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Criticalista

Rants and reflections on architecture, cities, and politics

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Category: speculation

Statistical Error

In 2018, a study was published that situated “Europe’s most densely inhabited square kilometer” in the working-class town of L’Hospitalet … More

Raval, statistics, urban density

Vernacular Precedent?

When I first saw an image of De Rotterdam, by OMA, I knew I had seen something vaguely similar before … More

architecture, Brazil, building typology, multiple discovery, OMA, vernacular

Architecture and Crime

A recent escape from a maximum-security prison in upstate New York, in which two convicted murderers cut through steel jail-cell walls to … More

architecture, Beatriz Colomina, Bernard Tschumi, crime, Modernism, prison

Pure Shit (II)

This building in the Catalan Pyrenees is a perfect example of the kind of “pure shit” that, according to Frank … More

architecture, art, crap, ecological design, education, landscape, theory

How to become a “public space” benefactor in 6 easy steps:

Pssst. Nouveau-riche and dying to go down in philanthropic history? Why not build a “public space” vanity project? It’s easy. Here’s how you do … More

media, philanthropy, public space, urbanism

Morning Glory

It must surely be a signal from the cosmos. Yesterday, September 8th, at precisely 7:39 AM,  I woke up, opened … More

axis, Barcelona, cosmos, sun

Media-TIC, another Sad Spectacle?

In an article I wrote a few years ago on Barcelona’s Media-TIC building, for Mark Magazine #25, I concluded my optimistic … More

climate, Cloud 9, Enric Ruíz Geli, failure, performance, technology

Hotel Agbar?

Barcelona’s La Vanguardia newspaper reported three days ago that the Agbar Tower, an office building designed by Jean Nouvel and completed in … More

adaptive re-use, architecture, Barcelona, hotel, Jean Nouvel, office building, tourism

Provocative Architecture?

In “Little Frank and his Carp”, a 2001 video of a performance by artist Andrea Fraser, architecture, replete with its … More

Andrea Fraser, art, Frank Gehry, museum, performance, sex

Gaudí’s hanging chain models: parametric design avant la lettre?

It is known that Gaudí preferred modelling architecture over drawing it; especially models made of chains hung from a ceiling, or strings … More

architecture, Barcelona, catenary arch, funicular, Gaudí, generative design, geometry, parametric design, polyfunicular

Architectural Art

Art galleries and museums seem to be showing with greater frequency artworks about architecture, many of them by artists who … More

architecture, art, gallery, installation, interdisciplinarity, museum

Paragraphs on Architectural Criticism

Architectural criticism is what distinguishes architecture from building, inasmuch as those two terms are distinguishable. Buildings exist perfectly well without … More

criticism, media, theory

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Criticalista collects Rafael Gomez-Moriana's writings on architecture and the built environment. All photographs by the author unless indicated otherwise.

©2014 Rafael Gomez-Moriana. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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