Super-Islands

The city block is a fundamental element of urbanism. The Ancient Romans called a city block an insula, or “island”, which is … More

Temporary Permanence

Earlier this summer, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the reconstruction of Mies van der Rohe and Lily Reich’s German Pavilion for … More

Contemporary Ruins II

Further to my last post, here is another Spanish contemporary ruin by a Pritzker laureate: Toyo Ito’s spa near Torrevieja. … More

Contemporary Ruins

As is well-known, Spain’s recent building boom-turned-bust has left behind a legacy of halted construction projects that are now in … More

Built-In Obsolescence

The other day, out of the blue, my printer suddenly stalled, even though it had been working perfectly for once. Strange warning … More

Everyday Camouflage in the Countryside

The building above looks like a military installation of some sort, right? After all, it’s got a camouflage pattern on … More

Dizzying Inequality

Ben Wheatley’s film High Rise, a multi-story about decadence and class war in a Brutalist housing estate in London, brought plenty … More

Architecture Only an Artist can Get Away With

New York’s Guggenheim Museum has just announced plans to install a new artwork by Maurizio Cattelan consisting of a toilet made … More

Love-You Architecture

“The envy and hostility of Wall Street leads many to a common goal: to amass enough money so as to … More

Farewell Zaha

Zaha Hadid left us yesterday. She won’t be forgotten for a long time, as she was an architect who actually changed architecture. … More

Revisiting Casa Bloc

The architecture of housing differs fundamentally from the architecture of other building types in that it is never a purely qualitative … More

Inteligencia empresarial / Corporate Intelligence

[English text follows below] Ya sabemos que hoy en día está muy de moda llamar ‘inteligente’ o ‘smart’ a todo … More

But is it Architecture?

The recent adjudication of Britain’s Turner Prize to some Liverpool houses regenerated through neighborhood participation by a young collective known as Assemble speaks … More

Plus ça change…

This is a screengrab of what appeared on my laptop recently when I downloaded a New York Times article titled “What You … More

Cycling Barcelona versus Copenhagen: an Experiential Comparison

The other day I read an interesting critique of Barcelona’s cycling infrastructure titled “The Arrogance of Space”, by the Copenhagenize … More

Twisted Logic: Turning Torso as ‘Innovative’ Housing?

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Malmö, Sweden; best known –in terms of contemporary architecture– for its Santiago Caltrava-designed … More

Why is BP sponsoring an architecture biennial?

Why is BP sponsoring an architecture biennial; specifically the Chicago Architecture Biennial, titled “The State of the Art of Architecture”, … More

Still Nurbing Along

Enric Ruiz Geli’s Villa Nurbs is still incomplete after 13 years. The good news is, however, that it does not appear to … More

Design and Decadence in Sabiñanigo

The land-scars of Spain’s construction boom-gone-bust have been documented photographically to great extent. More typically than not, these images portray a landscape of newly built … More

How to Find Work as an Architect

The perennial problem for the 99% of architects who are not stars is: how and where do you find work? There are many ways … More