The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies has announced the winners of its annual trawl of Europe for this continents upcoming talent 40 under 40 2008.
Jørn Utzon is 90 years old this year and the Danish Architectural Press’s Architectural Magazine dk asked some Architects to send him a sketch greeting and they obliged. The result is dk 2008 02 a fantastic issue given over mostly to sketchs of Utzon’s some never seen before, and to sketches and letters to the Architect by other leading Architects, the issue I guess will be hard to get hold of for most people but arcspace has a small excert of some of them that is wonderful to look at. Someone has also put up a gallery of his work on flickr (via). So Jørn Utzon happy birthday and thank you.
A realy nice web resource for Housing Prototypes, each project has extensive text, images, drawings, and references. You can also search by Architect, location and building type. I’ve seen and used this site a few times but kept loosing the address, buried deep in my del.icio.us links no doubt.
An interview with Frank Lloyd Wright from 1957. Not so much interesting from the point of view of any Architectural insight so much as social commentary. Fifty years ago now Wright who in his time was socially anti-establishment seems much more in tune with modern times than the intervewee, who sponsored by a cigarette company tries to get Wright to say something bad about McCarthy and good about Chaplin, and who believes that the youth of America are going to shit.
Paola Antonelli and Benoit Mandelbrot talk about the end of the age of the cube and fractal architecture;
This has been for me an extraordinary pleasure because it means a certain misuse of Euclid is dead. Now, of course, I think that Euclid is marvelous, he produced one of the masterpieces of the human mind. But it was not meant to be used as a textbook by millions of students century after century. ….I don’t feel that Euclid is the way to start learning mathematics. Learning mathematics should begin by learning the geometry of mountains, of humans. In a certain sense, the geometry of…well, of Mother Nature, and also of buildings, of great architecture. (via)
Johnathan Meades is surely a great contemporary commentator on art and culture. His latest programme Magnetic North is an engaging look at what makes Northern Europe distinct from Southern Europe and why we shouldn’t always automatically look south for our inspiration. The last part covers Helsinki really nicely but its worth watching through in its entirity. You can see both episodes on you tube at the moment as well as many other shows by Meades. (via)
My Dad has a new book out on 24th April 2008, called Living on purpose. I was back over at my parents a few weeks ago and Dad was kind enough to give me a copy which I have read already. It’s really excellent and if you are interested at all in life’s bigger questions, like the current clash of science and religion, the theories of consciousness, and the existence of good and evil this book I thoroughly recommend.
Although I don’t agree with everything in the book I think its major strength apart from the excellent quality of the writing, is that it offers an alternative perspective to the clash between organised religion (most of them plainly ridiculous in their base beliefs) and the scientific materialists view of this world as purely a giant machine with no purpose.
Its a life affirming and thought provoking book so order it now.
Nuage Vert the industrial size art installation and visualisation over the centre of Helsinki over the Ruohlahti power station came to the end in February. The concept was simple, to project a light onto the smoke stack of this coal fired power station, the greater the wattage consumed the smaller the visual image. The artwork not only was a visual success but some data from Helsinki Energy shows it was effective in reducing consumption so well done to them. Read More
A Lecture on Erik Asmussen by Gary J. Coates hosted by the Alvar Aalto foundation (details here) is on the 9th April 5pm at the Ateneum. I would love to know more about the Architectural ideas developed from Rudolf Steiner theories he used, but I’m not sure if I can make it, so if anyone is definitely going and wants to report back let me know.
A new global monument is being planned in Dessau Germany its a giant pyramid that could be 150m high, but it wil be built with human remains, it has a capacity of millions of people, and will take people of all faiths. Obviously there is a website where you can already sign up and reserve your plot for your death.
ALA architects have produced a new masterplan for the South Harbour. This area really should be the centrepiece of Helsinki for the visitor as well as contributing to the urban centre for the average resident. The connection to the sea established by the original plan and somewhat undermined since will be improved greatly by the ALA masterplan by bringing the park down to the sea and making a new bridge connection with new facilities on either side of the harbour, its all pretty sensible and should add up to a smooth but large transformation of the area. Also included is a plan for a luxury hotel by Herzog and DeMeuron which will probably draw more headlines and which looks like a bit of shiny transplanted nationalism (on plan it looks like the a swiss cross), its hard to tell if it will be any good but I generally really like H&DM projects so hopefully will get built also. Its the shiny building in the image above.
As an aside the plans for Helsinki over the next few years when looked at together are quite staggering, I’ll need to make a post here soon about this slow drip of new projects and what we can expect greater Helsinki to be like in ten years time. There are no real Supermodernist signature buildings by the Starchitects but much smaller scale building which will add up to quite big changes for Helsinki.
(All images are copright ALA Architects)
Julien De Smedt’s competition win for Oslo’s new ski jump (previous article) needs a little push to help it get off the ground. The Architectural Record reported that the project is in jeopardy. JDS have set up a petition website and are due to make final presentations to the city to try and save the scheme. I really hope they can build it, as I think it should be a magnificent project. Go here to find out more and add your name to the petition.
