A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

The following text and images are by The Renzo Piano Building Workshop for their Peek und Cloppenburg Department Store in Cologne, Germany, currently under construction. The German chain store Peek und Cloppenburg was looking to set up a new commercial space in the center of Cologne, near the city's cathedral. Our client already had a reasonably clear idea of the type of building it wanted to construct: it should evoke a close association between glass and wood, along the lines of the IBM traveling pavilion . The store (covering a surface area of 22,000 square meters, including 15,000 m² of public space) will be located in a somewhat "rough" and congested urban area. Currently, the project site is occupied by a large highway that will eventually be underground, and above which the...

South Fork Natural History Museum in Southampton, New York by Rogers Marvel Architects A relatively recent, cultural building type, nature museums attempt to reconcile man's relationship to nature, ironically, through the construction of structures imposed upon nature and inhabited by nature remade. Ideally these museums become laboratories for aiding man in building/living as a part of nature, both in their designs and their functions, such as educating the public on natural processes at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago.  A soon-to-be addition to this building type is The South Fork Natural History Museum and Nature Center, currently under construction in Southampton, New York by the NYC firm Rogers Marvel Architects . The museum will utilize an existing agricultural building along with the new structure to become a ...

Grande Bibliotheque in Montreal, Quebec, Canada by Christian de Portzamparc, 2001 The following text and images are translated from the web page of Christian de Portzamparc , his competition entry for the Grande Bibliotheque in Montreal, Quebec (won by Canada's Patkau Architects ). We have, with Elizabeth de Portzamparc, conceived this library project around the interior of a vast volume, a public place illuminated and heated during the long winter months of Montreal. Elizabeth de Portzamparc developed an urban passage on two levels, accessible from the street and the underground network, opening on to a broad park. This interior street distributes typically open spaces in permanence: conference centers, exhibition spaces, newspaper kiosks, children's play areas, internet cafes etc... Chri...

The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas by Donald Judd The following text and images are from The Chinati Foundation, located on the outskirts of Marfa, Texas. The Chinati Foundation/La Fundación Chinati is a contemporary art museum based upon the ideas of its founder, Donald Judd. The specific intention of Chinati is the creation and preservation of permanent installations of large scale works, or large groups of work by a small number of artists. The emphasis is on installations in which art and the space around it are inextricably linked. At the center of the Chinati Foundation's permanent collection are 100 untitled works in mill aluminum by Donald Judd installed in two former artillery sheds. The size and scale of the buildings determined the nature of the installation, and Judd adapted the buildings specifica...

Melbourne City Link in Melbourne, Australia by Denton Corker Marshall The following text and images are by Aussie architects Denton Corker Marshall for their Melbourne City Link. Denton Corker Marshall has designed an international gateway to Melbourne and a bridge across the Yarra River for the Melbourne City Link Project.  The Gateway, a modern urban architectural sculpture, will create a strong sense of arrival for Melbourne visitors. Elements include a yellow column cantilevering 70 metres over the freeway, 39 red sticks, each 30 metres high, forming an angled wall and a long sinuous orange sound wall. In November 1999 Denton Corker Marshall were awarded the Special Jury Award by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects for the Melbourne Gateway and Henry Bolte Bridge.

Garden Pavilion in Portland, Oregon by RIGGA Reminiscent of Michael Cadwell's small buildings, this small garden pavilion in Portland, Oregon, designed by the firm RIGGA, of the same northwest city, presents itself in varying configurations through the use of folding doors and fixed panels at its perimeter. A sloping roof/canopy rests on slender columns which meet the concrete base; the columns acting as fulcrums about which the doors move. Although a relatively simple and undistinguished structure, the pavilion has a strong relationship to its natural environment through materials and changing levels of openness. The plan at left illustrates the incorporation of sliding and folding doors, sometimes both within one door. With the columns located at the centers of the trapezoidal sides, it is at the corners where th...

GSW Headquarters in Berlin, Germany by Sauerbruch Hutton Architects, 1999 One of five finalists for the Royal Institute of British Architects ' Stirling Prize for the year 2000 (won by Alsop and Störmer for London's Peckham Library ), Sauerbruch Hutton Architects ' much-publicized extension and renovation of the GSW Headquarters in Berlin, Germany is featured here with the firm's text and images. This design forms the extension to an office tower which was one of the first projects to be built during the reconstruction of Berlin in the 1950s. The design endeavors to combine the "as-found" fragments of the city into a three-dimensional composition through which the existing building is able to be (re-)integrated into its context. The idea of conglomerate growth is not only accepted but put forward as a ...