July 2009

7/31/09

Erasmusbrug Bridge, Rotterdam Netherlands

^JeHu68 - flickr/cc license
The Erasmus Bridge spans the Nieuwe Maas river in Rotterdam. It was designed by Ben van Berkel with UN Studio in 1996.

The distinctive look takes on the industrial character of Rotterdam. The ends of the bridge take on a flowing quality appropriate for circulation. It has become an icon for this part of the city.

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^Rutger de Moddertukker - flickr/cc license

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7/30/09

Novartis Forum 3, Basel Switzerland

^bpende - flickr/cc license
This recently completed office building was designed by Diener & Diener with Helmut Federle and Gerold Wiederin. A patchwork of colored glass on three layers each other seems to move and shift colors in the sun.

Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani's master plan for the Novartis campus includes new buildings by Frank Gehry, SANAA, and Peter Märkli. Stimulating imagination and collaboration, this emphasis on aesthetics also considers the impressions of the views on the site's water edge.

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^aless&ro - flickr/cc license

JR Shinagawa Station, Tokyo Japan

^null0 - flickr/cc license
Built in 1872, Shinagawa Station is the largest train hub south of Tokyo Station. Nothing remains of the original structure. The upper Shinkansen platforms were added and the eastern concourse was renovated in 2003 to connect it to the commercial inner city.

An interesting building results from many additions over the years. Parts of the building take a form similar to the bullet train, portraying the speed and time change involved in the experience.

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7/29/09

Philology Library at the Free University Berlin, Germany

^maha-online - flickr/cc license
This library by Foster and Partners, built in 2005, is known as the Berlin Brain. Norman Foster sheltered the stacks of the university library with a double-layered canopy that opens for natural ventilation.

The structure can be seen silhouetted on the canopy. The canopy's glowing, flowing panels inspire movement-driven floorplan. The overall blob shape results from an overall sense of place and movement. This movement culminates a yellow epicenter, a passageway to the next building. This building is about collective movement and transitions.

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Also by Norman Foster: Moscow Tower, Commerzbank Fankfurt, HSBC, Swiss Re, Millennium Bridge, London City Hall, British Museum Courtyard

^drz image - flickr/cc license

^maha-online - flickr/cc license

^Tor Lindstrand - flickr/cc license

^senhormario - flickr/cc license

7/28/09

Cloudland Dance Hall, Brisbane Australia

^David Jackmanson - flickr/cc license
Nic Brunner's new design for the historic Cloudland bar opened this year. A retractable glass roof opens to the sky. A 14 meter high green wall has drip-fed plantings.

The front facade shows the four levels of the building. Kitsch beyond belief, the entire experience is dripping with neo-deco craziness.

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About Previous Cloudland Buiding (h/t Helen Webberly)

^pizzodisevo - flickr/cc license

7/27/09

Jewish Museum, Berlin Germany

^Goodnight London - flickr/cc license
The Jüdisches Museum Berlin by Daniel Libeskind winds like a lightening strike next to the Kollegienhaus. This addition, completed in 2001, is one of Libeskind's most emotional works.

The visitor proceeds through this warped Star of David, starting underground at the pre-World War 2 Jewish museum and finishing at another tunnel to a bare silo with only a thin slice at the top. The visitor contemplates the hopelessness in this dead-end as he hears muffled street noise and feels the radiance from the sun on the rough concrete.

A third corridor descends through a "Garden of Exile" with structural columns twisting diagonally in random directions. The entire building is divided into three Jewish experiences: Continuity with German history, Emigration from Germany, and the Holocaust.

Drawing from Arnold Schoenberg's unfinished Opera "Moses und Aron," Libeskind speaks of a people's identity crisis as originally told in the book of Exodus, with a structure that constructs itself into complementary hexachords.

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Also by Libeskind: Freedom Tower, Royal Ontario Museum, Warsaw Modern Art Museum

^Bryce Edwards - flickr/cc license

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^David.Kungsholmen - flickr/cc license

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^recrotka - flickr/cc license

^Emmely Machteld - flickr/cc license

^internets_dairy - flickr/cc license

^Kent Wang - flickr/cc license

^Lauren Manning - flickr/cc license

^Lorkan - flickr/cc license

State Library Of Queensland, Brisbane Australia

^Joe Gatling - flickr/cc license
Donovan Hill and Peddle Thorp designed the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane Australia, winning the 2007 RAIA Architecture Award. It opened in 2006.

"The design is all about creating an open space which, unlike many public buildings of the past, is neither intimidating nor conventional," said Timothy Hill. Indeed, this building is all about inside and outside spaces. A central meeting space "Knowledge Walk" is always open to the public, and a core spine for the building has large permeation for visual connection, air circulation, and travel.

Vernacular building elements, such as the operable shading devices and overhanging cornices, bring the scale of this project back to an intimate level in the culture. It isn't iconic, but it is still innovative.

Small private decks jut out over the front entrance and over the river view in the back, a perfect place to read a book.

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^Joe Gatling - flickr/cc license

^nevolution - flickr/cc license

^elliottbledsoe - flickr/cc license

7/25/09

Blok 16 Housing, Almere Koetsierbaan Netherlands

^p2cl - flickr/cc license
René van Zuuk designed this apartment complex in OMA's master plan for Almere's new city centre.

The boring continuous section pushes outward as the building approaches the dock, expressing the waves of the sea and power of the wind there. It also gives place for an entrance and for patios to the apartment units.

The overlapping facade elements give a dynamic look to the "tunnel" structure system, like plate armor over a body. Public functions, like a gymnasium and storerooms sit above an underground garage, and living units are above.

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^Mickey van der Stap - flickr/cc license

7/22/09

Parkrand Housing, Amsterdam West Netherlands

This gravity-defying apartment complex in the Geuzenveld neighborhood of Amsterdam considers negative space as more important than the actual building. Beginning with the concept of a country house, architect MVRDV arranged colossal blocks to create a series of transitions from private residences to the natural outdoors. The gaping font "holes" act as enormous windows to the effacing Eendrachts Park. The interesting uncompleted look also reveals the white brick of the domestic "home" with the exterior cladding of irregular dark brick.

Completed in 2007, the name of this urban renewal project means "park edge." The shimmering white home has a framed portal to the green communal park.

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^Lauren Manning - flickr/cc license

Sonneveld House, Rotterdam Netherlands

^Adfoto - flickr/cc license
This Nieuwe Bouwen home was designed by Brinkman and Van der Vlugt in 1929. A rare example of Dutch Functionalism, the Sonneveld Huise has slabs of concrete attached to a steel frame, opening up the walls for large windows and easy reorganization.

By adhering to modernist Le Corbusier's principles of space and light, Vlugt created a modern building that lasts. The interior is quite sculptural while the exterior doesn't bring any attention to itself, unlike today's flashy modernism.

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