Albert Viaplana, 1933 - 2014

Plaza at Sants (1983). Source: viaplana.com

 Albert Viaplana, the Barcelona architect who designed, with his partner Helio Piñón, the Plaza dels Països Catalans at the Sants Railroad Station (1981-83), an emblematic work of Barcelona's urban renaissance, has died at the age of 81, reports José María Montaner in El País this Saturday (link). Montaner writes:

"...the work of the Viaplana-Piñón studio, which emerged in the context of the so-called School of Barcelona, with its roots in realism and contextualism, marked at the end of the 1970s a point of rupture in favor of a conceptual, essentialist and abstract search...."

As Montaner points out, one of the duo's most influential projects was an unrealized competition design for the College of Architects of Valencia in 1977:

"Using a stepped and repetitive form, they achieved an unforgettable, timeless, minimal proposal, rendered in lines that could not be more simple, abstract, and anonymous..."

Montaner goes on to note that Viaplana was somewhat eclipsed by the meteoric success of his disciple Enric Miralles, who worked on projects such as Sants, and he expresses the hope that his work will be better appreciated in its own right in the future.

Other projects with Piñón, all in Barcelona:

• Besós Park, Sant Adrià, Barcelona (1984)
• Santa Mónica Art Center, Las Ramblas (1985-1992)
• Hilton Hotel, Avenida Diagonal (1987-1990)
• CCCB, Centre de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona, El Raval (1990-1993)

José María Montaner
Albert Viaplana, imprescindible arquitecto vanguardista
El País
May 17, 2014 

Translation, quotes: DC

Destination: Sant Just Desvern

To visit Walden 7, the work that put Ricardo Bofill on the map (1970-75), and his adjoining studio and house in a former cement plant (1973). It turned out to be surprisingly easy to get there, on the tram line that runs on the upper part of the Diagonal. I made the trip last March.

I was accompanied by Elisabeth Cuspinera, who took this picture - update on Nadar's portraits on the towers of Nôtre Dame, but without the gargoyles.

I was under-impressed by the interior courtyards, which like most of the building have been restored.

Great formal play on the outside, but aren't those windows tiny?

The labyrinth effect up at the top

From where you can peer down at Bofill's next-door spread.

The Taller de Arquitectura from the grounds

Spanish Architects Recognized Abroad

HURTADO, CARNICERO & ESPEGEL
Architects Maria Hurtado of estudio entresitio, Iñaqui Carnicero and Carmen Espegel of espegel-fisac will participate in an AIA conference on Spanish public housing.

Social Housing in Spain
Thursday, May 29th
6:00 - 8:00 PM
The Center for Architecture
536 LaGuardia Place NY, NY 10012
(212) 683-0023
cfa.aiany.org

Factoria Jóven, Merida. Photo © Roland Halbe

SELGASCANO

José Selgas & Lucía Cano of SELGASCANO have bee recognized as Architects of the Year by the Iconic Awards 2013 of the German Design Council.

Vidler's Challenge

Anthony Vilder on the pending revistion of the history of Modernism in architecture, from  his book Histories of the Immediate Present, quoted in an upcoming paper I reviewd by Macarena de la Vega, doctoral student in architectural history at the University of Canberra, Australia: 

"We would need to reassess disruptive moments and figures, not as curiosities or embarrassments, nor as washed-up utopias, ...but as openings into the process, rather than the appearance, of modernity."

"We would also need to seriously reevaluate the sacred cows of modernity, whose work has become, too quickly, canonical, in order to detect the internal inconsistencies, the still-open questions lurking behind their monographical facades."

"Finally, we would need to open those ideas of "modernism" so prevalent after the Second World War that were proposed in order to tidy up the erratic field of the early avant-gardes and to provide rules for being modern in the era of reconstruction."

Histories of the Immediate Present:
Inventing Architectural Modernism
The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2011, p 201

Notes from All Over

Josep Lluís Sert's Maeght Foundation in Saint-Paul de Vence, France is 50 years old, and celebrating the event with an exhibition. Another of my favorite places.

Miguel Mora
El Paraíso del Arquitecto y los Artistas
El País, April 5, 2014
Photo DC

 
Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles
My friend Jorge Sainz, Professor of History and Theory at Madrid's School of Architecture (the famous ETSAM), sent me this YouTube link to a 1972 BBC documentary on Los Angeles prepared by Reyner Banham. It includes a science-fiction proto-GPS sexy car guide as a jokey part of the commentary. Above, hanging out with Ed Ruscha and friends. A little faded, but priceless.

The Architectural Review covers a new, updated book by photographers Ian Lambot and Greg Girard documenting Kowloon's Walled City, in the former British colony of Hong Kong, which was reportedly the densest human settlement on earth before it was finally torn down in 1993. I am sorry I missed it on my stay in Kowloon in 1984:

"On a site measuring just over 220 x 110 metres were crammed some 200 individual tower blocks, rising on average to 14 storeys in height.... At the Walled City’s height in the early 1980s, it is thought that well over 40,000 people lived there, and over 33,000 were officially registered as part of the clearance in 1987."

City of Darkness: Surreal photographs of day-to-day life inside Kowloon Walled City
The Architectural Review
April 9, 2014

Greg Girard & Ian Lambot
City of Darkness Revisited
Watermark Publications, London
Upcoming, July, 2014
Preview on Kickstarter

Covering the New Celestial Jerusalem

Yours truly (the tall guy) and Jordi Fauli, head architect of the Sagrada Familia, with one of the lighting fixtures

 In this month's Architectural Record, I return to the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, this time to take a look at the lighting:

"The level of detail that the design team has found for these lighting elements amid the fragments of Gaudí's studio is astounding, though they haven't hesitated to use the most advanced technical means to realize them."

 It was fun to put critical aloofness aside and share with the architects and lighting designers their delight in technical invention, and to groove in their weirdness, with mystical references to the "Celestial Jerusalem" and other ocult symbology that didn't make it into the text.

Thankfully, no one seemed to remember my critical article on the temple in The Architectural Review from 2012  (see blog entry here). Or they were nice enough not to mention it. We all gave each other a sporting chance.

As a special treat, head architect Jordi Faulí invited me back after the temple had closed, to see how the lighting worked at night. As we stood in the middle of the nave, Jordi's former boss and former head architect Jordi Bonet, who I had interviewed in 2012 for the Review, emerged from the shadows, an ancient, gnomic figure among gnomes, and captivated our little group with stories of Catalan greatness, rendered, with great deference to his foreign guest, in the hated Castillian tongue. The one story I sort of recall was about Catalan anti-Imperialist imperialism -- a noble Catalan general fending off a Russian incursion into California, in the days when Alaska was still Russian and California still Spanish, and converting the Indians instead of killing them off. Then Madrid spoiled it all somehow. Or whatever.

Another stellar moment was when Faulí described for me the exterior lighting for the towers, which he is building now (also didn't make the cut). Here's the section from my notes:

 JF: central tower w/a 4-armed cross, Jesus Cristo, 172 meters. Gaudi didn't want to rise above height Montjuic hill. "out of respect for the Creation"
4 towers of Evangelists around it: 135 m ea.
Apse: Virgin: 130 m
Towers of transepts: 100 m
JF: "un prodigio" all supported by interior columns of nave
JF: from 4-armed cross spot lights in each arm. "The light of Cristo to the pueblo. And this light reaches the people, how? The light doesn't pass to the street directly, but through the towers of the facades that represent the Apostles and Bishops. And from these Evangelists the Cross is lit. Because they are the ones who transmit the Word of Jesus. The Word of Cristo illumniates the world. Illuminates and is illuminated."

To give you an idea of what he's talking about, the tallest tower in Barcelona pushes 150 meters or so, if I'm not mistaken. All were designed deferring to the up-and-coming central tower of Gaudí, according to my new friends.

Tweety Bird lights on the columns Aren't they adorable? Photo by DC, up in the rafters

La Sagrada Familia
Lighting Gaudí's eccentric, posthumous masterpiece
Architectural Record, May 2014, p 166 - 169

Make it Simple

My article on this artist's studio outside Barcelona appears in the latest issue of architektur.aktuell, which is dedicated the theme "Plain and Pure."

" 'A temple' is what the artist Eduardo Arranz-Bravo calls his new painting studio. 'With this height and the light moving through, it's a temple of art,' he exclaims. The monumental impact of the space derives from its great simplicity, which amplifies the spatial tension generated by two or three formal moves – chiefly, the irregular pyramidal ceiling topped by an off-center skylight."

I must confess, however, that I was really taken by the artist's original house,which features tiers of open spaces around a descending staircase that follows the slope of the site. It was designed for living, not the concentration required for producing art and looking at it:

"The house was designed in 1991 by a friend, the Italian architect and art dealer Lanfranco Bombelli, but in a style and spirit that dates to the 1970s, when the two formed part of the vibrant cultural scene at the coastal resort town of Cadaqués, where Bombelli built many homes. With the simple, vernacular forms of its exterior and the open but cozy spaces inside, filled with artwork by friends and including a sunken, built-in seating area around the fireplace, the house is a testament to the vibrant lifestyle of Barcelona's cultural elite during that era."

The Bubble 
Garcés De Seta Bonet Architects
Jordi Garcés + Daria De Seta, Project Architects
Eduardo Arranz-Bravo Studio, Barcelona
architektur.aktuell 409
 Aprit 2014, pages 66 - 75, cover

Photos © Adrià Goula

Foster Cancels Planned Foundation in Madrid

Site of proposed foundation. Source: Palacetes de Madrid

El Pais reports that Norman Foster has dropped plans to establish his private foundation in a Madrid palace dating to 1912, after Madrid's Heritage Commission ruled against some of his proposed modifications and additions to the protected building.

The Foundation, currently registered in London, would house Foster's personal archives and organize exhibitions, debates and publications on architecture, urbanism, design and art.

In a letter to the city, Foster stated that he is reconsidering "the suitability of the location". His office has declined to make further comments.

Foster currently organizes an annual architecture show in his wife's Madrid art gallery, Ivorypress, which has featured Ron Arad, Buckminster Fuller, Jean Prouvé, Zaha Hadid and Foster himself.

Another architect's personal foundation seems to be in the works in Madrid, that of Emilio Ambasz. Last year, the City of Madrid ceded a building near the Prado Museum that Ambasz plans to demolish for a new building of his own design. Fore more on that story (although the less said, the better), see El Pais, March 6, 2013 and December 12, 2013.
 

Ambasz proposal from El Pais

I would gladly trade Ambasz's furry green building on its overly-promintent site for Foster and his palace, discretely located in Madrid's leafy embassy district, with its pavilions and whatnot in the garden. With any luck, though, Ambasz's project will go nowhere. And let's hope that Foster, once properly begged to and groveled before, will reconsider.

Bruno García Gallo, Ángeles García
"Norman Foster Drops Plans to  Create his Foundation in Madrid"
El País, English edition
April 8, 2014

Siza's Boa Nova Tea House to Reopen

Alvaro Siza's Boa Nova Tea House on the rocky shoreline of Leça da Palmeira, in Matosinhos, outside Porto, which has stood empty for several years and was badly deteriorated, has been restored. The town of Matosinhos ceded the building to the local non-profit Casa da Arquitectura (ACA), which commissioned Siza for the restoration. Chef Rui Paula will open a small restaurant in the space, scheduled to begin operations in June. The Tea House, which was completed in 1963, is one of Siza's first works. It is a classified National Monument in Portugal.

This is one of my favorite places, and I was shocked to see it empty and falling apart two years ago. When was it that I actually had tea there, after a long hike up the coast? Now things look better, though the idea of an ambitious chef aiming for a Michelin in this tiny shrine seems a bit out of place. Everything was so much smaller in the 1960s! And the worn wood furnishings, the rustic feel, its intimate hold on the rocks, the sense that it had to be put it back together every springtime after being lashed by winter storms.

Sources

"CASA DA ARQUITECTURA assina contrato de arrendamento da Casa de Chá com o Chef Rui Paula"
Casa da Arquitectura webpage, no date

"Casa de Chá da Boa Nova reabre em junho"
Matosinhos Cámera Municipal webpage
March 17, 2014

Abel Coentrão
"Chef Rui Paula desafiado a conseguir estrela Michelin para a Casa de Chá da Boa Nova" 
Publico
March 17, 2014

Photo:
news.zhulong.com 

Update 
See the finished restoration and new terrace:
José Juan Barba
La renovada Casa de Chá de Siza, ahora es el Restaurante del Chef Rui Paula 
Metalocus
July 19, 2014

Source: Metalocus  Photo © Jaoa Morgado

Strange Times for the COAC

Strange times for the COAC - the architects' professional association in Barcelona, the Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya. Its headquarters, located on a prominent plaza facing the Barcelona Cathedral, is now festooned with a large, publicly sponsored advertisement, entirely covering its facade, that seems to be promoting, in the guise of a historic anniversary, Catalan independence.

The marquee below the poster is by Picasso, another in-your-face gesture, this one from the Franco years, when the artist was an official no-no.

And the COAC's exhibit space, apparently too valuable to be dedicated to architecture exhibits these days, has been turned into an ersatz gift shop. 'All very tastefully, done,' I suppose they imagine. Why don't they just lease it to Foot Locker?

Photos by DC, March 14, 2014

Virtual Reality Blues

William Wei, Business Insider

Mark Zuckerburg on his latest purchase, Oculus, goggles that immerse video game players in virtual reality, as reported in Business Insider: 

"After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face -- just by putting on goggles in your home."

And an April Fool's Day post in The Guardian on InstaWindows for refurbishing England's public housing:

 "If you're addicted to adding filters to your Instagram snaps, and wish you could always see the world in grainy high contrast or with that sun-kissed glow, help may be at hand. As part of the government's Happy Homes initiative, which will see swathes of ailing council blocks retrofitted with colourful cladding panels and wood-effect flooring over the next five years, tenants will also be given the chance to transform their windows with the application of a tinted filter."

"'The Instawindow is designed to transform even the bleakest views of post-industrial wastelands into picture-postcard visions that you'll be dying to share with your friends,' says Daisy Faropoll, head of brand at Happy Homes. 'Whether you prefer that permanent sunset look, or like your colours super-saturated, our range of filters caters to every mood. And with an easy-peel backing, you can keep mixing it up and curate your own personalised viewscape each day.' "

As always, parody and reality are never far apart.

The Guardian

Post edited April 11, 2014

Entresitio in Record Houses

© Roldand Halbe

It's April, Record Houses time again, and once again a house in Spain is among the eight works selected. Known as "#house#1.130" (a rather ungraceful moniker in my opinion), the Spanish work is by Estudio Entresitio, with partners Maria and José Maria Hurtado and César Jiménez. See the full story in Architectural Record here.

The article begins,

"The interweaving of indoor and outdoor spaces recalls the condensed landscapes of classical Chinese gardens in Suzhou: tightly framed vistas are crossed in close succession by multiple spatial events–glazed pavilions, light wells, bridges, terraces, beds of vegetation, a covered pathway angling slightly out of view."

 And for an idea about what it's all about:

"The ribbons of greenery, which extend below-grade to the light wells and run up a ramp to the roof, are just one element in the design's multidimensional knitting together of inside and out. In its first proposal to the client, the architect developed this strategy even more intensely. It was based on a honeycomb of hexagonal rooms and patios that was systematically distorted in size and shape according to programmatic requirements. Each distortion created adjustments in adjacent hexagons, following a mathematical system known as a Voronoi diagram."

© Roldand Halbe

Down the Garden Path
#house#1.130 by Estudio Entresitio
Architectural Record, Record Houses, April 2014

Photos © Roldand Halbe
Used with permission

© Roldand Halbe