Ron Arad at Ivorypress

With his annual September shows at the Ivorypress Gallery, Norman Foster has single-handedly put Madrid on the map as far as first-class architecture exhibitions go.

After memorably featuring Jean Prouvé, Bucky Fuller or Zaha Hadid in past editions, this year he turns to a younger London contemporary, Ron Arad.

From the Ivorypress web page:

"From 5 September, Ivorypress will host a solo exhibition of architect and designer Ron Arad (Tel Aviv, 1951). The show—as part of the annual architecture programme celebrated each autumn at Ivorypress to mark the beginning of the season—covers the achievements and the latest work of this label-defying artist who has been based in London since the 1970s.

"The exhibition, which will run until 9 November, shows his singular perspective on architecture, design and the artistic object. With his interest in experimentation as a starting point, Ron Arad studies the expressive possibilities of different materials such as steel, aluminium, Corian and polyethylene.

"His approach to form and structure has a freedom which is unlimited by links or borders. ‘The principle is that everything should be based on something that didn’t exist before’, says Arad. In line with this philosophy, the show includes some of his most iconic works along with industrially produced objects and several mock-ups and architectural projects.

"Among Arad’s latest experiments that will be on show at Ivorypress Space, the Folly bench (2013) is particularly worthy of mention. Made by rotational moulding, Folly constitutes a large sculptural object composed of soft lines that endow it with great vitality. Movement, whether in his functional creations or in his purely aesthetic pieces, is always the main element of his work.

​"Also among the objects on show is Blame the Tools (2013), in line with Arad’s early works made of waste materials. Additionally, the selection includes the workstation No Bad Colours (2013), which is the source of another experimental line of inquiry, centred on technological components rather than on plastic or ergonomic value. The exhibition at Ivorypress Space provides the opportunity to observe the diversity of his work and to re-examine his creative production.

"Ron Arad received his training from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, in Jerusalem, and the Architectural Association School of Architecture, in London. In 1981 he founded the One Off design and production studio with Caroline Thorman and in 1989 he created the Ron Arad architecture and design studio. He has also been Professor of Design Products at Royal College of Art in London from 1998 to 2009."

Ron Arad 
Sept. 5 - Nov. 9, 2013

Ivorypress 

Comandante Zorita 46-48

28020 Madrid SPAIN

Monday to Friday, 10:00 - 14:00; 16:30 - 20:00

Saturday, 11:00 -  2:00

 

 Photo:
"Southern Hemisphere", 2006

© Ron Arad and Associates

Courtesy of Ivorypress

How Much is that Rolex in the Window?

Photos by José Hevia

 The one with the Molybdenum eyes? If you have to ask....

My latest assignment took me to Puerto Adriano, a Philippe Starck designed marina on the island of Mallorca, to visit the latest jewelry boutique for the Relojería Alemana by the young Madrid-based architect couple Jaime Oliver and Paloma Hernaiz of OH-Lab.

Selling luxury goods to new-rich foreigners from Russia, China and the Middle East is one of the few areas in which the Spanish economy is actually booming.

Here the attractive young sales staffers, dressed in tall heels and the rest, are a Russian blond and a petite Bulgarian. If you look the part and linger too long over the window displays, they will slip a glass of French champagne into your hands and start to chat you up in a soft purring voice with a beguiling accent. The real high-rollers are ushered into the suede-lined VIP room, where a panel pops open to reveal a glittering back-lit bar with an exquisite selection of icy, transparent liquors. A dangerous mission indeed.

Your mission, if you chose to accept it, is to read my article before it self-destructs in 30 days, That's right, the magazine removes its web content after a month, except for subscribers.

Midas Touch
"On a tony new marina, a young duo crafts a glittering jewel box for a storied luxury retailer"
Architectural Record, Record Interiors, September 2013

Me and Martin

My father sent me the press blurb promoting Martin Filler's latest book, Makers of Modern Architecture, Volume II. In the first paragraph I am quoted as follows:

"...longtime New York Review of Books contributor Martin Fille—“probably the best all-round architecture critic currently working in the United States,” according to the architectural journalist David Cohn—..."

And I thought, "How generous of me." Think of that, they had to go to all the trouble to look me up to find someone in the same field willing to say a nice thing about a fellow slogger.

Then I looked up where the quote came from, a blog entry dated April 14, 2012, in which I managed to follow that praise with some pretty nasty putdowns:

"The lengthy article, reviewing the recent show on Koolhaas at the Barbican Center in London,  includes interesting tidbits about Koolhaas' background, mentions his new book on Japanese metabolism, and offers an overview of his career. But the limitations of its North American perspective are finally disappointing."

"Typically, Filler is unable to appreciate Koolhaas' fascination for Wallace K. Harrison, Nelson Rockefeller's architect -- the most genuinely American cultural phenomena tend to be under-appreciated at home. He offers the usual politically-correct tisk-tisk-tisking about Koolhaas' work for the Chinese "dictatorship" (precisely the kind of lock-step intoning of American foreign-policy positions in the supposedly "liberal" American press that makes one wonder what they mean by "freedom of thought"). And of course Filler doesn't even register Koolhaas' enthusiasm for East Berlin prefab apartment slabs and other architecture of the Soviet era. (And this just when similar US projects like Pruit-Igoe are getting a second look by a new generation)."

So if he's so good and yet so bad, where does that leave all the other American writers? And where does that leave me in Spain? Sitting pretty, according to me. So much for my big generous spirit.

Know any drab Stalinist housing block I can move into for a period of atonement?

Pictured above:
Housing in Chisinau, Moldova
From Martin's Big Tour of Eurasia

 

Highlights of the XII Biennial

B Congress Center, Cartagena by selgascano. Photo: Iwan Baan

Announced last May, we present highlights from the 15 winning projects and 27 finalists of the XII Biennial of Spanish Architecture, for works completed between 2011 and 2012.

The jury was led by Fuensanto Nieto and Enrique Sobejano, and included Andrés Jaque, Sol Madridejos, Rafael Aranda (of RCR), Matthias Sauerbruch and Wilfred Wang.

All photos from the Biennial web page (visit it here).

Lalín City Hall by Mansilla + Tuñón

Campo de la Cebada, Madrid

This public garden on an empty lot owned by the city has been developed by an open, non-hierarchical collective of architects, neighbors, neighborhood associations and cultural groups. It is one of several such projects in the city's center.

Subsidized housing, San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, by Aldredo Payá. Photo: David Frutos

Restoration, Hippodrome de la Zarzuela, Madrid by Junquera Architects

Eduardo Torroja's great thin-shell vaults, from 1936, part of Carlos Arniches and Martín Domínguez's design for the racetrack, restored by the firm that has restored other works by the architects in Madrid. The project is a functioning racetrack.

Pilgrimage Museum, Santiago de Compostela, by Manuel Gallego

Gallego: 

"The building is not indifferent to its proximity to the Cathedral." 

"The route through the exhibition also leads towards a vision of the city and the Cathedral..." 

"Intensity is the necessary precondition for architecture."

Consolidation of Roman remains at Can Tacó, by Toni Gironés

The archeological site dates from the II Century BC and is located in a natural reserve in Montornès del Vallès, Barcelona.

School for Infants, Pamplona, by Pereda Pérez Architects. Photo: Pedro Pegenaute

Cineteca, Matadero, Madrid, by Churtichaga+Quadra-Salcedo Architects

Medialab-Prado, Madrid, by Langarita-Navarro Architects

Like the Matadero complex above, this is another restoration of an old factory in Madrid's center. And like many new cultural facilities around Spain, the project lacks funding to go into operation due to the crisis. Victor Navarro is the son of architect Juan Navarro Baldeweg (see next project).

Hertzian Library, Rome, by Juan Navarro Baldeweg

Built in the former gardens of the Palacio Zuccari, which were orignally part of the terraced gardens of Lúculo, a Roman villa, a circumstance that Navarro took into account in his design.

Local government offices, Zamora, by a team lead by Alberto Campo-Baeza

I've left out some urban projects in the above listings. 

From the finalists, the following projects looked interesting:

Recreation Center, Azuqueca de Henares, Madrid, by Ábalos+Sentkiewicz

 Iñaki Ábalos is the new Chair of the architecture department at Harvard's GSD.

Susidized housing, Coslada, Madrid, by Amann, Canovas + Maruri

Lounge Tepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico, by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Youth Factory, Mérida, by selgascano

Subsidized housing, Sa Pobla, by José Ripoll + Juan Miguel Tizón

Restoration, Goián fort and river beach, Tomiño, Pontevedra, by Pablo Galleo Picard

Pedro is the son of architect Manuel Gallego (see above).

Dreamhamar, Norway, by Ecosistema Urbano

Javier Carvajal, 1926 - 2013

Business School, Barcelona, 1961. Wikicommons & U. of Navarra

I am behind on news stories that haven't made the jump between Spanish and English readers. The most important was the death last June 14th in Madrid of architect Javier Carvajal at the age of 87.

Carvajal was a key figure in the revival of modern architecture in Spain in the 1950s and 60s. He was an important model for the more abstract formalist work of many Spanish architects today - especially among those who share his conservative politics and religious values. His identification with the Franco regime in the tumultuous 1970s, in positions of power such as director of the Barcelona School of Architecture and the Madrid College of Architects, cost him dearly in later years.

Emblematic works include:

•  Residential tower, Plaza de Cristo Rey, Madrid, 1954-58, with Rafael García de Castro (seen in the classic comic movie Los Tramposos of 1959, with Tony LeBlanc).
• Business School, University of Barcelona, 1955-61, with García de Castro.
• Pantheon to the Spanish Dead, Rome, 1957, with his brilliant contemporary, José María García de Paredes, a prelude to his stark, expressionist, abstract style of the 1960s.
• Church of Our Lady of the Angels, Vitoria, 1958-60, also with García de Paredes.
• Directed Settlement of Almendrales, Madrid, 1958-64, with García de Paredes, José Antonio Corrales and Ramón Vázquez Molezún. Pioneering public housing.
• Spanish Pavilion, New York World's Fair, 1964.
• A series of houses in northern Madrid in the 1960s, exemplified by his own house in Somosaguas,1964-65, where his expressionist style came into over-ripe maturity. It was the setting for Carlos Saura's claustraphobic 1969 movie La Madriguera.
• Valencia Tower, Madrid, 1968-72, which provoked protests for intruding on views of the Retiro Park and the Puerta de Alcalá.  

Garcia-Valdecasas House, Somosaguas, 1965. Photo ©Jorge Losada

The story in the press:

• Ana Marcos, "Muere el arquitecto español Javier Carvajal a los 87 años", El País, June 14, 2013
• Luis Alemany, "Muere Javier Carvajal, arquitecto clave en la segunda mitad del XX", El Mundo, June 14, 2013
• Alberto Campo Baeza, "Ha muerto Javier Carvajal", Reprint of article "Belleza Precisa", Arquitectura Viva 147, 2012

Other interesting web pages:

• Photos of late work by Jorge Losada 
• Tallermuse blog: photos by Javier Villa, coll-barreu-arquitectos, Ekain Jiménez Valencia, Garikoitz Estornés and others, with texts and list of works on blog. All the photos below come from this source.

This and below, Carvajal House, Somosaguas 1965

 

Sobrino House, Aravaca 1966