Architecture + Urbanism recommends 'Sinister Dialogues'

SINISTER DIALOGUES

A collective symposium on the negotation of sinister uses through building reuse

Thursday 25 September 2014 10am - 5pm Manchester School of Art

This day long symposium will focus on reusing existing buildings, memory and architecture and includes talks from Irish architect Sheila O'Donnell who worked on the Good Shepherd Laundry and Letterfrack Furniture College, German architect HG Merz who transformed the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Berlin, architecture academic Margherita Vanore from Venice School of Architecture who writes about Industrial Ruins, interior design academic Terry Meade who writes about violence and domestic space in Palestine, artist Abigail Reynolds who created a series of artworks for the Topophobia Exhibition in Liverpool and Principal Lecturer Sally Stone from Manchester School of Architecture author of Re:Readings who writes about building reuse.

Document? Monument?
HG Merz (HG Merz Architekten Museumsgestalter)

Folds in Time
Abigail Reynolds (Artist)

Strangers in the House
Terry Meade (Brighton School of Architecture)

Landmarks of Memory
Sally Stone (Manchester School of Architecture)

Tracing Ruins in Producing Landscapes
Margherita Vanore (IUAV Universita di Venezia)

Addition and Subtraction
Sheila O'Donnell (O'Donnell + Tuomey Architects)

Organised by Laura Sanderson the event is free of charge and includes refreshments throughout the day.

Where are they now? Number 13

MA A+U graduate Justina Job was recently in Venice for the presentation of a group project from the University of East London 'A portal between two cities: enhancing the dialogue between Venice and London' which is installed in the Doge's Palace during this year's Architecture Biennale. Who should drop by to admire the students' work but Charles Jencks? The eminent architectural figure is pictured below with Justina and other members of the team.

Architecture + Urbanism recommends "Venice Architecture Biennale 2014"

Director of the 14th Architecture Biennale Rem Koolhaas writes about the theme ABSORBING MODERNITY 1914-2014

"In 1914, it made sense to talk about a “Chinese” architecture, a “Swiss” architecture, an “Indian” architecture… One hundred years later, under the influence of wars, diverse political regimes, different states of development, national and international architectural movements, individual talents, friendships, random personal trajectories, and technological developments, architectures that were once specific and local have become seemingly interchangeable and global. Has national identity been sacrificed to modernity?

Participating countries will engage a single theme – Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014 – and will show, each in their own way, the process of the erasure of national characteristics in favor of the almost universal adoption of a single modern language and a single repertoire of typologies. But the transition to what seems like a universal architectural language is a more complex process than we typically recognize, involving significant encounters between cultures, technical inventions, and hidden ways of remaining “national.” In a time of ubiquitous google research and the flattening of cultural memory, it is crucial for the future of architecture to resurrect and expose these narratives.

By telling the history of the last 100 years cumulatively, the exhibitions in the National Pavilions will generate a global overview of architecture’s evolution into a single, modern aesthetic, and at the same time uncover within globalization the survival of unique national features and mentalities that continue to exist and flourish even as international collaboration and exchange intensify…"

Architecture + Urbanism recommends 'HERITAGE AND ARCHITECTURE OF LANDSCAPE UNDER PRODUCTION'

Heritage and Architecture of Urban Landscape under Production 16-28 September 2013 Venice

This workshop will involve faculty and students from the Universita IUAV di Venezia, Escuela Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura de Granada and Manchester School of Architecture. The programme offers an intensive design workshop focused on the redevelopment of sites of production, which are recognizable for the architectural and landscaping value built-in urban context. Design in particular will face the problems of complex redevelopment of historical and cultural interest related to water landscapes in a space frame defined by whether out-dated productive processes, or by ancient uses which have left unresolved spaces in the city, but with significant potential. The recognisability of places of cultural value and of vital importance for the transformation of the landscape will place an intensive workshop that will produce integrated and sustainable design solutions in the requalification of landscapes of post-production. The need to define improvement processes that include and protect the architectural and landscape value of an organizing structure that recognizes places built by particular technical forms of production, imposes nowadays reinterpreting capacity with proper and sustainable programmes in which truths prefiguring a urban or territorial role. The design for these subjects should express its -inclusive aptitude and of innovation aimed at giving quality to strategic transformations. The areas of study and project related analysis are linked to urban and quality contexts. In particular it will be the subject of study and reuse project, those interstitial spaces and buildings still to be recovered of the Arsenale (the Old Shipyard) of Venice, either in relation to the city, as to those parts occupied by the Navy, or the spaces and activities of the Biennale and the Magistrato alle Acque as well as the lagoon landscape. The students participating in the Programme will face the problems of design in areas heavily transformed throughout the history and with considerable cultural value. The learning experience will investigate different ways to reuse the architectural heritage and the cultural resources correlated to productive activities that identify parts of the city and landscape. The ground of industrial post-production is today a significant power in the transformation of territory, highlighting how nature and culture have achieved in their different outcomes a formal balance strongly identified, although with contradictions and conflicts, to which the integrated project can give adequate interpretation for the achievement of a sustainable regeneration. The workshop will end with a travelling exhibition among the different Universities in the consortium. In that manner the programme aims to make a contribution to the definition of new strategies of recovery and reuse of architecture and post-production landscapes. In particular, it will offer the results to the attention of the Biennale of Architecture, in order to open the international participation of Intensive Programme for a direct comparison with the issues faced by the international exhibition that will take place in 2014. The volume that will collect the results and theoretical contributions, provided by the Erasmus intensive programme and the various dissemination actions, will also be published in digital version by August 2014. IUAV announcement here This project follows on from the international workshop ARCHAEOLOGY'S PLACES AND CONTEMPORARY USES

A hidden Venetian garden

My Australian penpal, Neil, has been traveling again, this time to Italy. He sent me photos of this hidden garden in Venice that I just had to share with you!

The Palazzo Soranzo Cappello dates to the late 16th century and now houses the architecture authority for Venice, Belluno, Padua, and Treviso.

The house is beautiful but it's the garden that steals the show.

This classical folly anchors the end of a lush, green garden.

A closeup reveals a brick structure with worn stucco covering to appear as stone.

I love the Italian mindset as to preservation (the Palazzo was recently restored);  Let it look old, it doesn't need to look brand new like in Paris.

Maybe it's the architect in me but I need some sort of architectural anchor to give a garden interest.

Aren't these blooms spectacular?

You would never guess this was in the heart of Venice!

Perfect spot for a picnic.

The gardens are open to the public during office hours.

 Be sure to check it out on your next Venetian getaway!

Architecture + Urbanism recommends "Archaeology's Places & Contemporary Uses"

Continuity in Architecture are holding an important exhibition of twelve projects from the Erasmus Intensive Workshop Archaeology's Places & Contemporary Uses held in Venice in Autumn 2011. The show features the work of post-graduate students from the CiA Unit of Manchester School of Architecture, collaborating with students and professors from Granada and Barcelona (Spain), Venice and Catania (Italy), and Oulo (Finland). The programme is in its third year and was established to explore the adaptation of archaeological sites for modern purposes. This year extraordinary sites of ancient civilisations in south-west Sicily - in Scicli, Syracuse, Paliké and Camarina - were the inspiration for dramatic design interventions in the landscape that redefined and reinterpreted place.The exhibition continues in the RIBA Hub, Cube Gallery on Portland Street, Manchester until 18 May 2012.

Catalogues of projects from 2009 and 2010 are available to download here

Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti

Located along the Grand Canal in Venice is the Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti. Now housing the Venetian Institute of science, letters and arts, the palace started life in 1565 with many renovations since.

Like many of the palaces facing the Grand Canal, the main rooms are on the upper floors facing the canal providing beautiful views, seen in the room above. Notice the Venetian glass chandelier.

The palace is most known for is grand stairway built for Baron Franchetti in the 1880s by architect Camillo Boito. Boito was one of the preeminent architectural historians and restorationists of the day, chartering the modern historic restoration movement.While the Australian (who was kind enough to share these pictures) was in Venice, the Bienalli was taking place and the palace housed the glass exhibition, seen in part in the stairway above.

Designed in rich Venetian Gothic style, the house is characteristically rather over the top and ornamental: what we expect most in Venetian style.

As in all Venetian Palazzo's, the house fronts the canal with a courtyard or garden behind. I love this ornamental grille work.The palace has a rare side garden facing the canal which during the Bienalli housed a strange house called the Narrow House.Designed by Austrian artist Erwin Wurm as a reconstruction of his childhood house but squished to scale to only 1 meter wide to reflect the crowded conditions in Venice and the tricks our mind plays on our memory.

And I'm showing this because it's just amazing the detail that Wurm went to, but I promise you it's the only toilet you will ever see on ArchitectDesign!

Top photo of the Palazzo from Wikipedia, all others from the Australian.

Ca' d'Oro

The Palazzo Santa Sofia, commonly known as the Ca' d'Oro or golden house, is a 15th century palazzo along the Grand Canal in Venice. You probably recognize it from myriad postcards or the backdrop to movies, I know I do!The building is known as the golden house because its exterior used to be decorated with gilt and polychrome but now is natural stone; Old habits die hard I suppose! Built for the Contarini family by sculptor/ architect Giovanni Bon and his son, Bartolomeo Bon, in gothic style, it was a more decorative version of the style prefered by the Venetians which the Bon's made famous throughout Venice.

One arrives off the Grand Canal to the boat launch behind a screened loggia.Which gives entry to the courtyard.The loggias surrounding the courtyard have gorgeous inlaid marble floors and byzantine capitals topping the columns.How many different types of marble can you count here?The loggias upstairs off the main compartments offer breathtaking views of the Grand Canal.Since 1922 the house has been owned by the state and operates as a museum.In the collection is this bronze winged lion. The winged lion is representative of St. Mark the Evangelist who is the patron saint of the city and stands as the symbol of the city. Photos courtesy of the Australian.

Bella Venezia (2)

Since last week's post on Venice proved so popular, I thought I would leave you with some more images from the Australian of that beautiful city this weekend.

Teresa Stoppani

Dr. Teresa Stoppani (University of Greenwich) will be leading a seminar for MA A+U at 10,30 am on Thursday 9 December.

Her new book Paradigm Islands: Manhattan and Venice, Discourses on the City has just been published by Routledge.

Concerning architecture and the city, built, imagined and narrated, this book focuses on Manhattan and Venice, but considers architecture as an intellectual and spatial process rather than a product. A critical look at the making of Manhattan and Venice provides a background to addressing the dynamic redefinition and making of space today. The gradual processes of adjustment, the making of a constantly changing dense space, the emphasis on forming rather than on figure, the incorporation of new forms and languages through their adaptation and transformation, make both Manhattan and Venice, in different ways, the ideal places to contextualize and address the issue of an architecture of the dynamic.

On the previous day Wednesday 8 December Dr. Stoppani will be speaking at a seminar at the University of Manchester on Piranesi's Erasures in G19 Mansfield Cooper Building at 4.00 pm