MetaFilter posts tagged with architecture

Kreuzberg can suck it.

quoquo — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:25:25 -0800

Architect Jakob Tigges plans to erect a 1,000 meter tall artificial mountain in the middle of Berlin. Romantic revanchism or urban penis enlargement? Tiggens doesn't actually want to build it, he rather wants his idea to act as a placeholder in the minds of Berliners, to make sure that plans for new developments on the precious site of former Tempelhof Airport won't be made without active participation of the locals. While Berliners already know their gentrification very well, fresh ideas for the redevelopment are still rare.

Who needs the Kwik-E-mart? Not me.

mullacc — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:46:14 -0800

Re-inhabited Circle Ks - an exhibit of identical storefronts abandoned by a national chain of convenience stores and re-purposed by new businesses. - The photographer's Google map of former Circle Ks. - Some commentary on the exhibit. - Previously: Not Fooling Anybody, a chronicle of bad conversions and storefronts past.

How Green is My Home?

jefficator — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:01:14 -0800

“Oh, it’s all bullshit. The high design? That has nothing to do with reality. That’s just architectural self-indulgence.” The greening of architecture is quite a contentious subject. Because of a renewed emphasis on traditional home-building methods, The Green Home of the Future is in many respects not dissimilar from The Green Home of Yesterday. A tornado in Greensburg, Kansas provided the impetus for a vote to decide on what green methods would define the movement in that small town. The competition's results stymied many architects' conceptions of what "green" should mean. But in New Orleans, larger-scale destruction by Hurricane Katrina has provided a unique opportunity for proponents of distinct conceptions of green innovation to bring their ideas to life. Opinions among residents are mixed.

"Because no one will ever care whether anyone hits a home run out of the 'new Yankee Stadium'"

bardic — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:56:37 -0800

Why Yankee Stadium sucks: "Its design is profoundly un-American. Baseball has traditionally played a unifying role. The ballpark is where people of different classes and races and religions actually mingled. The box seats, where the swells sat, weren't physically separated from the proles. The new stadium is like an architectural system of class apartheid."

Lawrence Halprin: July 1, 1916 - October 25, 2009

otherwordlyglow — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:58:30 -0800

Influential landscape architect Lawrence Halprin has died at the age of 93. "He was the single most influential landscape architect of the postwar years," said Charles Birnbaum, president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation. "He redefined the profession's role in cities." Noted projects include The Sea Ranch a 5,000-acre residential development on the coast of Sonoma county in northern California; Ghirardelli Square, the first major adaptive re-use project in the United States, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C; and a new trail from which to experience Yosemite Falls. He was truly a pioneer in his field. For a generation that often divided landscape practice into landscape art versus ecological design, Halprin’s works and his writings demonstrate how to link creative artistic impulses with the ecological sciences. He excelled at connecting phenomenological experience with environmental awareness and ethics. Halprin considered the design process as important as the end result. He analyzed user needs to create diagrams and designs. He developed a design methodology involving client and user in which their desires were synthesized into a final design statement. His work is archived at the University of Pennsylvania. His death at 93 ends a long, creative life that left a distinctive imprint across many landscapes.

Bucket list made easy!

JoanArkham — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:23:42 -0800

Want to see Trajan's Column, Michelangelo’s David (with or without fig leaf), and Notre Dame all in one room? (Well, two rooms.) The Victoria and Albert’s “Cast Courts” are an amazing example of Victorian plaster casting, allowing those who couldn't afford the Grand Tour a chance to see great works of art and architecture.

Best/Site

vronsky — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:09:53 -0800

Wonderful documentary on the art inspired chain of Best retail stores designed by Site architectural firm in the '70s and early '80s. 1::2::3::4

Gardens By The Bay

Joe Beese — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:29:42 -0800

The Gardens will put in place a pervasive garden ambience and quality living environment from which Singapore's downtown will rise, and steer Singapore to the forefront of the world's leading global cities. (via)

Colossal Green Volcano Rises In Italy

mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:28:21 -0800

"A jaw-dropping feat of architecture has risen in the Italian city of Nola, just a stone’s throw away from the cataclysmic Mt. Vesuvius. Designed by Renzo Piano, Vulcano Buono is an epic cone-shaped commercial center crowned with a gorgeous sloping green roof. Piano’s 'good volcano' contributes a vital new space to the southern edge of the Nola commercial district, which is the most most important freight terminal complex in southern and central Italy."

Long live The New flesh!

Artw — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:41:10 -0800

"All of which is a long way of saying that, to construct a new church of anatomical horror and to do so out of stone, as Al-Mehdari seems to be suggesting, is a fascinating idea. " - Body Baroque

Architecture through the cinematographic lens. The visual fusion between the third and the seventh arts.

ocherdraco — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:25:31 -0800

The "Third&Seventh" project is "A full-CG animated piece that tries to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view where main subjects are already-built spaces." In other words, Alex Roman has created a series of CG images and short films, based on real places (like this short film that depicts Louis Kahn's library at Phillips Exeter Academy), with a remarkable level of realism and beauty. (via)

The Other Architect of 9/11

Doktor Zed — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:59:10 -0800

While newly released images of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed have brought "the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks" back into the public eye just before their anniversary, it was his skyscraper-hating lieutenant Mohamed Atta who had trained to be an architect before becoming an airborne suicide terrorist. Slate's Daniel Brook goes on a three-part expedition in search of Atta's architectural education, from despised tourist projects in Cairo's dilapidated Islamic Quarter to utopian urban planning for an idealized "Islamic-Oriental City" like Aleppo. The piece is also accompanied by a slideshow displaying examples of the tension between modern and traditional building that helped inflame Atta's malevolent worldview. Bonus: Although Osama Bin Laden would later claim that he chose the Twin Towers as targets after watching the destruction of Beirut high-rises during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the World Trade Center's combination of traditional Islamic architecture and Modernism may have offended his fundamentalist sensibilities (even though the Islamic influence is not uncommon in American architecture)(previously).

Somethin' New From Chemistry

mattdidthat — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:59:59 -0800

Graphic Concrete is a process with which textures, patterns, typography, images, or works of art can be "printed" on concrete surfaces, with subtle and dramatic results. Invented by Finnish designer and architect Samuli Naamanka, Graphic Concrete is being used in projects all over the globe.

Let's ride bikes!

leotrotsky — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:59:15 -0800

Ride a Bike through an Architectural Drawing: no, really.

Shoutout To All My Eichler Homies

mattdidthat — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:05:23 -0800

Eichler homes! Most Eichlers are located in northern California, but you can find a few developments in the southland. People restore and renovate their Eichlers, write magazine articles about them, and take lots of photos of them. Even Mr. Incredible owned an Eichler. But owning an Eichler is not for everyone. Want to buy an Eichler? Join the Eichler Network or tour an open house.

Living Small

filthy light thief — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:03:59 -0800

With the economic downturn and a steady downward trend in family sizes, the end of the McMansion could be at hand. Some people are living in and building tiny houses (previously) to decrease their impact on the environment, while others can't afford more (or wish to own something small instead of paying off something big). Sergio Santos saw his small budget and limited space as a challenge (gallery), maximizing his 77 square foot space as a bedroom, office, and mini-kitchen. Claire Wolf lists the four pieces of living small: building, gadgeting, decorating, and coping. If these spaces are too small for you, Dan Maginn suggest 900 square feet for a 2 bed, 2 bath house, and outlines how to design your own small home (his tips: think "events" more than "rooms," and don't forget the cupboards and water heater closet).

Brick House

mattdidthat — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:32:37 -0800

James May built his own house with Lego.

Knossos

homunculus — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:16:14 -0800

Knossos: Fakes, Facts, and Mystery. "The masterpieces of Minoan art are not what they seem... The truth is that these famous icons are largely modern. As any sharp-eyed visitor to the Heraklion museum can spot, what survives of the original paintings amounts in most cases to no more than a few square inches. The rest is more or less imaginative reconstruction, commissioned in the first half of the twentieth century by Sir Arthur Evans, the British excavator of the palace of Knossos (and the man who coined the term 'Minoan' for this prehistoric Cretan civilization, after the mythical King Minos who is said to have held the throne there). As a general rule of thumb, the more famous the image now is, the less of it is actually ancient."

The Loss of Human Scale: Old Hong Kong vs New Hong Kong

milquetoast — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:43:38 -0800

For the last two years, Flickr user HK Man has been collecting old photos of Hong Kong, finding the exact spots at which they were taken, and taking them again. The result, from his first photo of Victoria Harbor to a more recent one of Nathan Road, comprises a chronicle of Hong Kong's unrestrained vertical development over the past few decades. In a similar vein, Gwulo is a community site for "for everyone that is interested in old Hong Kong" and includes photos, mysteries, and discussions -- such as this one about old Kai Tak Airport. More on HK Man at URBANPHOTO here and here. Bonus Kai Tak videos: Overview and Landings over Kowloon.

Historic Bridges of the U.S.

Devils Rancher — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:05:21 -0800

Historic Bridges of the U.S. This is the most complete database of historic bridges I've seen. The front page is blog style that seems to have an emphasis on preservation, and which links to a database that is actively being updated & expanded. You can search by state or by county, and look at each bridge's individual page, including a wealth of stats, and a high-res photo, when available. At the bottom of each page, they're actively accepting comments and photo submissions from site users, and using that input to update info on each bridge.

Exploring and trespassing

Fiasco da Gama — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:07:57 -0800

Bearings explores old buildings, and photographs the insides.

Dear Mandir

notashroom — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:16:09 -0800

When you think of Hinduism, you probably don't think of suburban Lilburn, Georgia, yet it is home to BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, at over 30,000 square feet the largest Hindu temple in the world outside of India. The beautiful temple was assembled from 34,000 pieces of Turkish limestone, Indian pink sandstone, and Italian Carrara marble hand-carved by some 1500 craftsmen in India, then shipped to Georgia, where about 900 volunteers put in over a million man-hours to bring the architects' vision to fruition (YT), at a cost of about US$19m. There is no steel in the mandir's structure (YT) at all, which was built in the Nagara style common in 8th to 10th century India. The mandir is stunning at night, thanks to the multicolored LED lighting used to highlight architectural details, add color to festival celebrations, and comply with religious rules that the lighting be hidden from view. Related

A Fair To Remember

mattdidthat — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:35:02 -0800

Concept proposals for Seattle's Space Needle. More sketches and images, from the University of Washington's image database. Erecting The Needle, a four-part series about the Space Needle's construction: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, with a picture of the rarely-seen gas-flame beacon in action. And this morning, the Space Needle was briefly for sale!

Pattern in Islamic Art

Burhanistan — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:15:47 -0800

Pattern in Islamic Art - thousands of high quality, free pictures of various motifs, patterns and architectural elements of mosques and other structures from Asia to West Africa. Also includes thorough analysis of some of the geometric elements, and historical context. Previously (1) (2) Islamic Geometry Quasicrystalline theory of the tiled patterns.

"America's Imaginary Medieval Period"

Miko — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 06:00:39 -0800

NPR: American Castles. With interactive map. Previously. Also, on Flickr.