Hasta La Ideas

British architects, artists and critics have selected the buildings that they look forward to seeing again after the coronavirus pandemic.

At present, much of the world is on lockdown, with millions of people confined to their own homes and travel severely restricted. However, once the pandemic is over, people will once again be free to visit their favourite buildings.

“The feel of cool marble under bare feet” is how architecture critic Michael Sorkin begins his list of Two Hundred and Fifty Things an Architect Should Know.

Sorkin, who died last month from complications due to Covid-19, would have understood the need for all the new digital initiatives to satisfy our creative cravings, yet it is impossible to replace how being in the presence of buildings can make us feel.

Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute in San Diego, with its extraordinary setting and views, as well as its immense physical form, is the most powerful reminder of the importance of the direct encounter, said architect Jamie Fobert who recalled seeing it for the first time:

“As I walked across the near-empty surface of this public space, I felt lifted physically and opened up emotionally,” he said. “Like walking into a Superstudio montage, a tabula rasa with the ocean at its edge, it was at once a surreal and completely tangible experience.”

Artists Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell, whose exhibition at London’s Soane Museum sets out to explore what buildings can tell us about contemporary society, have also found themselves thinking how the setting is as important as the architecture.

For them, it’s Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer‘s Niterói Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro. “It positively lifts the spirits and soars aloft!” they said.

“It’s one of the most beautiful, audacious, and energising buildings we’ve visited,” they continued.

“Poised between the city and the sea, mountains and the sky, it perfectly expresses the optimistic energy of Rio, a city where it often feels as though anything is possible, a city that has the power to lift the spirits at every turn with the drama of its incredible natural setting.”

The ability to connect emotionally to our environment is fundamental to human experience, yet it is only at times like that we ask why certain places make us feel alive and human.

Architect Farshid Moussavi cites Yokohama Port Terminal, her first building as Foreign Office Architects.

She emphasises that public buildings also contribute to social values and the quality of urban life.

“Its floors seem caring as they are covered with wood that has been meticulously laid down to adapt to the building’s undulating geometry,” she said of the port terminal. ” They invite you to sit anywhere and relax.”

Architecture is also about bringing people together.

For Simon Conder, best known for a series of exquisite houses on the remote Dungeness Beach in Kent, OMA’s Casa de Musica in Porto reminds of him our temporary social distancing. “It’s the most magical and sociable building I have ever been to,” he said.

Buildings that connect with nature don’t always have to be far away from home.

Architect Sarah Wigglesworth points out that a connection with nature can be as simple as having a garden to look at during months of self-isolation citing Peter Aldington’s house at Turn End in Essex.

“The key is the garden – which is gorgeous – and whose presence is felt everywhere,” she explained. “The house itself is simple and homely but with beautiful light and views of all kinds of nature. This is so important for mental wellbeing and connecting us to the natural cycles of the seasons.”

Ellis Woodman, director of the Architecture Foundation says the building most imprinted on his mind right now is the Byeongsanseowon Confucian Academy in Korea because of the way “the building tells you about your place within the immediate community and the wider world”.

“It is somewhere where diurnal and seasonal changes are felt very intensely – something I know I am really going to miss being stuck indoors for the next few months,” said Woodman.

At the time of writing, the Venice Architecture Biennale is still due to take place in August this year, a city were where the combination of colour, surface and light is a permanent inspiration for architects. But for John Tuomey of Dublin based O’Donnell +Tuomey, the city he is thinking about most is Rome.

“In these days of solitary retreat and social isolation, I find myself dreaming of the streets of Rome, my mind’s eye strolling through the crowded spaces around the Pantheon,” he said.

Every architect knows the Pantheon but for Tuomey it’s not merely the building but the surrounding streets – what he calls the “the sweet sense of clash between monumental presence and the continuity of everyday existence” that he misses.

This, he says, is “architecture and the city working off each other, a perfect cocktail of transcendent awe and civic cheer, one that makes us live in hope”.

Architects and designers have been responding to the coronavirus pandemic in a variety of positive ways including building hospitals, designing prefabricated intensive care units and making face shields.

Dezeen has launched Virtual Design Festival, the world’s first digital design festival, as a platform to bring the architecture and design world together to celebrate the culture and commerce of our industry, and explore how it can adapt and respond to extraordinary circumstances.

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Cataloging the contributions of these eye-popping additions to the city

From windows inside—or out of—the five boroughs, and in the uncanny stillness of the present day, one might be able to see (and ruminate upon the fact) that NYC‘s skyline has changed dramatically in recent years. Away from the mega-projects of Hudson Yards, the Williamsburg waterfront and the World Trade Center, jagged teeth have risen among the historic structures that have long lent their power to the iconic cityscape. The seven towers we highlight below were not selected for their height (thus, our exclusion of Central Park Tower—the world’s highest residential building); they were chosen because they contribute more than their stunning architecture, stance and and super-tall silhouette. They benefit the city and its people in other ways.

53 West 53

53 West 53 topped out in August 2018—at a staggering 1,050 feet—and came to completion in 2019. The vision of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, the magnificent tower’s facade—complete with a one-of-a-kind exoskeleton—tapers into three sheer crystalline peaks. This MoMA-adjacent spire is primarily residential in nature, but its lower floors house gallery spaces that are a functional part of the museum—and available for all visitors to appreciate.

11 Hoyt

Visionary architect and MacArthur Fellow Jeanne Gang’s Studio Gang makes their NYC residential debut (in collaboration with Hill West Architects) with Downtown Brooklyn‘s 11 Hoyt. The 57-story structure’s scalloped facade, assembled from various prefabricated concrete units, brings dimension to the neighborhood and appears to shift as the sun moves through the sky. It was the project’s landscape architects, Hollander Design, who brought something unexpectedly special by planting milkweed and thistle in the building’s private park. These botanicals are there to attract migratory monarch butterflies to the neighborhood.

The XI

Two twisting structures comprise West Chelsea’s The XI (from iconoclastic Danish architect Bjarke Ingels‘ firm, BIG): the 25-story eastern tower, named N° X, and the 34-story western tower named N° I. Primarily residential, the mixed-use compound will feature the first-ever Six Senses hotel in the city, as well as retail and art spaces. It’s The XI’s public promenade that will offer the community most, as it’s an official extension of the beloved above-ground park, The High Line.

130 William

Acclaimed architect Sir David Adjaye‘s first high-rise addition to NYC, 130 William towers 800 feet over the Financial District with a uniquely inspired hand-cast concrete facade (an adaptation of classic Manhattan stonework), exquisite arched windows, and bronze accents. It’s a texture not seen, let alone at this magnitude, and it casts the residential building into relief against lower Manhattan. Accompanying the tower, Adjaye designed a new public park plaza.

Skyline Tower

When Skyline Tower topped out in October 2019, it became the tallest building in Queens (at 778 feet, not quite enough to reach the super-tall category of 984 feet). That said, it will not be completed until 2020. The glass and steel Long Island City structure, also designed by Hill West Architects, offers unprecedented views of Manhattan—but it’s the developers roughly $17 million commitment to replenish the neighboring Court Square–23rd Street station (at the base of the building) that will benefit more than its residents.

111 West 57th

SHoP Architects‘ 111 West 57th rises 1,428 feet up—and it will hold a world record as the thinnest skyscraper. It’s the base, however, that preserves the original, landmarked Steinway Building exterior, designed in 1925 by Warren & Wetmore (and featuring a restoration and conversion of its interior). Further, Steinway & Sons made their vast musical catalogue free for all to enjoy. From the elegant architectural setbacks on the southern side to the recital hall inside, 111 West 57th sets itself apart from its neighbors.

One Vanderbilt

SL Green Realty Corporation set out to build a new monument for NYC with their 1,401-foot office tower, One Vanderbilt—which is still under construction. They tapped architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates to imagine something extraordinary that didn’t overpower their iconic neighbor, Grand Central Terminal. From their commitment to recycled construction materials and sustainable design attributes—including a 50,000-gallon rainwater collection and treatment system—to their belief in WELL building certification, which requires attention to features that impact mental health and well-being, the building represents the future of construction standards in NYC. Further, One Vanderbilt’s development team has committed $220 million for transit improvement (both subway and commuter train lines) as well as a new pedestrian plaza the city will create through the closure of Vanderbilt Avenue between 42nd and 43rd streets.

Hero image of The XI courtesy of DBOX

Pioneering street and portrait photographer Joel Meyerowitz (who shot in color during the ’60s, when most were capturing images in black and white) recently sat down with LensCulture’s Jim Casper for a delightful and insightful interview. Meyerowitz talks about the vibrance of city streets, how a beginner photographer can find their signature style, the ways technology  has impacted the art form and more. What’s truly revealed is that the 82-year-old artist loves his medium. “I said right at the beginning, photography has taught me everything I know basically all this time. And I think it comes to me in a kind of slowly dawning consciousness again and again,” he says. “I tend to just love human nature and nature itself and the opportunity to pass along the experience through the camera’s eye.” Read or listen to the lengthy interview at LensCulture, where there are also plenty of Meyerowitz’s vibrant photographs to admire.

James Garvan Architecture has added gabled timber-batten screens to the facade of this house in Sydney, which is meant to mimic the form of a neighbouring property.

The two-storey house in the back streets of North Bondi, a coastal suburb in eastern Sydney, has been overhauled by local studio James Garvan Architecture.

It was previously fronted by an obtrusive garage in the driveway and needed to be visually reconnected with homes along the street.

Its owner, a young man that often invites friends and family over, also wanted the house to have a more welcoming appearance on approach.

The garage has been knocked down to open up the house to the streetscape.

Its facade now comprises a series of gabled and half-gable screens made from white-painted timber battens. They’ve been specifically arranged to mimic the geometry of the property next door.

“The unadorned frontage gives primacy to the purity and clarity of the three staggered gabled forms whilst still maintaining a formal connection with its neighbour,” founder of the studio James Garvan explained.

“The crisply-detailed simple forms of the front facade offer an alternative to the traditional Bondi semi and along with it, a sense of advancement.”

The openness of the house front is playfully contrasted by the fact that the screens simultaneously hide the home’s interior.

Part of the first gabled screen can be slid back to reveal a front door and porch. Other panels discretely incorporated in the screens can be pushed back for additional fresh air.

Inside, the studio has improved the formerly gloomy living spaces by creating a large void in the kitchen ceiling. Sun rays that stream in through new skylights in the home’s roof are now able to reach the ground floor.

A majority of surfaces, including the original exposed-brick walls, have also been painted white to keep a bright and airy atmosphere.

Lisa Tackenberg was brought on board to help develop the aesthetic of the rooms, which have been decked out in simple materials.

Wood has been used to make the treads of the stairs and the kitchen cabinetry, which is fluted to match the appearance of the gabled screens on the exterior.

Concrete has been used for elements such as the breakfast island and bathroom sink.

“The restrained material palette relies on variety in texture and pattern, and their interaction with light and space to provide a level of richness and vigour to the project,” added Garvan.

A large opening has also been created in the rear of the house to give inhabitants easier access to the pool and garden.

James Garvan Architecture is based in Double Bay, Sydney. The Australian city is host to several homes with striking facades – others include Glebe House by Chenchow Little Architects, which is punctuated by upside-down arches.

Brougham Place by Smart Design Studio also boasts a stripy exterior composed of brightly coloured louvres.

Photography is by Katherine Lu.

Project credits:

Architect: James Garvan Architecture
Client and builder: Tom Cull of TC Build
Interiors in collaboration with: Lisa Tackenberg

The post North Bondi House in Sydney fronted by angular white gabled screens appeared first on Dezeen.

Kata Geibl has always wanted to be a photographer. When she was five years old, she asked for a camera from her parents, and that was just the beginning for her. “I carried that green 35mm film camera everywhere, always taking snapshots,” says Geibl. “Then later in my 20s when I studied film history, I watched Michelangelo Antonioni’s movie, Blowup, for the first time. After that, I knew I had to become a photographer no matter what, so I stopped my studies and applied to art school.”

Geibl attended the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest and in 2019, she began her Master’s degree at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Studying photography as a subject gave her some grounding in her approach: “My studies helped me to structure my thinking and always reminded me that my work only lives when it has an audience, and I need to build a bridge between me and the rest of the world,” she says.

One way Geibl is doing this is through her ongoing project There Is Nothing New Under The Sun, which the photographer sees as a reflection on society. “The way we consume, enquire, vote, communicate, and work is rapidly changing every day. A completely new age has dawned,” says Geibl. “The series is capturing the zeitgeist of our time, without laying out answers to the viewer, but guiding their mind and creativity into the direction of the story behind the images.”

Inspiration stems from Geibl’s own anxieties about the world and our capitalist leanings. Stylistically she’s drawn from artists such as Taryn Simon, Paul Graham, Gregory Halpern, André Kertész, and Rinko Kawauchi. Though her approach changes depending on the project, the imagery throughout There Is Nothing New Under The Sun is warm, beautifully lit and intriguing. 

Mixing cityscapes with mountain ranges, and unusual portraits with closer crops of body parts, the breadth of imagery is partly due to the images being taken across different landscapes, including Hungary, Austria and the UK. The result is a set of seemingly disparate images that are tied together through a sunset-hued palette, a nod to the sun being the constant in this ever-changing world. 

For every project it helps Geibl to visualise what she wants to create, so on top of initial research and drafting a rough artist’s statement, she also adopts a process more akin to a painter or illustrator. “Every time I start working on a series I always sketch what I want to see. My sketchbook is a tool for me to visualise and collect all my ideas in one place,” explains the photographer. “I think I would be lost without it. If I write or sketch my vision down, I can always come back to it… The sketchbook also functions as a moodboard for each series. It’s very important in my process to see the project evolving as a whole.” 

The ability to create and direct an image is what Geibl enjoys most about her work. “The scenes that I create myself, when everything is staged and I can be the director of the whole image – these are the most challenging and exciting ones for me.”

Other challenges are often having the brain space to channel her creativity into everything that’s on her mind. “It’s very hard to find the time to concentrate on only one project,” she says. “And also the uncertainty that goes with being a freelancer and artist can be quite challenging.” 

With Covid-19’s presence still being felt all over the world, There Is Nothing New Under The Sun is currently on hold, as are Geibl’s commercial projects. “But everyone in the art world is in the same situation, so I try to be positive and find new ways of working,” says the photographer. 

This pause in work has reminded Geibl the importance of slowing down and taking care of yourself and loved ones. “I didn’t even realise in the last few years how much I took on, only now,” she says. “I try to make the best of the situation and remind myself we are all in this together. Oh and I finally had the time to clean my windows!”

katageibl.com

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