Tag: architecture
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Architecture vs. Capitalism 2021
How does one act ethically within a fundamentally unethical system? Should or could architects challenge the conditions of production within the economy, or should they rather simply work within the framework that has been prescribed by the powers that be? Resources in one form or another are a non-negotiable prerequisite for construction. Primarily, these resources…
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WAUA returns
After a brief hiatus (9 ½ years), I have decided to resuscitate this blog. The world has changed since the last time I blogged, as has the small and idiosyncratic world of architectural blogging. Clicking through my ‘blogroll’ from last time around, one might think that some unknown cataclysmic event put all architecture blogs into…
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MAXXI by Zaha Hadid Architects
How does an art institution come to be? Historically, private collections were made public – the Soane Museum for example, or the Louvre, where the king’s private collection was opened to the public after the revolution. In most cases, though, a building was constructed for or around a collection in one way or another. MAXXI…
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Tax-optimised Architecture
image copyright Rossanna Bartoli The relationship between architecture and property taxation is a territory that is largely unexplored as far as I know. A few attempts are made to create tax incentives, primarily to create walkable neighbourhoods or to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. There is, however, an entirely different side of architecture influenced…
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Stealth architecture
I walked by this interesting and charming residential building in northern Berlin the other day. It turns out it was designed by Brandt und Simon Architekten, who incidentally also designed my local bar, Kohlenquelle which, to be perfectly honest, I up to now suspected had never been designed at all. The striking feature of the…
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Swedish anxiety
-Most links in this post link to websites in Swedish- In recent years, almost every medium- to large-scale urban project in Stockholm has been subject to such massive public and professional resistance that in the end, the projects have been abandoned. Naturally, this situation is not unique to Sweden or Stockholm, but it has reached…
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Brunnenstrasse, Berlin, by Arno Brandlhuber
In Brunnenstrasse, Mitte, a very interesting building has been completed by architect Arno Brandlhuber. This is perhaps the antithesis of the L-40, where the L-40 is carried through with a minimum of compromise and adaptation, this is all compromise and adaptation. And it is all the more interesting for it. The building is located in…
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L-40, Berlin
The other day, the scaffolding came down from one of the most awaited construction projects in Berlin this year, at least by me; the L-40 at the end of Linienstraße, on the corner of Rosa Luxemburg Platz and Torstraße. For once, I can easily fit architecture, urbanism and art into the same post. The building…
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Hejduk
Berlin is a place of architectural experimentation, of unique and sometimes fantastic experiments that have no counterparts in other cities. Some of the first gems of Modernist and Expressionist architecture can be found here. What has been forgotten is however the gems of Post-modernism, a period much maligned and despised, but which never the less…