Great Movie, giving an introduction to the new book “Less and More – The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams”. Incl. his 10 commandments on good design. Hero!

After a couple years without publishing, the latest issue of Hunch #12 will be relaunched in collaboration with NAi Publishers at the Berlage Institute, Rotterdam. The event takes place this coming Tuesday, the 31st March, at 19:00 within the school itself.

After a two-year hiatus, this celebrates the relaunch of Hunch under a new publisher and editorial direction. The event will include introductory remarks by both Rob Docter, general director of the Berlage Institute and Eelco van Welie, director of NAi Publishers; and a presentation of the new editorial direction and the contents of Hunch 12 by Salomon Frausto, editor of Hunch and head of architectural broadcasting at the Berlage Institute.

About Hunch #12: Bureaucracy
Architecture is contingent on the reality of satisfying a client, meeting building codes, acquiring funding, and gaining political support in order to be realized. Twelve thought-provoking contributions by leading and emerging architects, critics, and scholars that explore the role of bureaucracy in shaping contemporary architecture. Subjects range from governmental regulations and new organizational models for professional practice to contrasting forms of urbanism and divergent interpretations of economic value in relation to cultural capital. The authors focus on how select determinants affect the built environment. At the same time they offer architectural speculations, critical observations, and historical perspectives to rethink these processes in order to influence the buildings and cities of today and tomorrow. Along with these topical contributions—which are supplemented by marginalia of short stories, annotations, terminologies, and inventories—four 1,000-word texts and a visual essay complement the issue to reflect on broader theoretical aspects of architecture culture.

Wonderland, a young architects network initiated by a group of former Berlagers, is now offering their Wonderland Magazine as a free PDF download. ‘Getting Started’, ‘Making Mistakes’, and now ‘Going Public’ – the titles of the first issues speak for themselves. The magazine is a refreshing hands on manual for young practices and gives some insight into the situation of architecture startups in Europe.

The issue is scheduled for 2010 and will focus on actual and (what did you expect?) sustainable developments in the Gulf.

via: architectenweb.

Now in its 4th issue, PIN-UP: Magazine for Architectural Entertainment has proven to be a great magazine that has lasted past its first few issues to be a hopefully lasting review on architectural and design culture. Having first seen issue #2 back in the summer of 2007 at the Pro qm bookstore installation at Documenta in Kassel, the magazine has been notoriously hard-to-find throughout Europe and North America. Released by Bruil in the Netherlands, the magazine apparently shares similar roots as our other preferred review, Fantastic Man.

Felix Burrichter, PIN-UPs founder and editor was invited to write a short blog post in the New York Times in order to explain his idea behind issue #4 of the inventive review. In addition, he has posted numerous articles on The Moment through the New York Times. The magazine takes a fascinating perspective on the world of architecture and its by-products. The discipline is set within the larger context of design production and the cultural place that architecture plays in society. The articles are great tangents, the fashion coverage is brilliant, the interviews varied and the layout is excellent. If you’re in Montréal, swing by the Canadian Centre for Architecture to pick up your copy.

A little follow-up to the 010 publications: some Archinect editors share their favorite book titles of year of the pig: see their selection here.

For the last 25 years, Rotterdam’s 010 Publishers (Uitgeverij 010) has contributed to the larger debate about design both within and without the Netherlands. There are three books that stand out from the mix of forthcoming titles, to be published this spring and summer:

Vinex: An Atlas of Recent Dutch Suburban Planning
Authors: Jelte Boeijenga, Jeroen Mensink
320 pp / 340 x 240 mm / hardcover / English or Dutch
ISBN 978 90 6450 635 2 / price € 59.50
To be published May 2008

Vinex, an Atlas of Recent Dutch Suburban Planning is a complete documentary overview of the built results of the housing programme drawn up in the government’s Fourth Report (Extra) on Physical Planning in the Netherlands. Besides taking stock of all Vinex districts, it zooms in on about fifty which are exhaustively documented and described, and provided with, among other things, an aerial photograph and an easy-to-read plan. The Vinex Atlas also includes a complete tabular overview of all 120 or so districts and area plans. Area plans are described in index numbers so that they can be compared. This allows us to establish where and in what way the entire output has been realized. An introductory essay describes the background and development of the Vinex project in both policy and practice. The Vinex Atlas gives a complete overview of the Vinex housing output, not just by addressing the districts that have been covered by the professional and national press in recent years, but also by acknowledging the range and diversity within this gigantic programme of more than 600,000 housing units.

The Chinese Dream: A Society Under Construction
Authors: Dynamic City Foundation (DCF),
Neville Mars and Adrian Hornsby
784 pp / 250 x 200 mm / hardcover / English
ISBN 978 90 6450 652 9 / price € 49.50
To be published May 2008

Dreaming is not Chinese. By 2020 four hundred million farmers will be living in new cities. The urban middle-class will have doubled in size. The world’s biggest pool of one-child consumers will be out shopping. To accommodate these shifts the equivalent of a brand new Eurozone, or 400 mega-cities, is mushrooming in the Chinese countryside. There is barely time to sleep, let alone dream about the future. The Chinese Dream maps what urban China will probably be like in the year 2020, and investigates what alternative scenarios are feasible. It presents both the hopes and hazards China faces. Ignoring star-projects and focusing instead on the new forms of urban reality China is fast producing through countless anonymous development projects, it asks what landscape will result from the largest migration in human history? And what kind of society will emerge with such flash-urbanization? At the same time that a global energy crisis looms and China’s wealth gap is rapidly widening, we question whether China is inevitably reconstructing the American Dream. Through diagrams, facts, essays and interviews the Dynamic City Foundation (DCF) has sketched alternative routes, a conceptual leapfrog in urbanization: a new dream which transcends the current market-driven reality and lands in city forms as yet unseen. Combining a conceptual approach with in-depth analyses, the Dynamic City Foundation looks to tackle the big questions facing China’s cities of today, and sketches routes into their futures.

Remote Control City Guide
Author: Alex Lehnerer
208 pp / 240 x 170 mm / hardcover / English
ISBN 978 90 6450 666 6 / price € 29.50
To be published October 2008

The book Remote Control City Guide offers a compilation and discussion of significant rules invented and implemented by European, North American, and Asian cities. The reader does not only get an overview of the functionality and repercussions of these rule sets but also gains insight into the context and situation of the specific city through the lens of rule-based governance: a city’s code as the inverted, abstracted and extracted image of a city’s actual situation. Setting standards is first and foremost a cultural act. We map cities by their rules!

The publication is based on a database of approximately 100 relevant urban rules researched over the past three years at the ETH Zurich. These rules describe built form with regard to physical characteristics, qualities, and consequences as well as the distribution of program, density, urban performance, and aesthetics.

MIMOA (MI MOdern Architecture), the community driven architecture project database, has been launched officialy this weekend in Amsterdam. Architecture 2.0, I hear you say. But this time it is a useful, well-designed project. The overall contribution quality is high, and we can only hope that the word spreads and the database fills up – not only with the well-known and published, but also with obscure gems. Interesting in that respect is the collaboration with A10, an interesting projects on it’s own. A10 magazine will add projects they publish to the Mimoa database.

MIMOA about MIMOA:

What is MIMOA
It is the best source of information for your city trip in Europe with all Modern Architecture in one view. MIMOA shows Europe’s Modern Architecture on a map with the address and all additional information you need to actually find and visit interiors, parks, public places, buildings and bridges.
MIMOA is free and open for everyone to contribute: publish your projects, posts comments and ratings, define your personal favorites and keep track of the projects you’ve visited. All this personal information, reviews and opinions, define the current trends in architectural Europe.
MIMOA is intended for anyone interested in Modern Architecture, design, culture, photography, cities, Europe, travelling, visiting buildings, knowing how to get there, whether the project is public and what the opening hours are. You can make your own personal convenient architecture guide.

Manifesto
The last few years we have seen an extraordinary shift in the way we live, travel, work and vacation. Now that budget airlines fly through all of Europe and internet has brought all kind of information handy, the world has shrunk and we can enjoy it every weekend. It seems everything is published, reviewed and read, so, checking out cities or basking on a beach are only two of many choices to make on a Thursday evening.
And yet there is still so much more to discover, invent and admire. With architecture as our mutual obsession, there is a wealth of new talent to hunt down and architectural treasures to be unearthed in countries whose borders have recently been opened. Creativity and technology are running forward. And it is this forward-looking mentality that excites us at MIMOA.
In 2007 Rotterdam is the architectural-capital of Europe, London regards the Creative Industry to be the largest growth factor in its economy and the city-council of Berlin considers Culture as the only source of development for the next fifty to hundred years. Trendy neighbourhoods in Barcelona draw inhabitants (and entrepreneurs!) from far across the Spanish border, in all of Europe, old cities sprout and draw attention with new marvelous designs by the latest Superstar-Architect. For European cities the Architectural Energy has become the foremost monitor for cultural and economic prosperity.
But really, the all-too-familiar big names and big buildings are not that difficult to trace. We want to get close to those creative spurts that you can only find when accidentaly stumbled upon. Where are the small pearls, the yet to be discovered talents, the buildings only locals know about?
Therefore we have dedicated ourselves to bring this local Modern Architecture closer to YOU. YOUR Modern Architecture, assembled, compiled and completed, synoptic, swift and always up-to-date. Architecture for everyone to be added, searched, visited and re-viewed, MY Modern Architecture: MIMOA.

Via dezeen.

The NAi (new website) hosted the book launch and discussion featuring Rem Koolhaas, Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman Monday night in Rotterdam (10-09-2007).

The three presenters first outlined their positions about the gulf region context, before sitting down to take questions about the book. As a possible strategy to diffuse the potential early judgments and criticisms of the crowd, Bouman asked the question, “Who has been to Dubai [or gulf] and seen it first hand?” Roughly not even 10% of the crowd raised their hands, and only half-heartedly at that. It reflects one of the weaker themes of the evening that ‘we should not judge’ the situation in the gulf region, especially in the UAE. When it came to the questions at the end of the evening, the presenters were at times defensive, and repeated numerous times that the books aims to suspend judgment and rather present a detached overview/reading of the situation. But this is not to say the evening wasn’t full of great ideas, polemics galore, and of course, the exciting subject of Dubai and the Gulf Region itself.

More Photos can be found in our photo section.

Ole Bouman: Architecture and Social Change

Ole Bouman presented the most aggressive position of the evening, arguing quite easily that Dubai and the other wealthy emirates are surrounded by the “ring of pain” extending from Africa to the Middle East, to Central and South-East Asia. Encircling this pocket of extreme wealth is the misery and hardship of internal and external wars, civil strife, infrastructure collapse, environmental destruction and a bottoming-out of healthy conditions for society. In a very powerful way, he toured the surrounding region showing the utter destruction of certain countries listing:

• 9 o’clock Darfur
• 10 o’clock Palestine
• 12 o’clock Baghdad
• 12 o’clock Basrah
• 1 o’clock Asfahan, Iran
• 2 o’clock refugee camps in Afghanistan
• 2 o’clock Pakistan
• 3 o’clock slums of Mumbai
• 4 o’clock Sri Lanka (Civil War)
• 5 o’clock Indian Ocean (Tsunami)

Understanding the scale and intensity of the strife and destruction is the turning point for Ole. Architecture, knowing these terrible things, should think hard about the problems, and the often simple ways to remedy the larger problems. He didn’t argue that architects were to tackle the larger problems, given the “absurdity” of the task, but rather engage with the everyday solutions to very real human problems. As an example, he showed a winning project for the 2007 Agha Khan design awards. The success, he says of the Samir Kassir Square in Beirut, Lebanon, is because of its meaning within the context. The simple public space with its trees, is a complete contrast to the grey concrete and at times destroyed city surrounding it.

While Bouman certainly declared the urgency and necessity of architects to engage with this dilemma, he seemed to receive a perhaps unflattering title of preacher, and proclaiming a messianic mission, especially by Wigley. It was as if Wigley ridiculed the task Bouman believed in, suggesting an absurdity to his whole mission to improve the world.

Rem Koolhaas: Dubai in Theory and Practice

Enter Rem Koolhaas, and his attempts to give a bit more of an introduction to the book and region itself, as a counter to Ole’s more general global perspective. In many ways, Koolhaas’ lecture was fragmented, developing a number of interesting themes, that didn’t always connect. Starting with an interpretation of globalization and its economics, he then went onto the “earnest” history of architecture and urbanism in the UAE. He further aimed a refusal of Mike Davis’ position that Dubai is an “Evil Paradise”, and continued with a declaration of the already or imminent “collapse of iconography”. The last treat were photos of Rem interviewed on Al Jazeera -and the audience was clearly pleased with this.

This theme concerning the transfer of financial control from the established markets to the emerging markets was by far the most interesting. It especially concerns the idea of semi-democratic countries beginning to invest in established democracies. Traditionally, while the developed western countries of Europe and North America have largely had the greatest financial stakes in the rest of the world, this is reversing. It is a story you can read about in nearly every issue of The Economist and The Financial Times. The above slide illustrates the wealth of individual nations and their democratic status. It of course concerns the west, and our ability to control our own resources, companies, and markets when large stakes are bought-up by either dictatorship-controlled or semi-democratic nations.

In the book, AMO aims to highlight the early period of the extremely compressed history of architectural and urban design in the UAE. In contrast, they argue that it was western architects and urbanists that have recently contributed to the current situation of hyperbolic, iconic, and often kitsch projects. Can we perhaps interpret this to be such offices as Atkins Middle East -well documented in Al Manakh? The two above images are particular favourites of Koolhaas, showing the apparent seriousness and earnestness of understanding the urban issues and problems. Other references to back the argument of seeking design excellence in the gulf region from the period of the 1970s onwards leads to projects by respected western designers such as Alison and Peter Smithson, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, and also the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange. Of course the book goes into full details. In many ways there is strong grounds to argue that the region developed through its first “modernization” during the 1970s and 1980s with a seriousness of task. The unanswered question then, is how did Dubai design today arrive at spectacle and commercial hype?

In the most polemical part of Koolhaas’ talk is the refutal of Mike Davis‘ claim that Dubai is creating a condition of slavery for the workers, thereby creating an illegitimate condition, an evil paradise. This is a very sticky subject, and I do not want to get caught in-between the arguments. There is truth in what both Davis and Koolhaas is saying. The worker’s housing photograph was taken by AMO (or a local surrogate) when visiting a housing district. Koolhaas argues that the conditions are not that of slavery. He also claims that “we were the first to enter these areas” which might or might not be true. Koolhaas also argues that these housing conditions are typical of Asian situations, and that to “read this as slavery, is to misread the Asian condition.”

This is an argument which will always be balanced between the two sides, depending upon what standards we set. If we expect that the Dubai workers should receive the same standards as Posh Spice and David Beckham who own beach property in Dubai (Dubai World?) then clearly there is a problem. If however, we only expect “Asian conditions” for the workers who inevitably all filter into Dubai from the “Ring of Pain” surrounding the region, then everything is fine.

Koolhaas then jumped to the familiar subject of the “collapse of the icon” in Dubai. This has been presented world-wide, from Moscow to Montreal, and is not worth commenting on. The biggest criticism most people have is that the very notion of the “starchitect” is useless. Perhaps there is no legitimacy to “Starchitecture” at all.

Also presented were sketch masterplans of Dubai. They were beautiful plans that speculated what could happen in the desert region beyond the current developments. One massive oversight is the obvious fact that nobody builds in the desert now, and is unlikely to anytime soon. The current idea of Dubai completely revolves around water (a psychological element of survival). The OMA plans are obviously speculative, and served to show the size of what is possible -fitting London, Paris, Barcelona and many other cities into the vast desert. It is not a convincing future of Dubai -can we imagine many developers willing to extend Dubai into the sea of sand?

During the question period, one of the audience members pointed out that Koolhaas “let the cat out of the bag” in terms of his critique of Dubai. In the plan, states Koolhaas, we can see that “there is still hope for Dubai”. According to Rem, today’s practice of creating -at the hand of foreign architects- “enormous developments that focus on the tourism” and “creating endless coastal loops of resorts” is “utterly unsustainable”. The hope for Dubai is also that a new period of design will emerge. This is exemplified, Koolhaas adds, by the recent plan of Sir Norman Foster’s zero emission urban plan.

Clearly the biggest crowd-pleaser was the photo of Rem presenting Al Manakh on Al Jazeera television. You could feel his sense of pride.

Mark Wigley: Going into the Desert

Mark Wigley won the award for rubbing the audience the wrong way. While admitting “never having gone to Dubai”, he was happy to say that he “sends many people there.” He also wins the award for being the most defensive of the three speakers. At nearly each question he attempted to accuse the questioner of being judgmental. Repeatedly he argued that the book was not created to pass judgment on Dubai. It became utterly banal and boring. He states that, “The purpose of the book is not to dictate a path, but to open possibilities for the intelligent reader.”

One appreciated argument from Wigley was that it was the architects in Dubai, and not Dubai that was off course. This however seems like judgment. The rest of his talk focuses on a free-flow discourse about the desert and our perception of it. The desert represents the void of spatial definition, something that – in the West – we feel a need to attack and conquer.

Since first seeing the AMO Gulf Cities study presented at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale, most of us have been anxious to hear more about the region, and get an in-depth look at the economic processes at work. And so the wait is over with the release of Al Manakh, released throughout the Netherlands this past week, and is widely available, including at the NAi.

While the book was first released for the attendants at the May 2007 International Design Forum (IDF) conference in Dubai, it has been notoriously hard to get ahold of until now. The 495 page book was largely organised by Moutamarat, a recently-established private body that aims to “create business knowledge for the Arab world.”

Al Manakh serves as a barometer for the changes taking place in the region, and translated, the title means “the climate”. As Koolhaas writes in the opening, the book is a form of “critical participation”. But when he writes that “The Gulf is not just reconfiguring itself; it’s reconfiguring the world”, I find it hard to believe this is entirely special. Can we not say this about China? How about New York and London?

If you have already heard, both Koolhaas and Bouman will present the book at the NAi on September 10th at 20.00. If you haven’t reserved tickets yet, you are probably out-of-luck, since it has been sold out for some time. I don’t usually see scalpers at the doors either.

As you all might have read, the book is divided into three sections: a) Dubai Guide – edited by Moutamarat, b) Gulf Survey – edited by AMO, and c) Global Agenda – edited by Archis. You can read the introductory excerpts from Ole Bouman and Rem Koolhaas at Archis here.

Section one, Dubai Guide, does set the stage for the project, dealing with issues of publicity and privacy; authenticity and fantasy; social equity and environmental sustainability; growth rates and tourism rates; and looks at the overarching issues and problems facing the Gulf region, and in particular Dubai. The issues are somewhat global in that many cities around the world in emerging economies face the same set of problems due to fast, hard-to-control growth, and too much foreign investment. In some ways, this section comes across as though it was written for an under-educated audience, which is a possibly deliberate technique. Looking at the text, Design in Retail by Tim Greenhalgh, it reads as a “how-to” for retail entrepreneurs and what not to do when designing commercial spaces.

Section two, Gulf Survey, is classic AMO/OMA from the start. While I have not read through the chapter in its entirety, it is full of economic data, images, projects, key players, social statistics, and key history. This chapter covers 62% of the entire book, so it will take you some time to enjoy it. Sections of this have already been printed recently in The Gulf, a fold-out pamphlet outlining the major projects in the Gulf region, and already available in bookstores. This content was also exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2006.

Section three, Global Agenda, is edited by Archis and aims to discuss broader urban and architectural issues. Ole Bouman’s introductory editorial raises the urgent question of “What must be done?”, and he doesn’t shy away from the position that architects and designers are obliged to engage in the shaping of the future and the shaping of our planet.

As he writes, “The To Do list for architecture and design is short. The planetary action list for architects and designers is endless however.” And as a direct hit at the self-satisfying architecture the world over he writes: “[Design] can draw its legitimacy not from making things nice for certain people, but from making things livable for everyone.”

Bouman doesn’t refer to aesthetics alone of course, but to the larger problems of infrastructure, housing, governance, climate change, social resources and so forth. It makes me think back to the first chapter of the book concerning semi-private space in Dubai, totally detached from the continuous public urban environment, with the goal of creating artificial ‘urban experiences’. The point at which we separate a fictional urbanity from a non-fictional urbanity is exactly where we fail in creating a viable future, continuous with the surrounding environments and its history. But of course, the only thing holding back the real from the artificial in Dubai is a row of palm trees and a concrete wall. What’s to stop us from tearing these down in the future? Hopefully the book will stimulate such a thought in the minds of the developers and designers in Dubai.

Here are the facts about the book:

Editors: Ole Bouman, Mitra Khoubrou, Rem Koolhaas
Managing editor: Arjen Oosterman
Design: Irma Boom, Natasha Chandani, Sonja Haller
Format: 24×17, 500 pages
Publisher: Archis Foundation
Distribution: Europe, Asia and USA by Idea Books, IPS Pressevertrieb
Price: EUR 29.90 ISBN: 978-90-77966-12-9

german architecture & theory magazine arch+ put the first three videos or their interview marathon at the documenta online.

yes, its the same format as the serpentine gallery event and yes, its also Koolhaas and Obrist who are interviewing.
The first online videos are with Marie-Luise Scherer, former ‘der spiegel’ reporter (on journalism and writing), Karl Schloegel, historian (on bottom-up europe) and Thomas Schütte, sculptor (on his archi-scultures, life as an artist and many things more).

Unfortunately the interviews are almost completely in german. I didn’t know RK speaks such good german…

Looking forward for many more to come. The complete list should include:

Thomas Bayrle (*1937, Künstler, Frankfurt/Main)
Gottfried Böhm (*1920, Architekt, Köln)
Hannes Böhringer (*1948, Philosoph, Berlin/Braunschweig)
Arno Brandlhuber (*1964, Architekt, Berlin)
Martin Burckhardt (*1957, Autor/Kulturtheoretiker, Berlin)
Harun Farocki (*1944, Filmemacher, Berlin)
Jeremy Gaines (*1958, Publizist, Frankfurt/a.M.)
Manfred Grohmann (*1953, Bauingenieur, Frankfurt/a.M.)
Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm (*1940, Autor, Berlin)
Sejla Kameric (*1976, Künstlerin, Sarajevo/Berlin)
Eva Meyer-Keller (*1972, Performance Künstlerin, Berlin)
Annette Kelm (*1975, Künstlerin, Berlin)
Friedrich Kittler (*1943, Medientheoretiker, Berlin)
Alexander Kluge (*1932, Filmemacher/Theoretiker, München)
Antje Majewski (*1968, Künstlerin, Berlin)
Jürgen Mayer H. (*1965, Architekt, Berlin)
Isabel Mundry (*1963, Komponistin, Zürich)
Ingo Niermann (*1969, Autor, Berlin)
Marie-Luise Scherer (*1938, Journalistin/Schriftstellerin, Damnatz)
Karl Schloegel (*1948, Historiker, Berlin/Frankfurt Oder)
Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz (*1929, Architekt, Essen/Bregenz)
Thomas Schütte (*1954, Bildhauer, Düsseldorf)
Hito Steyerl (*1966, Filmemacherin, Berlin)
Günter Zamp Kelp (*1941, Architekt, Berlin)

The emerging Rotterdam architecture and urbanism office, The Powerhouse Company, has just published their first “autobiographical magazine”, Power to the House. The magazine is an exciting overview of their work over the past couple years, and features architectural and urban projects, buildings under construction, competitions, and research.

The Powerhouse Company is run by Nanne de Ru in Rotterdam, and Charles Bessard in Copenhagen. The two-year old office is off to a good start with their strategy of working across Europe. The young architects have split their office in two cities from the start and exploit free online tools and cheap long-distance networking tools such as Skype, Gmail, You Send It, Lulu and Transavia. They represent a new generation of ambitious architects that know how to exploit the tools of globalisation to get things done.

The magazine is self-published, and can be either downloaded digitally for free, or bought and delivered to you in print form, from Lulu online publishing.

Here are some of the projects:

Villa 1, Netherlands, under construction

Dutch Houses, Netherlands

Spiral House, France, under construction

On Top of Things – Watertower Conversion, Denmark, design phase

* More photos here: Powerhouse Company