M.C. Escher used to do it with his drawings — leaving us bewildered about where those staircases rea lly led, and how those drawings didn’t disrupt the space-time continuum. His drawings are particularly impressive because they were made by hand; these days, architectural optical illusions are far easier to pull off with the aid of computers.…
It’s a damn shame that the precipitation that punished NYC yesterday is of the slushy, truly m isery-inducing variety — because somehow last week’s underwhelming dusting somehow warrants a city-wide snow day but we find ourselves trudging through a city covered in slick, gray nastiness. Still, we can’t help but dream of a proper winter wonderland…
“Architecture may not necessarily cure personal unhappiness,” English architect Nick Elias tells Arc hitizer via email, “but it may provide the framework for it.” This is the guiding premise of PoohTown, Elias’s RIBA President’s Silver Medal-winning conceptual overhaul of Slough, a middling English town where industry rules — the likes of O2, Mars, Blackberry, Sara Lee,…
Photographer Iwan Baan travels the world, living out of a suitcase and hotel rooms exclusively, in o rder to document architectural marvels in far-flung locales like the middle of Africa and China. For an advocate of aerial vantage points, drones are often the only way to get up in the air and show the surroundings and…
The Architects’ Journal recently published an enigmatic set of renderings, displaying what architect Richard Weston describes as a new genre of high-rise building: the “contextual tower.” The angular skyscraper — officially named after its address, 1 Undershaft — is intended to correlate closely with its surroundings, its form dictated by a careful analysis of adjacent…
Beijing’s got its Big Shorts (CCTV Tower, OMA, 2012), London’s got its Gherkin (30 St Mary Axe, Norm an Foster, 2003), and al-Wakrah’s got various euphemisms for the female anatomy that just aren’t fit to put in writing (al-Wakrah Stadium, Zaha Hadid, 2018). San Francisco, how ’bout you? Last month may have been the best one…
So, how did you do? Compare your answers with the list below and let us know in the comments! 1. Sou Fujimoto; image via Sou Fujimoto Architects 2. Antonio Sant’Elia; image via Antonio Sant’Elia 3. Pierre Jeanneret; image via SFMOMA 4. Steven Holl; image via Steven Holl Architects 5. Daniel Libeskind; image via Studio Libeskind…