10(+) architects I have been thinking about

That is beautiful.

So many great buildings on this thread! And so many I hadn't seen until this thread.

Foreign Office Architects

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2408/2075945998_9c1157d43a.jpg

in Leicester!

That bookstore/church is a really gorgeous project - would have been hard to go too wrong with that shell, though.

Nothing to add. Just that this is a great thread to stumble onto on a gray Tuesday morning. So much beautiful things.

I DIED, it would have been so easy to go wrong but i know what yr driving at: that the shell enhances the effect of the intervention.

True. I guess I should have said any fairly passive approach was bound to generate pretty great results - I could certainly see a designer really screwing it up by trying to compete with the existing structure. It just seems like obvious award fodder to me - well DUH the bookstore in an old church is going to look better than the one in a mall, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was better designed.

That said, it's really beautiful and my quibbles have a lot more to do with the kind of projects that get awards than with the project itself.

Love the church/bookstore, but agree that its success seems to derive mostly from the relatively restrained, passive approach.

i absolutely agree with you both.

Dutch architects Merkx + Girod have won the Lensvelt de Architect Interior Prize 2007 for their Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen in Maastricht - a bookstore inside a former Dominican church.

Wow, I was there when it was still a church. It had a great reliquary iirc. Great find though. I do love this thread.

more Zumthor:

http://img32.picoodle.com/img/img32/4/2/27/f_z1m_e024df0.jpg

http://img33.picoodle.com/img/img33/4/2/27/f_z3m_fb1a634.jpg

http://img01.picoodle.com/img/img01/4/2/27/f_z2m_710f451.jpg
(lol gluckman stair)

surely the world's greatest architect.

I DIED,i don't know what a gluckman stair is?

i could def do without that cross shaped reading/coffee table but i really love this project.

haha co-sign this, I said the exact same thing to lynne. really, really like this design. contrast to the usual density of bookshops: books are high information objects in themselves, shouldn't be packed like peoples in hong kong but need to breeeathe so that I may, hmm, breathe. v.nice

(xpost) I can't find a good picture of it, but it's very similar to the somewhat famous stair Richard Gluckman did at the Helmut Lang Parfumerie in New York.

I don't know if Zumthor is the world's greatest architect, but at the very least he understands materials better than anyone else.

we're all still getting over zumthor's bruder klaus kapelle, of course : )

but, yeah, the point I was making about the maastricht bookshop is that bookshops ordinarily (from waterstones and borders to independents) are very densely packed with products which are themselves very densely packed = double-density. the maastricht design looks like there is lots of space which is just doing absolutely nothing, except allowing you space to think and for books to do their own thing. would need to walk around it, obv, to confirm this, but I like it still... despite the cruci-table

The stairs reminded me of these ones, too.
http://www.johnpawson.com/library/f939e407bdcb120f8fbec23ec223c825.jpg
John Pawson('s house)

haha I was just talking with some friends a few days ago about a Gluckman/Pawson compare & contract.

(also wow at stairwaytoheaven.jpg)

also all those stairs are 1000 x better than the overpraised one at the New Museum

http://img37.picoodle.com/img/img37/4/2/27/f_2265531035bm_b82ca77.jpg

well i think SANAA said one of the motivating concepts of the design for the New Museum was the poverty of US building practise compared to the finish you could get in, e.g. japan or germany (i'm not bragging, it would have looked as shoddy in the UK (i think they deliberately designed external cladding that was foolproof - if it was badly applied it would look even better?)).

i actually like that building a whole lot but i wouldn't like to see 150 new yorkers squeezing up and down there.

that staircase is def not designed to be some sort of "spiritual" element like the Pawson or zumthor ones though.

try to make sense of that post!

we're all still getting over zumthor's bruder klaus kapelle, of course : )

i don't think i'll ever get over it!

I like the form of SAANA's New Museum very much but I give very little credibility to any of their arguments about how the building had a modest budget or craftsmanship comparisons - sure you can get much better finishes in Japan, but there are MUCH better crafted buildings in the US for a not-at-all-modest budget of $800/sf. I agree that a Lower East Side boundary-pushing art museum should be rough around the edges, but it's hard to make an argument for spending that much for the result. Tanaguchi's MoMA expansion was similarly expensive and poorly crafted, which makes me wonder whether it's a question of adequate construction administration budgets or whether they even care that much about finished products they'll never be around.

Design aside, I've seen reliably well crafted projects in the US by Williams and Tsien, Gluckman Mayner, Stern, Foster, Pawson, and Ando (and others I'm sure I'm forgetting), so I'm sure it can be done.

Also the New Museum SERIOUSLY needs to rethink the lighting.

the inside-out insanity of Herzog & de Meuron's Miami mixed-use parking garage has me enthralled:

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g309/xzayvier07/fa.jpg

i didn't realise the new museum cos that much.

does anyone have any Berlin architechture recs for me, besides the Scharoun buildings? i'm going next week. i would go to Cottbus to see the H&DeMeuron university building but i'll probably be too busy dancing at Berghain to find the time to do that

There's a lot of good new building in Berlin but very little great. The Berghain is more impressive than most of it. I like the Hamburgerbahnhof - it's an old train station converted to a modern art museum. The nearby Hauptbahnhof is the big new train station that's not too exciting architecturally but is mindblowing from a circulation standpoint.

All the old Schinkel and Stuler museums are great, of course.

You should check out Watergate - it's a pretty much perfectly designed smaller club with an insane lighting system (lots of videos of it on youtube).

(nobody realizes the New Museum costs that much, mostly because the press release talked about the 'modest budget' and all the reviewers took it at face value)

The Holocaust museum is worth a look both from a content as well as an architectural p.o.v.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/03/02/nyregion/02rlandmark-600.jpg

this article is a treat: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/02Rlandmark.html

anyone who can dig up great photography/references on the buildings/campuses mentioned in this article -- i will have my virgins shower you with lotus blossoms.

here's the union carbide hq:

http://www.krjda.com/text/projectDetail.cfm?id=149
http://www.krjda.com/images/UnionCarbide_2.jpg
http://www.krjda.com/images/UnionCarbide_1.jpg

congratulations Jean Nouvel on winning the Pritzker

Continuing the "THAT stair" discussion:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1018/880235175_49425ad348.jpg

...Zumthor's own Kunsthaus in Bregenz. (photo by my buddy Evan)

Sorry I missed the "recommend stuff in Berlin" discussion... but for future readers: the Scharoun (Philharmonic & library, both very accessibly located near Potsdamerplatz) and the Libeskind (Holocaust museum) are mustn't-misses. There's tons of miscellaneous nice stuff, and a nice "50's greatest hits" at the Hansaviertel Interbau housing development. Depending on your taste for Cold War monumentalism and Facsist neoclassicism there's also a lot of that around.

Behnisch & co's Akademie der Kunste (across the plaza from the Brandenburg Gate, so very easy to see):

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1081/932388327_d2c58719f8.jpg

There's a Frank Gehry bank building next door that's completely po-faced on the exterior (accommodating at-the-time very strict, New Urbanisty rules on reconstruction) but has a typical swirly metal horse head feature inside.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1065/933054248_475c5d6e46.jpg

(The space inside the horse head, from published images, is pretty fabulous - sadly it's not open to the public.)

And if memory serves, the Eisenman Holocaust memorial square is just around the corner.

But the thing I liked best in Berlin by far was OMA/Koolhaas's new Dutch Embassy in Mitte. I'm not entirely sure how easy it is to visit this thing outside of a large touring group, but it's extremely worth it... whimiscally cinematic. My photos don't do it justice so I won't bother. (Photos generally from my travel Flickr, as always.)

Architectural afternoon trips from the city - we went to Cottbus for the HdM library and I would STRONGLY recommend that one. Potsdam is relatively close, and good if you're into Schinkel; we also went to the Einstein Tower which is cool to do, but not that different from seeing it in a book. Dessau is about as far away as Cottbus - the Bauhaus is really cool, and there's a lot of miscellaneous Gropius & Co that we got access to through the Bauhaus tour people.

And, just to spam you into going, the Scharoun Philharmonic:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1224/921035988_7fef7cee22.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1347/920033707_8e63e8cffa.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1331/920033173_f3a04baf09.jpg

...and the Libeskind museum. OK I'll stop after this.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1215/919336778_33da7c2cd2.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1332/919336102_9d5aeb0c80.jpg

There's a Libeskind exhibit in Cincinnati right now at Zaha Hadid's contemporary art museum. There's an obvious sympathy between the building and the architecture being exhibited which is kind of fun; the exhibit itself is striking for how much it kind of reveals Libeskind to be stuck in a rut. There's nice things about all four of the current projects being displayed - but even the best ones are plagued with the application of jaggedy-lined stuff as a last-minute dose of motif. It works at the Jewish Museum as a really perfect synthesis of the architect's preoccupations and the program at hand. It really works. The new stuff, I'm more suspicious, but I'm trying to give architects more credit these days so let's say it's great and I just haven't learned to appreciate it yet.

thoughts on berlin soon, Doc.

in the meantime.... is this the best architecture of 2008? Airstar balloons designed these hovering iluminated balloons for the YSL fashion show in Paris. mindblowing.

http://lifewithoutbuildings.net/080328_YSLshow.jpg

http://lifewithoutbuildings.net/080328_YSLshow2.jpg

YES

115. Maggie Mink

H&DeM's CaixaForum Madrid. my favourite building for many many years.

LOOK

http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/0140201-421.jpg

LOOK

http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/0278819-421.jpg

LOOK

http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/0078587-421.jpg

http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/0471719-421.jpg
http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/0518368-421.jpg
http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/0858521-421.jpg

Okay. Wow. That is pretty savage.

I did not mean to sound so sarcastic there. I really liked the building!

Great project. I'm glad they're developing their "crown" addition strategy - I didn't think too much of the Elbe Philharmonic renderings but this is gorgeous. The way they floated the old facade - wow. Not big on the ceiling in the 2nd to last pic, though.

The balcony geometry in the last pic reminds me of Temppeliaukio Church in Helsinki.

H&dM are my favorite starchitects.

Oh wow, that Madrid thing is great. Found some video here http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/caixaforum-madrid-by-herzog-de-meuron-architects-madrid-spain/7036279/ .

i got a bit carried away with this. there are a lot of buildings in recent years i prefer to this one but yes, it's great!

i'm off to Berlin again on wednesday. i may even see the Libeskind this time even though i loathe his work in the way the only someone who once loved his work (as a student) can. i did a 180!

i saw the crystal at the ROM in Toronto. one of the worst, maybe thee worst, building i have ever entered.

Incidentally, don't know if this has really circulated outside the architect school/blogger set, but, check out this video of a Romansch rap group called Liricas Analas, filmed entirely at the Zumthor baths in Vals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRvM2KKDeGA Really captures the spirit of the place!!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3266/2570890064_dc0c061bcf.jpg

afgh, "concrete home"

very nice, would like to see more before i commit to buy.

Dr Casino, the Scharoun Philharmonic building went on fire in May. it seems the main hall has escaped the worst of the damage but the building is expected to be closed for an extremely long time. :-(

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3352629,00.html

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/05/20/world/20berlin-600.jpg
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44674000/jpg/_44674563_firefighters_ap466.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3151/2570889912_cd8d8e99f9.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3021/2570063557_e48f6dfd7a.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3055/2570063485_f2d2491b2a.jpg

is in berlin

http://www.afgh.ch./bilder/vna/04.jpg

I love the herz de meu caixa forum btw

[edit: not in berlin, which I had read elsewhere, but in vnà, switzerland]

i'll take it! where did you find it?

the interior is incredible.