Tag: urbanism
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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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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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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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Berlin- The void as a monument
One of these days, it will be twenty years since the Berlin Wall fell. Since then, Germany has been reunited and Berlin has risen like a comet, or phoenix, and crash-landed again. During the first few years after the wall came down, there was an investment in the reunited city that rarely has been rivaled…
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Times Square- an urban living room or the Ministry of Truth?
The first time I walked by Times Square a few years ago, I didn’t think very much of it. The place had already gone through its transformation from seedy to touristic and the place felt mainly like a scaled up version of Piccadilly Circus, taller buildings, more lights and more traffic. It possessed no qualities…
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Sur le pavé- la plage!
“Sous le pavé- la plage!”, or “Underneath the paving stones – the beach!” was a graffiti painting in Paris, associated with the Situationist International movement that referred to the festivity and creativity that exists underneath the repressive and pacifying order of the society they perceived. The state of the urban public spaces are these days…
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Filling in the blanks
The railway station, as a building type, has had its ups and downs over the last two centuries. From its humble beginnings in Liverpool, it evolved into the grandiose cathedrals of St Pancras, London, Grand Central Terminal, NYC or the Victoria Terminus in Bombay. Then, at some point in the middle of the last century,…
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On the strange disappearance of semi-spaces in London
On a recent trip to London, I started thinking about the concept of Semi-spaces, i.e. Semi-public and semi-private spaces and how these are created. First a short definition of semi-spaces: Semi Private space– Here defined as a space that is access controlled and accessible to residents and associated people only. An example here would be…
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Back to the bazaar
Shopping arcades may be fighting a losing battle for consumers in the long run. They appear to be too rigid in structure, lack complexity and adaptability. For the last years, internationally, there’s been a triumphant return for the department store. In London; Selfridge’s, Harvey Nichol’s and last, but not least; Dover Street Market, these are…