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florence, italy

What About Understanding Contemporary Architecture?

The Shapes of Hardcore Architecture

By N. Frankowski and C. García (WAI)

Modernism

Modern Architecture was a fashion statement. Coated with an ideology of social impromptu and urban reconstruction, it seems undeniable and remarkable that the dominant gene of the Modern Movement’s DNA was its aesthetics.

Everything, from the “hygienic” appearance of its white villas, to its revolutionary materials—glass, steel and concrete, to its grid-restricted urban plans and its desolated tree-less plazas, was a trend; a stylistic straightjacket fiercely defended through an almost endless list of manifestoes and catalogues that prophesied how the modernist Zeitgeist should be portrayed.

Modernism’s plan was to become alchemistic through fashion; it was trying to transform positivism, rationalism, and Cartesianism into an architectural style, and its aesthetics into a science.

Style

Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier introduced modernism from two opposite directions. While Loos anounced the advent of a modern architecture by emphatically denouncing previous styles, Le Corbusier welcome its arrival by creating five categories which would soon become the modernist's ethos.

In 1908, Loos published Crime and Ornament —a written plead for a halt to the use and production of ornamentation. In it he banned the use of ornament in order to instate the “rational” design of the new century.

A decade and a half later, Le Corbusier published the first catalogue of modernist aesthetics. In the Almanach de l’Architecture moderne; les pilotis, le toit-terrasse, le plan libre, la fenêtre en longueur, and la façade libre became the five official organs of the modernist anatomy.

Even though Loos and Le Corbusier sketched different routes to becoming “modern”, the bottom line was that Modernism was still about style.

Plot

In total contrast to the modernist dogma, contemporary architecture defies classification. Despite its unprecedented amount of production—both speculative and materialized—it is still waiting for a screen to project its intentions.

The paradox of contemporary architecture is that even though it doesn’t have a written manifesto—like Loos’s or Le Corbusier’s—it does have a shared visual language; an unclaimed common plot.

Progress

In 1992, Peter Eisenman presented a “work in progress” in front of a battalion of architects, urbanists, and critics of intimidating gravitas. The project—a looping tower—was being grafted onto the former Max Reinhardt Schauspielhaus site in Berlin, just in front of Mies’s original unrealized glass tower.(1)

In the discussion after the presentation, Rem Koolhaas –who was amongst the observers—tried to disarm Eisenman’s claims, over a project that the Dutch architect found “extremely beautiful.” Thus he found the looping tower appealing; Koolhaas was not convinced by Eisenman’s explanation of the project.

The final conclusion of the debate was that while the project was still a “work in progress” it should be criticized for its image and not for its architect’s words.

Looping

Ten years later Koolhaas presented a building in Beijing —a looping tower. Although in a different context and with a totally unrelated program, this project raised eyebrows because of its striking resemblance to Eisenman’s previous proposal.

In Delirious New York, Koolhaas compared Le Corbusier to a magician who gives his trick away when, inside the black velvet pouch he made the American Skyscraper “disappear” and pulled out his “Cartesian rabbit”: the Horizontal Skyscraper. (2)

With his proposal of the headquarters of the CCTV Koolhaas became an impersonation of his own “delirious magician.” He pulled out of his top hat his own version of the looping skyscraper, this time making disappear the corrugated folds of the facade, and sticking the building in Beijing—far from Berlin and from Mies’s ominous presence.

Patent

In 2004 the Office for Metropolitan Architecture claimed in their Universal Modernization Patent that they had “invented” the skyscraper loop. (3) Had they forgotten the fact that Eisenman had proposed a similar shape for a building ten years before? Or was the patent a hoax, ironically outlining the fact that contemporary architecture doesn’t invent, only “shares” shapes?

Shape

These two versions of the looping tower—the Max Reindhardt Haus and the CCTV—not only marked a revolution in skyscraper design, but in the dialectics of contemporary architecture.

The reappearance of the looping skyscraper reinforced the idea that a tower could be done as a Moebius strip and, more importantly, that after the abolition of concepts like scale, function, site or program, architecture can assume any shape in any place.

Additionally the seducing glitter of the papier couché, the fame of competitions, the glamour of awards and the virulent speed of websites, blogs and other types of e-fiction have propelled and multiplied the amount of images that are produced and consumed, badly outpacing a discipline as slow as architecture.

The result is a subconscious recognition of architecture’s limited amount of “shapes” and consequently their repetition as a fashion trend.

Hardcore

While in hardcore modernism the aesthetics were strongly defended by sharp statements, in contemporary hardcore architecture the shapes don’t have a stated manifesto, they have become the manifesto itself.

There are no doctrinal texts for contemporary architecture. It simply refuels itself visually by modernism and its multiple reincarnations; it draws inspiration from the unrealized schemes of Le Corbusier, Mies, Alexander Vesnin, El Lissitzky and Ivan Leonidov; it reinterprets the social utopias of Ledoux and Boullé; it recycles strategies aborted decades ago, and invokes schemes from totally contrasting historical, political and economic situations.

In contemporary architecture the shapes are indifferently repeated, from the sanded no man’s land in the mid-east, to the bamboo fields in Asia, to the flat landscapes in the Netherlands, to the sheetrock solid soil of New York.

Modernism’s ultimate goal of conquering the world through abstraction and repetition is finally being achieved, albeit on “steroids.” The buildings are twisted, bent, melted; in fact they’ve become the absolute incarnations of software simulacra and Styrofoam models.

Catalogue

Part of an extensive research, The Shapes of Hardcore Architecture proposes an understanding of contemporary architecture through the creation of a taxonomic catalogue of shapes; an ontology of forms. This study shows how leading contemporary practices find their common language without any official statement to justify any political ideology or aesthetic trend.

The following categories are an assemblage of buildings that, grouped according to their share of coincidental similarities and stripped from their original context, are displayed as “evidence” of the condition of contemporary architecture.

The possible categories which can emanate from a classification based on building shapes are to contemporary architecture what the Lecorbusian “five points” were to Modernism.

Sharing the romantic political ideals of the Russian Constructivist that evoked highly mechanized utopias at the advent of a “communal way of life,” the Horizontal Condensers are towers connected through built-on bridges. These horizontal segments once attached to individual towers not only act as physical links but integrate the otherwise isolated programs throughout collective and communal space. (4)

Blow-Up Fonts is a “trend” of buildings whose shapes emulate letters from the alphabet. The use of these typographic buildings can change according to the spelling of its intentions; referring in some recent examples to the name of the designer office (OMA’s “OMA”) or to the city where the project is proposed (JDS Architects’ “BE”).

In Ziggurat-Polis, Hans Konwiarz’s 1966 proposal for an urban intervention in Hamburg is revisited. The general scheme in this category consists of a common ground plan that in its higher levels get separated into a series of individual ziggurat-shaped towers. As in the other categories, the program can vary, from residential apartments, to hotel rooms, to office space.

Another revival of the Constructivist unbuilt proposals, Tower(s) and Box recalls El Lissitzky provocative photomontage for a Wolkenbügel (Cloud Iron). The proposal that showed a tower crowned at the top by a pronounced cantilever, proved to be basically impossible to build under the technological and economic limitations of its period. Meanwhile, further advances in engineering have launched a series of modifications of the Russian’s original design, allowing the cantilevered box to be reshuffled and redistributed at different heights on the building.

The Loop is named after the shape of a tower which instead of going just up and down in a straight vertical line, gets bent and connected to itself at its top and ground levels, creating a continuous Escherean form or a vertical “Moebius Strip.”

Stacking Boxes as the name suggests, simulate a conglomeration of volumes that are collocated one on top of another and next to each other to create the impression of being a random amalgamation of boxes. Highly popular during the 60’s it was one of the preferred shapes of the Japanese Metabolists. Its climax came with Moshe Safdie’s Habitat ’67 in Montreal. These last years have seen a resurrection on the use of Stacking Boxes as an architectural strategy due to the high flexibility of its uses, as the boxes can be scaled to host an endless variety of programs, ranging from housing schemes (MVRDV’s Skyvillage) to mixed programs (OMA’s Bryghusprojektek), to exhibition space (SANAA’s New New Museum).

References

1. Peter Eisenman, “(K)nowhere to fold”, Anywhere, ed. Cynthia Davidson, (Rizolli: New York, 1992), 218-235.

2. Rem Koolhaas, “Europeans: Biuer!; Dalí and Le Corbusier Conquer New York”, Delirious New York, (New York: Monacelli Press, 1978), 253.

3. Rem Koolhaas, “Universal Modernization Patent: Skyscraper Loop(2002)”, Content, (Kölhn: Taschen , 2003), 511.

4. Camilla Gray, “1917-21”, The Russian Experiment in Art 1863-1922, (London: Thames & Hudson, 1962), 219.

What About Oslo?

Conditions Magazine #2: Copy and Interpretation release party in the 0047 Gallery in Oslo

RELEASE PARTY FOR CONDITIONS #2: COPY & INTERPRETATION

14 October 2009

.....................................................................................................................................

CONDITIONS MAGAZINE and 0047 invite you to the release of

CONDITIONS #2: COPY & INTERPRETATION.

TIME: Thursday 22 October, from 19:00

PLACE: 0047, Schweigaardsgt 34 D, Oslo

WAI is an intellectual collaborator of Conditions Magazine. The second issue contains the article “The Shapes of Hardcore Architecture”, which consist of an abstract of the upcoming book of the same name.

www.0047.org

What About Tokyo?

MONU to be exhibited during the TOKYO DESIGN WEEK

MONU magazine on urbanism will be exhibited during the TOKYO DESIGN WEEK from October 30th to November 3rd 2009 inside the main venue of the 100% DESIGN TOKYO hall. The Magazine Library space will be in the center of the main venue.

WAI is an intellectual collaborator of Monu, appearing in the 6^th and 11^th issues of the acclaimed critical magazine.

www.100percentdesign.jp

What About Conditions?

WAI has been featured in Conditions Magazine

The second issue of the Scandinavian publication centers its attention on the topic “Interpretation and Copy.” The magazine also includes articles, interviews and projects by: Julien de Smedt, Joana Sá Lima and Anders Melsom, Alexander Maymind, Tor Inge Hjemdal, Alv Skogstad Aamo, Piet Vollaard, Baukuh, Rolf Hughes, Sören Grünert, Karen Crequer, Noa Haim, Brian Cavanaugh, Iwan Thomson, Richard Woditch, Quentin Le Guen-Geffroy, Justin Fowler, Anders Melsom and Pawel Druciarek, and Dahl & Uhre, 70°N.

www.conditionsmagazine.com

To order a printed copy:

http://www.conditionsmagazine.com/index.php?/shop--subscriptions/

What About the Web Site?

WAI is happy to announce the new website and email addresses.
The future WAI Website is under construction.
Meanwhile you can access the posts in our blog
and contact us at:


www.wai-architecture.com
general information
contact@wai-architecture.com

sneak peak from our new fall/winter catalog mailing soon...

Ritson golf Resort design and property for sale and Investment Guide

International Golf advance and mural architects specialising in the architecture of golf advance and landscapes from advance remodelling and active ranges to new championship golf courses and golf absolute estate

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The Architecture Company

Caisse de Depot et de Gestion (CDG) is a wholly endemic accessory of the Moroccan Government. Amongst their added responsibilities CDG invests Morocco's alimony funds and is one of the country's arch institutional investors.

Last year abandoned the architecture arm of CDG completed 50,000 alone dwellings.

Current flagship projects include:

1 $12 billion alternation of absolute acreage agreements with Dubai International Properties

2 $2 Billion AMWAJ activity already in advance in Rabat

3 $600 actor Dubai Towers in Casablanca

4 $500 actor Marina de Casablanca

With its all-inclusive acquaintance and workforce of about 3000 CDG is alluringly placed to accompany the Paradise Golf & Bank Resort to fruition. Architecture assignment on the armpit is due to alpha backward summer 2006.

The Golf Course

Steve Ritson Golf Architecture has been called to architecture and mural the Golf Advance at the Paradise Golf & Bank Resort. Steve Ritson is a affiliate of the Institute of Golf Advance Architects and a BSC (Hons) in ecology science.

The company's abrupt is to architecture a affection advance acceptable for players of all abilities. Accepted projects include: The Brookfield Golf Club, Kettering Golf Advance and Le Meridien IBOM Auberge and Golf Resort in Nigeria. In the activity are new courses in the South of France and Mauritius. Groupe Banque Populaire is one of the arch cyberbanking groups in Morocco. They will accommodate abundant of the accounts for the Paradise Golf & Bank Resort. In accession they will additionally accomplish all payments for architecture and development of the project. Using the "Certification System payments will alone be fabricated already the banks own abstruse experts and architects accept visited the armpit to ensure that all assignment has been agitated out according to specification.

The Bank

Groupe Banque Populaire will additionally accommodate mortgages to purchasers at Paradise Golf & Bank Resort breadth required. These, of course, will be accountable to status.

Groupe Banque Populaire offers the abounding ambit of cyberbanking casework including: banknote points, acclaim cards, insurance, absolute debits, internet banking, etc.

A new Branch of the coffer will be opened at Paradise Golf & Bank Resort with English speaking staff. It is envisaged that Groupe Banque Populaire will additionally accommodate purchasers with a coffer agreement which will under-write all payments above-mentioned to achievement of construction.

Investment

Morocco is a commonwealth and his Highness King Mohamed VI has adumbrated that one of the arch bread-and-butter sectors he wishes to advance in Morocco is tourism. His aim is to accept 10 actor tourists annually appointment Morocco by 2010. This aggressive activity which includes auberge and alley construction, advance of basement etc. will accordingly accept a cogent aftereffect on acreage prices in prime day-tripper areas.

Purchasers at the PARADISE GOLF & BEACH RESORT with its golf and ocean appearance breadth and assortment of on-site leisure accessories additional its adjacency to Tangiers, the Airport and a absorbing Moroccan fishing apple will account appreciably in agreement of ascent acreage prices as the day-tripper bang filters through the economy.

A Mediterranean blazon altitude and lifestyle, beneath than 3 hours aerial time from the UK and with acreage prices a atom of those in adjacent Spain (just 9 afar away) it's difficult to see how those with advance in apperception can go amiss here!!

Those attractive for rental assets won't be disappointed. High division ante in Northern Morocco generally ability £100 per night. The PARADISE GOLF & BEACH RESORT will accept an on-site rental and administration appointment which will action a complete ambit of services.

The Moroccan Government are agog to animate adopted acreage owners.

Excellent tax advantages are already in abode and a bulk of new legislation due in 2007 is accepted to added enhance these budgetary benefits.

FOUNDATION & STRUCTURE: All architecture with able concrete. Double walls with cavity.

ROOFING: Covered in rustic appearance tiles. accommodation apartments collapsed for clandestine use

FLOORING AND TILING: Top affection bowl floors to lounge, bedrooms and hallway. Non-slip tiles to kitchen allowance floors. Kitchen and bath with top affection bank tiles.

EXTERIOR: Gated association with garden areas, developed and children's pond pools. 24 hour aegis Walkways and parking areas Commercial breadth with café/bar, mini-market, amphitheater and acreage administration office. Water sports appoint centre on the bank

TERRACES: Exterior terraces will accept rustic appearance tiling.

WINDOWS AND DOORS: Windows will be in white lacquered aluminium. Aegis blazon access aperture with multi locks. Window blinds

INTERIOR: All walls bashed and accomplished with artificial paint.

INTERIOR CARPENTRY: Wardrobes adapted as per blueprint plans. Interior doors and wardrobes in varnished timber.

KITCHEN: Adapted with bank & abject units. Equipped with breach akin hob/oven and fridge freezer.

PLUMBING AND SANITARY: Top affection germ-free ware. All accouterments to accepted regulations.

ELECTRICAL: Abounding accession to accepted regulations. TV and blast credibility to arch rooms. Pre-installation for air-conditioning

VARIOUS: FURNITURE: An alternative appliance backpack is accessible from £4,210.

The apartments & villas will be complete on acclaim angled acreage - appropriately giving best backdrop at The Paradise Golf & Bank Resort angle to the sea.

The armpit is on an breadth of abundant civic adorableness and borders the foret diplomatique. A airing about the golf advance accesses a abstinent bank of aureate sands.

The resort is amid aloof 15 account drive from Tangiers and the airport in one administration and 15 account of so in the adverse administration to the appealing fishing apple of Asilah.

The Moroccan Government's eyes of above increases in both tourism and adopted advance over the abutting four years is actuality partly accomplished by zoning ample tracts of (mainly beachfront) government endemic acreage for touristic construction.

With architecture accord already given, fast tracking of licences and banking incentives for developers, Paradise Golf & Bank Resort will be one of the better of such government backed projects in Northern Morocco.

The developers of Paradise Golf & Bank Resort accept auspiciously alien abundant above Spanish projects to the British and Irish markets. Their ability has been approved to accomplish agnate after-effects at the Paradise Golf & Bank Resort.

What About a Metropolitan Amsterdam?

metrodam

Manhattanism is the urbanistic doctrine that suspends the irreconcilable differences between mutually exclusive positions.

-Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York

Conquer
Henry Hudson “discovered” in 1609 on behalf of the Dutch the area that later became New Amsterdam. Four hundred years later—Manhattan being an icon of density and cosmopolitanism—fate is reversed; it becomes a tangible possibility to re-conquer Amsterdam, only this time through the understanding of New York.

Graft
It has become almost a requirement for the avant-garde to insert in Manhattan fragments of their unsatisfied urban desires; their dreamed metropolis.

From Malevich Arkhitektonics to Le Corbusier’s Ville-Radieuse, from Fuller’s Geodesic Dome to Superstudio’s endless Monumento, the avant-garde cannot exist without trying to graft “something” onto New York.

But what happens when the strategy is inverted, when the island is left untouched and it is its counterpart that is manipulated by a transplant from the American metropolis? Are we then to become the surgeons of the contemporary European city?

Amsterdam - New York
In order to perform the “operation” from one body to the other—from the American to the European—a study of compatibility must be carried out.

New York and Amsterdam have striking similarities, and contrasting differences.
Manhattan became iconic not only because of its unique acrophilic condition—the one that sent hundreds of buildings into a contest to claim the sky—but also by its capability to integrate an almost endless variety of cultures, activities and social classes.1

On the other hand, the center of Amsterdam has become almost the total opposite of an urban laboratory. Its caricaturesque charisma is enforced through the image of old buildings, and local programs; who can ever forget to mention the “red light district” and the “coffee shops”? Amsterdam is the epitome of the picturesque Dutch city. And even when it has served as a European paradigmatic melting pot, there is still a growing need for programs that stimulate social interaction.

New York’s colossal density amounts inevitably to high congestion levels, while the “village” type urban composition of Amsterdam suggests that density could be reached without the same predicament. The possibility of a Manhattanistic “operation” over Amsterdam would seem possible.

Metropolis
As the name suggests, Metrodam takes urban strategies that resulted from the metropolitan condition of New York and applies them to Amsterdam. In that sense the project is conceived as a revision of the metropolis role of New York and how it could be incorporated into Amsterdam, in a social, economic and artistic way.

Metrodam reinterprets specific references from New York where social interaction is stimulated—as the wooden decks in Coney Island, the ice-rink in the Rockefeller Center, and the outdoor cinema in Bryant Park—and incorporates them through a series of spaces where mixed uses are encouraged.

Grid-Less Micro City
The Metrodam is envisioned as a micro version of a gridless-Manhattan where the collective of activities is stimulated not by the rigorous implementation of the square angle and strict divisions, but by the incorporation of programs that enhance a diversity of uses and people while allowing an effortless flow through open, semi-open and enclosed spaces.

Without the need of a grid, the program is distributed on layers and levels creating a flexible surface of programs that fit with their surroundings, generating a platform where architecture, landscape and urbanism become indivisible one from the other and where social, economic and cultural interaction is considered a sine qua non condition.

Program
By inserting fragments of New York’s metropolitan lifestyle we aim to make a collective of programs that individually attract people and collectively act as a heterogeneous social condenser.

The Key Parts of the Program are as follows:

Link
The Metrodam acts as a trait-d’union that not only connects the waterfront of the north of Amsterdam physically, but that creates a visual link reachable from the center of Amsterdam. As part of the Masterplan the plaza facing the IJ incorporates a green corridor that extends from the Overhoeks Masterplan. Through this corridor, Cycle and Walking Paths will connect pedestrians and bicycle users through al the IJ Sideline. The strategic location of the site also aims to incorporate a link with ferries and tourist boats for easy access from the opposite side of the IJ.

Public Art
Spaces through the plazas are intended for the insertion and/or construction of art for public display. The task of these areas is to incorporate art on an urban scale and incorporate them into public activities such as shopping, working and living. These spaces are also aimed to create a platform that not only gives a protagonist role to artists but that recognizes the potential of art as a meaningful contribution to the built-up environment.

Wooden Beach
While in Coney Island the people are attracted to the natural beach by its artificial program, in the Metrodam project it is the artificial beach that seduces the people. The Metrodam faces the IJ with a new feature: a wooden beach. A platform of wooden decks opens downwards creating pools where people can enjoy a variety of water activities or just sit back and relax having an unobstructed view towards the city of Amsterdam.

Ice-Skating Rink
Using the Rockefeller Center as a reference, during the months of winter, the wooden beach can be covered and converted into an Ice Skate Park. This program will enhance the active use of the deck facing the IJ on the cold months, while creating an epicenter of activity that can draw people from the surrounding areas and from the other side of the IJ, from the Center of Amsterdam.

Agora
Just like the open cinema in Bryant Park in New York, an auditorium is offered by lifting the roof of the new retail area. The sloping floor creates a wooden seating zone were people can gather to watch on a screen collocated on the interior side of the tower either movie projections, performing art shows, fashion displays or any kind of public viewing activity. This area is intended to work as an extension of the activities celebrated in the New Film Museum on the Overhoeks Masterplan, and is also connected to the public art, the retail and restaurant area, and the wooden beach/ Ice Skate Park.

Mixed Use
A key factor of the project is the incorporation of mixed uses in terms of a sustainable economy for the area and a balanced injection of activities. The first and second levels will be designated to retail areas, restaurants, and workshops for creative oriented industries. The superior floors of the tower are intended for the occupation of a mixed area of office space with the possibility of residential spaces while allowing the superior “bridge area” to host residential spaces. The mix of uses will not only attract a balanced heterogeneous mix of public but will also create a constant flow of users within the building as its surroundings.

Sustainable Future
The project is intended to serve as a paradigm for future developments of this scale. The aim is to show that art, architecture, urbanism and landscape can equally promote a sustainable and ecological socio-economic growth through the incorporation of diverse activities as well as in human resources. In this way, Amsterdam could be Manhattanized.

1.The term acrophilic is first used in Shumon Basar, “The Sky Is Not Near Enough: On the New Sublime Mediocrity of Dubai’s Teaming Towers,” Monu #9 Exotic Urbanism, ed. Bernd Upmeyer, (Board: Rotterdam, 2008), 80.

Project Data:

Codename: Metrodam

Program: Mixed-use development including retail, office, housing and public spaces

Location: Amsterdam, NL

Status: Competition

Design Team: N.Frankowski, C.García (WAI)

Image Credits: WAI (N.Frankowski, C.García)

Year: 2009

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Germany New elite house reviews education

The face of Germany's aristocratic is changing, and with it German society. For some time now, new names, new issues and a new accent accept been authoritative their mark on the country's cultural consciousness. Hamburg's Fatih Akin is one of Germany's best admired and alarmingly acclaimed blur admiral at all-embracing level; Feridun Zaimoglu’s novels are abounding of a linguistic avidity and acrimony that are unparalleled in abreast German literature; in Emine Sevgi Özdamar's stories, chatty German and Turkish are interlaced to actualize an about bewitched new German language; and Navid Kermani is one of the best affecting accessible thinkers in the country.

But the alteration face of Germany's aristocratic is about abundant added than a scattering of acclaimed personalities, and Germany has abundant added to accretion from it than a few all-embracing blur awards and top affairs titles on the world's book bazaar – as admirable as this acceptance may be. Already, bodies with a afoot accomplishments accomplish up about one-fifth of the German population; in cities such as Stuttgart and Frankfurt, this admeasurement already exceeds 40 per cent. A lesser-known aspect of the change, one that has yet to be appropriately adjourned by statisticians, is the admeasurement to which these new Germans are accommodating in education.