Perspective is Everything

Neon duty-free stores selling discounted liquor and cigarettes to ski bums already high on oxygen and speed, causing interminable traffic … More

The Ramp of Justice

Ever since Infanta Cristina, King Juan Carlos of Spain’s younger daughter, was called into Palma de Mallorca’s courthouse for questioning … More

Calatrava May Bleed You Dry, But Who is Ultimately Responsible?

Several Spanish media (such as El Diario and El País) are reporting that Santiago Calatrava is suing Esquerra Unida País Valencià … More

Everything is Art

In September 2012, the fiscally and socially retrograde People’s Party governing Spain raised the value-added tax on most items to 21%, … More

Power, Corruption and Architecture

Transparency International released its annual report some weeks ago, and this year’s corruption perception index, which ranks 177 countries from least to most … More

Ice Fishing in Gimli, a book project by Rob Kovitz

One of my favorite publishers, Treyf Books, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Treyf is offering, for the first time, Ice … More

2014

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

Old Buildings, New Buildings

“I don’t know whether we should be designating heritage buildings.” — Frank O. Gehry Why is preserving old buildings only … More

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

Sagrada Familia Doubt

A recent video illustrating “the final stages of Gaudí’s masterpiece”  represents, we are led to believe, La Sagrada Familia completed. However, … More

How Much Does Your Conscience Weigh, Mr. Koolhaas?

Mr. Koolhaas, you designed a daring and ambitious building for CCTV, China’s state-controlled television broadcaster. But it is from this … More

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

Remembering Marshall Berman

I think it was in 1985. I would have been in my second year of study at University of Waterloo’s … 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

The Forest Metaphor

The Drassanes Reials (royal shipyard) of Barcelona has recently reopened after a lengthy renovation by architects Robert and Esteve Terradas. … More

Bullshit Island

“Barcelona Island will be an out of this world experience for all guests of ‘Mobilona Space Hotel’ who wish they … More

Making Bullshit Mountains out of Buildings

“If architecture is landscape, buildings are mountains.”  -Vicente Guallart, chief architect of the city of Barcelona and general director of Urban … More