Finnish Architects PES, have beaten 3XN from Denmark, von Gerkan, Marg und Partner (GMP) from Germany, M.A.O. from Japan and Architecture-Studio from France to the new Wuxi Opera House. The project should be completed by 2010, I guess they want it ready for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010.
The Norwegian Collection of Potential Architecture is beautiful idea about preserving and distributing the unrealised projects of Norweigian Architects. Like ruined Simulacra.
Archigram’s Walking Cities, Koolhaas’s Parc de la Villette, Mies van der Rohe’s Project for an Office Building in Friedrichstrasse in Berlin, Boullée’s Newton’s Cenotaph, Le Courbusier’s Contemporary City for Three Million Inhabitants and [...]
Helsinki City Planning Department has a new public exhibition space, cafe and forum in the Centre of Helsinki called Laituri on Narinka square. The city which really boomed once after WWII is changing again over the next few years drastically and there are massive plans being made. This is a place where they can be [...]
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.
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Babies see colour differently than adults researchers have found, babies brains process colour information in pre-linguistic parts of the brain, but adults process colour in linguiostic parts of the brain, which means adults see colour filtered through language. It also means at some point there is a change over in our perceptions of colour. (via)
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Live transport on google maps, so far I know of Helsinki, Swiss Train system (via), Dublin. It’s pretty obvious this will be ubiquitous in the very near future.
The first world seed ‘doomsday’ vault opens in Svalbard Norway to protect biodiversity (see previous post). There are about 1500 seed vaults worldwide but this is the only one buried under a polar glacier.
