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Criticalista

Rafael Gómez-Moriana's architecture blog

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Tag: art

Inner Space

[Originally published in Azure Magazine November 2017] For an up-and-coming advertising agency called The Keenfolks, following the rules is not necessarily top … More

art, Azure, Barcelona, design, design-build, Guillermo Santomà, interior design

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

Anna & Eugeni Bach, architecture, art, Barcelona Pavilion, building materials, installation, materiality, Mies

A World Apart: Architectural Autonomy as Artistic Freedom / Un mundo aparte. La autonomía arquitectónica como libertad artística

[Originally presented at and published in Out-onomy, Critic|all II International Conference on Architectural Design and Criticism, ETSAM / Resumen en castellano sigue … More

architecture, art, autonomy, Critic/All conference, museum, society, theory

Architecture 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

architecture, art, gold, Guggenheim Museum, luxury, Maurizio Cattelan, politics, Toilet

But is it Architecture?

The recent adjudication of Britain’s Turner Prize to some Liverpool houses regenerated through neighbourhood participation by a young collective known as Assemble speaks … More

alternative architecture, architecture, art, Assemble, Britain, Turner Prize

The Art Studio-Museum

[Originally published in Oris Magazine #92] Situated on the distant side of the forested hillcrest that overlooks Barcelona, the Arranz-Bravo Studio … More

art, Barcelona, concrete, countryside, gallery, Garcés - de Seta - Bonet, house, museum, Oris magazine, studio

Sign o’ the Times

Isn’t it great when something that looks ‘arty’ turns out not to be art at all? A well-designed object that … More

art, commercial art, gallery, signage, street art, streets, vernacular

From Baukunst to Kunstwelt: The Biennalization of Architecture

There is no doubt that architecture is an art. The eternal question is which kind. Is architecture a building art? A … More

architecture, art, biennalization, theory

Observations on Attitude

[Originally published in Log Journal #32] Visiting “Fair Enough,” the satirical exhibition in the Russian Pavilion, I was reminded of … More

architecture, art, General Idea, Log Journal, Russian Pavilion, USA Pavilion, Venice Biennale

Seeing Things

Mountain architecture is very different from its flatland counterpart. This may be stating the obvious, but I’m referring here to … More

architecture, art, countryside, hut, landscape, mountains, refuge, shelter, wilderness

Pure Shit (II)

This building in the Catalan Pyrenees is a perfect example of the kind of “pure shit” that, according to Frank … More

architecture, art, crap, ecological design, education, landscape, theory

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

architecture, art, branding, gallery, retail

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

art, Canada, Manitoba, popular culture, Rob Kovitz, theory, Treyf

Provocative Architecture?

In “Little Frank and his Carp”, a 2001 video of a performance by artist Andrea Fraser, architecture, replete with its … More

Andrea Fraser, art, Frank Gehry, museum, performance, sex

Architectural Art

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

architecture, art, gallery, installation, interdisciplinarity, museum

Pop Architecture

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

architecture, art, Claes Oldenburg, popular culture, semiotics

Soft Architecture

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

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 … More

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

Exquisite Corpse

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

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

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 … More

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 … More

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

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 … More

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’ … More

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

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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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