City as Landscape

[Originally published in Mark Magazine #27]   Library Is the pleasure of architecture intellectual or sensual? Of the mind or … More

Triumph of the Shell

  [originally published in Mark Magazine #26]   In cinema, there is a common type of architectural scene: a building … More

Building as Research

  Truss space Two facades with different pillow systems: ETFE fog configuration and ETFE diaphragm configuration. The range of building … More

Ugh Canada

An architect is, by definition, a designer of buildings, right? Well, the government of Canada, a nation whose credo is … More

Jurisprudence

Courts of justice are steeped in protocol and decorum, not merely because of tradition, but in order to establish and … More

Holiday greetings

Vienna, 2009

Optimization Takes Command

Angelo Roventa’s Elastic Dwelling applies a principle—and a mechanism—that is borrowed from a commercially available pre-manufactured industrial product: the high-density … More

Monument Ahead

[Originally published in Mark Magazine #22] Granada, the medieval seat of the Nasrid dynasty, whose rulers built the Alhambra, is … More

Team Play

As any sports fan can confirm, the architecture of elite sporting venues is the forefront of technologically inventive design these … More

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