Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

This week's dose features Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Neighborhood Library in Washington, D.C. by Davis Brody Bond Aedas:


The featured past dose is Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas by Polshek Partnership:


This week's book review is The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture by Juhani Pallasmaa:


american-architects.com Building of the Week:

American Loft Building in Philadelphia, PA by Archi-Tectonics:


Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

The Architecture Blog
A tumblr blog. (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

Design Build Network
"For everyone in building design and construction." (added to sidebar under architectural links::online journals)

Design Tavern
"A blog based website; dedicated to supplying readers witih interviews, news, reviews, and inspiration." (added to sidebar under blogs::design)

Al Baxter's Two Worlds
Blog of "International-rugby-playing-architect." (via Super Colossal; added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

suckerPUNCH
"Weary of quirk and whimsy but still in need of a laugh and a stiff drink, we need to confront that which claims to be contemporary in an attempt to define the present." (added to sidebar under blogs::design)

Modern Views

Modern Views: A Project to Benefit Farnsworth House and the Glass House "invited some of our era’s top creative minds to continue one of the twentieth century’s great cultural dialogues: the historic exchange reflected in the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Farnsworth House (1945–51) and the Philip Johnson Glass House (1949)."


Modern Views from Drew Harty on Vimeo.

"One hundred contemporary artists, architects, and designers created and donated works of art and written statements, capturing their inspiration about these iconic buildings and the architects who created them. Published in an illustrated book by Assouline in Fall 2010, these contemporary works are presented alongside original construction drawings of both houses, an introduction by New Yorker Architecture critic Paul Goldberger, a candid interview with Phyllis Lambert, and an essay by Sylvia Lavin. Two exhibitions and events featuring a live auction and the premiere of Sarah Morris’ new film inspired by Farnsworth House and the Glass House are being held in Chicago at the Arts Club on September 16 and then in New York at Sotheby’s on October 6, 2010."

Louis XIV

Typically, I'm not a fan of sculpture. I'll rush past sculpture in any museum to get to the paintings (or more likely, the furniture and decorative arts collection!). Nothing against the artform, but for me it always fades into the background.
However, this bronze bust of Louis XIV from 1700 done copying Bernini always stops me dead in my tracks at the National Gallery of Art. The Duveen brothers art dealers from London swear this bust was given by Louis XIV to his brother Phillipe for his Chateau Saint-Cloud where it sat until the chateau was destroyed in 1870, although there is no documentation. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Upside Dome / Architectural Understudy

[Image: "Upside Dome" by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh; photo by Jeroen Verrecht].

Looking at "Upside Dome" by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh, installed inside the St. Michiel Church in Leuven, Belgium, is like seeing the underlying geometric logic of Western space bleed through from a hidden dimension.

The project was at least partially inspired, the architects write, by their recognition that the church itself actually has no dome: their intervention "takes this seemingly trivial fact as a starting point and generate[s] the missing dome in a remarkable way."

Using the design technique of the catenary, a new structure emerges in the church. The Upside Dome is a real size scale model, comprised of hundreds of meters of chain, which is literally and figuratively the counterpart of the unfinished dome.

Abstract, bulbous, heavy with itself, this network of chains thus forms an inverted counter-dome—a reflective surrogate, a back-to-front double, an upside dome—inside the nave.

[Image: "Upside Dome" by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh; photo by Jeroen Verrecht].

The actual installation shots are pretty cool, as well: glimpses of the church's innards—its otherwise unseen attics and backspaces—complete with long chains dropped down from above.

[Images: "Upside Dome" by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh; photo by Jeroen Verrecht].

The final result is both model and realization, then, simultaneously a demonstration and the final product.

[Image: "Upside Dome" by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh; photo by Jeroen Verrecht].

In a sense, the geometry of gravity itself collides with the ornamental excess of Baroque architecture in a surprisingly appropriate and optically interesting way: the installation suggests a kind of minimalist Baroque, where emerging nests of curved surfaces take shape, mocking and repeating the logic of the buildings around it.

[Images: "Upside Dome" by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh; photo by Jeroen Verrecht].

Way back in March 2005, meanwhile, I caught a lecture by architect Mark Goulthorpe at the University of Pennsylvania, where he demonstrated a piece of software that I believe had been produced in-house at his firm; it allowed the architect to model the hanging of chains in virtual catenary curves, and thus to generate a huge variety of possible architectural shapes for future projects. He produced, with the click of a mouse, live there in the lecture hall, new species of curves in space.

[Image: "Upside Dome" by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh; photo by Jeroen Verrecht].

But the method of analog calculation seen in "Upside Dome"—that is, drooping pieces of chain or string through space until they stabilize—gives force and form to gravity and to the potential architecture tucked away in empty space.

Cities and Urban Ideologies 2010

For the new academic session the following books will be reviewed by the following newly enrolled students. Their reviews will be posted on the blog after the seminar commences on 21 October 2010

Ebenezer Howard
GARDEN CITIES OF TOMORROW (1902)
Luke Butcher

Volker Welter
BIOPOLIS - PATRICK GEDDES AND THE CITY OF LIFE (2002)
Kathryn Timmins

Tony Garnier
UNE CITE INDUSTRIELLE (1918)
Supriya Pundlik

Eric Mumford
THE CIAM DISCOURSE ON URBANISM (2000)
Matthew Pilling

Simon Sadler
THE SITUATIONIST CITY (1999)
Christina Gregoriou

Kevin Lynch
THE IMAGE OF THE CITY (1960)
Natalie Macbride

Jane Jacobs
THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES (1965)
Chen Xu

Larry Busbea
TOPOLOGIES: THE URBAN UTOPIA IN FRANCE 1960-1970 (2007)
Jonas Komka

Aldo Rossi
THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CITY (1966)
Angad Kasliwal

Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter
COLLAGE CITY (1978)
Jack O’Reilly

Rem Koolhaas
DELIRIOUS NEW YORK (1978)
Carrie Bayley

Rob Krier
URBAN SPACE (1979)
Meliz Kusadali

Peter Katz
THE NEW URBANISM (1993)
Angela Heaney

Albert Pope
LADDERS: ARCHITECTURE AT RICE 34 (1996)
Ketki Tendolkar

Lars Lerup
AFTER THE CITY (2000)
Preeya Vadgama

Manuel de Sola Morales
A MATTER OF THINGS (2008)
Laleh Fadaipour

Steven Holl
URBANISMS : WORKING WITH DOUBT (2009)
Rongxiao Han

Today's archidose #446

A variety of project, new and old, in square-format photos culled from the archidose pool. Details are below each image.


[Spain Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010 by EMBT Arquitectos | photo by l-l-l-l-l]


[Linked Hybrid in Beijing, China by Steven Holl Architects, 2009 | photo by *-*-*-*-*-*]


[Gehry House by Frank Gehry, 1978 | photo by jaredé]


[Petal House by Eric Owen Moss, 1982 | photo by jaredé]


[WKK Energy Plant on the University of Utrecht's Uithof campus, Netherlands by Dok Architecten, 2005 | photo by Pedro Kok]


[ Vertical Garden at the Caixa Forum, Madrid by Patric Blanc, 2007 | photo by l-l-l-l-l]

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
:: Tag your photos archidose

Arcimboldo exhibit

Last weekend I went to the National Gallery of Art East Wing to see a new exhibit about the renaissance artist, Arcimboldo.

I didn't recognize the name, but I did recognize the art. Arcimboldo (1526-1593) is best known for the paintings of the 4 seasons he did for the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian II. Summer is probably the most well known, seen below, dating to 1563. These portraits are comprised entirely of flowers and fruits in the most unusual and imaginative ways.

I spent hours in the exhibit examining the tiny details which are really remarkable.

However, my favorite part of the exhibit is after Arcimboldo and not by the artist himself. The artist Philip Haas created a fiberglass scultpure that is ENORMOUS of the artist's painting of 'Winter' from the 4 seasons. It is set off so well by the I.M.Pei designed space and it took me awhile to snap a photo of it with my phone without numerous tourists having their picture taken in front of it! The painting, seen below, was probably inspired by Leonardo's grotesques, which also are featured in the exhibit.

I recommend you all check out the exhibit which runs until January 9th. You won't regret it!