A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

WoZoCo's Apartments in Amsterdam-Osdorp, Netherlands by MVRDV, 1997 MVRDV is a part of the growing number of young Dutch architects given the freedom to build large projects in their mainland, due to the country's large population density and inherent need for housing. WoZoCo's Apartments for Elderly People (1994-97), a product of the "grey wave", provide 100 units in an area of Amsterdam threatened with loss of green space due to a large increase in density. MVRDV's solution is indicative of the firm's ability to create original designs through practical considerations. Due to zoning regulations regarding adequate daylighting in apartments, only 87 of the 100 units could fit the restricted footprint. To respect the open space on the rest of the site, the remaining units were cantilevered on to the north facade, connected to the transparent...

Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas by Louis I. Kahn, 1972 Space is not a space unless you can see the evidence of how it was made. -Louis I. Kahn Louis Kahn's client, for what was to become his most famous commission, asked for a museum with a human scale and galleries with natural light. Kahn surpassed these conditions, creating his greatest built representation of the ideas he was constantly developing and reevaluating throughout his career, mainly shaping space through the unification of light and structure. A simple composition of parallel concrete vaults, the Kimbell Art Museum (1966-72) reveals itself to the visitor before stepping inside the building, with the porticoes that seem to be a superfluous continuation of the building's vaulting. The unnecessary porches (as referred to by Kahn) define the structural vocabulary of the whole museum: basically a concrete beam (100' x 23') in the shape o...