Stan Allen
If we look at the political landscape today everything is being played out over questions of borders and boundaries. As architects our expertise lies much more in the creation of borders and boundaries, in the establishment of limits than it does in the dissolution of those limits. That kind of...
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Pedro Gadanho
I think the question of economy is fundamental. And I think that is one of the main issues when I suggest you the paradigm of trans-geographical knowledge exchange, which is a very strange way of saying that we have to find new models which really relate globally to the different forms of...
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Erwin Viray
Besides craftsmanship and sustainability, I think that a third paradigm could be the existence of fantasy, narrative and imagination, as a way to respond to the very hard post crisis conditions. It can be seen in some works of the young Japanese architects: I think it's very specific of Japan but...
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Rafael de la Hoz
My main concern is if in the future we will repeat again the same mistakes we have made until now. Crisis is the opportunity to change our attitude and to make a reflection about how to change the future. For achieving this I think we need two things: a new model of development and education.
On...
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On Teaching
by Josep Lluis Mateo
Our mission is, of course, to teach people to design: to imagine in physical terms a new reality and, further, to be able to make it possible, to build it.
My interest is more methodological - abstract, instrumental - than stylistic and is situated between awareness of the student’s freedom of...
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Natural Conditions: An Iconographical Survey of a Hotel Project in the Khor Al-Adaid Desert
by Josep Lluís Mateo, Krunoslav Ivanišin, Ramias Steinemann, Tomeu Ramis and Florian Sauter
The desert – always moving, never static; like an ocean of sand.
TOMMASO GIOVANNOLI
An intervention without scale confronts the infinity...
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PREVI EXPERIENCE
by Josep Lluís Mateo
The relatively little known PREVI project is important for several reasons. First of all, it was set in the context of the overall logic of the informal city. The self-constructed city, comprising houses built by their occupants, played a major role at the time, especially in that particular...
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Loss of Weight
by Josep Lluís Mateo
The last semester we were involved in a project that tried to connect literature – written knowledge – with architecture. Of course, knowledge has been transmitted until very recently or until now by books, by letters, by printed forms invented in the Renaissance. So, the fact that books have...
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ARCHITECTURE and CINEMA
by Josep Lluís Mateo
The relationship between cinema & architecture is mentioned in many occasions and it's partially true. In fact, the architecture in the cinema appears as a background of the scene, as a background of the action. As, happens with photography, the cinema is giving us a specific point of view...
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narrative and physical facts
by Josep Lluís Mateo
Our Giacometti project deals with a very important question that is the meaning of the word context. What is a context? Which is the context?
Of course the context is connected with the physical facts, with the geography, the topography, with the climate, the snow, the temperature and also...
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"When you copy the things around you, you never become the center because you give up your own voice"
Lecture by Li Xiadong
The idea of turning a periphery into a centre is to become independent. You have to think
independently to identify what your problem is.
When you...
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Meteorological Observatory
by Josep Lluis Mateo,Till von Mackensen, Chasper Schmidlin, Ramias Steinemann and Florian Sauter
PAINTING WITH AIR
At an artistic level, the picture could be painted with the remains of the sky;
making the enclosure ready to receive and...
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Marina and Thermal Bath
by Josep Lluis Mateo, Anna Hotz, Cecilia Obiol, Florian Sauter & Ramias Steinemann
Palafitic
Gino de Giorgi: On wet or marshy land, architecture is always inserted with care, with the greatest precaution. These sites...
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Pedagogical Ambition
Lecture by Josep Lluis Mateo
We try to teach how to design, how to produce, how to think and make buildings happen. For me, this is closely connected to the dialectic between concept (abstract conditions) and matter (physical conditions). This kind of synthetic duality is the starting point of our profession, in which an idea...
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URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN BEIJING
Interview with Wang Lu, Li Xiaodong and Zhu Wenyi
Tradition in the Beijing urban development
ZHU WENYI: From the viewpoint of urban space or urban design, a lot of things are related to tradition; they have not disappeared and still alive. The Chinese architecture and city, as same as the Chinese food, is a part of Chinese culture...
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Desert Architecture: Some Comments on Qatari Architecture in the Pre- and Post-Oil-Period
Lecture by Ibrahim Al Jaidah
The Gulf’s architectural forms have, to some extent, been limited by two important factors: climate and the availability of building materials. The...
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THE MOUNTAIN, THE RIVER AND THE HIGHWAY
by Marianne Baumgartner, "On the Road" Video by Krunoslav Ivanisin
And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And The Lord showed him all the land,...
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Fusion of the Senses
Interview with Juhani Pallasmaa
JP I grew up at my grandfather’s small farm in central Finland, so I have
a farm boy’s mentality. I was the only boy within five kilometres and
had to invent things for myself to do. When you have a lot of time,
there are, of course, endless miracles happening in nature. So, my...
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