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Picnic, plants, architecture - the fascinating world of Junya Ishigami
One of today's most outstanding architects has been selected as the guest of honour at this year's "Interieur" trade fair in Kortrijk (Belgium). Junya Ishigami, a pupil of Kazuyo Sejima, is the founder of junya.ishigami+associates, lecturer at the Tokyo University of Science, publisher of a number of books and creator of artistic marvels which fascinate with their wealth of fantasy and devotion to detail...
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A Size Issue
Architonic reviews '1:1 – Architects Build Small Spaces', the latest exhibition at London's Victoria & Albert Museum
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Look Who's Talking: architecture in the global-communication era
If architecture is the accumulation of centuries of knowledge, then what of its existence in an era of perpetual and instantaneous updates that the Internet and social networking brings? For a technology-driven industry, it seems slow to embrace the possibilities of continuous information exchange. A number of young studios appear to have some answers, which in the process of challenging dusty perceptions are 'Twittering' and marketing their names to the forefront of architecture today ahead of the starchitects of yesterday.
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Sarasota Revisited: Architonic explores the architectural legacy of Florida's Modernist gem of a city
The 'Sarasota School of Architecture' was coined as an historical term by architect Gene Leedy in the 1980s to describe the unique mid-century, European-Modernism-meets-Florida architecture of the city. Here, we examine how the physical legacy of progressive architectural practice in Sarasota has (and sometimes hasn't) been preserved and reinterpreted.
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'Harmonious Anarchy': revisiting Hak Nam, Hong Kong's slum city
When photographer Greg Girard decided to visit the notorious, citadel-like 'Walled City' slum in Hong Kong's Kowloon, where the daily lives of 35,000 people played out, he was told he may not come back alive. Luckily for him, he did. And, luckily for us, he brought with him a series of compelling images, showing just how close the relation between architectural space and social behaviour can be.
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The Presence of Absence: Detroit's haunting architectural relics
There's faded grandeur. And then there's Detroit. Once the fourth-largest city in the US, its spectacular economic and social decline is writ large in the disintegration of its architectural fabric. With its former manufacturing industries decimated and parts of downtown Detroit becoming a depopulated wasteland, leading American photographer Sean Hemmerle has created 'Rust Belt' a series of compelling images – at times poetic, at others unnverving – of the city's former urban glory, both industrial and residential. His striking work serves as both architectural record and effective social commentary.
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Over Site: how Caracas's new cable-car system is making the city's favelas more visible
Once so disenfranchised that they didn't even appear on maps of the city, Caracas's favelas are, thanks to projects such as the technically and politically remarkable MetroCable transport system in San Agustín, acquiring a social legitimacy. Here, we talk to architect Alfredo Brillembourg, co-founder of the multidisciplinary practice Urban Think Tank, about the development of the cable-car system and how it works to fill in those cartographic blanks.
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Camouflage Architecture: underground buildings
If you're familiar with the Wombles, then you probably encountered underground architecture at any early age.
It's unlikely that the following projects were inspired by the Wombles, but that doesn't mean they're any less successful in terms of their functionality and singularity...
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Making an Exhibition of Ourselves: Architonic deciphers some of Expo 2010 Shanghai's architectural offerings
No form of architecture is perhaps as loaded with rhetoric as the expo pavilion. With hundreds of countries currently jostling at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai to attract visitors into their little piece of home, Architonic takes a look at what's at stake in such an enterprise in terms of representation and national identity.
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The windows of the world: new full-height glazing systems
The panorama window allows you to the bring the beauty of nature into your home, while keeping extremes of weather firmly outside. The systems presented here by Architonic turn the architectural visions of the Modern Movement into a reality...
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Right on So Many Levels: innovative car-park design
When Joni Mitchell sang that 'they paved paradise and put up a parking lot', she neatly expressed our none-too-positive relationship with that most modern of building types, the car park. Architonic invites you to pull up to the bumper and take a look at a number of recent parking-garage projects that attempt to put a bit of love back into it all.
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Exhibition: Richard Neutra in Europe (1960–1970)
Between 1960 and 1970, so in just ten years, the American architect Richard Neutra (*1892 in Vienna, †1970 in Wuppertal) had eight villas constructed in Europe; four in Switzerland (one of which was the only one to be built without a flat roof), three in Germany and one in France. ...
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Rezension: 'Mythos Metropolis' von Franziska Bollerey
Die Stadt mit ihrem Reichtum an narrativen und mythischen Bildwelten hat über eine lange Zeit hinweg einen besonderen Topos in der modernen Vorstellungswelt belegt. Ein neues Buch von Franziska Bollerey, herausgegeben in deutscher und englischer Sprache, spürt der Rolle nach, die das Universum Stadt für das kreative Schaffen von Schriftstellern, Malern und Filmemachern gespielt hat. Diese Architonic Buchbesprechung entführt Sie ins Zentrum dieses 'Mythos Metropolis'...
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Getting high in London: the 2012 Olympic city's controversial new tower
When Mayor of London Boris Johnson unveiled the design of a 115-metre-high steel tower by renowned sculptor Anish Kapoor, which is to be built next to the city's new 2012 Olympic Stadium, the reaction from press and public was one of emphatic disapproval. London-based architecture critic Tim Abrahams, voice of the minority, mounts a defence of the 'Orbit'.
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Rezension: 'Snøhetta Works' von Snøhetta
Architonic hat für Sie einen Blick in die neue Werkmonografie des norwegischen Architekturbüros 'Snøhetta' geworfen und entdeckte dabei, was sich unter einer Schneekuppe so alles befinden kann...
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