Category: Blog

Louis Kahn at Design Museum

Architecture exhibitions are famously difficult to curate. I remember Jacques Herzog saying he finds them usually boring. But then probably for someone like him there is not so much new ground or ideas to discover in an exhibition aimed at the general public. In any case it’s often hard to figure out the central curatorial idea – if there is one. Apart from just showing a certain architects archive and buildings, which in itself can of course be fascinating too.

The Louis Kahn exhibition at the Design Museum in London is one of the main architecture events this year, along the seminal Sensing Spaces at the Royal Academy. As one of the most respected, and lesser known, figures in the world of architecture it is fantastic to have the opportunity to get to know his work better in this show. And the many models in particular do make you understand much better why Kahn is so important. You get a sense of his formal concepts being such an inspiration: those avant-garde forms from fifty years ago are now familiar elements of contemporary architecture. The structural models by leading architects for today’s skyscrapers and residential buildings, you can see them here. Kahn drew inspiration from patterns in nature, like Gaudi and Le Corbusier in their own ways did too. But you really get a sense of the scientific interests, combined to an individual aesthetic vision that forms Kahn’s legacy.

As light was always such an important part of Kahn’s buildings, it is surprising that the models in the exhibition are not lit in a way that would explain that. Or not really lit in any specific way at all. The meaning of the forms could have been much emphasized by a lighting system that would have evoked a more realistic situation of the buildings, bringing them to life. And make us appreciate Corb’s idea of the play of architectural forms in light in relation to Kahn.

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Hauser & Wirth – Somerset outpost

Opened in July the new arts centre created by Hauser & Wirth, one of the leading contemporary art galleries, can be found in idyllic Somerset countryside 120 miles from London www.hauserwirthsomerset.com

The Swiss couple who own the gallery, have been based in Bruton for a few years, and purchased the near-by working farm dating from 1760 for showcasing international artists as well as activities for visitors and artists’ residencies.

The Gothic facade of the farmhouse building is embellished by Martin Creed’s piece made of white neon from 2011. The seven bedroom house is available for hire and inside there are more artworks by the gallery’s artists, such as the wall painting around the dining room.

The reception and shop inside the cowshed have many original features. The Roth Bar & Grill has become a popular hang-out, with a site-specific bar designed by the son and grandson of Dieter Roth. The style is shabby chic rather than cool and contemporary.

The gallery runs an artists’ residency programme at the farm www.hauserwirth.com/residencies

The summer exhibition includes a show by Phyllida Barlow and works by Sudoph Gupta (main photo), Paul McCarthy and Anri Sala. The listed building has been renovated by architectural firms Laplace & Co and benjamin + beauchamp

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Boa Nova restaurant re-opened

Nestled on the romantic Atlantic coastline, the Boa Nova restaurant and teahouse is one of the architectural landmarks by Alvaro Siza just outside Porto. Now re-opened after restoration it is a must-see place if touring anywhere near Porto this summer.
Close-by there is also the oceanic pool of Leça, another significant design from the 1960s by Siza. Each site demonstrates Siza’s mastery in the way his designs respond to the surrounding nature, but they are both also very different, as Nelson Mota pointed out in a previous article on Porto architecture:
The diversity and abundance of materials used in Boa Nova reveal an almost obsessive exploration of the interplay between volume and substance, a far cry from the stark relationship of copper, concrete and black painter wood of the oceanic pool. However, the essential qualities of both projects are similar. In Boa Nova, as well as in the Leça pools, Siza delivers a clear account of the architect’s role in the delicate dialogue between the artificial and the natural.

Main photo by Fernando Guerra

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New Serpentine Pavilion by Chilean architect Smiljan Radic

KENSINGTON GARDENS, LONDON It was a beautiful day once again for the preview of the Serpentine Pavilion, this year designed by Chilean architect Smiljan Radic. And the pavilion itself once again a real surprise, completely different from any previous ones. It’s a fusion of ideas, where Radic’s obsession about forms in nature is expressed in a sturdy composition of a donut shaped space sitting on heavy rocks. The way he has combined a thin fibreglass material against the stone looks futuristic and pre-historic at the same time.

For the relatively unknown Radic it was a challenge to create something for the central London site, which is so charged with history. Radic has a calm, bear-like presence, and he works with a very small team in Chile. “The commission in this symbolic space was a problem first”, Radic said ” I don’t think so fast, and to come up with something in just two months is a short time”. He describes the outcome as “crude architecture”, assembled “a little bit like papier-mâché” aiming for “a handmade look, which is really difficult to do in this scale”.

The pavilion is more like a piece of sculpture and shows the 1960s architectural sensibilities that Radic draws ideas from: “Cedric Price, Superstudio and Archigram”. He created several models before deciding on the final form “I created maybe five models, it’s not a linear process” he described the design stage before he found the right form.

More on the Serpentine Pavilion the next issue

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Sound and space at Prada Foundation, Venice

In an 18th century palazzo by the Rialto market along the Canal Grande the new show Art or Sound at the Prada Foundation is showcasing art works exploring music and sound. The exhibition is curated by long term Prada collaborator Germano Celant and will be open for the duration of the architecture biennale until November.

The building itself is exquisitely detailed and is being completely restored. The second floor piano nobile is open to the public for the first time. In a space like this there is a theatrical aspect, where the exhibited works blend with the setting – a very different experience from the traditional clinical gallery space.

With a range of works from the 16th century, including instruments, paintings and clocks to musical installations of the 1960s and the present day, the show explores formal, sensory and abstract qualities around music. One of the central works is Jannis Kounellis‘ performance piece from 1972 Sensa tilulo. Da invent are sul post (Untitled. To be Invented on the Spot), which is recreated here to a score of Igor Stravinsky with a dancer, a violinist and a painting. It’s a delicate piece on repetition and improvisation and was presented at Documenta 5 in Kassel, which was curated by Harald Szeemann. SEE VIDEO

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Venice Biennale talks and responses

From political satire to performance and archive, responses to this year’s theme ‘Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014’ at the Venice Biennale www.labiennale.org/en/architecture are varied and interesting. At the Swiss pavilion a marathon program of talks during the opening days was orchestrated by London based curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist around the legacies of sociologist Lucius Burckhardt and architect Cedric Price’s 1960’s concept the Fun Palace.

On day two Swiss architectural duo Herzog & de Meuron discussed the question of preservation with Chris Dercon, the director of Tate Modern in London. The modernist project was famously all about creating new structures, better designed to increase well-being, health and prosperity, but preservation is an “eternal issue in architecture” as Dercon pointed out, and a political one: “less money, less preservation”

The radical visions of high modernism, perhaps Le Corbusier, a fellow Swiss who dreamt of re-organisning the centre of Paris, were considered by Jacques Herzog as modernist provocations. Herzog spoke about Burkhardt’s influence: “Lucius was sharpening our awareness to ask other possibilities and not always do the big gesture. You have to keep stuff.” He said that one of the big challenges in architecture is “dealing with pre-existing forms”.

Elsewhere the question of preservation was raised at the Arsenale in the Albanian exhibition overseen by Beyond Entropy. Simple urban structures are significant as part of the country’s heritage that should be preserved from radical master planning. Atelier Albania is a Dutch-funded organisation that looks for the creative potential in Albania’s future by restoring organic systems instead of radical redevelopment. It’s an interesting situation, where real possibilities could be explored by saving informal aspects in cities.

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