Have a look at OMA’s most recent project for Prada, the ‘Prada Transformer‘. The project has it’s own proper website, featuring Rem presenting, plans and renderings as well as a construction time lapse in progress.
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 Dutch Government proves again that they see Architecture as one of NL’s marketing-worthy assets. The Royal Dutch Mint has released 10 and 5 Euro coins displaying the names of important contemporary and historic architects, as well as some of their publications. Not buildings, these seem to be reserved for bills. The decision to focus on theory, not practice, ties in with the generous funding Netherlands supports architecture publications with. The ease to shell out books contributed to the ‘Super-Dutch’ era in the 90ies.
The mill about the coin design:
he Architecture five-euro coin was designed by artist Stani Michiels (b. 1973). The design on the obverse of the coin pays tribute to the history of Dutch architecture, with the portrait of Queen Beatrix being distinctively constructed using the names of important architects from Dutch history. The artist used the internet as a popularity-meter to determine the names’ order of appearance.
The reverse of the Architecture five-euro coin draws attention to the striking fact that many Dutch architects have also included publishing books on architecture in their professional activities. To illustrate this phenomenon, recent books on architecture rise up from the sides of the coin like buildings. Through their careful placement they combine to outline the Netherlands, while birds’ silhouettes suggest the capitals of all the provinces.
You can buy it in the Mint’s coin store.
I was also in Venice for the inauguration of the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale. Unlike the other members of Dysturb, this was the fourth time I have attended the opening of the biennale (in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008). So, for me, it was difficult not to compare Aaron Betsky’s work at the Arsenale to the work that had been done by the previous international curators (Burdett, Foster, or Sudjic) of the other biennales. On top of this, the Venice Biennale is the main case study for my PhD thesis: the 1st Venice Architecture Biennale.
I have to say that when I left the Arsenale after seeing the exhibition, my enthusiasm was lukewarm: on the one hand I thought, as Darrel did, that the theme chosen by Betsky was loaded with intellectual potential and openness of interpretation and that overall, the show was well curated due to the compactness of the manifesto format. (In the past years the Arsenale’s bombarded the visitors with an overload of images, information, texts, and so forth.) But at the same time, many of the installations and accompanying manifestos remained obscure and slightly too artistic for my own tastes, and likely for the taste of many architects.
But now I see the light…
Continue reading ’11th Venice Architecture Biennale: The Making of’
Upon arriving in Venice for this year’s 11th Venice Architecture Biennale, the Dysturb.Net team was so sick that we didn’t know what to do. But when we began to see this year’s freebie-hipster-cotton-bags that have become a standard give-away from the pavilions, we started to feel better. These bags are the absolute best way to self-promote the individual pavilions, other than offering free drinks, which we also support. On top of this, they can be beautiful, and a great reminder from year-to-year of the best pavilions and their graphic design campaigns. So we said to ourselves, let’s collect them and vote for the best bags…. what a great way to go “beyond building“! To all you future curators of your country’s pavilions, take note = give away some wickedly designed hipster bags and everyone will come!
Click on the photos for a complete high-res shot!
Please comment on which bag you think is the best, and if you have more to submit we would be happy to post them.
Continue reading ‘The Best Hipster Bags – Venice Biennale 2008!’
OMA distributed a press release including the above picture (click for XXL) today that the facade developed in collaboration with ARUP has been completed. Just in time for the opening of the Olympic Games for an harmonious skyline, we might add. In that context: the extruded pagoda on the right is the Zhong Fu Tower.
My friends at XML need some help, and asked me for support. They are looking for interns for a period of 3 to 6 months, starting from september. They’re young, small and interesting, and can only offer a minimum salary. Here’s their advert:
XML is a contemporary cultural practice specialized in Architecture, Research and Urbanism. From its base in Amsterdam XML is involved in worldwide cross-disciplinary projects with an emphasis on cultural analysis. XML’s projects are fuelled by a reflection on the contemporary city as source of cultural production. The work has been rewarded several prizes amongst which most recently the first prize in the Europan 9 competition Almere.
We currently invite people to apply for a position as trainee in our office in amsterdam. Candidates should have finished at least two years of relevant design education. Further requirements include:
- excellent model-making, drawing and render skills
- strong graphic and design talent
- willing to actively contribute to the rapid growth of our young officeApplicants for this vacancy should send their cv, motivation letter and portfolio(pdf) to hr@x-m-l.org.
June 11th the first Museum entirely dedicated to Graphic Design will be opened by our Queen Beatrix in Breda.
For the opening my friend Teun Castelein will make his graphic statement out of concieved content from 250 participants. Everybody is welcome to design its own flag and mail it to flag@graphicdesignmuseum.com. All designs will be printed on unique flags and put against the building. The result will be an explosion of information. A colourful art piece at the old baroque building of the supermodern Graphic Design Museum.
Really a piece of art that makes people think about modern visual communication, about the position of musea in the contemporary image-culture and the fact that everybody is a designer/ image-maker nowadays.
Continue reading ‘Get A Flag!’
There are countless conversations among architects about pay, and how architecture is (apparently) poorly paid. Now there’s some good proof. An awesome online survey and searchable database was shown to me today, assembled by Coroflot. You can view the datasets here, sort by country as well as occupation and job title. The few graphics are great too. It isn’t surprising that among the design professions (graphic, fashion, interactive media, and so forth), architecture has one of the lower ceilings.
Archinect has had a salary poll running for quite some time, and it has always been a fascinating read. But it has always been incomplete, has no sortable databases, and didn’t offer a comparative analysis. In comparison, the Coroflot survey boasts 4250 respondents from 73 countries. What is clear is that in most design fields the incomes are rising nicely. On top of this, you’re best paid as a consultant. Nonetheless there are some hard-to-explain anomolies that stick out. It turns out that designers in India are some of the worlds best-paid, up there with Americans and Australians. Hmm.
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.
The German architecture portal baunetz.de has published their quarterly ranking of offices.
Their rankings are based on the number of publications in the past 24 months from a selection of architectural magazines (Bauwelt, Detail, Architectural Review, a+u, architektur.aktuell, L’architecture d’aujourd’hui, Werk Bauen und Wohnen, domus – a little bit germany-heavy, but that’s where baunetz comes from). The traditional top 3 order is H&M, OMA, Zaha. But this has been mixed up, OMA comes out on top, Zaha scores second and Herzog & DeMeuron come out third. Is this good – I doubt it. But does it matter? Not really.
London comes out on top as a city, with 14 practices among the top 100. Rotterdam features OMA, MVRDV and, interestingly Kempe Thill. See the list after the break.
“Diamonds never lie” Shirley Bassey sang in the opening track of 71′s James Bond movie “Diamonds are forever”. Diamonds – ultimate symbol of class, eternity and truth. It is this notion of truth which Belgian Diamond trade monopolist de Beers is promoting as the essence of the natural diamonds they are mining in Africa. Their business is increasingly endangered by manufactured gems. In the words of Jef Van Royen, official representative of the diamond industry in Belgium: Continue reading ‘Diamonds never lie’
This past week I was at the MIPIM Developers Conference in Cannes, France representing a client. With my suit on, business cards ready and a dose of capitalist opportunism in tow, the pavilions and stands became my playground. It was great to see inside the world of top-level decision makers – investors, developers, builders, lawyers, and the like. Of course the highlights are surely the seaside terraces that serve up fine drinks and hors-d’oeuvres. Check out the selection of models on our FLICKR site, some of them will make you barf — especially the Krasnodar Region. Why are they so out of touch?
On March 14 (2007) the Berlage Institute (Rotterdam) hosted two lectures with the title “Instant City: The Rise of Dubai”. Kees Christiaanse (Architect, Rotterdam) and George Katodrytis (Architect, Dubai) gave presentations while Roemer van Toorn moderated the event. Marc Angélil unfortunately was stuck at the Zurich airport because of the infamous Swiss weather.
Dubai is a gated community. What can we do about it? And can architecture politically engage a global market-driven power structure?
Kees answered, that Dubai is dominated by “gatedness”, “sameness”, “fadedness” and “maleness”.
Continue reading ‘Instant City: The Rise of Dubai’
The new Nissan Qashqai marketing campaign has been skating through the streets – and now landed on a temp skatepark along the A20 at the Giessenbrug crossing in one of Rotterdam’s notoriously horrible industrial areas – the Spaanse Polder. The video can be seen through none other than GooTube here. Clearly, the video kills the installation.
