Adam’s House in Paradise

The courtyard house may be ancient, but it is still contemporary and modern. This became apparent to me on a … More

Step Right Up. Architectural Monumentality. Three Boxer Shorts for Only 6€.

Flea markets are normally found under bridges, in empty parking lots, or in old industrial sheds. This flea market (which … More

Architecture Road-Tripping: Marseille

Earlier this August, I went on a roadtrip through southern France and spent two nights in l’Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, … More

La Grande Motte Revisited

I first saw La Grande Motte in the summer of 1978, more than a decade before I would graduate from … More

A Whimsical Water Tower in…Barcelona?

I spotted this fantastic water tower the other day while walking around Poble Nou, Barcelona’s industrial graveyard. Claes Oldenburg and … More

Construction as Spectacle: Mercat dels Encants

The construction of the new Mercat dels Encants / Fira de Bellcaire (Barcelona’s flea market), by b720 Arquitectos, is not only spectacular … More

Villa Nurbs: a Sad Spectacle

It is June 2012, and  after a decade of construction Villa Nurbs is still incomplete. In fact, construction has now seemingly come … More

A Reminder to Urban Planners

Given the choice, most children would rather play in a terrain vague than a playground. They would rather make mud … More

Not So Different

“Spain is Different” was a tourism campaign slogan coined in the mid-1960s by dictator Francisco Franco’s Ministry of Information and Tourism (!), … More

The Cantilever Race

The skyscraper race is over. It’s been won hands down by an absurdly high building in Dubai which doesn’t look … More

Pop Architecture

Ordinary, everyday objects — that’s what most popular nicknames for buildings refer to. A gherkin, a paperclip, a typewriter, a … More

Morning Delivery

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

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

Soft Architecture

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

Rocket Architecture

[Originally published in Canadian Architect, February 2001] The ensemble of structures illustrated here could easily be mistaken for recent work by … More