Hasta La Ideas

Architect Peter Zumthor designed this memorial on an island in Norway to commemorate suspected witches who were burned at the stake there in the seventeenth century (photographs by Andrew Meredith).

The Steilneset Memorial in Vardø comprises two structures, one conceived entirely by Zumthor and a second housing an installation by the late Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010).

The first structure comprises a pine scaffolding framework, inside which is a suspended fabric cocoon containing a long oak-floored corridor.

Inside this corridor, light bulbs hang behind 91 windows to represent each of the men and women that were put to death during the witch trials.

A plaque accompanies each lamp to record the individual stories of every victim.

The installation by Bourgeois, entitled The Damned, The Possessed and The Beloved, occupies the smoked-glass-clad second structure.

A circle of mirrors within surround and reflect a flaming steel chair inside a hollow concrete cone.

This year Zumthor also completed the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London and designed a holiday home for Devon, England, that will complete next year.

See all our stories about Peter Zumthor here.

You can also read about more projects from Norway by clicking here.

Photography is provided c/o Icon Magazine.

A unique history from the perspective of forward-thinking architects

A new history by Jean-Louis Cohen reveals the progression of building through the lens of architects looking toward the future. Tracking the social changes that caused architects to anticipate the demands of urban living that were to come, Cohen retrospectively examines the greatest advances in building from the dawn of industrialization through the postmodern era. The future, in this case, begins in 1889, with the author pointing out in his introduction that “the quantity of building stock produced since 1900 has surpassed the sum total of that which existed in all previous human history.”

The eminent architectural historian currently holds the Sheldon H. Solow chair at NYU. In his most recent work, he joins an academic perspective with a narrative voice that replaces industry jargon with a fascinating account. His global viewpoint is rare in this kind of work, which typically neglects non-western developments. Cohen pinpoints the critical moments in history and architecture, from the rise of futurism and fascism in Italy to the dawn of western secular forms in the building of Ankara, capital city of the then newly established Turkish republic.

Not restricting his analysis to completed structures, Cohen embraces theoretical projects as well. “In view of all these transformations, it has been impossible to limit architecture’s definition in this book to realized constructions. Unbuilt designs, as well as books, journals, and public manifestations embodying the culture of architecture in its broadest sense, have also been taken into account. Indeed, realized buildings are always informed by ideas, narratives, and repressed memories of past projects.”

Observing contemporary phenomena, Cohen discusses the rise of Neo-Futurism as a corollary to technology, noting that many of the structures built today are byproducts of new materials and ideas about the function of large-scale constructions in society. As the needs of urbanized societies changed to accommodate massive populations, the minds of architects put to use developments such as load-bearing glass to create previously impossible forms.

Cohen’s probing curiosity ends the book by voicing a series of concerns over green building, the role of architectural criticism in new media, the potential for landscape in urban settings, and the need for low-income housing as part of the public welfare. His conclusion follows the tradition established by 20th-century architects and their desire to predict the future of society.

The book is available for pre-order from Amazon for $47.

Cavernous holes in the courtyard of three museum buildings in Graz, Austria, lead underground into a new, shared entrance by Spanish architects Nieto Sobejano and local firm eep architekten (photographs by Roland Halbe).

The extension adds a conference hall, reading areas and an archive to the Joanneum Museum complex, which comprises a regional library, an art gallery and a natural history museum.

Glass surrounds the conical openings and each one tunnels down through one or two storeys to bring diffused natural light into the underground rooms.

Visitors enter the building via an outdoor elevator into the largest cone.

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos have completed a few museums this year – see them all here, including another one that tunnels underground.

Here’s some further explanation from Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos:

Joanneum Museum extension and refurbishment
International Competition 1st Prize 2006

Surface and Depth

The ground surface, the horizontal platform upon which most of our movements in the city occur, is very rarely the generating argument or the spatial support of a project. Perhaps as a result of that yearn for an identity that every new intervention seems to demand, architecture has tended to express itself throughout history by means of objects, volumes that have often established a difficult relationship with the scale of the urban environment in which they were inserted. In contrast, the extension of the Joanneum Museum emerged from the intention of acting within the strict limits of the horizontal plane of the city, offering a new public space based on an architectural proposal that is paradoxically simple in its depth and complex in its surface.

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The Joanneumsviertel of Graz is formed of three buildings of different periods and uses that up to now gave their back to one another and towards a residual rear courtyard: the Museum of Natural History – from the 18th century –, the Regional Library of Styria and New Gallery of Contemporary Art, the latter built at the end of the 19th century. As organisms belonging to the same institution, the project set out the need to endow the complex with a common access, welcoming spaces, conference hall, reading areas and services, aside from a lower level for archives and storage. Instead of falling into the temptation of developing an iconic intervention, as has often happened in recent extensions of existing museums, the project meant, however, a unique opportunity to carry out an at once urban and architectural transformation.

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If the historic center of Graz is known for its expressive roofscape, our proposal develops entirely below ground: we simply define a new pavement that as a large carpet takes up the whole exterior space between buildings and conceals below ground the spaces that house the required program. This decision allows acknowledging the value of the existing historical constructions – carrying out a refurbishment that is respectful towards their architectural characteristics – which acts only punctually in some interior areas without affecting the original exterior image and volume. The horizontal continuous surface of the new square is marked by a combinatorial series of circular patios that bring natural light into the underground spaces and house the entrance, the lobby and shared areas of museums and library, a gathering place from which to reach each one of them.

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The geometric abstraction implicit in every architectural work appears in the proposal with the boldness of a contemporary installation in the public space, transformed into an apparently random sequence of conical intersections derived from a single, virtual three-dimensional figure. Curved glass surfaces with a continuous silkscreen print filter light towards the interior and, inversely, illuminate the square with artificial light at night. A cultural institution like the Joanneum Museum, on which the Kunsthaus Graz is dependent, thus expresses the changing relationship between art and city.

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The square that centralizes the access to the museums is an unusual intervention in the urban space: a bet on the common action between plastic arts and architecture that will incorporate specific installations in collaboration with contemporary artists. The new extension goes almost unnoticed, concealed beneath the pavement that connects the historical buildings, as a materialization of a perforated horizon that expresses, and not only literally, that the depth of an architectural work can reside, unexpectedly, on its surface.

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Location: Graz (Austria)
Client: Government of Steiermark (Austria)
Architects: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, eep architekten

Project: Fuensanta Nieto, Enrique Sobejano, Gerhard Eder
Collaborators: Dirk Landt, Christian Egger,Bernd Priesching, Daniel Schilp, Michele Görhardt, Udo Brunner, Anja Stachelscheid, Sebastián Sasse, Nik Wenzke, Ana-Maria Osorio, Michael Fenske
Structure: zt-büro dipl.-ing. Petschnigg
Mechanical Engineers: Pechmann GmbH, Ingenieurbüro f. Haustechnik
Models: Juan de Dios Hernández – Jesús Rey
Project: 2007-2008
Construction: 2009-2011

In a year studded with beautiful new volumes by and about artists and designers ranging from Alexander McQueen to Andrea Zittel, these are the five that we found most inspiring.

Autobiography of a Fashion Designer: Ralph Rucci (Bauer and Dean) by Ralph Rucci, with photographs by Baldomero Fernandez
Fashion designer and artist Ralph Rucci has been betrayed by key members of the fashion press, who should have made him a household name years ago, but critics, curators, and connoisseurs have picked up the slack. This just-published volume is a fascinating follow-up to Ralph Rucci: The Art of Weightlessness (Yale University Press), published in 2007 to accompany the Museum at FIT’s exhibition of the designer’s work. Like Rucci’s exquisite creations, Autobiography of a Fashion Designer rewards patience and close-looking, with pages of lush color photos and descriptions of the couture techniques used (and in some cases pioneered) in the Chado Ralph Rucci atelier. Inspired by Sol LeWitt’s Autobiography (1980), a kind of exhaustive visual index of the artist’s life, this book also tells the stories behind 20 objects Rucci has collected in his lifetime. It’s a fitting tribute to an uncompromising designer with the soul of artist.

Alexander Girard by Todd Oldham and Kiera Coffee (Ammo Books)
Treat yourself to the amazing Alexander Girard mega-monograph by designer Todd Oldham and writer Kiera Coffee. The product of nearly four years of research and, at 672 pages, an innovative scheme of printing and binding, this book is a must for any design lover. Oldham was granted exclusive permission to sift through the fastidiously kept archives of Girard (1907-1993), who is best known for his folk art-infused textiles for Herman Miller but also designed everything from buildings to typography. “I’d estimate that 90 percent of the work in the book hasn’t been seen,” Oldham told us earlier this year. “Wait ‘til you see the stuff from his early design career, in the ‘20s.” And take a closer look at the image credits: many of the archival photos were taken by frequent Girard collaborator Charles Eames.
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

It’s now been more than a year since landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh‘s was awarded the project to redevelop the area around St. Louis’ Gateway Arch, and more than ten months since the project suddenly doubled in estimated costs. Now, like with many ambitious building efforts, reality seems to slowly be creeping back in. Despite having just landed a $20 million grant from the government to help the redevelopment, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the organizers have already had to start scaling back the project’s grand scope, as well as starting to consider what they can feasibly have done by 2015, when the Arch celebrates its 50th anniversary. Perhaps most telling is that the paper reports the project has raised just $57 million thus far, which includes that $20 million grant. Given that the effort was expected to cost somewhere in the $600 million range, that’s a lot of ground to make up. The new, scaled back plans are expected to be released sometime in January.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.