A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt by SNØHETTA, 2001 One of the most anticipated buildings since Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt by Norway's SNØHETTA opened its doors on the first of October, commencing a year-long inauguration. A year is a relatively short time, as the story of the New Alexandrian Library extends back to ancient Egypt, through to the conquests of Julius Ceasar, up to the present day and into the future. In its built form the library expresses this passage of time and our relationship to it as human beings. The Ancient Library of Alexandria marks a dramatic change in human history, particularly man's relationship to his surroundings. Two millennia ago at the library Euclid discovered the elements of geometry, a view unchanged until E...

Wall House 2 in Groningen, Netherlands by John Hejduk, 2001 As part of John Hejduk's Wall House Studies of the early 1970's, Wall House 2 , (aka the Bye House after the client's name) became part of the architect/educator's large theoretical, though unbuilt, oeuvre. Originally sited in the client's home-state of Connecticut, the house was completed last month, a year after Hejduk's passing, not in the United States but in Groningen, Netherlands, after the city undertook building the influential design on the outskirts of the city. Though not identical to the original site and without a client, the house's completion gives us a chance to assess the viability of Hejduk's drawings as built architecture. The Wall House Studies examined the wall as an architectural element both as barrier and connector, a ...

Biosphere and Flower Pavilion in Postdam, Germany by Barkow and Leibinger, 2001 Built as a Flower Pavilion and centerpiece of the National Horticulture Show (BUGA) in Potsdam, Germany by Berlin-based Barkow and Leibinger , this building has an intended lifespan of at least 20 years, as a Biosphere and a major part the site's transformation into a new residential district of nearly 20,000. Partners Frank Barkow and Regine Leibinger looked at the history of the site as a conceptual basis for the competition-winning design. While used by both the Prussian and Nazi armies, it was the postwar creation of earthen berms to enclose Russian barracks that provided the dramatic direction of the project. The architects veered away from creating a glass, greenhouse-like object on flat ground, typical of previous European structures influenc...

King County Library Service Center in Issaquah, Washington by Miller|Hull Partnership, 2000 The following text and images are by Seattle-based The Miller/Hull Partnership for the King County Library Service Center in Issaquah, Washington, completed in July 2000. The Miller/Hull Partnership designed an 80,000 square foot service center located in Issaquah, Washington. Designed to serve the library system's 180 person headquarters staff, the facility houses administration, training, book processing, information services, maintenance, a traveling library program and includes space for a new West Issaquah Branch Library. A large 2000 sf public meeting space for community use is included in the building. The three story building mass is configured to engage the main arterial in the area, Newport Way. The north-south o...

New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, Massachusetts by Stanley Saitowitz, 1991 Ironically in San Francisco, a city known for its progressive attitudes, controversy has arisen over local architect Stanley Saitowitz 's Yerba Buena Lofts, a stacked condo development of cast-in-place concrete, glass and industrial-grade steel on Folsom Street, south of Market. The design updates the Victorian context of bay windows into contemporary materials and methods, much to the public's chagrin. But before the loft project was even an idea, Saitowitz had completed a commission in another city known for its conservative aesthetics, Boston; the New England Holocaust Memorial in Carmen Park, near City Hall. The gap that exists between the acceptance ...

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 ...