2Modern Design Talk - Modern Furniture & Design Blog

Traffic flows into Dubai

The Dubai design scene is booming, much like everything else here, and with the new opening of Traffic Gallery in the Al Barsha area of Dubai, the buzz from all the excitement is deafening. Not only are they having a FAB sale during May (first come first serve basis), with designers such as Droog, Magis and Tse & Tse being represented, but they have these awesome items from the Campana Brothers.

Warning: these are almost too cool.

Fernando and Humberto Campana are inspired by South American street life and successfully create vibrant, energetic & colorful unique pieces from found objects such as scraps of wood and fabric off-cuts. Coming from Brazil, one with a degree in law, the other with a degree in architecture, these brothers are establishing worldwide presence from Boston, USA to now, the UAE.

...and one for the kiddies!!!

Norwegian National Opera in Oslo, by Snøhetta

On April 12 2008 one of the most spectacular opera houses in the world opened in Oslo. The construction of the new opera house is the largest single cultural-political initiative in contemporary Norway. It took five years to build and the cost is estimated to 500 million Euros. The result is an extraordinary building in white marble with a roof surface that rises directly from beneath the fjord. The opera house is designed by the acknowledged Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta. It is the biggest cultural landmark built in the country since the Trondheim cathedral was finished in 1300 A.D.

The building is situated at the once downgraded eastern beach front of the city, Bjørvika. This allowed the project to be financed within the area's urban restructuring project. The modern edifice rises like an iceberg or a futuristic yacht at the fjord banks, 200 meters from the city's central railway station.

Snøhetta is also known for designing the Alexandria Great Library and also last year's Serpentine Gallery pavilion with artist Olafur Eliasson. He also helped them here, designing the walls that embellish the foyer of the new Opera. Clad with a multi-faceted surface, resembling other works of his, they are lit from behind, thus obtaining the lightness of spun sugar - in gold mind you. This, alongside with the high glass façades come into strong contrast with the main curved wooden volume forming the back of the big amphitheatre, through which a ramp takes you to the three big balconies.

The sliding roof of the Opera, clad in white Carrara marble (initially it turned yellow from the humidity, but  a solution to turn it white again was found and with a reasonable cost), falls straight into the cold fjord waters. The relationship with the sea is an everyday fact of life in Norway, so it should not be surprising it is part of this building as well. It is an artificial landscape, designed to be accessible to everyone, at all times. Instead of the typical monumental buildings that characterize Opera houses around the world, this one is a monument to the true republic - it's there for everyone and everyone can access it whenever they feel like it.

 

Each of the two amphitheatres is marked on the outside from the tower of it's stage, covered in aluminium. Those panels are engraved with a strange looking symbolic scripture reminding one of Linear B or even Braille, giving another sensual experience to the visitor: touch.

Inside the main amphitheatre, shaped like a petal, the curved balconies are made of dark wood, much like a Norwegian boat would be. That is no accident: they were made by local boat makers. The space is dominated by the huge chandelier designed by the architects: it is 7 meters in diameter and weighs around 8.5 tons.

The theatre designers are Theatre Projects Consultants based in the London office, the acoustic designers are BrekkeStrandArup, a joint venture between local consultant Brekke Strand Akustikk and international acousticians Arup Acoustics. Norwegian construction company Veidekke was awarded one of the largest building contracts of the project. The future user of the building will be the Norwegian National Opera.

Architects: Snohetta
Location: Bjørvika, Oslo, Norway
Client: Ministry of Church an Cultural Affairs
Area: 38.500sqm
Construction start: 2004
Completion: 2007

Geological Engineer: NGI
Structural Engineer: Reinertsen Engineering ANS
Electrical Engineer: Ingeniør Per Rasmussen AS
Theatre Planning: Theatre Project Consultants
Acoustics: Brekke Strand Akustikk, Arup Acoustic
Artists, integrated artwork: Kristian Blystad, Kalle Grude, Jorunn Sannes, Astrid Løvaas og Kirsten Wagle
Photos: Snohetta, Nina Reistad, Statsbygg, Erik Berg & Nicolas Buisson

Hotel Everland: booking a forever memory.

   "Hotel Everland is a project by Swiss artist-duo L/B (Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann). L/B are known for their Installations that deal with architecture and space and invite the viewer to get involved and become part of the artwork.

Everland is a Hotel with only one room including a bathroom, a king-size bed and a lounge. The bounteous dimensioned room represents the subjective dream of a hotel: the architecture, the playful details, as well as the request to steal the golden embroidered bath towels. All Everland guests are partaking in the project.

                  

                   (Night view from Palais de Tokyo)

Also the concept for operating the hotel was defined by the artists. All facets are important constituents of the artistic idea: The room can be booked for one night only, the mini-bar is fully stocked and included in the price, breakfast is delivered to the door and a record collection stands at ones disposal."

(Looking back into module toward bedroom and bathroom, complete with shower)

Having been invited to different venues since its conception in 2002, Hotel Everland will be atop the Palais de Tokyo art gallery until the end of 2008.  You can book the room online at the hotel's website and obtain further details about the project.

Collectible Architecture: Louis Kahn's Esherick House

Another Modernist masterpiece will be sold as a work of art this month when Louis Kahn's Esherick House goes under the hammer on May 18th. Built between 1959 and 1961 in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania for Margaret Esherick, the house also features the original custom kitchen designed by sculptor Wharton Esherick, her uncle. The one-bedroom house, which is a Landmark Building, is symmetrical and demonstrates Kahn's fascination with the effects of light on the space within; large rectangular windows and a limited use of materials, concrete and warm wood add to the simplicity of the design.
Wright Auctions have produced an 80 page catalog with photographs by Todd Eberle and an essay by Wharton Esherick on the unique kitchen. The house will be offered in Wright's Important Design sale with an estimate of $2-3 million. That's a lot less than the  $15,000,00-$25,000,00 that The Kaufmann House in Palm Springs, CA is expected to fetch when it is auctioned at Christie's the preceding week.

Masséna district building in Paris: by Beckmann N’Thépé

Creating a strong but elegant building in a varied urban context was the concept behind the latest offering by the Beckman N’Thépé architectural office from Paris. With its bold shape and fancy colouring, it looks like they made it.

Reminding me of a New York high - rise planted in Parisian surroundings, the seemingly Brutalism - meets - Art Deco edifice combines strong forms with delicate colouring - yellow and brown uncharacteristically mark its façades. The sculptural shape of the building makes it look lighter than it really is and de-emphasizes the basic material used - concrete.

The demand was for 48 apartments, with commercial spaces and community areas also taken into account. plus a parking lot of 52 places.  All this amounts to 4,850 square meters (of which 630 are the commercial spaces), costing 5.7 million Euros. The finishing date for the project was June of 2007.

The concrete used for the façade, called "autoplaçant" and painted chestnut brown throughout its body, , was poured in situ and roughened up to get the final look. The building also incorporates hanging gardens: a big courtyard above street level. It also uses photovoltaic plates and re-uses the rainwater, getting itself a Qualitel Habitat et Environnement Label.

Developing its autonomy, its identity and its difference, this project is integrated in a greater unit, that of the new Masséna district, in XIIIème district of Paris, and thus takes part with rigour and elegance in the urban ambitions programmed here. Each construction is an additional stake of this piece of town of "Age III".

On the principles imagined by Christian de Portzamparc, the supervisor architect for the whole area, the project cuts out, is refined, carved to reinforce its simplicity in a writing which is clean for him. A fault makes it possible the buildings close to benefit from the "heart to open small island" of the urban planning.

On the crossing of various axes of circulations, this sculpture imposes its density by its major and dark mass and its mathematical play of openings. An iridescent ribbon binds the whole of the studs which this piece composes of ground. The ornamentation is proscribed and omnipresent nature as well finds in a strange way at the ground floor as on the roofs of various volumes by the grace of trees of high-stems.

Work team:

Project leader: Nicolas Gaudard

Architects: Stephan Maîtrejean, Mathilde Malher

Assistant Architects: Amélie Authier, Caroline Huybrechts, Tiphaine Leclère, Aime-Issa N’Thépé

  Study Bureau: STUDY BUREAU TCE: COTEC (Pantin - 93)

Fire protection: Consulting BTP (Clichy - 92)

Consultant landscape: Ecovégétal (Broué - 28)

Control office: VERITAS (Paris)

Co-ordinating SPS: Consulting ANM (German St en Laye - 78)

General Company - HERVE SA

Oh, To Live In A Glass House

You may have noticed; as much of the consumer buying public did, that clothing company J.Crew placed the photoshoot for their last catalog on the immaculate grounds of the Richard Neutra-designed Kaufmann Desert house.

Kaufmann Desert House

If you didn't get enough modern design love from that, there are a few more design gems from that period in architecture that are still standing.

Philip Johnson Glass House

This building, known as Da Monsta, is the visitor center at the Philip Johnson Glass House site. The site also includes numerous constructions by Johnson in a few different styles.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has acquired two new modern-era designed buildings, the Philip Johnson-designed Glass House and the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Farnsworth House. Both houses can be seen in this month's (May/ June) issue of the organization's Preservation magazine which discusses a new appreciation of Modernism in terms of architecture and the need for on-going protection.

Farnsworth House

Other modern masterpieces around the country include:

A Rudolf Schindler House

Philip Lovell House

Pierre Koenig Case Study Home

Photos from Time Magazine and Moma.org.

Modernity in Hamburg: ADA 1 by Juergen Mayer H.

Hamburg, is the biggest port of Germany and one of the biggest in Europe. Lately it has seen a steady number of interestingly designed buildings take place proudly among older establishments. Many though tend to fall into cliché territory. Not so the ADA 1 office building by Jürgen Mayer H.

Situated near the banks of the Alster river, ADA 1 looks like a combination of a typical office building and liquid, organic curves. It references the flowing river as well as establishing a relationship with it through the views one can enjoy from the building.

The architect named the round, elliptical windows "floating eyes"; they certainly look like they can move on the façade. They pinpoint the meeting rooms for the offices inside, their liquid forms a characteristic of Mayer's architecture.

The architect won a competition for this building almost a year and a half ago, and has managed to realize it without many deviations from the original plans, if any.  We can see the curves from the outside continue inside the office spaces, accentuating walls or furniture.

White is predominant here, making the big spaces look austere but fresh and modern: no staid business look here. Rather a reflection of the architect's whimsy and elegance.

Even on the surrounding area, the curves still play a big part: lawns and seating areas are defined by them, connecting them aestetically with the interiors and the facade. Unmistakably Mayer, an office block that can hardly go unnoticed, even in a city with many new additions to its architectural list every year.

J. MAYER H. Architects
project team: Juergen Mayer H., Hans Schneider, Wilko Hoffmann, Andre Santer, Sebastian Finckh, Marta Ramírez Iglesias, Georg Schmidthals, Marcus Blum
    competition team: Juergen Mayer H., Jan-Christoph Stockebrand, Marcus Blum, Klaus Küppers, Hans Schneider  

Invited competition 2005, 1st Prize
    Project: 2005-2007
    Completion: 2007
    Client: Cogiton Projekt Alster GmbH, Hamburg

 

Architect on Site: Imhotep, Donachie und Blomeyer, Architekturbuero Franke
    Structural Engineers: Lydia Thiesemann, CBP
    Building Services: Energiehaus, Sineplan
    Light Engineers: Andres – Lichtplanung
    Landscape Architects: Breimann & Bruun

 

Photographer: fotografieSchaulin, Hiepler Brun

The Kaufmann Desert House: Architecture as Art

Along with the 1986 mask-like Andy Warhol Self-Portrait and the Mark Rothko red and yellow no.15 (1952) Christie's Contemporary Art Department will auction one of the finest examples of 20th century Modernist houses at its Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale on May 13. 

Lot #42, estimated to fetch between $15,000,000 and $25,000,000, will be the Kaufmann Desert House, designed in 1946 by Richard Neutra. Built in Palm Springs, California for  Edgar J. Kaufmann a Pittsburgh department store magnate and philanthropist who had earlier commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, the Kaufmann Desert House quickly became recognized as a Modernist masterpiece.

Owned for the last fifteen years by Beth and Brent Harris, (who bought it from Barry Manilow) it has been lovingly restored to its original Hollywood-on-vacation, Palm Springs glamor with the help of architects Marmol-Radziner. Now Christie's is offering buyers the opportunity not just to purchase real estate or even an architectural gem but the promise of "complete immersion within a work of art", which may go someway to alleviating the pain of such a huge price tag. 

To see more of the restored Kaufmann House you can watch this beautiful video available online. Or you can read more about it in Christie's "seperate (sic) catalog" ($50). Not to be snotty but I would have expected an auction house of the caliber of Christie's to know how to spell separate! However that in no way detracts from the perfection of the house: its relationship to the surrounding desert landscape, the walls of glass allowing the indoors to merge seamlessly with the outside, the low profile and the neutral color palette.

Mid-century modernist architecture has been undergoing a resurgence in the past few years. On May 13 2008 we will find out how just how far it has gone.

New Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania

Zaha Hadid Architects had beat out two modern architecture for the next installation of the Guggenheim Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania. The competition was a collaborative partnership between Guggenheim Foundation and Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, where the new museum will house collections from both of the prominent museums. 

Lithuania plans to make the museum the focal point of Vilnius, as European Capital of Culture in 2009. Making a mark, as a horizontal force on the city’s vertical skyline.

“The building appears like a mystical object floating above the extensive artificial landscape strip, seemingly defying gravity by exposing dramatic undercuts towards the surrounding entrance plazas.”

“A glossy metallic building envelope registers the underlying main programmatic units, which are articulated as inlays within the compact overall form. The sub volumes are expressed through folds and protrusions in the facades modulation, creating multiple ways of reading the building as a whole that is constituted by its integral parts.”

I'm not sure I agree with their final selection out of the three choices, but they're all very innovative to say the least. Certainly leaving a great imprint in the future of architecture. 

What do you think?

Below are the runner ups for the Guggenheim Vilnius Museum:

Daniel Libeskind

Massimiliano Fuksas

Here's a photo of all three architects: Winner, Zaha Hadid in the middle, flanked by Fuksas and Libeskind

story via Dezeen
images via VTV.lt

Haus F at Kronberg, Germany by Meixner Schlüter Wendt Architekten: The stealth bomber house

There are lots of things that architects raw inspiration from, in order to create new buildings and designs. But a stealth bomber as an inspiration for a house? Combined with a summer cabin? Sounds impossible! But this is exactly what Meixner Schlüter Wendt Architekten had in mind when designing Haus F, at Kronberg im Taunus, near Frankfurt, Germany.

The only demand regarding the look of the house that the client made, was that it should look modern and have a flat roof. The local regulations stipulate that only saddle back roofs can be used in this area.  The architects told their clients that even this kind of roof can look modern. When they started the design process, it was the shape of the top level (the bedrooms), with its kink, that made the house look like a stealth bomber. So they decided to elaborate on that.

Since they had already decided on making the ground floor as transparent as possible, to unite the interior with the lush green exteriors, it was only a matter of time and ingenious design before the stealth bomber looking house had its final shape. And of course the structural considerations were a big part of the process. The cladding of the top part is black aluminium panels, chosen because they can be folded, creating a seam look that resembles that of an aircraft. And the glass wall of the ground level, with its hidden frame (in the floor and ceiling) even curves at two points without any mouldings.

Planes of course have movable parts. And so does this house! The overhang of the roof above the garden terrace (the "nose" of the aircraft) is adjustable by remote control (two segments of it) - to better provide shade when needed.  This element of the house was one of the things that delighted the client, who firmly demanded that the architects stuck with it when there were doubts raised about its necessity.

The interior is minimal and impressive, especially at ground level, with the huge sliding glass doors, making the space one with the exterior when opened. On the top level, the sleeping arrangement is what "created" the kink of the roof - there is the parents area and the kids area, separated by a corridor but also a change of level: the command centre of the aircraft!

Even the pool is not ordinary: it is fitted with led lights that make the water change colour - one can imagine the strange view of the "hovering" house/plane near the multicolour, light emitting liquid...