Learning from CajaGranada

Morning Delivery

The maintenance of buildings is somewhat of a taboo subject in architectural discourse, which actually says a great deal about … More

BMW Welter

Luxury automobiles are fetish items par excellence. The advertising, branding and merchandising of this kind of consumer good is designed … More

Two Optimistic Architecture Yearbooks: a comparative analysis

One of the interesting things about architectural yearbooks is that they provide a snapshot, or to use a more appropriate … More

Integrated Highrise

Barcelona is a city without very many tall buildings. Not only that: the few tall buildings that do exist are … More

Everyday Camouflage in “The Visitor”

The story told by Tom McCarthy in his highly commendable film The Visitor, which deals, among other things, with the … More

Designer Façadism

A new luxury apartment building for tourists has recently opened on Passeig de Gràcia, across from Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Milà, … More

Us and Theme

If Venice, the Wild West, or Asia can be themes for parks, casinos, or hotels, then why not contemporary architecture? … More

Disseny Hype

“Disseny Hub” is a new cultural institution in Barcelona dedicated to design; or, to put it more correctly, to promoting … More

Gaudí in Red Alert

“Gaudí en alerta roja” is the title of an online petition currently the source of much debate in Barcelona. Its … More

Lighten-Up in the Mies Pavilion

The installation by SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa) at Barcelona’s Mies van der Rohe Pavilion is simple, subtle, and … More

Welcome to the Hotel Barcelona

In case anyone hasn’t noticed, Barcelona is in the tail-end of a hotel construction boom. And Barcelona being “Barceloooooonaaaaaa” means, … More

Soft Architecture

“There will be…a reaction against the rigid, rectilinear architecture expressed in such structures as the United Nations Secretariat building. Buildings … More

Architecture Beyond Talk

“Out There: Architecture Beyond Building” is the title of this year’s Venice Biennale of Architecture, curated by Aaron Betsky. The … More

Water Tower and Bridge Pavilion

[originally published in Mark Magazine #16] Water TowerOne of the ironies of world expositions is that while they apparently act … More

Punch and Play

Any voyage from an airport to a city centre proves that urban peripheries the world over relate more to each … More

Exquisite Corpse

A large sculpture next to a mega monochrome painting – at first glance and from a distance, that’s what the … More

Everyday Camouflage in the City

[Originally published in Lotus International # 126. Earlier versions published in proceedings of Second Savannah Symposium “Authenticity in Architecture” (2001) and in On … More

Benidorm: The Pursuit of Pleasure by the Most Efficient Available Means

Benidorm is a city in southeastern Spain with an urban morphology that is highly unusual for Europe: it is a … More

Daniel Libeskind, Utopianist

Cuando el arquitecto Daniel Libeskind dice “no pienso en el conjunto de la ciudad” porque “mi interés se centra en … More