Thank God we are alive when we are. (Or not, I guess, depending on where you live and how much money you make. So, thank God we are alive when we are, at least moderately well-off and have access to the internet.) These Koolhaas and Foster designs for sustainable cities in the United Arab Emirates are wild. Foster’s would open in ‘09 (Soon, no?) and Koolhaas’ in ‘12. Read about them in the links above from inhabitat.com; but here’s a little eye-candy for ya’…
Koolhaas:
Foster:
And speaking of Architecture… for all of yous in Philly… Tomorrow, open and free to the public…
After 9-11 you would think the world would cool to skyscrapers… not so, friend, not so. With the Comcast Building coming to completion in Philly, and Dubai and China building modern day Babalian towers, nothing could be farther from reality. Recently there have been so many intriguing building plans that have come together. Slate ran some articles on the subject recently; here and a slideshow here. And deputy dog has a cool post on 9 upcoming buildings going up.
Also, if you are an armchair architect like myself, or someone more serious about architectural pursuits BLDG Blog is really amazing. I am always jealous of people who blog and actually write something that is substantial and worth reading. And I think its author, Geoff Manaugh, is from Philly… maybe not. Either way, this blog is the truth.
Recently Slate published a slideshow that gives a nice run down of the booming world of modern skyscrapers. It’s very general but gives a good sense of what’s happening in skyscraper design in the post-9/11 world.
And speaking of slide shows, concierge.com has an interesting 23 slides of “The Visionaries” of our time. Here I find Jean Nouvel’s Torre Agbar a really interesting structure. (It might also be featured in the Slate show). The idea of increasing the base of the structure could really take modern buildings into a whole new realm; specifically, as these structures come to take up more and more physical space (what other kind of space?) you start looking at communities within communities, ‘enclosed’ neighborhoods within cities. Cool, right? And how about NYC’s PATH terminal?
I have also been BIG into Geoff Manaugh’s BLDG Blog recently. It’s hard to explain, but if you have any passing interest in architecture and its wider societal implications — it’s all about connections — check it out.
Gehry, the achetect behind the Museo Guggenheim in Bilboa, returns to Spain with the Hotel Marqués De Riscal. Nuts. You’d think that this strange modernist hotel would look completely out of place in some small Spanish wine town but I don’t think so. The undulating roof lends itself well to the surrounding moutains (apparetly it’s supposed to resemble wine flowing out of a bottle) and seeing it next to that 15th c. cathedral in the town square doesn’t seem disjointed or awkward but a nice marrying of the different time periods.
Two cool design peices in the Times’ video section. The first is a time-lapse graphic representation of how obesity spreads throughout a social network. Hypnotic.
The second is a digital plan of the Chanel Contemporary Art Center by Zaha Hadid. Not really my thing but interesting nonetheless. I actually recognized her work from some of those crazy Dubai conceptual achitectural images that seem to be all over the place.
