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Shukhov Tower, Moscow, 1922, by Vladimir Shukhov
Get PDFA world renowned engineering marvel and masterpiece of constructivist architecture, the radio tower designed by Vladimir Shukhov has garnered much attention lately. Citing the “dangerous” condition of the 92-year-old tower, in early February 2014 the Russian Ministry of Communications announced their plans for the 160 m structure: a two stage reconstruction-restoration, with the dismantling of the tower followed by reassembly at a new location. This has been deemed the de facto destruction of the tower by both experts and public opinion in general and has led to the Russian and international community to rally behind the campaign for the preservation of “Russia’s Eiffel Tower”
The “Densification” of Modern Public Housing: Hong Kong and Singapore
Get PDFIn the Asian mini-city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore, massive public housing programmes, far more extreme in density and height than their European and North American predecessors, have played an unexpectedly prominent role in development policy since the 1950s. This article explores some of the ways in which the original conventions of public housing were transformed and “densified” in these territories, and argues that the key influences in this process were not so much avant-garde modernist architectural discourses as the organisational mechanisms and political pressures within late British colonialism and decolonisation
Santa María Micaela Housing Cooperative in Valencia: a Critical Assimilation of the Modern Legacy
Get PDFThe history of Valencian architecture reached one of its highest points with a project for the Cooperativa de Agentes Comerciales, consisting of a group of 138 dwellings (1958–1961) on the corner between Pérez Galdós Avenue and Santa María Micaela Street, after which this complex is named. It is a residential complex unique for its early and conscious association with a distinct modernity that would not be limited only to the national setting, as we shall see. We only have to consider some of the leading works of that period, which revived the contributions of the grand masters, Le Corbusier being the main focus, but not forgetting Mies van der Rohe. Indeed, the critical analyses undertaken by the Team X group, as well as the interpretations of the modern legacy that the Latin American architects undertook, are well known
Women in Modern Neighborhoods: Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky; Jakoba Mulder, Lotte Stam-Beese; and Carmen Portinho
Get PDFFrom the end of the 19th century women architects had played important roles in the making of the built environment. But their presence and participation in the building of the modern city was a fact that has been forgotten over time. This text introduces the case study of the proposals made by four women: Margarete Schütte Lihotzky, Jakoba Mulder, Lotte Stam-Beese and Carmen Portinho. They are just a sample to show the importance of women’s contribution in the building of better housing and neighborhoods
Citizen Activation in Contemporary Collective Housing. Barcelona Experiences
Get PDFThis paper explores contemporary collective housing as a community resource and living heritage. The first part of the article is a conceptualization of citizen activation as a valid concept to merge actions that can transform housing into a platform to promote social cohesion. The second part lists the steps to reach citizen activation. The article highlights some examples in Barcelona: buildings where some activation activities have been stimulated and others that could start the process
From the Late 19th Century House Question to Social Housing Programs in the 30s: the Nationalist Regulation of the Picturesque in Portugal
Get PDFIn the early 20th century in Portugal, a new architecture was produced as the offspring of different references, conforming to a process of “Portugueseness” based on the picturesque. From the beginning of the dictatorship in 1926, the State took advantage of that phenomenon to sublimate nationalist values. Through the first programs of mass housing construction, the single-family house became an object of consumption and a cornerstone of national identity. The search for identity brings together different architectures across the century featuring a renewed Portuguese sentiment infused with different perspectives on the “homeland”, its history and its culture
The Correlativity of Building Form and Urban Space: Swoo-Geun Kim’s Daehangno Projects in Seoul
Get PDFSwoo-Geun Kim’s building projects in the Daehangno area of Seoul provide a remarkable example of how architects can respond to high-density environments. They also illustrate both the theoretical and the practical dimensions of the concept of correlativity, still having the potential to show us a way forward. Inspired by the urban equivalent of a traditional village structure, Kim sublimated into modern building types the fluid indeterminate spaces created by its alleyways and courtyard. This legacy is what has enabled these buildings to survive handsomely for some thirty years amid the omnipresent threat of high-density development in Seoul
Hiroyuki Suzuki (1945–2014)
Get PDFWe must bring to you all a very heartbreaking notice of the sudden and totally unexpected loss of a giant, our beloved and most admired Professor Hiroyuki Suzuki, who was not only the former and first president of docomomo Japan but also a Professor Emeritus of The University of Tokyo, Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University Graduate School and the General Director of the Museum Meiji-Mura (a major outdoor architectural museum)
Poker Faces: Seeing Behind the Mask of Convention
Get PDF“Poker Faces” interrogates the category of modernity in the history and criticism of domestic architecture, examining the relationship between formal innovation — typically used as our measure of originality — and planning innovation, in which new ways of living and experiencing the home are enabled through the translation of unconventional programs into interior spaces. Two examples of houses built for women clients — William Brainerd’s Colonial Revival “SCARAB” in Wellesley, Massachusetts (1907), built as a home for Professor Katharine Lee Bates and her life partner, Professor Katharine Coman; and Richard Neutra’s Constance Perkins House, in Pasadena, California (1955) — suggest that sometimes the most radical households lie behind self-protectively diffident façades
The Preservation of Authenticity and the Awareness of the Necessary
Get PDFThe architecture of the Modern Movement in Oporto, Portugal, built between 1940 and 1960, is a recent heritage, whose scant recognition has been accelerating its natural degradation and increasing interventions of questionable quality. On one hand, the technical and structural weaknesses of the architecture of this period can be the cause of accelerated degradation, which are, in part, a consequence of successive experiments of new materials like concrete. On the other hand, we note the absence of disciplinary criteria in contemporary interventions, which suggests the fragility of the legal and logical framework for the material protection of this architectural legacy. This study analyses multi-family housing buildings built in Oporto with undeniable architectural quality and characteristics of the Modern Movement — the Parnaso, Ouro and D. Afonso V buildings. Apart from a reflection on the strategies for renovation, reuse and effective adaptation of these buildings to contemporary living requirements, this study aims to establish a relation between the spatial, technical and social transformations and the preservation of the originality/authenticity of these buildings