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…

It was partly because I was curious and all together critical about the idea, and partly because I thought that maybe I could found out something that I did not already know about the Architecture Biennale, that I decided to buy “The Making of the Biennale” with Aaron Betsky. It is a DVD on sale for 15 Euros at the Biennale wherein Betsky explains his ideas for the exhibition while walking through each of the 20 installations of the Arsenale’s exhibition.

I finally understand what the Coop Himmelb(l)au machine is for, or what the Zaha Hadid sculpture represents. I also realised that the Peneznic and Rogina installation is made of moving parts, or that the Philippe Rahm piece simulat a miniaturized gulf stream made of hot and cold poles. I even realised that I missed the last installation by the Gustafson Porter group, the Towards Paradise garden, a piece referring to Voltaire’s last phrase in Candide: Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

If there is still time, I recommend you have a look at this video before visiting the Biennale; because even if we don’t like to admit it, there are times when we need a bit of didactics.

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.

The official catalogue came at a price though, 50 Euros for press, 70 for visitors. We hope someone builds a Pavilion out of these plastic shells holding the books together.

This neon-orange-glow bag was handed out at the opening ceremony – we missed to get this one while sick at home. We photographed this dude on the 2G Vaporetto Party – he’s lucky we didn’t jump him for it!

This is only the Australian back-up bag, the larger one was already out of stock. The nice booklet with an overview of all the exhibited models was a separate purchase.

The cliché stays true, black is the most common color.

The Danish bag was one of the most spotted ones – due to its size, and the nice handle.

We received this bag of the easy-to-miss Portugese Pavillion, which is worth a visit due to Souto de Moura’s mirror installation. The bag came with a really nice book on the piece.

Spin the bag fast enough and you get the Swiss flag.

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.

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 office

Applicants 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.

So invest some 250 €, add another line to your CV and be part of the opening exhibition. You can upload your images here.
It seems to be selling quite well and I’m sure it will look amazing.

Teun did a similar spectacular work of art inspired by the famous website ‘www.milliondollarhomepage.com‘ in 2005. He sold the façade of his Alma Mater, the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam to more than 300 companies, organisations and individuals.

They added logos and trademarks, images of art, poetry and lovenotes. The façade consists of more than 16,000 tiles [35x29cm], each of which is supplied with its own individual printed plastic plate. The result is an overwhelming mosaic of colour and information – a project that seeks to push the boundaries between commerce and art, society and the movements of the market, the private sector and public space. The Sandberg Institute is located on the Amsterdam ring road in the Zuidas district, the city’s new economic centre.

Teun Castelein, who is actually the first man in real size on the web, graduated in 2002 at the Art Academy of Utrecht with a research on Dutch suburban town Hoogvliet, just outside Rotterdam.
This ghetto town had a very negative image, so he decided to start a feel good branding campaign for its citizens as part of the WIMBY! project. One of his proposals was a Hollywood sign of ‘HOOGVLIET’ [which was implemented in a park design by FAT architects]. With this icon of Hollywood he wanted to give the people something to believe in, that you can be somebody! By giving Hoogvliet a bit of Hollywood allure, he made its inhabitants the stars.

So, go get your creativity boiling, convince your boss to spend those Euros and put something more on it than just your average company logo!

Advertisement clip for Madrid’s metro. Via my favourite daily blog and source of beauty, monoscope.

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.

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

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:

“If people really love each other, then they give each other the real stone,” he says, during an interview at council headquarters on the Hoveniersstraat in Antwerp. “It is not a symbol of eternal love if it is something that was created last week.” (from “The New Diamond Age”, an amazing article in Wired mag)

Damien Hirst’s work “For the Love of God” isn’t that much about truth and eternity, but rather wealth and power. It is supposed to be the most expensive artwork in the world: “For the Love of God” is a skull cast in platinum encased with 8500 diamonds. Damien says:

“I just want to celebrate life by saying, to hell with death. What better way of saying that by taking the ultimate symbol of death and covering it in the ultimate symbol of luxury, desire and decadence?”

De Beers contacted Vik Muniz, what he’d do with 10 Million Diamonds. His answer: “I thought doing something gross or disgusting would be too obvious, so I did something very glamorous. The idea is that people would buy it as a social experience, since having pictures of diamonds gives people the impression of having diamonds themselves.” So look at the above images again – do you feel it? I think it is quite the opposite – the glam of female movie stars multiplied with the glitz of diamonds results rather in desire than the satisfaction of ownership.

And finally the next layer of falsification and abstraction – images of diamonds which never existed, and the reason why I researched diamond imagery. Darrel and me have been searching for the right visual language for the a101 project at my office. As the project is ultimately about money and power, we wanted an urban plan made of diamonds.

Update: I’ve found some images and a making-of of Damien Hirst’s Diamond skull:

see supertouchblog’s making of and greg’s post on the skull’s costing and the full flickr photo set.

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?

It turns out that MIPIM had a record number of visitors – 25.000. No doubt, when you see the list of topics, you’ll be very impressed: Property: An asset class / Property: A changing world / Property: A regional focus. What everyone was really after was the Daniel Libeskind keynote lecture… entitled none-other than: “World Architecture Trends”. What to think about this title and his recent work? Perhaps we can deduce: World Architecture is now about commercialism, opportunism, weak theory and getting up all around the world. Sounds so glamorous, no?

see all pictures:

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”.

He distinguishes two types of gatedness: Gated Communities, and Public Space in the form of shopping malls. The Dubai Waterfront Project has almost no public space. The front garden, the back garden and the back beach are all privatized. Streets are without sidewalks. They become isolated islands, only accessible by private boat. This will lead to closed cities lacking any form of social interaction. The notion of a free and open city will exist no longer. Welcome to the resort.
Roemer van Toorn raised the provocative question: What is so bad about sameness? The people obviously want it! Kees replied that homogeneity creates boredom which is inherently bad.

He appealed to the architect’s morals of not simply implementing European models without giving the Dubai context a second thought. He even started a “No Holland Village” campaign in reaction to a new Dutch-style settlement in Dubai. Don’t get me wrong, architects copy and paste anyhow, and rightly so, as long as context and history are considered. Following only market requests and contributing to a homogeneous mass society is not the role of an architect who has a social responsibility.

Christiaanse compares Dubai to Los Angeles; hence the initial position of Dubai as isolated deserts without regulations was similar. Local inhabitants make up only 10% of contemporary Dubai’s population, whereas the rest of the people are aliens – service personnel, tourists and working-class trades people. This inhibits identity or authenticity of a place: Dubai is made for tourists and will be very successful at it.

George Katodrytis is much more optimistic about the new developments; he works with an adventurous spirit in the context. He describes the Dubai Waterfront development and its gigantic dimensions. He believes that the architect needs to follow the rules of the market. And he and his students try to find the spaces where it is still possible to intervene. But his discourse unwittingly showed the ultimate powerlessness of the architect.

But who is making Dubai?
We know that (see “What I have achieved for Dubai is only 10% of my Vision for it.“) Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, is mainly responsible for the development. He built up a totalitarian system with a selected core of highly educated advisors (Harvard, AA, and so forth) and has the money and power to push this extreme vision through.

Dubai becomes reality in the absence of democracy.

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.