University Library

The University Library (2004) in Utrecht designed by Wiel Arets is a recent addition to the collection of contemporary dutch architecture at Utrecht University. A finely textured black concrete and glass box houses the main library. The interior is characterised by large cavernous spaces which create visual connections between the different floors and study areas. The enormous scale of the voids gives the library a lofty and monumental atmosphere whose predominantly black materiality is imbued with a feeling of seriousness. The study areas are connected by ramps and staircases and provide a range of atmospheres from large and open to small and intimate for people to work in. The silk screen double glazing, textured concrete, white tables and light floor colour create a diffuse natural light within the library.

The library contains a bar, lounge, large reception area and auditorium which are characterised by red rubber finishes and furniture creating a more dynamic and multi-purpose program.

La Defense

The La Defense office complex (2004) designed by UN Studio is a building whose exterior responds to the urban context and plan and visibly different interior facades is created for the office tenants. The planning of two buildings separated by a continuous internal street and courtyards is integrated in both scale and circulation with the urban plan. The silver exterior facade reflects the surrounding context.

The internal facades are clad in glass panels with an integrated multi-coloured foil which changes colour and character depending on the angle of incidence and daylight. The material is amazingly sensitive to light and brightly coloured even on a dull grey day and gives the internal courtyards a unique and bright character.

The Economist Building

The Economist Building (1959-64) designed by Alison and Peter Smithson. This complex of three small towers set onto a plaza is located in central London. It's smaller than expected scale gives the plaza and buildings a more humane feeling than similar buildings and urban compositions of much larger scale. The scale is appropriate to the surrounding context of St James and the fossil-rich Portland stone gives the buildings and plaza a more durable quality and atmosphere than concrete buildings of the same period.

I was surprised how much more elegant these buildings are than I had expected. The scale was also surprising being compact enough to create an intimate relationship between the towers and comfortable scale of the plaza and pedestrian routes. The buildings integration with the surrounding context and connection to the surrounding streets also prevents it's plaza from becoming a barren wasteland like so many similar buildings of the 1960's. This probably has more to do with the existing context and location in central London than it does from any particular characteristics of the design.

Barbican Estate

Barbican Estate (1982) designed by Chamberlin, Powell & Bon.

Lloyd's of London (again)

Lloyd's of London (1979-1984) designed by Richard Rogers Partnership

Tarling East

Tarling East (2008) designed by S333. Having worked for S333 in Amsterdam for 12 months I was very interested in visiting their first completed project in the UK. The building continues their exploration into alternative solutions to medium density housing and a design approach which involves careful analysis of context.

Tarling east contains 32 dwellings which range from one-bedroom apartments to six-bedroom family homes. The block includes rows of three storey homes which relate to the traditional terrace block and has the horizontality and scale of the brick estates found all over East London. Roof terraces provide generous safe and protected external areas.

The variety of apartment types provides housing for a diverse range of inhabitants, some of which are uncommon in new inner-city residential developments. The obvious attention to the importance of light, sun and garden spaces for the residents add to the amenity of the dwellings.

Elektra House

This small house designed by David Adjaye in 2000 for two artists presents a windowless rectangular façade clad with phenolic resin faced ply. Windows are visible on the white rear façade but reveal a blank wall within the house and provide a view of the sky from the interior.

As the house gives nothing away of it’s interior which, because it is a private house, was I unable to visit. The ground floor is one space with a small kitchen and a small external area. The first floor that is set back from the front and rear façade contains three bedrooms and a bathroom. Natural light is provided by roof lights and in two rooms a window looks onto a blank wall.

Idea Store

The Idea Store (2005) designed by David Adjaye is a public library located in one of the poorest areas of East London. The coloured glass façade presents and optimistic and playful character in an otherwise bleak urban environment. Reflecting the activity of the street market located on the footpath in front of the building. The disused main entrance protrudes from the façade and has a strong presence on the footpath bringing the visitors up onto the first floor of the building on an escalator. The current entrance is located at street level and I imagine the escalator would provide a much stronger threshold between the bustling street and the quieter interior. The provision of a side laneway to the local supermarket further integrates the building with the context and daily activity of the community

The Idea Store is a combination of a community center, youth center and library and contains classrooms, studios, workshops, libraries and a café that are loosely arranged and mixed throughout the building ensuring intensive use of all areas. The materials are economical and carefully detailed suggesting the building was constructed on a small budget that has not diminished the importance of the program or character of the interiors.

Hearst Building

The Hearst Building designed by Norman Foster is situated on top of the original six-storey headquarters buildings that was designed by Joseph Urban and constructed in 1928. The preservation of the façade has resulted in an effective balance between the need for a new building and corporate identity for the Hearst Corporation whilst maintaining and renovating the original streetscape, responding to the two distinct urban conditions of New York City; the original facades of older buildings at ground level and the glittering towers of the New York Skyline. The tower’s sculpted geometry and exposed structural steel frame has created a strong image of a 21st century skyscraper.

The building is the first ‘green’ high rise office building in New York City. The building employs a number of devices including an under floor heating and cooling system using polyethelene tubes filled with circulating water, and rain water collection that is used for the cooling system, irrigation of plants and the water sculpture in the lobby. The efficient diagonal steel structure was constructed with 80% recycled steel.

As with other recent works by Foster the environmental sustainability of the design is a key consideration yet is carefully concealed in the design as not to compromise the design or highlight the buildings ‘green’ credentials and are excellent examples of how this can be achieved.

MoMA

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is a collection of important buildings located on 53rd St in New York that have been artfully combined into a single gallery by Yoshio Taniguchi in 2004.

The importance of the gallery to architecture has a long history. Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson curated the exhibition ‘Modern Architecture: International Exhibition’ in 1932 which bought European Modernism to a wide audience in America. In the title of the touring exhibition and accompanying book the phrase ‘The International Style’ was coined by Hitchcock and Johnson. MoMA then constructed Americas first International Style Building in 1939.

Philip Johnson was the first director of the museum’s department of architecture until 1934 and constructed the sculpture garden and a new wing in 1954. Cesar Pelli built a 53-storey residential tower on top of the museum in 1984 which provided funding for the museum’s growth.

In 2004 Yoshio Taniguchi created a major expansion of the museum spaces and integrated the existing buildings into the enormous gallery that MoMA is today. The restrained geometries and materiality of the neThe Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is a collection of important buildings located on 53rd St in New York that have been artfully combined into a single gallery.

The gallery has successfully expanded and reinforced it’s importance as a leading world gallery and is an excellent example of the way buildings can respond to contemporary needs and requirements for expansion whilst maintaining the best of it’s various original buildings through innovative ways of bringing them together.

Lever House

Located opposite Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building Lever House’s tower and podium is as copied and rarely equaled as the Seagram building. Together these two towers define 20th century skyscraper architecture.

The single-storey mezzanine base is supported by columns creating a public pedestrian area beneath. The tower sits on top of the podium with the lowest floor of the tower recessed to reinforce the seperation between the two elements. The opaque glazing of the top three floors conceals the machinery and reflects earlier skyscraper design by creating a capital at the top of the building and balancing the geometry of the base.

At only 24 stories the building is dwarfed by the surrounding towers but it’s diminuitive scale does not diminish the impact of it’s high quality and elegant design. Lever House was one of the first SOM buildings that brought the firm to prominence.

Seagram Building

Considered on of the most elegant skyscrapers in New York, Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram building has been copied countless times yet rarely equaled. It’s elegant proportions and innovative placement on the site that creates a forecourt with reflecting pools and a low boundary wall in green marble sets the building apart from it’s context and announces it’s opulence and quality. The successful translation of ideas from his seminal Barcelona Pavilion (1929) to a large scale project gives the building a distinguished presence at both street level and within the streetscape.

One of the defining features of the Seagram building is the application of bronze I-beams to the exterior of the building. The I-beams create a subtle ornament and texture to the otherwise flat facade and reinforces the verticality and proportions of the building.

The exquisite detailing and command of new and old materials gives the Seagram building a quality and richness that is lacking in so many skyscapers. The relationship of the inhabitant and the materials and their ability to define space and create atmosphere with minimal means is remarkable. The relationship between the various parts of the building and different materials through precise detailing reinforces the consistency of the ideas and language of the building.

Blue Tower

This seventeen storey tower located in the Lower East Side contains thirty-two apartments and rises to a height of 55m. The building is Bernard Tschumi's first residential tower and his second building in New York City.

The building took two and a half years to design and construct and was influenced by the constraints of NYC zoning laws and market-driven commercial forces. Despite the attempt to create an interesting form which adheres to building codes and creates a unique building the impression of the building is one that was built with an insufficient budget and is a poor response to the context.

The blue pixelated facade stands out against the sky as it rises far above the neighbouring buildings of the historic Lower East Side neighbourhood when it would be better if the building was more inconspicuous. The design of the facade is supposed to represent the diversity and the dynamism of the neighbourhood, as well as the internal organisation of the building, but how a pixelated facade of varying shades of blue represents diversity or distinguishes different internal areas is unclear as the building appears as a boldly singular gesture.

Designing a striking building in a historic neighbourhood with a modest budget and strict zoning laws is challenging. The Blue Tower has made an attempt to balance and exploit these conditions but in doing so unfortunately highlighted it's failure to respond to each of these conditions successfully.

Yale University Art Gallery

The Yale University Art Gallery (1953) was Louis Kahn's first major commission and is considered his first masterpiece. The Gallery was designed whilst Kahn was a visiting critic at the Yale School of Architecture.

The building is constructed of brick, concrete, glass and steel and was a significant departure from the dominant neo-gothic style of the Yale University campus. From the street the building appears as a monolithic windowless brick facade. The entrance and glazed facade opposite the Art and Architecture building by Paul Rudolph are beautifully proportioned and detailed.

The interior of the building is characterised by a precast concrete ceiling system which houses the gallery lighting and ventilation. The ceiling was an innovative structural and engineering system of hollow concrete tetrahedrons that combine a number of functions and give the interiors a rich and moody quality.

Art and Architecture Building

Paul Rudolph's masterpiece, the Art and Architecture Building at Yale University(1963), is a spatialy complex building which includes 37 level changes and numerous spatial devices to allow views and light through the building into the various studio and gallery spaces. The exterior of the building is constructed of bush hammered concrete which exposes the aggregate and controls staining and discoloration. The interior building is predominantly concrete in a variety of finishes and textures with orange highlights used for carpets and soft furnishings.

The planning of the building and arrangement of spaces was intended 'to excite and challenge the occupants.' Level and ceiling changes rather than walls are used to define different functional areas and citculation and create dramatic lighting effects.

At an urban scale the building was intended to respond to the corner site and views from the surrounding streets whilst at the same time establishing a dialogue with the Louis Kahn Art Gallery opposite and the Gothic Architecture of the Yale University Campus.

Yale Center for British Art

The Yale Center for British Art, 1969-1974, was the last building of Louis Kahn and was completed after Kahn's death. The facade is constructed of matte steel and glass with visible timber blinds behind. The beautifully detailed interior finishes are travertine marble, white oak, and Belgian linen.

The plan is based on a 20-foot-square grid, which creates a linear series of rectangular gallery spaces arranged around two inner courts which, like the entire top floor, are naturally lit from above through a coffered skylight system. One court forming the entrance foyer and one a main three storey high gallery space with large paintings. The interior of the building is a calm, light-filled space. The exposed concrete structure with oak paneled inserts creates a rich materiality and reinforces the human scale of the gallery.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library was designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and completed in 1963. The building is located on the grounds of Yale University, New Haven.

The facade is constructed of white, grey-veined Vermont marble panes which are one and one-quarter inches thick set into a frame of Vermont Woodbury granite. The thin sheets of marble filter the light allowing rare materials to be displayed without being damaged. The stone, rich materiality and rectilinear geometry gives the building a strong presence amongst the Gothic buildings of Yale University. The warm golden light and towering space around the central glass 'cabinet' of rare books is surprisingly different from the cool pale exterior.

Radisson SAS Royal Hotel

Radisson SAS Royal Hotel (1960) designed by Danish Architect Arne Jacobsen was the first skyscaper in Copenhagen. The Hotel is located close to the central station and Tivoli in the heart of Copenhagen.

The 20-storey building is a modernist tower and podium high rise. The facade is a delicate curtain wall with fine aluminium mullions said to be inspired by SOM's Lever House building on Park Ave. The beauty of the building lies in the refined and tasteful proportions, detailing and material selection whose modernist language is enhanced by the furnishings and lighting. The organic forms of the furnishings contrasts the rectilinear geometry of the building whilst complementing each other.

Room 606 remains furnished according to the original design.

Arne Jacobsen

Oslo Opera House

The Oslo Opera House (2007) designed by Norwegian architects Snøhetta is located in Bjorvika in the centre of Oslo. The 38,500m² building contains two theatres, one with 1,350 seats and one with 400 seats.

The tiered and sloping form of the building clad in white marble evokes the feeling of a natural landform similar to that of glaciers and mountains. The connection to the water and ability for people to move up the ramps on the roof of the building creates a strong connection to both the landscape, the city and it's inhabitants. The building is both distinctly Norwegian and for the people of Norway. This careful balance of cultural specificity and the buildings role in the city and function creates a fantastic cultural building which has been quickly adopted by the city.

The foyer is clad in oak battens which gives the foyer a warmth and texture which is different from the marble clad exterior. The intimacy is enhanced as one enters the circulation around the main auditorium that is clad completely in timber.



Oslo Opera House

Museo di Castelvecchio

Museo di Castelvecchio is a museum located in a medieval castle which was restored by the Italian Architect, Carlo Scarpa, between 1959 and 1973. Scarpa's sensitive interventions are most prominent in the places of human contact with the building, notably circulation and thresholds. Scarpa's intimate knowledge of materials is visible in the exquisite detailing and harmony between the old and the new. Scarpa also designed many of the display case's and frames which house paintings and sculptures.

Scarpa's remarkable ability to intervene in the sensitive fabric of old italian cities enriches both the existing builing and context and the new architecture.