Notes from a Recent Construction Site Visit

I was recently fortunate enough to be shown a truly interesting work of architecture currently under construction in Barcelona: La … More

Vinylizing the Barcelona Pavilion

The Barcelona Pavilion is as white as Greek yoghurt right now. All the Roman travertine, ancient green marble, green Alpine … More

Archispeak in Political Propaganda

The Catalan independence movement has for years been churning out a great deal of propaganda in order to win over … More

Award Politics

Architecture’s top award is the Pritzker Prize, as we all know. Often referred to in the media as the “Nobel … More

Vacation Ruin

Ruins are as sad as they are beautiful. Building abandonment is never a happy occurrence, but when it precedes building inhabitation, it’s … More

Monomateriality

Material purity is highly valued in contemporary architecture. The ideal that buildings should be materially consistent inside and out seems … More

Why Be Normal

Recently, I visited two buildings that provoked me to seriously question everything I learned in school. One is a student residence … More

Experitecture

Empirical experimentation has always been intrinsic to architecture. Attempting to build something that has never been built before in terms of form, height, … More

Vernacular Precedent?

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

Scatological Cantilever?

Unlike so many contemporary cantilevers whose only purpose, seemingly, is to out-do other cantilevers in depth, height or width, the tiny … More

Architecture Without ‘Parti’

One of the first lessons every student learns in architecture school is that an architectural design must always be based on a … More

The Barcelona Pavilion as Cozy Christmas Home

Here’s yet another advertisement that features the Barcelona Pavilion. This one isn’t a print ad for a famous German brand … More

Building on top

Sometimes, the best option is one on top of the other. It might be because available space is too constricted, because an opportunity is … More

The Definitive Solution to All Gentrification Everywhere

Gentrification is like cancer: everything seems to cause it, and there’s no cure; there’s no answer. We all know by now that … More

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