Further to my last post, here is another Spanish contemporary ruin by a Pritzker laureate: Toyo Ito’s spa near Torrevieja. … More
Category: unsolicited text
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 that 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 while I was trying to read a New York Times article … 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
The First BIAM: 20 Years After
I recently attended a reunion to celebrate 20 years since graduating from the Berlage Institute Amsterdam. This first ever BIAM, or ‘Berlage … More
Beauty
‘Beauty’ is one of the rarest words used by professionals when talking about architecture, yet it is one of the most used by … More