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El Claustro 2011
10m x 10m x 11m

Museo de la Ciudad
Guerrero 27
Norte Centro Histórico,
Querétaro, Qro.
76000 México

There was a surprising dearth in the history of art curation, until Hans Ulrich Obrist, specifically surrounding the curatorial pioneers perspective. It was because of this Hans began a series of relentless interviews to create an intimate documentation of this turning point in art history, collected in A Brief History of Curating (2008). Since his mid twenties he has been single-handedly documenting a first hand take on art history through conversations with some of the most interesting artists, writers, curators and thinkers of the 20th century.

01 Magazine Interview

This book finalizes the architectural investigation by Seth de Rooij, into both the Erlwein-Speicher and the way the Germans digest their past. Since it is almost entirely made up of cast concrete, this building was one of the few left standing after the heavy bombardments of the second World War. The author proposes to renovate the warehouse into an attic for Germany that would contain a selection of artworks dealing with their history.

OMA/AMO designed a runway framework for the latest show of PRADA’s Men’s SS 2012 collection. The audience was organized in a perfect field. 600 visitors sit on individual blue foam blocks distributed over a 1.5 x 1.5 meter grid spread through the entire hall. Models flow through the highly-organized audience, following multiple choreographed routes that allow maximum visibility.

The field is a commentary on the audience, transformed from indeterminate crowd to regimented, possibly anxious, isolated individuals. Each guest becomes a challenge for the new fashion; each confrontation becomes highly personal. It is based on a zero degree approach: a spatial system as opposed to an elaborated design. Artificial grass covers the floor. Light is provided by 16 panels of 30 PAR lights each, vaguely resembling stadium lighting systems. —OMA/AMO

ARCHIZINES is a showcase of new fanzines, journals and magazines from around the world that provide an alternative discourse to the established architectural press. Launched by Elias Redstone, with art direction by Folch Studio, the project celebrates and promotes publishing as an arena for architectural commentary, criticism and research, and as a creative platform for new photography, illustration and design.

In 2005 Ingo Niermann and Jens Thiel begin discussing the idea that would eventually become The Great Pyramid, a place where every death, properly registered, could be commemorated. The Great Pyramid could, according to Niermann, “outlast all other above-ground monuments.” Theoretically the pyramid would be built brick by brick, each brick corresponding to an individual upon their death. Past deaths could also be memorialized as a brick. As originally conceived, the pyramid would be built out as necessary, always maintaining its pyramidal form, and would only reach its maximum practical height (300m) at some point in the future, accommodating over 41 million memorials. To account for regional preference, they also proposed satellite pyramids around the world. Their plan became increasingly pragmatic, settling on an economically depressed region in former East Germany, Anhalt-Dessau, near the village of Streetz. By 2006 their plans had earned them 90k Euros from the Federal Cultural Foundation of Germany. Their book, Solution 9 The Great Pyramid (2008), included a section on reactions from around the world. Florian Rötzer called it the “democratization of the final narcissism.” They turned to five preeminent architectural firms for designs, four of which submitted. In early 2008, the jury, including Niermann, Rem Koolhaas and Miuccia Prada, evaluated the four proposals but did not pick a winner. Soon thereafter they had received over 1000 reservations for the pyramid. According to their website, the project faltered but reemerged again in 2009. It appears to have stalled again. [AFC]

Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977

This work, as a call to reinvigorate architectural design with symbolic content, advocates the study of the commercial strip and in particular, the role that signs play in conveying meaning and providing order to the landscape. The study begins with a discussion of an architectural studio project conducted at Yale in 1968. The mission of the studio was to document and analyze the physical form of Las Vegas in order to learn from contemporary urban sprawl. During the process, the studio attempted to develop a set of graphic methods for analyzing and representing the commercial strip. To augment the results of this study, the authors utilize examples of Gothic, Renaissance and Modern architecture (including the authors’ own design work) to illustrate the terms “duck”and “decorated shed” which, it is suggested, represent two conflicting ways which forms can convey meaning. As advocates of the “decorated shed,” the authors propose that by studying and adopting the tactics of commercial strip buildings and signs, architects could enrich the symbolic content of post-modern architecture. When initially published, this book was considered groundbreaking and was extremely influential to the postmodern movement, although to a contemporary student of cultural landscapes, this work may seem limited in scope due to its reliance on formal analysis. [P. Schwab]

The architecture of the Belgian Modernist Juliaan Lampens (°1926) goes beyond designs for conventional living and instead suggests a utopian avant-garde of living without barriers. He experimented with the use of raw concrete and created sculpture-like exteriors leading onto open vistas.

Generator (1976-79, unbuilt), sought to create conditions for shifting, changing personal interaction in a reconfigurable and responsive architectural project. It was to serve as a retreat and activity center for small groups of visitors (1 to 100) to the White Oak Plantation on the coastal Georgia-Florida border. Designed for Howard Gilman, the CEO of the Gilman Paper Company and a generous arts patron [1], it followed this open-ended brief:

A building which will not contradict, but enhance, the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere; has to be accessible to the public as well as to private guests; has to create a feeling of seclusion conducive to creative impulses, yet … accommodate audiences; has to respect the wildness of the environment while accommodating a grand piano; has to respect the continuity of the history of the place while being innovative.[2]

Price developed a scheme of 150 12′ by 12′ recombinable, mobile cubes with off-the-shelf infill panels, glazing and sliding glass doors; catwalks; screens and boardwalks, all of which could be moved by mobile crane as desired by users to support whatever activities they had in mind, whether public or private, serious or banal.

(via Active Social Plastic)

Back in 1990 (top) Shanghai looked like a lovely green city. Only twenty years later (bottom).

Shanghai has always been an important place. Located on the Yangtze river’s mouth, this Chinese city was already a world commerce hub back in the 30s. But it wasn’t until Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms that the city exploded. Only fifteen years later, it became the largest cargo port in the world. Twenty years later, it’s the megalopolis you are seeing in this photo. (via: gizmodo)