss the impetus for their most famous collective housing project.

"Be very sensitive to where you are, in what times and in what parts of the world, and how that constitutes the artistic practice," says Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson in this recent video from Louisiana Channel. In Advice to the Young, Eliasson deliberates on creative practice, urging young artists to take risks and produce meaningful work. "Just because you think about a work of art," says Eliasson, "it is not necessarily a work of art." Most recently, Eliasson has made headlines for his immersive exhibition Riverbed at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art which explores the intersection between nature and the built environment. Revered as one of the world's leading sculptural and installation artists, Eliasson is adamant that the practice of working with art remains to be "very fierce, very strong and very robust."

In a three day pilot workshop, students from the Architecture and Urbanism School of Mackenzie Presbyterian University in São Paulo took part in an introduction to architecture filmmaking. Coordinated by architects Gabriel Kogan and Pedro Kok, the group spent a day at Lina Bo Bardi's Glass House in São Paulo following theoretical and technical lectures.

The idea was to recreate – now in moving images – an iconic photograph of the site  by exploring issues of representation, transparency, interior/exterior, promenades, ways of living and the tectonics of this architectural masterpiece.

If buildings could talk, what would they say about us? Cathedrals of Culture, a six part collection of films recently premiered at this year's Berlin International Film Festival, "offers six startling responses to this question". The project, filmed entirely in 3D, allows "six iconic and very different buildings to speak for themselves, examining human life from the unblinking perspective of a manmade structure".

This video by architecture photographer, Pedro Kok, takes us behind the scenes of the construction of the Cais das Artes (Quay of Arts) building in Brazil. Located in the southeastern coastal city of Vitória, the building was designed by Paulo Mendes da Rocha in collaboration with METRO Arquitetos.

The video was produced for La Triennale di Milano’s exhibition, “Paulo Mendes da Rocha – Technique and Imagination," and captures - through impeccable shots - the work that went into constructing the enormous cultural complex.

In this video, produced by Hugo Oliveira, Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza denounces the "hyper-specialization" of architecture, outlining its academic roots as well as its practical implications for practice. Siza mentions how, in Portugal, a law was considered to limit architects to their specific specialities - exterior architects could not design interiors, for example. According to Siza, this tendency towards "hyper" or over specialization is unfortunate, as it gives rise to the segmentation of the discipline into subcategories - interior architecture, exterior architecture, landscape architecture, etc. - that undermine collaboration and team work.

Also make sure to check out the first part of this interview, where Siza discusses the obsolescence of buildings.

Well-designed, protected bike lanes are not only the desire for riders, but a necessity for cities to offer sustainable transport. Bikes sales are on the rise and it is imperative that cities meet the growing demand. As Portland-based planner Nick Falbo describes: "If your city is designed so that you may bike instead of drive, it would be a happier, healthier place to live." With that in mind, Falbo has revealed a systematic proposal that can make the intersections safer for bicyclists, cars and pedestrians.

Fours steps for safer crossings, after the break...

Cristobal Palma from Estudio Palma presents his latest video of Ambient 30 60, UMWELT's pavilion for Yap_Constructo 2014 in Chile. The video aptly captures the spirit of the Young Architects Program (YAP) -- an annual collaboration between the MoMA and MoMA PS1 that takes place in Istanbul, New York, Rome and Santiago.