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Weaving the Xenia network in post-war Greece: The ethical structure of hospitality
Get PDFTourism is examined as a vehicle for modernizing society and educating the people about mobility and the emerging cultures of leisure in postwar Greece. The focus lies on the historical, social and political milieu in which the re-launched Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO) conceived and carried out the state-run Xenia program for a network of accommodation facilities and infrastructure, in the 1950s and 1960s. The Xenia network upgraded Greece’s hotel hospitality and consolidated its tourism industry as a strong pillar of its economy. More importantly, it rewove the country’s war-torn social fabric by infusing Greek society with visions of individual prosperity, collective progress and democratic participation
From “White City” to “Bauhaus City” – Tel Aviv’s urban and architectural resilience
Get PDFIn the early 1930s, Modernism became the normative style of architecture in Tel Aviv. This was due to the architects who operated in Tel Aviv, from all over Europe, including architects who studied at the Bauhaus. This essay will discuss how Modernist Tel Aviv evolved from the “White City” (UNESCO World Heritage Site) to the “Bauhaus City”, and how these myths, constantly being reinvented, have contributed to the city’s resilience, which has enabled urban and architectural conservation
David Chipperfield
Get PDFOn the 4th March 2019, at his Berlin Office, DJ (Ana Tostões, editor, and Michel Melenhorst, guest editor) interviewed David Chipperfield, an internationally renowned architect, founder of David Chipperfield Architects (1985) whose work is recognized with important awards such as the RIBA Stirling Prize, the
European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture (Mies van der Rohe Award) and the Deutscher Architekturpreis
The right to holidays or the emergence of an era of optimism
Get PDFIn 1937, CIAM 5 specifically linked the housing question to leisure, considering it an absolute necessity to acknowledge that the most privileged places will be chosen for the location of these leisure areas. Taking possession of these places by large masses will allow for rest and outdoor exercise, the indispensable recuperation of the forces lost in the city. As Charlotte Périand (1903–1999) asserted, the need to create machines à recréer, the goal was definitively to assure “the happiness of men”. From the first optimistic architectural swimming-pool complexes to discovering the enjoyment of beaches or of winter sports in the mountains, these “architectures of the Sun” began to link the power of landscapes with the relaxation and pleasure of the human body. Associated with healthy living and claimed for all, for the first time, the beaches, mountains, lakes and forests became identified as places for vacations
Holiday colonies for Italian youth during Fascism
Get PDFThousands of summer colonies were created for youth in Fascist Italy (1922–1943). Most were temporary structures set up to assist children only during the daytime; dozens became the concrete symbol of the totalitarian project undertaken by Fascism to shape “new Italians” starting from childhood. Actually the colonies promoted by the organizations of the regime, state agencies and industrial companies, due to a lack of precise “models” of reference for the architects involved, present a highly varied expressive panorama, reflecting the complexity of the architectural debate in those years and the difficulties that faced any truly modern approach to architecture
Hotel megastructures: the Balaia “turn key” experience in Portugal
No full textThe Balaia Hotel (1964–1968) near Albufeira, in the Algarve, designed by Francisco Conceição Silva and Maurício de Vasconcellos, is one of the first and most iconic seaside holiday megastructures built in Portugal. In its territorial approach, physical dimension and range of amenities, it represents a new stage of development in seaside tourism accommodation facilities. A self-contained and self-sufficient structure that shapes its own landscape. Also, the “turn key” commission implied the transition from the small-scale architecture office to the multidisciplinary design and planning firm, revolutionizing the Portuguese architectural culture and professional practice. This essay addresses the impact of the Balaia Hotel on the traditional structures of architecture production and, consequently, on the disciplinary debate of the 1960s in Portugal
100 years back, 100 years forward
Get PDFThe Bauhaus had a pioneering influence on design worldwide which still endures today; through education, experimentation and materialization, a revolution took place in architecture, urbanism and design for mass production. In 1918, during the immediate post-war period, Walter Gropius (1883-1969) achieved a fusion between the Kunstgewerbeschule and the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunst in Weimar, with the creation of an interdisciplinary school of design and crafts. In April 1919, he was elected director of the school which was by then called the Staatliches Bauhaus. He also published the Bauhaus Manifesto, which remains as a pioneering moment in history, with irreversible consequences at a global scale. The Bauhaus as a school, as a method of experimentation, education, and research, embodies the idea of science applied in service of the society. At the Bauhaus, utopia was combined with pragmatism, agitation and propaganda with public service, poetry with utility, Neue Sachlichkeit with creation and freedom. Its premises continue to be relevant today with the great issues of sustainability and democracy needing to be addressed through art and technology
Education for Adaptive reuse – the TU Delft Heritage and Architecture Experience
Get PDFThe Section for Heritage and Architecture of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at the Delft University of Technology specializes in architectural education for adaptive reuse of heritage buildings, with a specific focus on the built heritage of the 20th century. Our approach combines architectural design and technological knowledge with an approach that places values as central informants. Here we present our approach, explore the past and project a future evolution of our educational methodology. Finally, we reflect on the lasting relevance of the tangible and intangible heritage of the recent past as aim and source of our educational practice
The Yale Center for British Art: a Building Conservation
Get PDFThe Yale Center for British Art was designed by acclaimed American architect Louis I. Kahn to house a collection of British art on the campus of Yale University. The Center, Kahn’s third and final museum building, was designed between 1970 and 1974 and opened its doors to the public in 1977. By 2002 it was evident that the building was fast approaching a crossroads: finishes had reached the end of their lives, program space was in desperate demand, patron amenities and life safety measures no longer met contemporary standards and, worst of all, infrastructural systems strained to sustain the environments demanded to protect the collections. The integrity of Kahn’s architecture was in jeopardy. What follows is the story of what came next: how the building was painstakingly researched and analyzed, and how a series of projects ensued to re-equip the Center to present and protect its collection for decades to come
Friedrich Weinwurm: Slovakia’s nearly forgotten contribution to the European architectural avant-garde
Get PDFWork of the architect Friedrich Weinwurm represents the most consistent contribution from within Slovakia to the activities of the international architectural avant-garde. Friedrich Weinwurm fully matched the idea of a socialist-minded architect, organizer of public life and visionary of a new social order. The new way that Friedrich Weinwurm followed in his architectural work ran parallel to the paths of the leading representatives of the European left-wing avant-garde. In Slovakia, these works represented the most coherent allegiance to the program of the New Objectivity, and the vision of a Marxist-inspired architecture. As such, Friedrich Weinwurm held a key role in ensuring that inter-war Bratislava formed one of Europe’s important focal points for modern architecture