[originally published in Mark Magazine #26] In cinema, there is a common type of architectural scene: a building…
Building as Research
Truss space Two facades with different pillow systems: ETFE fog configuration and ETFE diaphragm configuration. The range of building…
Ugh Canada
An architect is, by definition, a designer of buildings, right? Well, the government of Canada, a nation whose credo is…
Jurisprudence
Courts of justice are steeped in protocol and decorum, not merely because of tradition, but in order to establish and…
Holiday greetings
Vienna, 2009
Optimization Takes Command
Angelo Roventa’s Elastic Dwelling applies a principle—and a mechanism—that is borrowed from a commercially available pre-manufactured industrial product: the high-density…
Monument Ahead
[Originally published in Mark Magazine #22] Granada, the medieval seat of the Nasrid dynasty, whose rulers built the Alhambra, is…
Team Play
As any sports fan can confirm, the architecture of elite sporting venues is the forefront of technologically inventive design these…
Learning from CajaGranada
Morning Delivery
The maintenance of buildings is somewhat of a taboo subject in architectural discourse, which actually says a great deal about…
BMW Welter
Luxury automobiles are fetish items par excellence. The advertising, branding and merchandising of this kind of consumer good is designed…
Two Optimistic Architecture Yearbooks: a comparative analysis
One of the interesting things about architectural yearbooks is that they provide a snapshot, or to use a more appropriate…
Integrated Highrise
Barcelona is a city without very many tall buildings. Not only that: the few tall buildings that do exist are…
Everyday Camouflage in “The Visitor”
The story told by Tom McCarthy in his highly commendable film The Visitor, which deals, among other things, with the…
Designer Façadism
A new luxury apartment building for tourists has recently opened on Passeig de Gràcia, across from Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Milà,…
Us and Theme
If Venice, the Wild West, or Asia can be themes for parks, casinos, or hotels, then why not contemporary architecture?…
Disseny Hype
“Disseny Hub” is a new cultural institution in Barcelona dedicated to design; or, to put it more correctly, to promoting…
Gaudí in Red Alert
“Gaudí en alerta roja” is the title of an online petition currently the source of much debate in Barcelona. Its…
Lighten-Up in the Mies Pavilion
The installation by SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa) at Barcelona’s Mies van der Rohe Pavilion is simple, subtle, and…
Welcome to the Hotel Barcelona
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, Barcelona is in the tail-end of a hotel construction boom. And Barcelona being “Barceloooooonaaaaaa” means,…
Criticalista 