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Monday, December 30, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
In an article I wrote a few years ago on Barcelona's Media-TIC building, for Mark Magazine #25, I concluded my optimistic text by asking: "Will its ETFE pillow system work successfully and eventually make its way onto curtain-wall façades of office buildings the world over? Only time will tell."
Well, the answer to my question is published in an op-ed piece titled "Smart City 2023" in today's El País. It turns out that the pillow system stopped working only days after the building was inaugurated (which is when I visited it), and that the building is so expensive to heat and cool that it has been abandoned.
This is not the first time a building by architect Enric Ruiz Geli has had to be abandoned. Unlike Villa Nurbs, which was never finished, at least this one reached completion, and at least it worked for a few days. Though it makes me wonder if the energy efficiency certification it so proudly received upon completion is still valid, or how it could ever even have received such certification in the first place. It also makes me think that architectural "sustainability" that depends entirely on active, highly technological mechanical systems may not make the most sense in the end.
What is most disappointing, however, is that this experiment was created as an incentive for start-ups in the information and communication technology field. It was done with the vision that, in the long term, it would transform Barcelona into a Mediterranean technology hub.
Oh well, so much for that idea.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
"I don’t know whether we should be designating heritage buildings." -Frank O. Gehry
Why is preserving old buildings only ever a question of heritage? Shouldn't we be maintaining and re-using whatever buildings can be salvaged for environmental reasons at this point? It is known that construction is one of the biggest causes of human CO2 emissions, up there with industry, agriculture, and transportation. There is also growing alarm about sand depletion, the main cause of which is construction. To say nothing of land depletion, sprawl, and the mind-numbing boringness of the vast majority of new buildings--including many "interesting" ones.
If construction is a major environmental problem, then how about over-construction? In Spain alone, it is estimated that 818 000 dwellings built during the boom are sitting empty and looking for a buyer. It should be obvious by now that most new construction is undertaken for purposes of financial speculation--not satisfying any real need.
Re-purposing old buildings that are sitting empty, of which there is no shortage, instead of building anew, which in many cases merely leads to more buildings sitting empty, seems to make increasing sense. But since when does architecture have anything to do with making sense? Well, perhaps the time has come. Better late than never.
As architects, our duty is first and foremost to improve our habitat, or so we like to think. In some cases, this is indeed best done with new construction, but in most cases now, this is best done by not building anew, and instead preserving and adaptively re-using old buildings. In more ways than one, the city of the future will be the city of the past, and architecture will have more and more to do with intervening creatively within existing structures, and less and less to do with building new ones.
Let's not forget, while we're on the subject of old buildings, that Frank Gehry's greatest contribution to architecture is still that little suburban house in Santa Monica that he so lovingly and beautifully renovated in the late 1970s. That old house wasn't preserved back then for reasons of heritage. Well, now there are even more reasons for preserving old buildings that have nothing to do with heritage.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
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| image courtesy Wikipedia |
Barcelona's La Vanguardia newspaper reported three days ago that the Agbar Tower, an office building designed by Jean Nouvel and completed in 2005, is to be converted into a luxury hotel. The news should come as no surprise. Architecture has been responding better to the demands of tourists than those of workers or dwellers for some time now.
La Torre Agbar was specifically designed as the headquarters of the Agbar water company, hence Nouvel's geyser metaphor, but this company only occupied a portion of the building, renting the rest of its floor space out to other businesses (which is typically the case with corporate headquarter buildings, as we know from Carol Willis's book Form Follows Finance). The tenants didn't stay very long, and the Agbar company found itself alone with floor space it couldn't rent out. The building works wonders as an icon, but it obviously fails as an office building.
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| top floor of Agbar tower |
Along comes the Hyatt Grand Hotel chain to the rescue. Their renovation plan foresees two entrances: one for hotel clients, and another for architectural tourists, which they estimate will number around one and a half million per year. Express elevators will whisk camera-toting, ticket-paying sightseers to the very top of the building, where they will be able to photograph the urban panorama of Barcelona, including the nearby Sagrada Familia temple, to their hearts' delight.
The transformation of this icon from workplace to tourist attraction provides evidence of another, much larger, transformation. Architecture has over the last decade or two become an important component of the tourism and leisure industry. It is something that we visit in our travels or take in at Saturday sports matches or Sunday museum outings. Barcelona is where this shift is most palpable. Once an important industrial city, it is now a tourist mecca. In addition to a thriving 'tourism of architecture' (Gaudí, Mies, Sert, Catalan Civil Gothic, etc.), more recently this city has also become specialized in building an 'architecture of tourism'. When completed, the Grand Hotel Agbar will probably exemplify this new typology perfectly.
Monday, November 18, 2013
A recent video illustrating "the final stages of Gaudí's masterpiece" represents, we are led to believe, La Sagrada Familia completed. However, the temple is shown incomplete in this video. Where is the plaza across from the Glory façade and the main entrance steps that, according to Gaudí's design, span over carrer de Mallorca? The plaza and entrance steps require, moreover, the expropriation and demolition of several buildings that are still present in the video.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
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| Screen capture of BBC report |
Mr. Koolhaas, you designed a daring and ambitious building for CCTV, China's state-controlled television broadcaster. But it is from this building that supposed "confessions" by imprisoned Chinese journalists are being broadcast these days. What do you make of that? Would you say your design is performing as well as initially hoped (and hyped)? Are you still optimistic that the "chain of interdependence" built into CCTV's architecture will, as you wrote, "[promote] solidarity rather than isolation, collaboration instead of opposition"*?
*OMA/Rem Koolhaas: Content (Köln: Taschen, 2004) p. 489
Saturday, October 26, 2013
[versión en castellano sigue a continuación]
"Attention. Liberty and Fraternity streets are closed due to road improvements. Temporary detour via Danger Street." That's exactly what the sign says.
Good to know. Problem is we're looking for Progress street (carrer del Progrés, see map below), and if Liberty has been shut and we are obliged to take Danger street, then that requires crossing Venus street, and we'd rather not upset the goddess of beauty and love in our search for Progress. According to the sign, left turns are not permitted, but taking a series of turns to the right is something we'd much rather avoid. And where is Equality street when you need it most?
Are we stuck? Can anyone provide some useful direction out of this labyrinth?
"Atención. Las calles Libertad y Fraternidad están cerradas por obras. Desvío temporal a través de la calle Peligro." Eso es exactamente lo que dice el cartel.
Es bueno saberlo. El problema es que estamos buscando la calle Progreso, y si Libertad está cerrada y estamos obligados a tomar la calle Peligro, entonces eso requiere cruzar la calle Venus, y preferimos no molestar a la diosa de la belleza y el amor en nuestra búsqueda de Progreso. Según la señal, no se permiten giros a la izquierda, pero tomar una serie de giros a la derecha es algo que preferiríamos evitar aún mas. ¿Y donde está la calle Igualdad cuando más la necesitamos?
¿Estamos atrapados? ¿Alguien puede proporcionar alguna orientación útil para salir de este laberinto?
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