2005 / I

Project for the extension to the village of Coupvray, including three new urban neighborhoods with a population of 7.000 inhabitants.

Maurice Culot - Styles Architects
Paris, 2005

For more informations see A&C Documents 4 !

"ECOLOGICAL URBAN ARCHITECTURE"
edited by: Gabriele Tagliaventi, Luigi Mollo
Alinea Editrice, Firenze, July 2005
ORDER FORM

Readers are invited to vote and suggest ideas.

Many are the possibilities.
The editing committee is confident that an interesting set of candidatures will emerge.

 

Kunsthaus in Graz
One of the best ways to cancel hundreds years of urban civilization with one building only.

CNU's annual Congress comes to Southern California with CNU XIII: THE POLYCENTRIC CITY
CNU XIII - June 09/12, 2005 - Pasadena, CA
http://www.cnu.org/index.cfm

International Conference
TOWARDS AN URBAN ENVIRONMENT AS A BRIDGE BETWEEN NATURE AND ARTIFACT
June 10, 2005 - Caserta, Belvedere di S.Leucio, Italy
The seminar deals with the actual debate on the necessity, today essential and broadly shared, of a radical afterhought of constructive process in the perspective of eco-sustainability. Organization: Second University of Naples with the collaboration of A Vision of Europe and CIVICARCH-University of Ferrara. Click here to read the PDF file about the conference.

International Conference: Regional Architecture in Cagliari, Italy
TUTELA E VALORIZZAZIONE DELL'EDILIZIA DI BASE E DELL'ARCHITETTURA REGIONALE: CARATTERI, TECNICHE E TIPOLOGIA
24-25 Giugno,2005 - Cagliari, Dip. di Architettura

ROBERT MALLET STEVENS: ARCHITECT OF MODERN TIMES
at Centre Culturel Geoges Pompidou - Beaubourg, Paris

ROBERT MALLET-STEVENS (Parigi 1886 - 1945)
Born in Paris (France), is one of the most important European architects of the Art Deco Style, the style of the so-called Jazz Age which competed with Razionalism in the 20s and 30s. In Saint-Jean de Luz, France built the Casino Hotel (1923-28) with a base rich in arches and projecting consoles, while the articulated above storeys use horizontal windows. After this period, Robert Mallet-Stevens became one of the most active architects of the International Style with a special elegant touch. Among his famous works the "Rue Mallet-Stevens" in Paris (1926-27) and the book on "Une Cité Moderne" together with his collaboration with film art-director Marcel L'Herbier in the movie "L'Inhumain", 1924.

New Urbanism in Venice
As a result of the International Architectural Competition for the New House of Music in Venice, Italy, an urban proposal has been selected and awarded the first prize.
The project designed by Genova-based firm of Luca Vacchelli calls for a new urban neighborhood in the Tronchetto Island with a system of new canals, plazas, urban blocks and harbours, directly inspired by the historic urban fabric.
The International Competition organized by Lyons Host Venice, Order of Architects in Venice, Association of Engineers in Venice aimed at providing the city with new ideas for a "Gate to Venice". Located in the Tronchetto Island, the first appoach to Venice for visitors coming by car or coaches, the new House of Music should offer both a permanent setting to develop and experience the culture of Music in Venice and a new gate to properly enter the city.
As stated by the jury -composed by Gianfranco Vecchiato, Deputy Mayor of Urbanism in Venice; Paolo Pianon, President of Lyons Host in Venice; Franco Pianon, President of the Association of Engineers in Venice; Gabriele Tagliaventi, professor at the University of Ferrara; Vittorio Giambruni, director of the Social Housing Agency in Padova- the winning entry "has appeared as the most organic proposal among those who have considered the relationship between the historic and the contemporary city".

"New Civic Art"
by Andres Duany, Robert Alminana

The art of building beautiful cities is back.
And Hegeman & Peets' fundamental book on urbanism alive again. A positive message or all those who believe that good urbanism can help the creation of a humane urban environment. Following the highest traditions of our past, introducing innovations and improvements.

"Playtime"
by Jacques Tati, France Incredibly sad. Still fascinating.

People never learn from experience?
The movie is played in the periphery of Paris, at La Defense, the "new" financial and administrative district built at the opposite side of the Louvre, along the Champs Elysées axis. A few miles west of the Arc de Triomph.
A group of tourists visits the brand new district. The group has difficulties in recognizing the right building to enter as every building is a tall glass-box. Tall for the European standard. The typical European glass-box desperately pretending to be a North-American skyscraper.
Then, after identifying the right building to enter - quite a remarkable adventure- the problem is to find the entrance. In fact, stupid old-faschioned tourists pretend that a modern building still has an easy-recognizable entrance. Better, a door!
Exhilarating. Played in a crescendo of comic situations.
Our group desperately tries to find the entrance while a strong wind is striking in the futuristic experimental environment of isolated boxes scattered in an empty desert.
When the entrance is found, then the problem is how to enter despite the automized entrance-system. And then, …then there is the elevator…and the air conditioning…
The happy ending is a sort of collective act of liberation from the dictatorship of modernism. The group of tourist happily destroying any kind of automatic device.Quite a brilliant critique of the modernist districts made of free-standing buildings without urban fabric.
More efficient as a critique to the modernist experiments than any book.
Sadly enough, the movie was played in the 60s of the past century!
And today, at least in the old continent, isolated glass boxes and motorways in-between still represent the "official" way of doing public urbanism. That is the urbanism payed by public money.
Expecially recommended for schools of architecture and town-councils.

Student Summer Program in Classical Architecture
The ICA&CA is pleased to announce a new take on an old favorite. Courses include: Elements of Traditional Urbanism, Elements of Classical Architecture, Building and Craftsmanship, Theory and Practice of Proportion, Studio Design,Measured Drawing and Traditional Wash Rendering, Observational Drawing, Figure Drawing, and Perspective, Literature of Classical Architecture.
http://www.classicist.org/summ.html

Rural Landscape and Architectural Quality
Summer School in Architecture
Morciano di Romagna, June 18th - July 2nd 2005
The aim of the summer program, supported by INTBAU International Network, is to introduce architecture students and professionals to the issues of rural landscape and urban design, and to expose them to the rich architectural and cultural heritage of Emilia-Romagna regional context.
http://www.unibo.it/Portale/Relazioni+Internazionali/Summer+School/summer/Architecture.html

UNIVERSIDAD LABORAL, GIJON, SPAIN - arch. Luis Moya Blanco

LUIS MOYA BLANCO (Madrid 1904 - 1990)
Born in Madrid (Spain) was a strong opponent of the International Style and a passionate theorist of the classical tradition. During the first decade after the Spanish Civil War (1940-50) Moya Blanco had the opportunity to design and build many important building in Madrid: the Museum of America (1944) and the Chuch of St. Agustin (1945-59) where he extensively used the masonry construction system.
His most famous work is the campus for the Universidad Laboral in Gijon (1946-57), together with the one in Zamora (1947-53), where he developed an innovative synthesis of the American university campus and the Spanish urban tradition of the Plaza Mayor.

For more information:
"The Other Modern/L'Altra Modernità 1900-2000"
edited by Gabriele Tagliaventi, Dogma Editrice, Savona 2000

Bologna decides to erase ugly buildings from its center
Sergio Cofferati, the new Mayor of Bologna, has decided to erase the two controversial modernist buildings from the very center of the city -the Piazza Maggiore area- and the demolition has started on February 2005.
Built in 2003 as architectural icons of the modernist ideology to match similar interventions in other European cities, the two glass-boxes immediately encountered a strong opposition from thousands citizens.
Click here to learn more!

The Philippe Rotthier European Prize for Architecture for Town and City Recontruction
For 25 years Belgian architect Philippe Rotthier has serached throughout Europe for new architecture which respects the spirit of a place, acknowledges today's demand for comfort and is ecologically sound; building which are part of the town or countryside without damaging them, buildings which waste neither land nor energy; buildings which establish a dialogue with history and the past.
This quest has led Philippe Rotthier to set up a prize for architecture. The works are selected by juries composed of not only architects but also writers, journalists, artists, art historian, and politicians.
The Philippe Rotthier Prize will be awarded for the seventh time in October 2005. The prize is worth of a total of 30.000,00 Euro given in one or more awards.

"Eager shoppers flock to the great malls of China"
by David Barboza - New York Times News Service
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600136496,00.html

"World Marks Green Day: United Nations Warns of Booming Cities"
by Alister Doyle - Published on Sunday, June 5, 2005 by Reuters
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0605-06.htm

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