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Rem Koolhaas Professor in Practice Department of Architecture |
Projects 2006
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Abuja — The African Institute of Science and Technology, Abuja, Nigeria
AIST represents a global effort to foster SSA’s economic growth and development through the promotion of excellence in science and engineering and their applications. Each AIST campus will be a pan-African, world-class institution dedicated to academic freedom and the pursuit of excellence. Abuja embodies an essential breakthrough in the thinking about cities. In his master plan concept for Abuja, Kenzo Tange relinquished the platonic reading of the city as a more or less stable formal entity, in favour of reading the city as a process. The brilliance of the movement lay in the realisation that the benefits of the traditional city could only be invoked through its wholesale abandonment. Architecture, urbanism and engineering became enlisted in a common purpose that transcended the boundaries of each discipline per se — no longer segregated professional fields, but indistinguishable parts of a the city as a single integrated effort. Along with the integration of professional fields comes the obliteration of (what used to be) conceptual opposites: a merging of what is served and what is being served, what is neutral and what is particular, what is space and what is link, what is infrastructure what is content, what is building and what is city?
The university is probably the last program not claimed by consumption; the market’s unchartered territory. Maybe precisely because of that it constitutes the perfect programmatic vehicle to realise ambitions — both in time and in scale — which have otherwise become impossible. The problem the AIST is set to combat is the same problem we see in our profession: a fundamental lack of integration. Increasingly disciplines have become regimented into their own realm. We propose a building that mimics the city ambition: a building that represents at once a single identity and an urban condition. An identity generated by the integration and democratisation of space and place; a condition charged with the potential for incremental yet holistic growth. Our preliminary analysis reveals a range of favorable locations for the campus. The chosen location is most strategic for engaging the natural green belt, and topographic variety. It also affords visual connections to the campus from the highway and out of the building to the vista over the campus and future ATV development. The building is anchored in close to the city consequently minimizing the investment in infrastructure and forming the nucleus for future expansion into the site.
It is our assumption that the quarry processing plant has not altered the site topography excessively. Should this location be undesirable the project concept is amenable to other locations. Our ambition is to create a compact campus; fostering pedestrian circulation, facilitating continuous sheltered connection and rejecting the notion of opportunistic proliferation. Limiting the sprawl of the campus establishes a sustainable foundation that reduces investment in infrastructure, landscaping and security. The creation of a dedicated green belt following the vegetation supported by seasonal rivers naturally parcels the site. The subdivisions can be dedicated to the future expansion of the campus — ensuring a strategy for the development of AIST. Land in excess of the 112 hectares can be clearly defined and identified for specific use. The holistic identity of the project is guaranteed at each phase. This ensures flexible expansion whilst providing the desired integration, cohesion, spatial quality and functionality within the microcosm of each phase.
The campus core is a weave of education, support, and residential programs. A green strip or central axis from this core stretches across the river to as an ordering element for the socio cultural facilities that promote student-faculty interaction, particularly with the more privately located faculty housing. The ubiquitous campus typology features insular faculties — it’s identity created through singularities and monuments. Our concept interweaves the different programs, generating an identity for the campus through cohesion rather than isolation. The neutral nature of the grid facilitates freedom through its modular composition allowing for the flexible distribution of generic programs. Larger, specific programs that defy the module (the Square, convocation hall, sports hall) deform and break out of the grid to produce unique moments of distinction, further defined by the undulating topography.
The ground plane is a field of convergence — an informal plateau with a formal overhead grid shelter of traditional courtyard architecture. Ground elements of vertical connection identify the different programs within the grid. The plateau culminates at the campus center, the ‘Nelson Mandela Square’ which opens up to the vista of the landscape beyond — the future ATV and expansion of the campus. The approach is a scenic route along the green belt and seasonal stream, leading directly to the heart of the campus; the Nelson Mandela square. Discreet tertiary roads branch off to the service ring, two concealed car parks and the faculty residences. The campus is consequently highly pedestrianized. The open planted courtyards, the liberated ground plane and the narrow plans promote cross ventilation; air-conditioning is minimized and building efficiency is maximised. Covered walkways and façade screens provide shading and reduce heat gain. The landscape irrigation is supported by rainwater collected from the roofs to create oases and cool open spaces. RAK Convention and Exhibition Centre, UAE, Ras al Khaimah
Unlike the traditional high-rise building, the design for the Ras al Khaimah Convention and Exhibition Centre accommodates all primary functions, such as the convention centre, hotel rooms, apartments, offices and retail space in a giant sphere. A low-rise building adjacent to the sphere `hovers` above the ground beside the exhibtion centre, retail and additional hotel rooms. Access to the new buildings is provided by a new road system linking it to the city creating a direct connection between the new buildings and the exisiting urban structure. What is left to be invented when it comes to the creation of a landmark?
So far the 21st century — in a desperate effort to differentiate one building from the next — has been characterized by a manic production of extravagant shapes. Paradoxically, the result is a surprisingly monotonous urban substance, where any attempt at ‘difference’ is instantly neutralized in a sea of meaningless architectural gestures. RAK is confronted with an important choice: Does it join so many others in this mad, futile race or does it become the first to offer a new credibility? This project represents a final attempt at distinction through architecture:not through the creation of the next bizarre image, but through a return to pure form.
Invented long ago, both the sphere and the bar explicitly abandon claims to formal invention or ‘originality’. (The sphere even existed before man itself…) Yet both geometries still continue to feed the architectural imagination: perfectly autonomous shapes, within their bounds the promise of a perfect world— made possible only by the seamless integration of engineering. In spite of their apparent simplicity the sphere and the bar could come to represent a milestone in the construction of the new RAK and provide it with a powerful universal symbol: Western and Eastern, futuristic and primordial, contemporary and timeless.
Zaragoza Museum of Fine Arts, Spain, Zaragoza Visting Zaragoza we understood that the three buildings possess individual identities. Rather than muddy this clarity we have chosen to building upon it. The insertion of a simple volume into the existing museum reinforces its existing position in the city and liberates the other buildings from conforming to use for they were not intended. An underground connection between the school and museum maintain the existing street pattern allowing for urban renewal.
All of the collection is places in the existing museum building, consolidating collection into a whole, not a sprawl across three separate buildings. Creation of critical mass provides clarity for the collection. Associated support facilities are housed in the school building with minimal intervention. All program is accommodated in the two buildings that are feasibly available to for renovation in the near future. Should La Caridad become available we propose that it be used for open storage of artifacts found in Aragon, providing the opportunity for the display of the some 3 million artifacts in possession in the centre of the city—rather than hidden from view.
La Defense Projet Phare, France, Paris La Tour Phare is a 300 metre office and retail tower in a major business district of Paris La Défense is emblematic of the unreserved openness of the French towards modernity, as well as their current perplexity towards its result. The La Tour Phare, or the lighthouse tower, competition is representative of this: as the name suggests its function is to act as an icon, yet it will be launched from a base which is almost nonexistent. Another challenge is the division of the site into two sections allowing the passage of the pedestrian walkway Passerelle de l’Arche.
Each of these conditions influenced our design, and results in three different operations:
1. At the base, the tower emerges from an irregular site defined by a neighboring motorway and a rail link. To minimize the footprint we suspend the façade and the first floors where the passageway pierces through the hall of the building to create an intense urban experience. Instead of charging the ground of La Defense with yet another intention, we reduced the footprint to the absolute essential from which the slab emerges offering perspective sights. 2. The main rectangular volume of the building is devoted to office floors offering maximum efficiency and flexibility: from traditional office configurations to open spaces for contemporary work conditions.
3. One of the weaknesses of the skyscraper is the fact that it hides its most precious organs. At the level of the sky-lobby, we propose to radicalize the status of the skyscraper into a body with organs: four satellites hover around the main volume containing the most public functions of the building making them autonomous. In the heart of the tower this gesture liberates space for a forum with surprising views over Paris. Seen from the French Capital, the profile of the tower will never be seen as just another rational and sober tower. These three measures allow us to respond to each of the specific questions in this competition without resigning to the irresistible logic of the exceptional, the master piece, the land mark, the contemporary transformations that could not incarnate due to the site, the work, the place.
Porsche Towers, UAE, Dubai Office and residential tower at the waterfront of Dubai's Business Bay In the heart of Dubai’s Business Bay at the waterfront, the project comprises of a 85,000sqm office tower and a 30,000sqm residential tower. The office building will also comprise retail, recreational spaces and a parking garage whilst the residential building will be situated above a sunken plaza with retail and cafes. OMA’s designs of both towers take into account the climate conditions in Dubai and are designed to allow minimal impact of the sun. The office tower is framed by side wings and an overlap to create its own shadow, thereby protecting the tower from sunlight and reducing the need for air conditioning. The centred external wall is of reflected glass as an additional feature for the Dubai climate. The residential tower adjacent to the office tower will be cylinder shaped, an interior atrium following the entire height of the tower will provide natural air circulation and additional light. The façade will be made of louvers that create shadow for the interior whilst providing wide views to the outside. OMA works in partnership with Porsche Design Studio – a 100% subsidiary of the Porsche Design Group. While OMA will be responsible for the design of both buildings, the Studio will have a consulting role for the outside architecture and be in charge of designing public areas such as the lobby, restaurants and passenger lifts. Upon residents’ request, apartments may be equipped with furniture, lighting units and kitchens by Porsche Design. Rak Jebel al Jais Mountain Resort, UAE, Ras al Khaimah
Once the idea of the resort was to provide a momentary escape from everyday hardships; an earthly preview of paradise for temporary consumption...but now in the UAE, where the resort has become the ubiquitous condition, everywhere and ever present, it is the resort itself that is beginning to inspire escape. The mountain resort of Ras Al Kaimah present a spectacular natural setting. To enter the rugged landscape of these mountains still feels like breaking new ground. Rather than domesticating these baren slopes into the standard environment of the traditional resort, this project aims to create a resort that exploits their true natural conditions.
The proposed resort consists of a number of different individual parts, linked like a string of pearls by the new Jebel al Jais road. Each part offers its own way of preserving the integrity of the landscape. The modern villa — The incorporation of the garden within the walls of the villa treated like a standard part of the program just like the living room, the dining room, the kitchen etc...eliminates the need for domestication of the land around the villa. Instead the villas engage with the surroundings by capitalizing on the spectacular view. The domino units — Like a Maya Lin artwork, the square plans of the domnino units form their own pixilated mountain, a geometric variation on the natural contours of the terrain. Although the units are consolidated, they are terraced so that each unit has an uninterrupted view onto the landscape and feels like a stand alone dwelling. This area of the resort can function as a series of independent villas as well as a collective resort.
The urban cluster — A cluster of square blocks with narrow streets creates the illusion of the density of an old town centre. Through the variations in height, in response to the natural terrain, the higher leveles of each block acquire the independence and views of stand alone towers. Interior conncections between the blocks can be made at various levels. The pentagon — Seemingly an enclosed courtyard building, the Pentagon has ten facades enjoying unencumbered views to the landscape. Through its inventive sectional relationship - lifting out of the ground - the interior of the Pentagon is neither too isolated from the surrounding desert mountains nor too exposed to it creating a tempered environment that is at once expansive and intimate. The Bridge — creates a shortcut between two points of identical height; its geometry independent from yet working with the landscape is democratically distributing views over its individual units. Qatar, Education City, Qatar, Doha
OMA is designing three buildings for Education City in Doha, Qatar. Education City is a new academic campus which hosts satellite campuses from leading universities and institutions from around the world. The three buildings include the 20,000 m2 Headquarters for Qatar Foundation, a 5,200 m2 new branch for the Rand Policy Institute and a 42,000 m2 Central Library. The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (Qatar Foundation) has undertaken the first of its kind at Education City to provide world-class education by creating branch campuses of leading established academic institutions. These will be the facilities of the highest quality and design. The Qatar Foundation will be assisted in implementing this goal by Qatar Petroleum, who administers the contracts of the Education City Project on behalf of Qatar Foundation. It is the Qatar Foundation's intention that a world-renowned Signature Design Architect be involved with particular emphasis on the Concept Design and Schematic Design and, thereafter, providing Peer Review through the Design Development and Working Drawing phases of the project. The Qatar Foundation shall separately appoint an Executive Architect to work alongside the Design Architect. The Executive Architect must ensure that all Sub-Consultants and Specialty Sub-Consultants under the management of the Executive Architect are fully engaged through all stages. At the end of the Schematic Design phase, the Executive Architect will undertake the full execution of the Design Development, Working Drawings and Tender Documents phases. Milstein Hall, Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) The 43,000-square-foot Milstein Hall is to be built directly behind Sibley Hall and adjacent to the Foundry and Rand Hall. The new building will not only expand the facilities of AAP, but also create, for the first time, a vibrant public space north of Sibley. "We wanted to provide something currently absent from the college, a space with the scale to facilitate collaboration. We also saw an opportunity to reconnect the gorge to the north side of the Arts Quad," said Koolhaas.
Within Milstein Hall, space is set aside for studios, library, presentation and exhibition areas, lobby and an auditorium/boardroom, all with flexibility to be reconfigured according to the needs of students and faculty. Its height will be lower than Sibley’s, and a portion of the building will extend above University Avenue toward the Foundry. The structure will reflect the ambitious educational goals of the departments and the college, and celebrate the rich history of the school. Cornell began planning for the building when New York City developer and philanthropist Paul Milstein and his family committed a $10 million gift to the college in 1999. The decision to hire OMA – which has offices in Rotterdam, New York and Beijing – evolved as Cornell re-evaluated the functional and future goals of the project. AAP finalized plans with OMA, a firm led by six partners including Koolhaas, to design Milstein Hall in January 2006. The University expects to submit the project to the City of Ithaca for environmental and site-plan review and other approvals in the near future. Groundbreaking is expected in 2007 and total project costs are estimated at $40 million. "Seeing the Milstein Hall design formally presented will mark a huge milestone for this project," said Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning. "OMA has offered an incredible commitment to providing Cornell with a dynamic building that will not only be a significant addition to the university, but will serve as a tribute to the generosity of the Milstein family. We're thrilled to be able to share this design with students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends." Koolhaas, who studied architecture at Cornell in the early '70s and served as a guest lecturer in April 2005, presented a model of the design on Sept. 20 at a reception in New York City.
Koolhaas will lead the project along with OMA Associate, Shohei Shigematsu, whose project list includes the CCTV-TVCC headquarters and the China National Museum in Beijing as well as Universal Studios Headquarters, the Whitney Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the USA.
Kuwait Al-Rai Masterplan, Kuwait, Kuwait City The 340,000 m2 Avenues project is one of the most important and ambitious mixed-use developments taking place in Kuwait. The development will feature extensive leisure and lifestyle offerings built around a large dynamic public space. The Avenues will be a district activated by offices, hotels and a convention centre. A luxury mall and exclusive world class spa will be located around a piazza of restaurants and will create an excitement around the public space, in a manner never seen before in the Gulf.
Rak Gateway, UAE, Ras Al Khaimah Ras Al Khaimah is the furthest north of the UAE’s seven emirates and is in terms of population the fourth largest. The emirate is endowed with a wealth of natural resources and occupies a prime position on some of the world’s most important trade routes. The city of Ras Al Khaimah, the capital of the emirate, is divided into two parts by a water gill, the Khour Ras Al Khaimah. The western part is known as the Old Ras Al Khaimah and comprises Ras Al Khaimah Museum and some of the governmental departments. While the eastern part, known as Al Nakheel, comprises the Ruler’s office, governmental departments and commercial companies. The two parts are connected via a large bridge built across Al Khour that facilitates traffic between them.
Recently, Ras Al Khaimah began an ambitious phase of development including investments in infrastructure improvement, tourism, shopping, and efforts to attract industrial and commercial enterprises. By studying the program sprawl of RAK developments, OMA has discovered an obvious layering perpendicular to the coastal resort and residential areas to create a dynamic gateway into the city. To establish interesting conditions of future RAK Gateway project emplacement, OMA proposes four main locations within (and on the border of) the site area. A theme and function based experience (industrial, residential, community, residential, old town) follows from the state border until the RAK old city. 111 First Street, USA, Jersey City
111 First Street is located in Jersey City’s burgeoning waterfront development, at the center of a public transportation network created by train stations, ferry stop, tunnel and heliport. The 1.2 million square foot development’s mix of program (415,000 SF of apartments, 210,000 SF of hotel and amenities, 160,000 SF of artist work / live studios, 19,000 SF of gallery, 87,000 SF of retail and 240,000 SF of parking) will, together with the existing Powerhouse, act as a beacon for the future development of the Powerhouse Arts District into Jersey City’s cultural center. Exploration of the Known
How can we use typologies that all too often result in repetitive banality to create an urban catalyst? How can we make unknown from known?
Vertical City Beneath the blocks, a plinth fills the site, connecting the building to the city with a mix of retail, lobbies, and parking. Alternating the orientation the blocks create a series of open spaces at their junctions: the 111 First Street Public Terrace on the 5th Floor (56,000 SF), terraces for the hotel restaurant and spa on the17th Floor (15,700 SF) and two shared residential terraces on the 36th Floor (13,000 SF)
Adjacent to each terrace is a public space that activates it during the day (gallery, spa / gym / pool, restaurant) and night (cabaret, bar, restaurant, residential lounge). A central core joins all three blocks, giving structural stability to the building and providing access to upper public floors. With direct street access, the 111 First Street Public Terrace will activate the street life and create a synergy between the planned Powerhouse Entertainment Center and the Sculpture Garden north of the site. The vertical and horizontal density of public activity generated will energize the surrounding area, creating a cultural hub for Jersey City. Dubai Renaissance, UAE, Dubai High rise mixed-use building initially planned for the Dubai Business Bay
The ambition of this project is to end the current phase of architectural idolatry – the age of the icon – where obsession with individual genius far exceeds commitment to the collective effort that is needed to construct the city… Instead of an architecture of form and image, we have created a reintegration of architecture and engineering, where intelligence is not invested in effect, but in a structural and conceptual logic that offers a new kind of performance and functionality. So far, the 21st century trend in city building leads to a mad and meaningless overdose of themes, extremes, egos and extravagance.
What is needed is a new beginning, a Renaissance… Dubai is confronted by its most important choice: Does it join so many others in this mad, futile race or does it become the first 21st century metropolis to offer a new credibility? The design of the building wastes no energy on useless invention. It proposes a single monolithic volume constructed, like an elevator core, in one continuous operation – 200 meters wide and 300 meters tall. Instead of competing with the Burj Dubai merely in terms of height, it overshadows it in terms of presence and substance... If the shape of the Renaissance offers a massive presence from one side, from another angle it reveals exceptional slenderness... Both conditions will stand out among the surrounding towers, a radical experiment in alternating identities. Singapore Scotts Tower
Far East Organization, Singapore’s largest private development company, has commissioned the Office for Metropolitan Architecture for OMA’s first architectural project in Singapore — a 36-story residential high-rise. The 153 meter tall tower will be located at the intersection of Scotts Road and Cairnhill Road, in close proximity to Orchard Road, Singapore’s famous shopping and lifestyle street. With 20,000 m2 of built floor area, the building will provide 68 high-end apartment units with panoramic views. The design strategically maneuvers within the highly regulated building environment to maximize the full potential of the site: Four individual apartment towers are vertically offset from one another and suspended from a central core. The skyline of floating towers directly relates to the surrounding building volumes and explores the most attractive views towards the city center and an extensive green zone to the north. The lifted apartment towers reduce the building’s footprint to a minimum; the liberated ground level provides communal leisure activities embedded in the tropical landscape. "We are thrilled with the opportunity to create an outstanding project in partnership with OMA. The design reflects the new vibrancy and vitality of Orchard Road and Singapore. OMA with its extensive international experience will certainly bring a new perspective to luxury urban living and add to the cosmopolitan flavor of our development," says Far East Organization Chief Operating Officer, Property Sales, Chia Boon Kuah. "The collaboration with the Far East Organization is an exciting opportunity to further engage Asia," says Ole Scheeren, Partner of OMA. "The design vertically redistributes the floor area in four alternating towers to create a skyscraper in which architectural and urbanistic concerns merge with mechanisms that create added value. The architecture, in this sense, goes beyond form and generates symbiotic qualities". Ole Scheeren is leading the project’s design, together with OMA Associate Eric Chang as the Project Architect. Ole Scheeren, Director of OMA Beijing, is responsible for the office’s work across Asia, including the 575,000 m2 CCTV tower and TVCC cultural center currently under construction in Beijing. His previous work includes the Prada epicenter stores in New York and Los Angeles, for which Eric Chang also served as Project Architect.
New Court, UK, London New Headquarters for N M Rothschild & Sons N M Rothschild & Sons have had their headquarters here for 200 years, and this is only their third redevelopment of the site. The City of London Planning & Transportation resolved to grant planning permission for this scheme on 20th March 2007. PRESS 'Less is More for the City's Newest Building' By Rowan Moore, Architecture Critic The Evening Standard, 17 October 2006 'Rothschild Hires Rem Koolhaas to Design New London Headquarters' By Julia Werdigier Bloomberg, 13 October 2006
Serpentine Gallery Pavillion, UK, London Designed by Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, with Arup The Serpentine Pavilion 2006 is co-designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas and innovative structural designer Cecil Balmond. The centrepiece of the design is a spectacular ovoid-shaped inflatable canopy that floats above the Gallery’s lawn. Made from translucent material, the structure will be illuminated from within at night. The canopy will be raised into the air or lowered to cover the amphitheatre below according to the weather. The walled enclosure below the canopy functions both as a café and forum for daily televised and recorded public programmes including live talks and film screenings in the Time Out Park Nights at the Serpentine Gallery programme. Highlights include two 24-hour interview marathons (convened by Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist) with leading politicians, architects, philosophers, writers, artists, film-makers and economists exposing the hidden and invisible layers of London. A major exhibition of works by the German artist, Thomas Demand, will be on show at the Serpentine during this period. Demand is developing work to be included in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2006. Rem Koolhaas said: “The 2006 Serpentine Pavilion will be defined by events and activities. We are proposing a space that facilitates the inclusion of individuals in communal dialogue and shared experience.”
Cecil Balmond said: “These Pavilions have evolved with various structural typologies and materials, provoking a debate on architecture; this year the exploration continues not only with typology and material but with the very definition of Pavilion”. Each Summer, the Serpentine commissions an internationally acclaimed architect to design a temporary Pavilion for its lawn. The programme is unique worldwide. Conceived by Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, Serpentine Gallery, the project represents a rare opportunity for architects to create a more experimental structure in the United Kingdom, where none of those invited has ever built before. Those selected previously are Zaha Hadid, 2000, Daniel Libeskind with Arup, 2001, Toyo Ito with Arup, 2002, Oscar Niemeyer, 2003, MVRDV, 2004 (unrealised) and Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura with Cecil Balmond – Arup, 2005. Riga Contemporary Art Museum, Latvia, Riga
Over the past 20 years two types of spaces have come to dominate the display of art:
The proliferation of these two types of spaces has progressed to the point where they have become virtual 'exhibition archetypes'. Every new museum now seems to face an almost ideological choice between the two.
The premise of this project is precisely to negate such a choice. To avoid being a victim of history without resorting to its denial. It is an open secret that the presentation of art is not the only 'function' of the contemporary Museum. The very success of the institution — a pivotal centre of contemporary society — has accrued additional interests and powers that require their own infrastructure, in addition, but independent from the viewing of art. A new conceptual framework must be devised that accommodates both the museum’s traditional function and incorporates the additional roles and expectations the museum has acquired. We imagine a museum in two parts, in the form of a complete mutual dependency with a maximum interface between them. The existing power plant houses the educational, media-related and production sections of the museum. It houses a variety of experiences from video to research to public programs and performances: organized around the art without necessarily implying a direct confrontation with the art objects.
The exhibition space and the museum shop are located in an extended perimeter surrounding the existing power plant: a single continuous neutral space with a flat roof and a glass façade, embedding the old in the new making the powerplant work for the museum in a utilitarian rather than symbolic way. The use of the existing power plant (also for all the required technical and logistical services) allows this space to be evacuated of everything that would interfere with the relation between the viewer and the art object. In that sense this design accepts and accommodates the museums new functions and roles, but also restores the museum’s classical role: the organized contemplation of art.
Gazprom Headquarters, Russia, St. Petersburg The Oldest Capital of the New Europe: How long has St. Petersburg been new? For 200 years? How long has it felt old? For only 70 years? 16 years after UNESCO declared it a Heritage Site, can St. Petersburg still evolve? Its centre is St Petersburg’s most valuable asset, but can it survive on its own? Probably only if its (re) modernization is not conceived as a commercial project. Can St. Petersburg avoid the esthetics of laisser-faire and the architecture of exaggerated difference? Gazprom
And it needs spaces that offer relief – physically and mentally – from the daily intensity of work: urban facilities like sports, recreation, commerce and culture. Urbanism How to maintain coherence in a project extending across 3 different zones, containing a vast amount of different programs – the majority of which undefined – to be built over a period of at least 25 years, initiated by a company undergoing radical change? Our scheme is based on a minimum increment of definition, an urban pixel. With such an increment we can create a universal concept that defines – just-in-time – only what is necessary. Volumes of 24x24x24 meters – 6 floors, 3500 m2 – are the essential building blocks of each future structure. The consistency of the modules, maintained throughout the entire process, will guarantee the emergence of a coherent urban aesthetic that manifests, in almost any configuration, a structural harmony that resonates with the coherence of the center: flexible, yet iconic. Gazprom HQ
Twelve tubes are consolidated to form a single mass. Floors range from plates of 72 by 96 meters, or generate incomplete and irregular plans. The middle 18 floors of the building – for the greatest mass of the workers – form a rectangular solid, excavated by two interlocking atriums. The lower ‘legs’ of the building accommodate special services, plant rooms and security offices, while the smaller and more individual floors at the top accommodate management offices and meeting rooms. A horizontal cut, halfway through the building: the sky lobby reveals the building’s anatomy and introduces two layers of collective facilities that energize the whole structure. Through the urban strategy the volume of the building can be adapted to accommodate cultural, political and economic changes. Venice — The Gulf, Italy, Venice A coastal analysis reveals a new regional and global order of effort, conceptualization, and rivalry that needs to be acknowledged.
THE GULF is the current frontline of rampant modernization: a feverish production of urban substance, on sites, where nomads roamed unmolested only half a century ago. THE GULF — its initial development triggered by the discovery of oil — is undergoing hyper-development to ready for oil’s imminent depletion. GULF CITIES are in construction now. This means they are, inevitably, based on the repertoire of current urban prototypes — community (themed & gated), hotel (themed), skyscraper (tallest), shopping center (largest), airport (doubled) — cemented together by Public Space, extended soon with boutique, museum franchise and masterpiece. In its current state, THE GULF is a landscape of vast means and ambition translated with gargantuan effort in ambiguous and sometimes disappointing results, a kind of farewell performance of an ‘Urban’ that has become dysfunctional through sheer age and lack of invention.
But for that very reason — call it historical inevitability or sheer coincidence of timing — THE GULF will also be the terrain where the current architectural repertoire are so blatant, comprehensive and destructive that it has become unthinkable to rely on them as a toolbox. Eventually, THE GULF will reinvent the public and the private: the potential of infrastructure to promote the whole rather than favor fragmentation; the use and abuse of landscape – golf or the environment? ; the coexistence of many cultures in a new authenticity rather than a Western Modernist default; experiences instead of Experience™ — city or resort?
The world is running out of places where it can start over. We live in an era of completions, not new beginnings. Sand and sea along the Persian Gulf, like an untainted canvas provide the final tabula rasa on which new identities can be inscribed: palms, world maps, cultural capitals and financial centers. The West suffers from a double neglect towards this land of opportunity: a refusal to take seriously something actually originating in the West and, subsequently, an inability to detect a rising global phenomenon. Recent Gulf developments, much like Singapore and China in the 1980s and 90s, have been met with derision: “Las Vegas in Arabia”1, “Lawrence of suburbia” 2, “a bubble built on debt” 3, “skyline on crack” 4, and – most damning – “Walt Disney meets Albert Speer” 5, echoing the condemnation fifteen years ago of Singapore as “Disneyland with the death penalty” 6. The recycling of the Disney fatwa says more about a stagnation of the Western critical imagination than it does about GULF CITIES. To be a critic today is to regret the exportation of ideas that you have failed to confront on your own beat, from your own backyard. Ironically, the vast majority of developments these critics deplore have originated and become the norm in their own countries.
Is it possible to view THE GULF’s ongoing transformation on its own terms? As an extraordinary attempt to change the fate of an entire region? THE GULF is not just reconfiguring itself; it’s reconfiguring the world. Each of these GULF CITIES has been synthesizing versions of the 21st Century metropolis and now exports its own versions on an equally colossal scale to parts of the world modernity has not reached so far – from Morocco to Thailand. This burgeoning campaign to export a new kind of urbanism – to places immune to or ignored by previous missions of modernism – may be the final opportunity to chart a new blueprint for urbanism. Will architecture grasp the last chance? Prada Skirt, NY, USA, New York
After creating a sensation in Asia's two largest metropolises, Tokyo and Shanghai, the exhibition "Waist Down - Skirts by Miuccia Prada" arrived in New York. The collection of skirts designed by Miuccia Prada, which range from the first women's collection in 1988 to 2006 pieces was shown via a unique installation by AMO at Prada's New York Epicenter in SoHo. From the waist down, the human body is engaged in dynamic movements via walking, sitting, dancing... The skirt that wraps around the waist translates and expresses these movements in a million forms. As a vehicle of movement the skirt has been a stage for a number of inventions. Yet, due perhaps to the skirt's familiarity, such inventions have mostly been overlooked. At the "Waist Down" exhibition the joy of wearing and seeing skirts in motion will be reappraised.
The exhibition gave a full-fledged view of the essential pleasures of the skirt and shows why they are a wondrous medium of inventions with a hundred skirts from the vast archive of Prada's women's collections. The New York Epicenter exhibition occupied the entire stretch of space between Broadway and Mercer Street and uses all the architectonic features, including the iconic "wave", the "hanging-city" cages, the foldable "stage" and the versatile "steps" Prada Skirt LA, USA, Los Angeles
By using Prada’s vast collection of creations dating back to 1988, this exhibition highlights the skirt as a vehicle of movements where the art and creativity of Miuccia Prada flourish. The skirt is a wondrous zone of invention that has inspired the designer as well as the people who wear it. Through a variety of amusing installations ‘Waist Down: Miuccia Prada: Art and Creativity’ shows the skirt as a profound asset that is often overlooked due to its familiarity. In 2004 the exhibition was on show in the new Prada Epicenter in Tokyo. In Spring 2005 the famous Shanghai Peace Hotel became the setting in which to convey the profound joy of the skirt seen through the creative lens of Miuccia Prada. After Shanghai ‘Waist Down: Miuccia Prada: Art and Creativity’ travelled to New York followed by Los Angeles. |
