The Angry Architect
It’s pretty exhausting being a British voter right now: This year’s election campaign has been one o f the most mind-boggling in recent memory — no fewer than seven party leaders took part in April’s televised debate, leaving more questions than answers about the benefits and drawbacks of each manifesto. Public opinion is split, the race…
There has been much talk recently about the challenges posed by an exploding global population and t he rapid urbanization of precious land all over the world. This situation has raised inevitable questions for architects and urban planners looking for design-led solutions, asking how our cities could evolve: should we build up or build out? Now,…
L: Center for Sufism © Philip Johnson Alan Ritchie Architects; R: OfficeUS catalog by Pentagram Dome Sweet Dome: The dome has long been an element of architecture; while the likes of Bernard Tschumi may have reinvented it for contemporary applications, others hearken back to previous eras. Inspired by Philip Johnson’s 1959 pavilion at Dumbarton Oaks,…
Over the past couple of decades, Daniel Libeskind has established himself as the undisputed king of metaphorical architecture. Cities around the globe have received all manner of allegorical structures, from the crystalline formations of the ROM in Toronto to a dramatic shard of shrapnel in Dresden, from shattered fragments of earth itself in Manchester to…
Ever since its inception above an Oslo beer hall in 1989, Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta has l ong drawn inspiration from the dramatic natural landscape surrounding the city in which it originated. The studio’s name itself is entwined with the native terrain: Snøhetta is named after the highest peak in the Dovrefjeil mountain range in the…
The headline statistics attached to the design brief for Terminal 2 at Chhatrapati Shivaji Internati onal Airport might have proven daunting to many an architecture firm — but not so for Skidmore Owings and Merrill, a global studio that has an established reputation for delivering some of the world’s largest commercial megaprojects.
The evolving list of designers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar reads as a who’s who of the arch itectural profession: Foster + Partners has grabbed top billing with its curvaceous Lusail arena, while Zaha Hadid Architects has been in and out of the headlines with the controversial Al-Wakrah stadium, currently under construction and…
Safdie Architects’ ever-expanding portfolio of iconic cultural buildings in America is to grow with the addition of the National Medal of Honor Museum at Patriots Point in Mount Pleasant, S.C. Joining the sculptural forms of the Kauffman Center for Performing Arts and the Crystal Bridges Museum, Safdie has unveiled an equally distinctive structure for Charleston…
When it comes to context, Bernard Tschumi has never been one to shy away from a challenge. The Swiss architect’s commission for the New Acropolis Museum in Athens could be considered the most contextually sensitive project in modern history, given its location in the vicinity of Earth’s original architectural icon, the Parthenon. His proposal in…