#6 Nov/Dec 2005

News and observations

• Richard Rogers' Court of Justice in Antwerp (BE) is nearing completion
• Business Centre Usce, a modern office building in New Belgrade (CS), is a silent witness to how ideologies can both create and destroy
• Brühl (DE), hometown of artist Max Ernst (1891-1973), honours its most famous son with a museum designed by Cologne architects Van den Valentyn in collaboration with Mohammad Oreyzi
• The Swiss Heimatschutz has been fighting for the preservation of characteristic cultural and architectural features since the end of the 19th century. On its centennial, it is attracting attention with progressive new ideas
• Update: Viennese 'visionairies'. Five practices based in Vienna (AT) that are less interested in good design than in exciting concepts
• and more…

New projects

• Münchhausen's pub in Dunte (LV), a design by Armands Bisenieks architects, is an upside-down building the baron himself could be proud of
• Past, present and future play an equal role in Manuel Herz's deconstructivist design for a Jewish community centre in Smolensk (RU)
• Lahdelma & Mahlamäki managed to beat an impressive list of big names in their competition winning design for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw (PL)
• Andrés Jaque is transforming a 1940s holiday home in Coruxo (ES). The new structures will be covered with a foam rubber material, similar to the stuffing of sofas and teddy bears
• Elastik, a network of architects operating from Ljubljana and Amsterdam, have designed a building organized around a helix device to create a new urban meeting point in Tirana (AL)
• Having won the European section of the Holcim Awards – which were recently presented in Genova (IT) – Luigi Centola and Maria Giovanna Riitano, Christoph Ingenhoven and Jürgen Mayer H. are now competing for the one million dollar jackpot
• By the end of the decade, the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava (SK) will have been reconstructed and extended to a design by Bratislava-based architects BKPS Kusy-Panak
• Connecting one bank to another is only one aspect of Hakes Associates' bridge designs, as shows their Mobius Bridge in Bristol (UK)
• Fabrizio Rossi Prodi's winning design for the provincial headquarters of Arezzo (IT), a building in the tradition of Aldo Rossi

NL Architects: Naturally optimistic

In the 1990s, Amsterdam-based NL Architects gained a reputation for brilliant ideas, but until recently they did not get too many opportunities to test that brilliance in built form. Paradoxically, just when the Dutch economy fell into recession, this all started to change. Nowadays, NL Architects are building more than ever before, with several projects under construction in the Netherlands and one in Korea. NL's Kamiel Klaasse and Pieter Bannenberg talk about their latest work.

New buildings

• Bates Maher architects created four hermitages in the Comeragh Mountains (IE), spaces where visitors can reflect on both the outer landscape and the inner mind
• What began as a limited commission to renovate the facades of a 1970s office tower in Pécs (HU) ended in the realization of two new court rooms designed by architect Jószef Koller
• In the polder landscape of Overijssel (NL) lies a floating house designed by B+O, a practice responsible for several remarkable homes in the northern Netherlands
• Two apartment buildings in Ljubljana and Izola (SI) by Ofis and Bevk Perovic show the new face of Slovenian social housing
• Architect Josef Hohensinn did not find it all that far-fetched to take home comfort into consideration in his design for a justice and detention centre in Leoben (AT)
• Polaris' logo-like pavilion in Belval (LU) is as functional as it is visually effective
• Adrian Berger and Lukas Huggenberger have transformed the Albisriederhaus in Zurich (CH), a 1930s building, without resorting to the usual juxtaposition of old and new
• In a shared church centre in Munich-Riem (DE) for Catholic and Protestant believers, Florian Nagler privileges the urban context over the churches' aim of self-representation
• Petr Hajek, Tomas Hradecny and Jan Sepka's design for a villa in Beroun (CZ) is as simple as it is playful
• A new Palace of the Arts in Budapest (HU); Zoboki, Demeter & Associates put the Ludwig Museum, National Philharmonic Hall and Festival Theatre under one roof, while giving each institute a distinct identity
• TeCe Architects teamed up with Zeynep Atas to design a complex of university campus buildings that withstands the harsh climate of Cyprus

Focusing on European countries, cities and regions

• Claes Sörstedt writes about Swedish post-Wallpaper emptiness and explains why you shouldn't bother to go to Sweden for modern architecture – yet
• A10's Danish correspondents take you on a guided tour of the best architecture in Copenhagen. Like any true Copenhagener, you'll need a bike to get around

Buildings that already get their share of media attention

Is the housing of La Pirotterie in the French town of Rezé just another effort to create high-style architecture for a low price? Sophie Roulet reflects on the 30 prototypes, masterplanned by Périphériques and designed by Marin+Trottin, Jumeau+Paillard, Jacques Moussafir, Stalker, Actar and l’Australien.