10(+) architects I have been thinking about

Recently stumbled on the work of Axel Schultes. He's got some recurring gimmicks, but from the photos I'm intrigued....

Crematorium, Berlin, 92-99
http://www.schultes-architekten.de/bild/PUR_3.jpg

Federal Chancellery, Berlin, 95-01
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/148/395394977_369bcf901a.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/147/334949530_b285fccbdd.jpg

Beats the White House!

http://muddyriver.typepad.com/hearth/images/7-20.jpg

New Boston Convention Center

And

Frank Gehry's MIT Building

http://www.onnyturf.com/storage/users/1/1/images/29/MIT_Gehry_outside2.jpg

That building really is an acid trip waiting to happen.

oh cmon, Frank Gehry is such a shite architect. he doesn't design anything himself. most overrated architect of our time, without a doubt.

some people i have been thinking about:
Superstudio
http://chudessa.typepad.com/infiniteartifice/images/superstudio.jpg

Oberlin's Mudd Library
http://jsnfmn.net/images/photos/places/oberlin_mudd.jpg

Superstudio was so amazing... even better than Archigram in some ways.

The Amanyara Spa in Turks & Caicos
http://www.seasonsinstyle.co.uk/hotelimages/hotel_58_1282.jpg

one architect i have been thinking about: toyo ito

last night i watched a short documentary about the Sendai Mediatheque. I lived in Sendai for two years and used the Mediatheque at least once a week, and i don't think i realized what i had until i watched the documentary about it.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/01/0102_wow_libraries/image/09002.jpg

http://www.architecture.com/imageLibrary/jpeg330/10242.jpg

AWESOME THREAD...eye candy from top to bottom!

that resort is the cleanest, most zen-like piece of architecture i've seen in a while-- almost looks like an Ando structure, but more lush...

also, Superstudio definitely beats Archigram for me, if only because they were more radical and their designs and concepts more clean.

oh cmon, Frank Gehry is such a shite architect. he doesn't design anything himself

Explain.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/ArchitecturePeter-Zumthor--Brother-.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/ArchitecturePeter-Zumthor--Broth-1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/ArchitecturePeter-Zumthor--Broth-2.jpg

Peter Zumthor - Brother Klaus Field Chapel at Mechernich

"Brother Klaus", the religious mystic also known as Nicholas of Flue: a 15th-century hermit who is also the patron saint of Switzerland.

The apparently simple form of Zumthor's building proves to be far richer than it first appears. The concrete has been poured by Herr Scheidtweiler, family and friends, over a wigwam-like timber frame. Once the concrete had set, this frame was set on fire, creating walls inside the chapel that are strangely blackened and haunted with the ghosts of the timbers that once supported them. The floor is a frozen pool of molten lead, while the roof is open to the sky and, by night, the field of stars above. Rain and sunlight tumble and fall through this oculus to create atmospheric patterns of shade and glistening weather.

Zumthor's chapel is numinously dark inside, but when you look up, the oculus itself resembles the flare of a star - a reference, presumably, to Brother Klaus's vision in the womb. Being here alone is close to feeling, if not understanding, the faith that sustained the Swiss hermit.

Johnathan Glancey

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/ArchitecturePeter-Zumthor--Broth-3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/ArchitecturePeter-Zumthor--Broth-4.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/ArchitecturePeter-Zumthor--Broth-5.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/ArchitecturePeter-Zumthor--Broth-6.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/ArchitecturePeter-Zumthor--Broth-7.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/ArchitecturePeter-Zumthor--Broth-8.jpg

Wonderful! I'd love to see it in person with the light streaming in.

This was a wonderful thread, cheers to everyone for making such awesome posts.

I'd like to add Todd Saunders to this post though: http://www.saunders.no

I spent five weeks in Europe this summer looking at architecture, and am now making my way through the photos. I had notions of just spamming this thread to pieces, but I'll try to keep it to things I thought were totally neat and not really over-exposed at this point. Links are to my Flickr pages, which feature all the pretentious archi-babble you couple possibly want.

Wandel, Hoefer, Hirsch and Lorch: New Synagogue, Dresden (1997-2001)

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1358/1019366889_27143a13a2.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1419/1020390286_f5f3e76279.jpg

Herzog & DeMeuron, Cottbus University Library, Cottbus (2004)
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1286/1012425371_32ba84ad9c.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1182/1012426563_2d10489c1a.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1077/1013622692_a3cf50db96.jpg

BTW, props to P. Hauntus for linking the Saunders stuff - never heard of him but I like several things shown on that site.

Doctor Casino, your 'Adventure' flickr and the commentary have improved my post-bank holiday morning more than you could believe! Many thanks!

I am also v jealous of long holiday on sunny continent!

i love this thread.

Thanks, kv_nol! Now that I know ILX is not actually dead, here's another little dose..

The ever-controversial Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Hundertwasserhaus, Vienna.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1078/1074205574_c3237f9200.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1431/1074207102_a12d46a54d.jpg

(1983-1986, if you care!)

Otto Wagner, Kirche am Steinhof, Vienna (1905-1907)

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1021/1072841639_4119061ce0.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1377/1072841699_f993893804.jpg

herzog & de meuron are very good.

Giovanni Michelucci, Chiesa dell'Autostrada del Sole (Church of the Highway of the Sun, Florence, 1960-1964)

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1272/1196710226_658e8ea782.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1358/1196710318_cb4c6574ab.jpg

Carlo Scarpa, Brion-Vega Cemetery (~Altivole, 1970-1972)

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1184/1123228572_61e5865220.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1155/1122625393_38305e659a.jpg

Doctor Casino, no interiors of Santa Croce in Florence? My favourite church there by a long shot.

Fantastic pictures of Siena. What's the story are you all architecture students on a jolly or is it just you that's on this 'pilgrimage' (wrong word I know...)?

I did like Santa Croce, but looking through my negatives it looks like it got skipped. Dang.

Yeah, it was an architecture field trip, basically - organized by a very dedicated professor at my college who's been doing these trips for something like ten years now. The agenda (which is scheduled down to fifteen-minute increments some days) gets tweaked a bit every year to allow for brand-new buildings or things that are out of commission (eg, the Tugendhat House in Brno has been cut till its renovation is complete), and there are alternating schedules every other year. So, cross fingers, assuming the program stays viable financially and I can make it work with my own means, I'll be doing this again next summer for Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Even if that falls through, this year's trip by itself has more than tripled my interest in, knowledge of, and mental percolation of, architecture...such a fabulous time.

You are an incredibly lucky person. I would love to do something like that! Keep taking the pictures. Fantastic welcome back to desk after long weekend!

'Person' obviously wasn't the word I was going to use but I thought that it might be a little too... aggressive to use the other :)

love the dresden synagogue, thanks dr. casino.

i love the H&DeM Cottbus too - you take very nice photos!

Nice photos very OTM!

I have been mainly thinking about circus tents and marquees. Sad but true...

the tears of a clown ;_;

No, the being pissed at a festival for the past few days :)

I'm trying to think. I don't think that there's a thread I've not brought that up on today. Well done me and my spamming!

Thanks Jed and kv_nol (once again). Sadly the photo-posting barrage is over. I see I haven't touched this thread since much earlier in said barrage so I'll poke back through and see if there's anything else good, although a lot of the great stuff from late in the trip is already well-represented on this classic thread (Zumthor and HdM especially).

Funnily enough, the architect "I have been thinking about" the most is goofy old Hundertwasser...currently plowing through this huge volume of quotes and photos. I find his hippie babbling really endearing and actually refreshing in the context of architecture where it's a lot rarer than elsewhere in art/culture. In book form it wears a little thin, because he really did hit on the same themes, OVER and OVER for decades, and meanwhile the architecture so often really fails to live up to the philosophy, even if it's kind of sweet and charming in its own way. Some of my favorite bits, already quoted on Flickr:

"But should the three window types of the three houses belong to one house, it is seen as a violation fo the racial segregation of windows. Why? Each individual window has its own right to life. According to the prevailing code, however, if window races are mixed, window apartheid is infringed. [...] For the repetition of identical windows next to each other and above each other as in a grid system is a characteristic of concentration camps."

"If modern man is forced to walk on flat asphalt and concrete floors as they were planned thoughtlessly in designers' offices, estranged from man's age-old relationship and contact to earth, a crucial part of man withers and dies. [...] The uneven floor becomes a symphony, a melody for the feet and brings back natural vibrations to man."

"[The tenant] must also be allowed to cut up the walls and make all kinds of changes, even if this disturbs the architectural harmony of a so-called masterwork, and he must be able to fill his room with mud or children’s modelling clay."

Re: the Dresden Synagogue - I think it might be my favorite building of the trip in certain ways. One of the few places where the desire to infuse metaphor, the insistence on simple forms, and the infatuation with optical/material effects all worked together to yield something really powerful, and nice to be in. Very few things doing a whole lot of work.

Just read this so Lutyens:

Thiepval (I would love to visit. He also did the war memorial here)
http://www.sassoonery.demon.co.uk/Thiepval1.jpg

Rashtrapati Bhawan (pictures can't do this justice!)
http://rajyasabha.nic.in/presidentelection/president3.jpg

India Gate (War memorial down the road from Rashtrapati Bhawan - in the background here)
http://www.reisehuset.com/images/india-gate.jpg

Will definitely read more in the series.

Dr. Casino that sounds very interesting. Thinking of Dresden and the survival of it's Jewish population you could do a lot worse than read these.

Oh woah, they're huge (also not v good quality). Sorry. Some images of War Memorial designed by

http://irelandposters.com/dublin/images/war_memorial_garden4.jpg
http://irelandposters.com/dublin/images/national_war_memorial_photo.jpg
http://irelandposters.com/dublin/images/memorial_bookcase_buildings.jpg

Speak of Lutyens.

A pity the photos above are no longer there.

Sorry, that should have been speaking...