Hasta La Ideas

Basé à Barcelone, l’artiste et sculpteur Frank Plant nous propose avec sa dernière œuvre en acier une scène de plage bondée, occupée uniquement par des personnes aux cheveux roux, jouant ainsi avec notre perception pour rendre cette représentation à la fois banale mais teintée d’un sentiment étrange.

Architect Zaha Hadid has described her Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan as an “incredible achievement” while project architect Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu said the project expressed the “soft, romantic side” of Azeri culture (+ interview + movie).

“It was an incredible achievement for my team led by Saffet,” said Hadid, speaking at the Designs of the Year award ceremony in London last night, where the building won the top prize.

“This was an incredibly ambitious project and for me,” Hadid said. “It was always my dream to design and build the theoretical project and that was the closet thing to achieving that.”

Hadid described the project, named after the former president of Azerbaijan, as one of her most important recent works, along with the London Aquatics Centre.

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu, an associate at Zaha Hadid Architects who led the project, said the building reflected the romance and optimism of Azerbaijan, which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

“They wanted to have something unique, something which is looking at the future, somehow showing their soft, romantic side but at the same time their optimistic side,” said Bekiroglu in an interview with Dezeen.

“When you look at Soviet era [architecture in Azerbaijan], it’s more like monumental internalised authoritarian buildings. So, this, we wanted to use this building as an opportunity to soften it up and totally depart from that.”

The centre, which contains exhibition spaces, a library, a museum and concert venues, is set in a public plaza, the ground of which rises up to form the building’s wave-like shell.

“It blurs the rigid line between urban and architecture, inside and outside, flooring versus cladding and volume versus ground,” said Bekiroglu.

The building reflects the fluidity of traditional Azeri architecture, he said. “They have floral patterns and all this ornamentation [that] runs from the flooring to the walls and to the dome. So we wanted to that in a contemporary way.”

Zaha Hadid won a competition to design the 57,000-square metre-building in 2007.  Its shell is made out of a steel space frame and glass-fibre-reinforced concrete panels, concealing the vertical supports within the walls.

The Heydar Aliyev Centre is the first architecture project to have won the overall title of Design of the Year in the Design Museum‘s annual awards, for which Dezeen is media partner.

Hadid topped the other category winners from this year’s Designs of the Year, which included the Pro Chair family by Konstantin Grcic, ROLI‘s soft piano keyboard and Peek – a project that uses smartphones to make eye care affordable worldwide and available in remote locations.

The Spring Summer 2014 fashion collection by Prada was also recognised, as well as a series of installations of full-scale painted outlines of unmanned aircraft called Drone Shadows.

Past overall winners have included the 2014 Olympic Torch designed by Barber + Osgerby, the Plumen light bulb – the “world’s first designer low energy light bulb” according to its creators – and Yves Behar’s One Laptop Per Child project.

Photography used in the movie is by Hufton + Crow

Here’s an edited transcript of the interview with Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu of Zaha Hadid Architects:

Marcus Fairs: Tell me about the project.

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu: It’s a public building of 110,000 square metres in Baku, which is the capital of Azerbaijan. It was completed last year and now it’s open for public use. The departure point of the design is the public plaza which is an urban ground, where urban ground undulates, folds put creates internalised urban space.

It’s located on the Heydar Aliyev Boulevard from the international airport to the old city, so in a way it kind of greets you, welcomes you, as you approach the city and it unfolds. Architecture is not something neutral, staying in the background. Architecture makes a statement.

Marcus Fairs: What is it like working in Azerbaijan?

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu: In this region, which is Eurasia, the Caucasus, contemporary architecture on this kind of scale hasn’t been done. So it’s very exciting. If you look at the closest structures [on that scale], it’s the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul and the Taj Mahal in Agra. But in the region there is not much so I think that was very interesting to be able to bring that vision and knowhow.

Marcus Fairs: Tell me how that project came about.

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu: It was a design-and-build competition so we teamed up with a contractor, DIA Holding. It’s a joint venture, a Turkish and Azeri collaboration. We made a proposal and they liked our proposal.

Marcus Fairs: Were they looking for something to compare to the Hagia Sofia or the Taj Mahal?

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu: No. In 1991 Azerbaijan established its independence from the Soviet Union, so they wanted to have something unique, something which is looking at the future, somehow showing their soft, romantic side but at the same time their optimistic side.

Marcus Fairs: Tell us about the design. How does it compare to other projects the office has worked on?

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu: Our office’s work is a continuation of research and we’re very interested in landscape, how we activate the ground, how the ground becomes inhabitable.

In this project the departure point was how we take a public building, a public plaza, which is an urban ground and it actually undulates, pulls up and creates an internalised urban space. In that sense, it blurs the rigid line between urban and architecture, inside and outside, flooring versus cladding and volume versus ground.

Marcus Fairs: How did you actually design it? Was it done using parametrics or more with sketches and models?

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu: I mean we, as a team, are multi-tasking, so we work in all mediums: computing, sketching, physical models. Yes, we use computing to have super-numerical control, so all the unknowns are reduced to a minimum. So, especially I think parametric software is heavily used to develop the skin to make it more rational and efficient.

Marcus Fairs: How much of it is done by the computer and how much of it is done by you or a human being?

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu: The computer is just a tool so we’re the ones who push the buttons, we’re the ones who provide the data, we’re the ones who actually drive it. It’s like a car. You drive the car and the car takes you.

But it’s super controlled and actually we do a lot of sketches, we print [models]. Sometimes I believe that there’s a certain relationship between the eye and the hand that is improvised; there is energy that sketches have. It’s not like we’re restricting ourselves to only the computer. We have many meetings as well. It’s more about the thought and intention than the tool for us.

Marcus Fairs: What was the starting point of the research? Some of Zaha’s projects have been derived from dune formations or geological formations. Where did the form of this one come from?

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu: When you look at Soviet era [architecture in Azerbaijan], it’s more like monumental internalised authoritarian buildings. So, this, we wanted to use this building as an opportunity to soften it up and totally depart from that. That’s why urban ground as a public ground is the departure point.

Marcus Fairs: So the form, which rises up from the ground; was there a reference point for that?

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu: Our design is not iconographic, that it looks like something and tries to mimic it. It’s more about the idea. For public use, the public plaza is the departure point. Internalised urban space departing from the public plaza. It’s not like any figure or any icon or anything.

Marcus Fairs: There’s no visual precedent?

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu: Well I can tell you about the fluidity. I always say there’s a fluidity in that region that always existed. If you look at the region’s architecture and its art: calligraphy, carpets. They have floral patterns and all this ornamentation [that] runs from the flooring to the walls and to the dome. So we wanted to that in a contemporary way.

Marcus Fairs: What has the building done for the country and for the city?

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu: I think it gives an interesting perspective to the Azeri people and Azeri culture. I see the building as like kind of social catalyst. I think they enjoy it and it’s a new perspective. And it’s a nice place for people and their family to go or if they’re visiting internationally. It’s located just between the airport and the old city as you’re arriving along the boulevard. It’s a nice building that welcomes you and there are art shows, lectures, opera. So it’s a good social place for people to come to learn and exchange.

Marcus Fairs: Azerbaijan is bringing in other international architects to do projects. How is the country using architecture to express what it is all about?

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu: Well I can not tell you all about that, but I think it’s good that they’re going with contemporary architecture, which reflects their ambitions and optimism.

The post Heydar Aliyev Centre was “an incredibly
ambitious project” says Zaha Hadid appeared first on Dezeen.

Mention sound system culture to anyone in the UK and they’ll probably associate it with Notting Hill Carnival, the annual two-day celebration of Anglo-Caribbean culture on the streets of West London. However, a new book published by…

Continue Reading…

Angrybovine è uno studio di consulenza brand e design del Colorado. La vera novità è che il fondatore Jay Ferracane lo ha strutturato in una vera e propria roulotte del 1991. All’interno c’è tutto quello che serve: 3 workstation, area riunioni, bar, libreria, porta-documenti, etc… Non so quanto possa funzionare questa cosa da noi, il rischio è che un bel giorno bussino alla porta poliziotti o non bussino alla porta gitani e ti portino via la tua bella dimora.

News: Spanish office Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos has won a competition to design a woodland cultural centre for the organisation run by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, after claiming their proposal won’t involve felling a single tree (+ slideshow).

Nieto Sobejano – who has previously completed museums and galleries in Spain, Austria and Germany – was awarded first prize in the contest to design a new home for the Arvo Pärt Centre, which was founded by the composer in 2010 to preserve and promote Estonia’s musical heritage.

Envisioned for the woodland of Laulasmaa, west of Tallinn, the building is conceived as a pentagonal grid of spaces and courtyards that will echo the rhythms of Pärt’s symphonies – without disturbing any existing pine trees.

“We admire the purity of the mathematical laws through which Arvo Pärt is capable of generating powerful poetical emotions by means of the simple permutations of a limited number of sounds,” explained architects Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano.

“Just like those musical structures that reflect one theme in another, we imagine the new building as a geometric pattern that will contain the existing pines in courtyards of variable dimensions.”

The competition, organised by the Arvo Pärt Centre and the Union of Estonian Architects, called for a building that centres around the Arvo Pärt archive, but also features an auditorium, a library, workshops and offices.

Nieto Sobejano’s proposal, named Tabula, features a matte-aluminium roof that rises and falls over a forest of slender columns, as well as a pentagonal observation tower offering views out toward the sea.

The architects imagine the space as non-hierarchical, offering places for study and reading, as well as opportunities to watch a performance, visit an exhibition or take a stroll in the woods.

“To keep alive and interpret in architectural terms the creative legacy of Arvo Pärt means to find a balance between the intimacy of his musical compositions and the powerful beauty of the Estonian landscape,” they said.

The winner was selected by a jury that included Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto and Arvo Pärt’s son Michael Pärt, who described the project as “architecturally fresh”.

“Tabula creates a harmonious and flexible environment for Arvo Pärt’s music. What deserves to be singled out in particular about this contest entry is its spatial arrangement and thoroughly considered thematic lighting,” he said.

Scroll on for the full statement from Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano:

Tabula

We admire the purity of the mathematical laws through which Arvo Pärt is capable of generating powerful poetical emotions by means of the simple permutations of a limited number of sounds. Just like those musical structures that reflect one theme in another – a Spiegel im Spiegel, or a never-ending story – we imagine the new building as a geometric pattern, originated in a repeated pentagonal form, which will contain the existing pines in courtyards of variable dimensions. All the large trees may be preserved: not a single pine shall be teared down.

Like a combinatorial composition, the variations of the pentagonal precincts generate spatial sequences that configure the different areas of the program. The interior space is wrapped by two long curved wooden walls that separate the more private areas of the program. The archive and the library are connected to the workshops and to the office rooms on the main ground floor. The auditorium is conceived as a flexible space -a room within a room- for concerts, performances, conferences, and films. The foyer can also be used for exhibitions, and is connected to the shop and cafe in close visual relationship to the exterior landscape.

The Arvo Pärt Centre will not be a hyerarchical building: the centre moves from one space to another. It has been conceived as a large single place for concentration and study, in which one can express and exchange ideas, visit an exhibition, go to the cafeteria, read in the library, listen to a performance in the auditorium, or simply stroll out onto the woods.

The materials relate to the warm and intimate character of the entire project. In the interior, walls and ceilings of white oiled pine wood, and continuous paved flooring interact with the natural light filtered through the courtyards. A network of electric, digital, audiovisual, and lighting infrastructures ease access to sockets and connections throughout the building. On the exterior, a single element unifies the architectural proposal: a new roof conceived as a large platform, which rises and folds to adapt to the different interior required heights. This roof landscape – clad in precise matte marine aluminium panels – establishes a dialogue between its geometry and the organic shapes of the surrounding trees.

The facades are conceived as a filter defined by a changing sequence of slender columns, a free architectural representation of Arvo Pärt’s compositions. Some areas will allow larger transparent glass surfaces, whereas others will be more protected, filling the gaps of the filter-like screen. The observation tower is a sculptural light structure which takes as a reference a sequence of Arvo Pärt’s Psalms. It has the same pentagonal plan of the courtyards, and is conceived as a helical structure emerging above the trees to allow a distant view toward the sea.

To keep alive and interpret in architectural terms the creative legacy of Arvo Pärt means to find a balance between the intimacy of his musical compositions and the powerful beauty of the Estonian landscape. The radical decision of preserving all the pine trees, generates an unexpected dialogue between the unitary structure of the roof and the playful disposition of the courtyard voids. After all, aren’t void and silence the hidden protagonists of architecture and music?

The post Nieto Sobejano scores Estonian cultural centre
for composer Arvo Pärt appeared first on Dezeen.