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Les immeubles de grande hauteur en France. Un héritage moderne 1945-1975: and more reviews
No full textBehind the Veils of Modern Tropical Architecture
Get PDFWhile orthodoxy was consolidating its hold on modern architecture in the 1930s, fresh new ideas from the periphery began to widen and question its limiting vocabulary. This study looks at projects emerging before the end of that decade that paralleled the much publicized work of Le Corbusier and Brazilian innovators in developing ideas for taming the sun in warm climates. The story focuses on a forgotten speech given in Rangoon which enthused about a soon to be forgotten but effective method of solar control and triggered a yearning for architecture widening its scope to engage with attributes of national identity
Monuments of Country, Climate and Culture: Michel Écochard and the Design of the Postcolonial Tropolis
Get PDFThe French architect and urban designer Écochard, was one of the numerous architects that designed buildings and cities for newly independent nations in the post-war era of decolonization. Many of these young nation states were in search for urban and architectural projects that would explicitate a “proper” model of modernization that differed from that of the former colonizer. This essay argues that the principles of tropical architecture would play a key role in representing and monumentalizing such an alternative model of modernization
Encounters with Southeast Asian Modernism
Get PDFAgainst the backdrop of the Bauhaus centenary in 2019, Encounters with Southeast Asian Modernism examined the history, significance, and future of postcolonial modernism in this region, with partners in four cities – Jakarta, Phnom Penh, Singapore, and Yangon. The project provided a historical perspective on the societal and political upheaval that accompanied the transition to independence after the colonial period in these countries. It also showcased current initiatives in the fields of art, architecture, and science that are committed to the preservation and use of Modernist buildings. In 2020, the project will continue with an exhibition and accompanying program in Berlin
The Chandigarh Sector
Get PDFThe neighborhood unit (Sector) in Chandigarh was conceived as a self-sufficient, repeated element to create the matrix of the city along with the hierarchical circulation system defined by the 7Vs to disburse traffic in an orderly manner. This arrangement was interfaced with a designed landscape at the behest of Le Corbusier and Dr. M. S. Randhawa whose passion for bio-aesthetics realized a city where landscape and built forms created a patina of the most charming capital of the modern world. Seven decades later, the city’s flowering landscape and modernist architecture continues to make it one of the best neighborhoods in which to reside
Architecture at the service of care: France-USA Memorial Hospital of Saint-Lô
Get PDFThe France-USA Memorial Hospital in Saint-Lô, Normandy (1948-1965), is known as one of the most relevant French Reconstruction projects. It is the first important work crafted by the French-American architect, Paul Nelson (1895-1979). His humanist approach inspired a series of unprecedented, meaningful and technical architectural innovations. The organization of the new hospital, based on functionality and modernity; polychromic and artistic inclusion; extended high-quality work, notably the "claustra" façade; ovoid surgical rooms and technical equipment are testimonies to the major quality and innovation pursued in the Memorial Hospital project. Paul Nelson’s work brings into focus the rich and comprehensive relationship between architecture, arts and care
South of Cancer: Modern Architecture’s Tropical Diasporas
Get PDFOver twenty years ago in the shadows of an architectural conference in the USA several of us from outside the American/European axis left early, finding the mainstream presentations and discussions boring, predictable and stuck in the ruts of well-worn paths. We were aware that in the wider world genuinely new ideas were emerging with rich traditions at play, altogether less constrained by self-conscious architectural production. We were keen to find a name for these new approaches emerging across latitudes below the Tropic of Cancer and settled on “South of Cancer” as a suitable catch-all for these diverse tendencies
The House of Augusto H. Álvarez in Mexico City: an Integral Architectural and Personal Project
Get PDFIn his 56 year professional career, Augusto H. Álvarez (1914-1995) built around thirty apartment buildings and over fifty houses. This article analyzes the emblematic house he built for his family between 1959 and 1961, which has been reinvented over time. It’s a work that faithfully reflects Álvarez’s appropriation and interpretation of the ideas of the Modern Movement, revealing a modulated, diaphanous, ordered and flexible space enclosed by a simple volume. It was an integral project because, aside from the structure, the architect also designed its furnishings and system of natural lighting, implementing materials that were hitherto-unused in a private residenc
Paganin House: a risen phoenix
Get PDFA risen phoenix examines the issues surrounding the reinstatement of an important post-war house in suburban Perth, Western Australia that was destroyed by fire and examines the preservation of the original architect’s design intent through use and interpretation of the documentary evidence, the physical evidence and an understanding of the personality and design ethos of the original architect by the architect for the reinstatement work
A hidden beauty. Siza’s adequacy lesson at the secret and delicate MMH
Get PDFFor the design of the Manuel Magalhães House (1967-1970), Álvaro Siza revisited the purist rationalist principles of Modern Movement architecture. This project represents a shift in his work after the first Matosinhos’ houses and the Tea House of Leça da Palmeira. The appeal to the vernacular roots and a kind of telluric topos that characterized the works of the 1950s, in this project gave rise to an abstract and minimalist approach applied to a domestic life. Intricate and meticulous in all its details from inside to out, in this house the overall design achieves a perfect harmony, in other words, a balanced and beautiful gesamkunstwerk