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Criticalista

Rafael Gómez-Moriana's architecture blog

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Fashion Victim

You know green walls have become trendy when a designer fashion label puts one up that’s made of plastic. Kinda…

fashion, green wall, landscape, retail, simulacrum

Construction as Spectacle: Mercat dels Encants

The construction of the new Mercat dels Encants / Fira de Bellcaire (Barcelona’s flea market), by b720 Arquitectos, is not only spectacular…

b720 Arquitectos, Barcelona, construction, spectacle, structure

Get Smart

A façade design in which photovoltaic panels end up casting shadows upon other photovoltaic panels does not seem to me…

bullshit, Endesa, Energy, facadism, generative design, greenwashing, IaaC, parametric design, Smartcity

Pseudo-Choice

Potato chips, or crisps, come in a fantastic panoply of artificial flavors. BBQ, Ketchup, or “regular” are standards the world…

branding, facadism, merchandizing, packaging, politics

Invisible Architecture

Why is it that, in places where nothing is needed, there is often nevertheless a nagging architectural compulsion to add something…

AAUP, archaeology, history, Invisible architecture, JDVDP, landscape, memory, park, Turó de la Rovira

Happy Trails in 2013

Uncategorized

Garden and Gaffe

Leon Battista Alberti famously wrote: “The city is like some large house and the house in turn like some small…

Barcelona, building typology, garden, highrise, hotel, Jean Nouvel, landscape, piranesi, tourism, window

Strange Bedfellows

The image at left shows the construction of the “Instant City” during the congress of the International Council of Societies…

activism, Almería, beach, coast, corruption, crap, hotel, Ibiza, politics, resort, seashore, tourism, utopia

Going Slowly: Cadaval and Solà-Morales

[Originally published in Mark Magazine #39] “Young architects” is a culturally loaded term, often conjuring notions of rebellion, utopian idealism,…

Barcelona, Cadaval and Solà-Morales, countryside, landscape, Mark Magazine, Mexico, parametric design, Spain

Ill-Fitting: The Balenciaga Museum

  Fashion, Architecture, Politics: Image is Everything The inauguration of a cultural institution is normally a cause for widespread celebration; even…

ambition, AV62, Balenciaga, Basque Country, competition, Disegno magazine, failure, fashion, media, museology, museum, politics, small town, Spain, topography

Gaudí’s hanging chain models: parametric design avant la lettre?

It is known that Gaudí preferred modelling architecture over drawing it; especially models made of chains hung from a ceiling, or strings…

architecture, Barcelona, catenary arch, funicular, Gaudí, generative design, geometry, parametric design, polyfunicular

Villa Nurbs: a Sad Spectacle

It is June 2012, and  after a decade of construction Villa Nurbs is still incomplete. In fact, construction has now seemingly come…

Cloud 9, digital fabrication, Enric Ruíz Geli, ethics, resort, seashore, small town, spectacle, Villa Nurbs

A Reminder to Urban Planners

Given the choice, most children would rather play in a terrain vague than a playground. They would rather make mud…

adhocism, children, playground, Terrain vague

Not So Different

“Spain is Different” was a tourism campaign slogan coined in the mid-1960s by dictator Francisco Franco’s Ministry of Information and Tourism (!),…

Apple, branding, Manuel Fraga, politics

Architectural Art

Art galleries and museums seem to be showing with greater frequency artworks about architecture, many of them by artists who…

architecture, art, gallery, installation, interdisciplinarity, museum

Architourism

Tourism is the only ‘industry’ in Spain that is not downsizing in the current (well, actually it’s been five years…

Barcelona Pavilion, capitalism, Gaudí, Mies, tourism

Paragraphs on Architectural Criticism

Architectural criticism is what distinguishes architecture from building, inasmuch as those two terms are distinguishable. Buildings exist perfectly well without…

criticism, media, theory

Pool Typology

We’ve all seen that famous aerial photograph of an American Southwest suburb in which each and every house has a…

building typology, housing, suburbia, swimming pool, Terrace houses

Quietly Brilliant: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos

[Originally published in Mark Magazine #35] Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano are truly architects’ architects. They may not be a…

architecture, competition, geometry, Interviews, Islamic architecture, Madrid, Mark Magazine, museum, Nieto Sobejano

Park, Shop, and Pray

Churches are architecture whereas supermarkets and parking garages are not. At least, that’s what we’ve been taught by Nikolaus Pevsner. What, then,…

church, mixed-use, Rafael Moneo, retail, sacred-profane, San Sebastian, Spain

Collective Intelligence or Collective Stupidity?

The above image is circulating on the internet representing all sorts of cities on all sorts of continents, showing us…

authenticity, cultural identity, ethics, flexibility, interactive, internet, photography, politics, popular culture, site-specificity, social class, urbanization

Calatravaland

El País reported recently that the government of the Autonomous Region of Valencia, when it was presided by Francisco Camps (the…

Calatrava, sculpture, theming, urbanism, Valencia

The Cantilever Race

The skyscraper race is over. It’s been won hands down by an absurdly high building in Dubai which doesn’t look…

Barcelona, cantilever, Josep Lluis Mateo, space race, spectacle

Quaderns #262: A Gut Reaction

[Originally published in Quaderns d’arquitectura i urbanisme online] Quaderns d’arquitectura i urbanisme #262 is provocatively titled “Parainfrastructures”, an invented word that…

architecture, Catalonia, infrastructure, Parainfrastructure, Quaderns

Experimenting in Public is not a Crime

[Originally published in Mark Magazine #33] Seville’s public squares come in all shapes and sizes. Some are large and officious, others small…

climate, ecological design, Jürgen Mayer H., Mark Magazine, public space, Research, Seville, wood

Strike a Pose

[Originally published in Mark Magazine #32] What is it that makes these architectural images so seductive? To be sure, there…

Aires Mateus, Assisted living facility, Barcelona Pavilion, countryside, Lisbon, Mark Magazine, photography, Portugal, small town

Context is Still Everything

The building visible in the photo above is a soon-to-be-completed design museum by the veteran firm MBM (Martorell, Bohigas, MacKay).…

Barcelona, cantilever, context, infrastructure, MBM, strategy, urbanism

Experimental Bamboo

Bamboo is an ancient building material that fell largely out of favor in the twentieth century, only to be used…

Bali, bamboo, countryside, D.I.Y., ecological design

Blackwash

You wouldn’t know it from looking at photographs such as these. You wouldn’t even know it if you were standing…

Barcelona, ecological design, LEED, Mark Magazine, office building, RCR

Pop Architecture

Ordinary, everyday objects — that’s what most popular nicknames for buildings refer to. A gherkin, a paperclip, a typewriter, a…

architecture, art, Claes Oldenburg, popular culture, semiotics

Power to the People

[originally published in Mark Magazine #29] The office of Andrés Jaque Arquitectos Still on the shy side of 40, Andrés…

activism, Andrés Jaque, ethics, housing, interactive, Madrid, Mark Magazine, politics, Research, urbanism, urbanization

Interview with Peter Eisenman

[This is an excerpt of an interview I conducted with Peter Eisenman in Santiago de Compostela in May 2010. The…

architecture, Galicia, Interviews, KLAT magazine, Peter Eisenman, politics, Santiago de Compostela, theory, topographic architecture

Top-Down Tower

[Originally published in Mark Magazine #27] Social housing is among the most regulated–and least glamorous–areas of architecture. While all housing…

Barcelona, building envelope, housing, Mark Magazine, R+B Arquitectes, tower

City as Landscape

[Originally published in Mark Magazine #27]   Library Is the pleasure of architecture intellectual or sensual? Of the mind or…

cultural identity, fundamentalism, Galicia, landscape, Mark Magazine, Peter Eisenman, politics, Santiago de Compostela, strategy, topographic architecture

Triumph of the Shell

  [originally published in Mark Magazine #26]   In cinema, there is a common type of architectural scene: a building…

building envelope, film, Lleida, Mark Magazine, Mecanoo, politics, small town

Building as Research

  Truss space Two facades with different pillow systems: ETFE fog configuration and ETFE diaphragm configuration. The range of building…

Barcelona, building envelope, building industry, climate, Cloud 9, ecological design, Enric Ruíz Geli, Mark Magazine, Research

Ugh Canada

An architect is, by definition, a designer of buildings, right? Well, the government of Canada, a nation whose credo is…

Canada, cultural identity, Expo 2010 Shanghai, installation, pavilion, politics, spectacle

Jurisprudence

Courts of justice are steeped in protocol and decorum, not merely because of tradition, but in order to establish and…

Art 4 D magazine, b720 Arquitectos, Barcelona, Brutalism, concrete, David Chipperfield, Justice

Holiday greetings

Vienna, 2009

fashion, popular culture

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…

adhocism, Angelo Roventa, design, Elastic Dwelling, flexibility, housing, interactive, MAK Vienna, ST/A/R

Monument Ahead

[Originally published in Mark Magazine #22] Granada, the medieval seat of the Nasrid dynasty, whose rulers built the Alhambra, is…

Alberto Campo Baeza, concrete, cultural identity, Granada, Mark Magazine, monument, museum, strategy, suburbia

Team Play

As any sports fan can confirm, the architecture of elite sporting venues is the forefront of technologically inventive design these…

dominique perrault, flexibility, Madrid, Mark Magazine, piranesi, sport

Learning from CajaGranada

Alberto Campo Baeza, Granada, Learning from Las Vegas, monument

Morning Delivery

The maintenance of buildings is somewhat of a taboo subject in architectural discourse, which actually says a great deal about…

Barcelona Pavilion, building maintenance, Mies, pavilion, social class

BMW Welter

Luxury automobiles are fetish items par excellence. The advertising, branding and merchandising of this kind of consumer good is designed…

automobile, branding, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Munich, museum, spectacle

W: what is it good for?

A building has been going up–or did it come from outer space?–on Barcelona’s Sant Sebastià Beach that is popularly refered…

activism, Barcelona, beach, ethics, George W. Bush, hotel, popular culture, Ricardo Bofill, seashore, tourism, war

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…

architecture, france, housing, yearbook

Integrated Highrise

Barcelona is a city without very many tall buildings. Not only that: the few tall buildings that do exist are…

dominique perrault, highrise, hotel, Mark Magazine, urbanism

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…

architecture, camouflage, film, popular culture, prison, urbanism

Designer Façadism

A new luxury apartment building for tourists has recently opened on Passeig de Gràcia, across from Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Milà,…

Barcelona, facadism, strategy, Toyo Ito

Us and Theme

If Venice, the Wild West, or Asia can be themes for parks, casinos, or hotels, then why not contemporary architecture?…

design, hotel, popular culture, spectacle, theming, total design, tourism, Zaha

Disseny Hype

“Disseny Hub” is a new cultural institution in Barcelona dedicated to design; or, to put it more correctly, to promoting…

Barcelona, design, installation, museum

Gaudí in Red Alert

“Gaudí en alerta roja” is the title of an online petition currently the source of much debate in Barcelona. Its…

authenticity, Barcelona, cultural identity, ethics, fundamentalism, Gaudí, heritage, manifesto, monument

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…

Barcelona Pavilion, installation, Mies, monument, pavilion, popular culture, SANAA

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,…

Barcelona, branding, highrise, hotel, leisure, popular culture, total design, tourism

Soft Architecture

“There will be…a reaction against the rigid, rectilinear architecture expressed in such structures as the United Nations Secretariat building. Buildings…

architecture, art, Dalí, drawing, manifesto

Architecture Beyond Talk

“Out There: Architecture Beyond Building” is the title of this year’s Venice Biennale of Architecture, curated by Aaron Betsky. The…

Aaron Betsky, architecture, art, exhibition, installation, manifesto, Venice Biennale

Water Tower and Bridge Pavilion

[originally published in Mark Magazine #16] Water TowerOne of the ironies of world expositions is that while they apparently act…

bridge, Enrique de Teresa, Expo Zaragoza, infrastructure, Mark Magazine, Spain, tower, Zaha

Punch and Play

Any voyage from an airport to a city centre proves that urban peripheries the world over relate more to each…

CHS Arquitectos, healthcare, Mark Magazine, Seville, Spain, suburbia

Exquisite Corpse

A large sculpture next to a mega monochrome painting – at first glance and from a distance, that’s what the…

adaptive re-use, art, heritage, Herzog de Meuron, Madrid, Mark Magazine, museum, Spain

Everyday Camouflage in the City

[Originally published in Lotus International # 126. Earlier versions published in proceedings of Second Savannah Symposium “Authenticity in Architecture” (2001) and in On…

authenticity, camouflage, cultural identity, facadism, infrastructure, Lotus magazine, modernity, semiotics, social class, strategy, theory, urbanism

Benidorm: The Pursuit of Pleasure by the Most Efficient Available Means

Benidorm is a city in southeastern Spain with an urban morphology that is highly unusual for Europe: it is a…

Benidorm, coast, cultural identity, highrise, leisure, Onsite Review, popular culture, pragmatism, strategy, theory, tourism, urbanism

Daniel Libeskind, utopianist

Cuando el arquitecto Daniel Libeskind dice “no pienso en el conjunto de la ciudad” porque “mi interés se centra en…

architecture, El País Semanal, Libeskind, urbanism, utopia

Less and More

[Originally published in HUNCH 6 / 7  109 Provisional Attempts to Address Six Simple and Hard Questions, in which 109…

architecture, education, ethics, HUNCH journal, manifesto, politics, popular culture

The Virtue of Reality: “Puntos de luz”, the butterfly effect, and (web) site-specificity

[Originally published in http://www.puntosdeluz.net by Chema Alvargonzalez] The butterfly effect, first formulated by meteorologist Edward Lorenz in the 1970s, “refers…

art, Barcelona, butterfly effect, chaos, Chema Alvargonzález, installation, interactive, internet, museum, Puig i Cadafalch, site-specificity, virtual

From White Cube to Big Box: Three Exurban Themes in the Work of Kim Adams

“Non-places are the real measure of our time; one that could be quantified…by totaling all the air, rail and motorway…

adhocism, agriculture, art, automobile, Biennale of Sydney, countryside, D.I.Y., exurbia, installation, Kim Adams, popular culture, sculpture, suburbia, urbanism

Rocket Architecture

[Originally published in Canadian Architect, February 2001] The ensemble of structures illustrated here could easily be mistaken for recent work by…

authenticity, Churchill, Manitoba, rocket range, seashore, The Canadian Architect Magazine, wilderness

Kitbashing, Street Remakes, and Bisexual Architecture: A Conversation with Kim Adams

Rafael Gómez-Moriana: Kim, you gave a talk in 1988 at the Christiane Chassay Gallery in Montreal in which you showed…

adhocism, art, C Magazine, D.I.Y., Kim Adams, popular culture, prefab, sculpture, strategy

Winnipeg: One Great Situation-Normal (1)

[Originally published in Winnipeg Art Gallery exhibition publication Sit(e)ings: Trajectories for a Future] “Incredible…one can actually order ‘a cup of coffee’…

art, authenticity, cultural identity, D.I.Y., housing, popular culture, WAG, Winnipeg

Go With the Flow

The World Waterpark at West Edmonton Mall is a vast steel and glass-vaulted tropical microclimate in the middle of that…

chaos, complexity, leisure, Malls, prefab, suburbia, The Canadian Architect Magazine, theming, water, West Edmonton Mall

The Valparaiso School and the Construct(ion) of Regional Identity

[Originally published in Hispanic Studies vol. 23] The School of Architecture at the Catholic University of Valparaiso is an important…

authenticity, Chile, cultural identity, education, Hispanic Studies Journal, manifesto, Open city, poetry, Valparaiso

Under Water

[Originally published in Canadian Architect March 1999] The swimming pool is an icon of modernism, a veritable symbol of the health and…

leisure, spectacle, sport, swimming pool, The Canadian Architect Magazine, Vancouver

Relationship of Convenience: The Polarization of Theory and Practice in Architecture

[Originally published in Proceedings of The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture West Central 1997 Regional Conference, Faculty of Architecture,…

architecture, pragmatism, theory

Straightforward

“Architecture, whether it is a work of art or not, must be utilitarian or else fail completely.Art is not utilitarian.”…

architecture, drawing, housing, pragmatism, strategy, VMX

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Criticalista collects Rafael Gomez-Moriana's writings on architecture and the built environment. All photographs by the author unless indicated otherwise.

©2014 Rafael Gomez-Moriana. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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