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My weekly page update:

Hanamidori Cultural Center in Tachikawa City Tokyo, Japan by Atelier Bow-Wow.

The updated book feature is Bow-Wow from Post Bubble City, by Atelier Bow-Wow.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Open Architecture Challenge
A competition to “design a sustainable multi-purpose technology facility for under-served communities,” open to all.

Architectural Photography
Photographs of many contemporary buildings, in Japanese. (added to sidebar under architectural links::photography)

dod:travel
It’s back…in blog form. (via Land + Living; added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

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cliff, originally uploaded by andrewpaulcarr.

Crampton Street residential development by Tate + Hindle, as part of the Elephant and Castle Regeneration Program in London’s Southwark area.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
:: Tag your photos archidose

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According to its web site, Kolumba’s new building opened yesterday. Kolumba is the “art museum of the archbishopric of Cologne,” Germany, designed by Peter Zumthor.

This is the second building to open this year by Zumthor, whose Bruder Klaus Chapel has received much press and visitors to the private chapel in Southern Germany, due to its design as much as for the fact that Zumthor produces very few buildings.

According to Kolumba’s web site, the “architecture combines the ruins of the late Gothic church St. Kolumba, the chapel ‘Madonna in the Ruins’ (1950), the unique archaeological excavation (1973-1976), and the new building designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor.”

This layering of old and new is evident on the outside walls, where the new, minimal walls sit behind the old stone walls and openings of the late Gothic church. The windows of the new building sit in front of its own walls, in a slight gesture to the layering of the church openings below.

The most distinctive element of the exterior is a band that almost rings the building, of what appears to be small openings within the masonry exterior wall. These small openings create dappled effects on the inside walls, impressive effects per the image below.

It’s difficult to get a full grasp on the building and its design based on the current documentation featured on Kolumba’s web site (inclusive of the images above), though I’m guessing it’s just a matter of time that the building gets its fair share of treatment in the press with the usual glossy photos, architectural drawings, and maybe even a video or two.

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Hoofddorp Bus Station by NIO, originally uploaded by dod:.

Bus station at Spaarne Hospital (aka The Amazing Whale Jaw) in Hoofddorp, Netherlands by NIO Architecten, 2005. See the station in its pre-peachy-paint state at Galinsky.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
:: Tag your photos archidose

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Some events for those in an and around New York City in the next couple of months.

The Tennessee Valley Authority: Design and Persuasion
Tuesday, September 18, 7 pm
Housing Works, 126 Crosby Street (between Prince and Houston)

“Visionary and monumental, the Tennessee Valley Authority brought hydroelectric dams, electricity, controlled flooding, and consumer appliances to an area devastated by the Depression. As contemporary designers search for models of socially-engaged design, progressive city-planning, and conceptions of the social good, the TVA becomes an important model.

Tim Culvahouse and Jane Wolff will discuss the role of design as an agent of public persuasion and as an embodiment of political ideals. Presented by Princeton Architectural Press and The Center for Urban Pedagogy.”

Performance Z-A: a Pavilion and 26 Days of Events at Storefront
Opening Friday, September 21, 2007 (Running until October 16)
Storefront for Art and Architecture

“Twenty-five years ago, in September 1982, Storefront’s first public event got underway in its original Prince Street location. Performance A-Z, organized by the gallery’s founders Kyong Park and R L Seltman, and artist Arleen Schloss, was a 26-day sequence of performances by New York-based artists. Each of the 26 performers was allocated one evening slot. The event became a manifesto for the gallery’s future programming: as Kyong Park wrote in his introduction, “Storefront supports the idea that art and design have the potential and responsibility to affect public policies which influence the quality of life and the future of all cities.”

In late September 2007, Storefront will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a new edition of its first event. Entitled Performance Z-A, this 26-day celebration will be hosted in Petrosino Park, adjacent to Storefront, in a specially built pavilion designed by Korean architect Minsuk Cho. Organized by the three directors who have led Storefront over the past 25 years (Kyong Park, Sarah Herda and Joseph Grima), Performance Z-A will be an inclusive event involving not only performance artists but also representatives of all the disciplines that have participated in Storefront’s program in the past decades: architects, artists, writers, researchers, filmmakers, photographers, musicians and more. For 26 days, from September 21 to October 16, 2007, the protagonists of Storefront’s past, present and future will host 26 evening events including performances, concerts, open discussions, film screenings and interviews”

BIG Apple (pictured)
Opening Tuesday, October 2, 6:30 pm (Running until November 24)
Storefront for Art and Architecture

“BIG is a Copenhagen based group of over 80 architects, designers, builders and thinkers operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and development. BIG’s architecture emerges out of a careful analysis of how contemporary life constantly evolves and changes. In their projects, BIG tests the effects of size and the balance of programmatic mixtures on the triple bottom line of the social, economical and ecological outcome. Like a form of programmatic alchemy, they create architecture by mixing conventional ingredients such as living, leisure, working, and shopping.

The exhibition will showcase some built works and a number of large-scale models illustrating proposals for innovative residential typologies, all of which are situated in Copenhagen. Focusing on Kløverkarrén, BIG House, the LEGO project, Mountain Dwellings and VM Houses (both designed in conjunction with JDS Architects), the exhibition presents a broad spectrum of the research that has gone into varying housing solutions for different generational attitudes and economical backgrounds. “

Debate + Book Launch: The City Unplugged
Monday, October 15, 2007, 6:30 pm -8:30 pm
Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall

“Do urban models still exist? Three Columbia authors present three books on (urban) conditions, tales and trajectories that challenge what it means to talk about the “city” today.

Kadambari Baxi, Barnard + Reinhold Martin, GSAPP; authors of: Multi-National City (Actar, 2007); Daniela Fabricius (M.Arch 03), PennDesign/ Pratt, author of: 100% Favela (Actar, 2007); Kazys Varnelis, GSAPP; author of: Blue Monday (Actar, 2007) Moderated by: Michael Kubo, Actar.” (via varnelis.net)

Women in Modernism: Making Places in Architecture
Thursday, October 25, 2007, 6:30pm
MoMA’s Celeste Bartos Theater

“This program explores the role that architectural arbiters have had and continue to have in shaping the history and defining the legacy of modern architecture in the United States. Through a lecture and discussion, scholars, curators, and architects address the process of selection and the values that they employ each time they design a course or exhibition, or publishes a book or an article.

Moderated by Barry Bergdoll, with speakers Gwendolyn Wright, Sarah Herda, Toshiko Mori, Karen Stein, and a welcome by Beverly Willis.

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Leaning to the left, originally uploaded by thomaswongpz.

The Freitag Flagship in Zurich, Switzerland by spillman.echsle.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
:: Tag your photos archidose

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My weekly page update:

4 Projects in Italy by Studio Elastico.

The updated book feature is The Hanging Cemetery of Baghdad, by NaJa & deOstos.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Meet the Bloggers
“With an unorthodox mix of reporting, commentary, and activism, a new generation of architectural pundits is making its voice heard—online.” Article at Architect Online.

loud paper
It’s back…in blog form. (via Land + Living; added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

architecturephoto.net
English language site for the Japanese blog. (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

topophilia
“An online publication devoted to landscape architecture and related fields, including urbanism, architecture and land art.” (added to sidebar under blogs::landscape+maps)

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Currently on view at the Queens Museum of Art is the exhibition Generation 1.5, featuring works by artists who immigrated to a country in their adolescence. According to the exhibition page, “1.5 members are old enough to be fluent in their home language and culture, but have less difficulty adjusting to change than their first-generation counterparts. Often characterized by cultural hybridity, 1.5ers navigate various cultural perspectives from the inside, while often feeling un-tethered to any one homeland.”

The artists on view supposedly, “take part in dexterous manipulations of artistic modes and materials as they engage with diverse personal, social, and intellectual contexts…[walking] the line between assimilation and dissent…uniquely capable of critiquing their native country as well as their adopted ones.”

While a number of the pieces impressed me, what stood out the most were a couple rooms devoted to Pakistan/Brooklyn’s Seher Shah. Her Black Cube and Jihad Pop series both overlay Western architectural perspectives of Islamic buildings (real or imagined) with dynamic imagery to create realms at once utopian and nostalgic.”

Interior Courtyard 2, 2006, from the series Jihad Pop Progression 5

You can read an interview with Shah here, where she talks about her background, architectural and other inspirations, and perceptions of 1.5ers.

Image Play 1

Visiting her web site, her other works hold the same appeal for me, like the one above that incorporates color as well as photography to create a striking collage composition.

Jihad Pop Progression 3, detail

From the artist’s statement:

“Jihad Pop exists as a means to explore how issues of identity and associations define themselves. Where do I belong when past associations of both family and lifestyle breakdown and begin to form new negotiations based on personal values. The personal symbols that I have acquired through my own values play out simultaneously with symbols of Islamic religion and death as a symbol of struggle. The meeting of these two words ‘jihad’ and ‘pop’ is the marriage of this exploration of identity and the simultaneous broadcast of imagery of violence, conflict and migration.”

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“Particularly after the war, FHA’s endorsement of prebuilt subdivisions paved the way for developments like Levittown that did not adopt the assembly-line house but rather turned the entire site into a giant assembly line. Holes were dug, slabs poured, and framing hoisted simultaneously in a stepwise sequence across the whole of the site within a huge choreographed machine that was several thousand acres large and produced fourty [sic] houses a day. Earth-moving equipment lined up and dug the holes for several buildings at once or planted a uniform number of shrubs on the lot. Even appliances were delivered to several houses at once. The balance sheet for this kind of subdivision was restructured as well. The bottom line did not only correspond to an individual address but to a process applied to hundreds or even thousands of homes. Thus, a developer might evaluate the costs of pouring a thousand concrete slabs, and as a consequence of this new tabulation of costs, find new ways to economize in the building process. Reducing the thickness of a slab or of structural members on an individual home would provide negligible savings, but within a summation process, alterations to several thousand slabs or beams provided significant savings. From prefinancing, prebuilding, and prefabrication evolved an entirely new residential fabric in which all the negotiations among the pieces occurred all at once and would be undifferentiated by iterative growth over time. In return for more predictable resale value, the home buyer bought the house lot together as well as accepting simultaneous development of a very similar fabric throughout with more predictable resale value.”

- Keller Easterling, from Organization Space (1999).

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The World Edition is a new online urban development magazine, intended to be a source for an in-depth look into the evolution of cities. Its aim is to promote a better understanding of cities and the ways in which they are changing.

For the magazine’s first issue I contributed a piece on new residential developments underway on the Brooklyn/Queens side of the East River, speculating on what this might mean to the city years down the road (ignoring the effects of global warming, though readers in interested in that can read publisher and über-contributor Alexander H. Johnstone’s cover story on coastal development). Where’s Brendan Crain also submits a piece on Pittsburgh, a city I was impressed with on a short visit last year.

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