#12 Nov/Dec 2006

News and observations

• Neutelings Riedijk's Netherlands Institute for Sound and Image, Hilversum (NL)
• First Bakema Fellowship for research project on architecture and terrorism
• Poland's first architectural blob
• ArchStoyanie, a festival of wood in Nikola-Lenivets (RU)
• Eight winning projects in French-speaking Switzerland
• Bulgaria's absence from the international architecture scene
• Tourists and architects benefit from Tourist Road Project in Norway
• Update: Helsinki housing (FI)
• and more…

New projects

• Dóm Architects' understated competition design for thermal baths in Algyo (HU) gets a second viewing, after not having been understood by a jury of local architects
• In Limassol (CY), irwinkritioti.architecture were faced with the challenge of creating a landmark-building for a cruise terminal with a complex, ever-changing programme
• Swedish artist Jon Brunberg is planning a series of monuments commemorating all soldiers killed in wars since 1945. He plans the first Polynational War Memorial to arise in Normandy (FR)
• The redesign for Rogierplein by Xaveer de Geyter shows that Brussels (BE) is finally getting serious about urban design
• Tabanlioglu have brought loft life into a 30,000 m² recycled office building in Istanbul (TR)
• The renovation of the Congressenpaleis in Brussels (BE) by A2RC will even include a name change

Querkraft: The Red Bull effect

In an interview with Oliver Elser, Querkraft's Jakob Dunkl, Gerd Erhartt and Peter Sapp discuss the true reasons for banding together into a group, why a big black box suits a sporting goods manufacturer better than a Las Vegas-style running shoe, and whether one should invest € 100,000 a year in self-marketing.

New buildings

• Thurles Arts Centre and Library by McCullough Mulvin Architects lingers on the bank of the River Suir in Thurles (IE)
• In Innsbruck (AT), architects Frötscher Lichtenwagner have realized their winning Europan 1996 project: a new town centre for a big, dull housing estate
• Andrzej Kikowski and Damian Cyryl Kotwicki's office building in Olsztyn (PL)
• An exhibition pavilion in Vilnius (LT) by Paleko ARCH studio skilfully strengthens the sense of place
• RAU have converted an existing building into a CO₂-free, sustainable office for the World Wildlife Fund in Zeist (NL)
• In Zurich (CH), pool Architects have re-established the connection between Lochergut commercial centre and its urban context
• MPH architects designed a crèche in Geneva (CH) that generates social and spatial activity
• The Franz Liszt Concert Hall by Atelier Kempe Thill in Raiding (AT), the composer's place of birth, is nicely balanced between the poles of trashy and ultra chic
• DSDHA's Paradise Park children's centre in London (UK) eliminates the clichés associated with children's nurseries
• Giovanni Vaccarini has connected space and time, geometry and landscape in his design for a cemetery in Ortona (IT)

Light

Although not tangible, light is perhaps the most important 'material' that architects have at their disposal. Light is complementary to every aspect of a design; at the most basic level it makes colours, textures, spaces and forms visible, but the particular quality of the light can also subtly transform any one of these. And, of course, the presence of light is a precondition for inhabiting a building. Light brings materials to life, it can even endow a building with a 'soul'.

Focusing on European countries, cities and regions

• Although Sofia will be a EU capital in 2007, the city is still relatively unknown, as is the country itself. When it comes to architecture, Bulgaria is practically absent from the international scene
• Eurocentrism – the one-sided history of architecture. A foretaste of the editor's forthcoming publication 'Exploring Europe'
• Smile, you're in the Canaries! An 'all-inclusive' architectural tour to the EU's most outlying region: the Canary Islands (ES)
• Home: Liivi and Vilen Künnapu's weekend retreat, Haabneeme (EE)

Buildings from the margins of modern history

Cordula Zeidler discusses 66 St James's Street in London (UK), an oddly mannered 1970s building by Rodney Gordon, one of the UK's most in-your-face brutalists of the 1960s.