#9 May/June 2006

News and observations

• Hotel Marqués De Riscal in Elciego is Frank Gehry's second building in Spain
• Three shops, one client, one architect: three new shop interiors in Graz (AT) by purpur
• Le Corbusier's Saint-Pierre church has been realized posthumously in Firminy (FR)
• In Szugló (HU), a suburb of Budapest, one of the country's largest snooker and pool establishments recently opened its doors
• Francesca Ferguson has been selected as the new director of the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel (CH)
• Reality check: kindergarten with multi-purpose hall, Outgaarden (BE)
• and more…

New projects

• Zurich architects Isa Stürm and Urs Wolf have designed a museum in Teufen (CH) where cars are exhibited in dynamic racing spaces
• A creative use of voids gained architects Dinko Peracic and Roman Silje the first prize in a competition for the new building of the Civil Engineering Faculty in Osijek (HR)
• The Kopernik Research Center in Warsaw (PL) by RAr2 Architecture Laboratory is an elaborate example of 'architectural erosion'
• FBW Architects' design for the 'Omnizorgcentrum' in Apeldoorn (NL) offers the promise of a better life for the have-nots for which the buiding is intended
• In their design of a cultural centre in Soignies (BE) L'Escaut Architecture once again prove that contemporary architecture does not have to mean a break with the past
• Three new housing projects in Bratislava (SK) show how young Slovakian architects are managing to skate over the difficult terrain of housing production in the Slovak capital
• The  competition-winning design for the Estonian National Museum in Tartu embodies a rich spatial journey

5+1: Global provincials

One of the upcoming Italian architecture firms of the moment is 5+1 of Genoa. A10's Daria Ricchi spoke with two of the partners, Alfonso Femia and Gianluca Peluffo, about their work and architecture in Italy.

New buildings

• Drozdov&Partners' sushi bar in Kharkov (UA) is a fascinating play of light and glass
• In Stockholm (SE) Johan Celsing has designed a transparent envelope for Sweden's largest publishers
• Peter Barber has created an eclectic marvel with his Donnybrook housing scheme in London (UK)
• G.A.S. Architekten make personal space more collective and vice versa, as shown in their housing project in Eysins-Nyon (CH)
• In Jurmala (LV), young architects Infinitum designed a wooden gymnasium that blends well with its surroundings
• Randic and Turato's school in Krk (HR) is the result of a happy synergy
• The precision and commitment G+W arquitectos expended on the design of a kindergarten in Madrid (ES) extended to helping to build it
• Is the Gruta das Torres Centre on the Azores (PT), designed by architects SAMI, the new gateway to Atlantis?
• The houses in Witbrant-Oost – a suburb of Tilburg (NL) – by Erna van Sambeek and Jacq de Brouwer, display an unusual inversion
• With the extension of a primary school, AAC's Marc Belderbos and Marc Vande Perre have inserted a foreign object into the cityscape of Brussels (BE)
• Unhindered by the restrictions that applied to the exterior of a mixed-use building in Prague (CZ), Zdenek Franek let himself go in the courtyard
• PLAN01 has created a museum in Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne (FR) which meets the client's wish that the building should blend into the landscape
• In Ljubljana (SI), Bevk Perovic challenge the conventions governing the single-family house
• With a limited number of highly focused interventions, Louis Paillard has transformed a former steel industry building in Valenciennes (FR) into an arts school
• In Sipoo (FI), Sari Nieminen designed a school that is a village in itself

Limitless glass

The role of glass in architecture is unique: while concrete, wood and steel fulfil the most elementary function of a building in the form of space-defining constructions and load-bearing walls, glass connects the interior and exterior of a building. For architects, the realization of that connection is a perpetual quest for the right balance between light, views and warmth in relation to a particular place, orientation and climate. An inspiring quest revealing the relation between the production process, the properties and the application of glass.

Focusing on European countries, cities and regions

• Vesna Vucinic explains why Belgrade today is unlikely to attract any attention for the quality of its urban design or new architecture
• A building boom is currently turning classical Vienna into one of Europe's must-see cities for anyone interested in contemporary architecture. An architectural tour of Vienna with A10's Oliver Elser
• Office: Rothuizen van Doorn 't Hooft's fortified office in Breda

Buildings that already get their share of media attention

UN Studio's Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart (DE) is anything but a pointlessly spectacular sculpture, as Ursula Baus writes. 'Its expression suits the purpose of the building, which is about the interplay of technology and design.' Moreover, she praises it as 'an incisive structure on the outside, a thoroughly informative, entertaining, yet not overloaded exhibition scenario inside.'