News and Recent Articles by Herbert Wright

March 2024_________

Just back from Geneva... to see how

Christian de Portzamparc’s Dior Geneva flagship store dazzles and flows. As the architect explains in my wallpaper* story, he weaves in references to fashion legend Christian Dior

in the new C3 no.430, I interview OMA's Ellen van Loon about Manchester's new Aviva Studios, and I consider Ishigama's Zaishu Art Museum and its kilometre-long water walk  

February 2024________

Wow!! HK newspaper the South China Morning Post gives glowing coverage to Emotionalism and The Blue, a hotel project in Taipei, Taiwan led by me friend Tszwai So of Spheron Architects. We developed the concept of Emotionalism in architecture and art in response to the the digitilastion of everything. I'm quoted extensively in the article. Congratulations to Tszwai on this fantastic project!

A New Twist in the DNA of Light Industrial Architecture - Barking Industria  by HaworthTompkins

Also in French published in Chroniques 'd'Architecture

January 2024________

Report from neither Spain nor England - I loved exploring Gibraltar. A brief survey of its psychogeography. 

In English, blog

In French, published in Chroniques d'Architecture

December 2023________

We launched People Place Purpose Poetry

In Amsterdam! It's a wonderful, lavish 500-page book celebrating Mecanoo, their architecture around the world, and the human-centric philosophy with a dash of magic, with which Francine Houben drives the practice forward. Picture from the book launch above (with Francine 2nd right and me left).

November 2023________

Falling onto a Bouncy Castle - what can architecture do as society gets older? A look at new ideas and projects that bring the almshouse into the 21st century.

Also in French as Appleby Blue: chute sur un château gonfable, published in Chroniques d'architecture

The new edition of C3 no.428 includes my texts and interviews, including with Morphosis about the new complex for Italian energy giant eni - and yes, I question their fossil fuel business 

October 2023 ______

Free Your Mind: A Revamped Matrix Live in Manchester- a contemporary spectacle on stage, reviewed

FADmagazine October 2023

New platforms in the sky over London are luring people who want to get high. Are they the pinnacle of urban experience? My overview:

In English: London's High Pavilions

In French as '... platformes panoramiques, proche du ciel, loin du paradis' in Chroniques d'architecture

October 2023

Summer 2023 __________

On the UK Housing Crisis

In French as 'Lavenir: une kitchette et un cagibi perché dans le ciel' in chroniques d'architecture

In original English blogged as 'The UK Housing Crisis: Do We Need a Revolution?'

September 2023

Happy to be working with Spheron Architects in their Emotionalist project The Blue, Taipei, over two floors of a downtown hotel.

Is the City a Conscious Entity? 

Medium July 2023

Originally published in French as La ville est-elle une entité consciente?

Chroniques d'architecture, juillet 2023 

In the new edition C3 no.426, I ask Jeanne Gang about the wonderful AMNH Gilder Center museum project in NY, and Mexican architect Mauricio Rocha about extending Diego Rivera's visionary complex built on lava

+ essay 'Factories that Make Place, Warehouses that Store Memory' 

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May 2023________

The new C3 no.425 includes:

AI and Architecture: Are we going to be out of work? Everyone's talking generative AI. Silvio Carta of the University of Hertfordshire and I discuss what it means for architecture.

Also: Contextualizing the Community Library creates a sense of place and community as well as access to knowledge.

Ishigami Takes a Heavy Turn

Junya Ishigami's designs have stretched ephemeralness and structure. Now he's gone underground with a cave-like project in Ube.

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Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance creates transparency with stone - it's designed by HQA (Israel) and HWKN (NY) to unleash the chaos of creativity

Wallpaper May 2023

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... and here's 168 photos of views from my hotel rooms since 2020!

April 2023________

The future of civilisation and the data explosion: Humanity's Destiny is Shifting - Where Are We Heading? Unsustainable economic growth gets a new perspective, surpringly from astrobiologists - yet their conclusions are not so new...

March 2023________

C3 magazine no 424 includes my feature In a Relationship - Museums and the Land, in which I explore how museum architecture can relate to land and landscape, which it didn't in modernist times and before. The cover story about The Sydney Modern Project is an example and one of my interviews in this C3 is with its architects SANAA. Another interview is with architect Marcel Ferencz about Budapest's excellent Museum of Ethnography.

January 2023________

C3 magazine no 423 includes my feature Living with Trees in the Sky, about vegetated vertical residential towers  + interviews with Stefano Boeri Architetti about their latest Vertical Forest which is in China, and with Mecanoo about chic new downtown neighbourhood Kampus in Manchester

Late 2022 ___________

Now Online! E-motion-AI City

In this beautiful short film by Tswai So of Spheron Architects, my words and voice in interview thread through the soundtrack. It was presented by Hong Kong at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021. Shot in Kowloon's Tsuen Wan neighbourhood, it follows a young family, while I muse on the inexorable digitilisation of our urban world.

Screened in Venice & Hong Kong 2021, YouTube 2022

C3 magazine no 422 (Nov 2022) includes my interview with architect Zhu Pei about the Zibo OCT Art Center in Shandong Province, China

C3 magazine no 421 (Sep 2022) includes my lead feature How Urban Agriculture can Transform Cities + interviews with Bio-architecture Formosa about the Taisugar Circular Village in Tainin, Taiwan, a good opportunity to discuss the city/countryside divide

Summer 2022 _________

Dress to Impress! Africa Fashion at the V&A

The vibrancy, diversity and confidence of African fashion is on show at London's V&A - and we get the backstory going back to the post-colonial rush of freedom!

CoBo Social, August 2022 

In conversation with French artist Mimosa Echard about 'Sporal' ... her immersive psychedelic show at Palais de Tokyo, Paris is inspired by myxomycetes, the slime-mould-like organism, and the video game she's made.

CoBo Social July 2022  

Elizabeth's Fantastic Architectural Voyage

From a colonial hospital in Malawi to the Elizabeth Line under London- it's an epic journey through architecture (and geopolitics) 

blog May 2022 

originally published in French at chroniques d'architecture

As usual, a lot of new stuff from me is out there. And it's not all online, because print lives!

In the German magazine Fast Forward, I take an alternative view on how we can somehow live in balance with our planet.

In C3 no.420 my work includes an essay about Small Stations Identity, as well interviews with Max Dudler about the new Berlin U-bhan station he designed, and JKMM's Asmo Jaaksi about the Mylly art campus in Helsinki. 

Spring 2022 _________

It's been a busy time and I haven't updated for a while - sorry about that. In C3 magazine, a lot of interviews, essays and new architecture - in print. In South China Morning Post, articles spanning from Shenzhen to Folkestone - please check the 'Architecture and Urbanism' section for links! In CoBo Social, art shows in London and Spain and even the Venice Biennale - please check the 'Art' section for links! A string of columns for Chroniques d'Architecture, mainly in French but I've blogged some in original English- again, see the 'Architecture' section. There's more ... but expect better updates soon!

February 2022__________

New projects in vibrant old neighbourhoods - gentrification?

I've written about two new creative hubs- here they are:

>> Brixton House in Brixton, London

A new theatre by Foster Wilson Size invites community into the foyer and commercial tenants into its crown

ICON 25 Feb 2022 

>> Idea Factory in a Shenzhen urban village

Once it made clothes, now it's reborn for creatives. And it's embedded in an urban village. Winy Maas of MVRDV explains.

South China Morning Post 22 Feb 2022

December 2021_________

published online: 

OPEN Architecture's Chapel of Sound

Near the Great Wall of China, an auditorium like a cave lies inside what looks like a giant sliced boulder

South China Morning Post, 22 Dec 2021

Big Digital Boxes Come Out of Hiding

Data Centres were architecture's biggest secret typology. But as Internet expansion continues to supernova, architects are coming upwith new ideas

Now blogged in English, first published in FRENCH published as De l'évolution des monstreux centres de données in Chroniques d'Architecture 

November 2021________

It's been a super-busy writing month! Much was for the first 2022 edition of Korea's C3 magazine,  including LA's new Academy Museum about which I interviewed Luigi Priano, RPBW partner, and Ricardo Bak Gordon about his latest Portuguese house design.

I interviewed two Chinese architects for the South China Morning Post (see below) and wrote about NZ's great rebel architect Ian Athfield for l'Architecture d'aujourd'hui  (in print soon). I surveyed London's new Design District in CoBo, which also ran reviews of two fine London art shows (links below). 

My monthly column in Chroniques d'architecture was written as COP26 got underway. Our new digital worlds are no escape from the only real planet we have. Links to 'Heaven or Hell' in English and French are below.

Hope something here stimulates you! HW  

Two Beijing-based architects bringing ‘human survival wisdom’ messages

As the 'Business of Design Week 2021' gets underway in Hong Kong, focussing on a 'design reset’, I interview Zhu Pei and Luo Yujie

South China Morning Post, 29 Nov 2021

Heaven or Hell?... regarding the Metaverse, crypto-transactions, fantasy architecture and our planet.

Now blogged in original English, after first publication in my monthly Chroniques d'architecture column in French as Enfer ou Paradis 

A Night-themed Exhibition positions Norwegian art amongst the world's best - the first in a series of Whitechapel shows from the Christen Sveaas Art Foundation

CoBo Social November 2021 

Hell in its Heydey - Pablo Bronstein at the Soane Museum offers a glorious dystopia.

CoBo Social Nov 2021

Design District - in London's creative village of completely new buildings, meet Variety, Colour, Human Scale and Surprise!

CoBo Social, November 2021

Shape and Space, my epic survey of interaction between design and astrophysics, stretches from Australian Aboriginal astronomy to notions of living settling Mars and (haha) making warp drives - print only - Seisma magazine, autumn 2021

September 2021________

In print:

The new C3 magazine, no 415, is published! I look at several buildings and also offer the lead editorial 'Earth, Water, Air, Fire and COP26' (available online $$)

Now online: 

Comment IN FRENCH!: Brexit, architecture's UK-EU connection and Jay-Z  - my monthly column in Chroniques d'Architecture

I'm published for the first time in CHINESE! It is 艺术市场是非常反生态的.

My original 2020 article  IN ENGLISH was Stepping Into the Synthetic Forest with Andreas Greiner. It's about the Berlin artist and his AI-generated forests.

Summer_______ 

Waiting for a Slice - a short story

blog August 2021

Manchester International Festival 2021

- tackling big issues, but offering charm, drama and fun too

CoBo Social July 2021

How Modernist Charlotte Perriand Trailblazed 20th Century Living.

A giant of design, re-assessed

CoBo Social July 2021

Manchester, a Theatre of Dreams for the Architect. IN FRENCH!

chroniques d'architecture July 2021

Venice Architecture Biennale 2021 it's still overwhelming, even when surveyed online

CoBo Social June 2021

Biennale de Venise, comme si vous n’y étiez pas ... NOT being at the Venice Architecture Biennale IN FRENCH 

Chroniques d'architecture June 2021

... and NOW blogged in ENGLISH as

Not Being There... Venice and the Architecture Biennale

London Design Biennale 2021 proposes A Better World from an urban forest to a field of spoons

CoBo Social June 2021

Illuminated River... American artist Leo Villareal reveals his path from early 'Frankenstein' works to this gentle transformion of the Thames, and a look at its new activated stretch

CoBo Social June 2021

May 2021

My Zoom talk 'A Long Perspective on Building the Human Habitat'  to the Romanian Chamber of Architects (OAR) on 19 May, moderated by Ștefan Ghenciulescu, had great audience feedback! OAR reports 'more than 85% of respondents assigning the highest overall score... Appreciated most was the topic ...it was interesting, informative, and addressed burgeoning issues in an understandable way.' 

A video is destined for OAR's online learning resource - for the rest of us, I'm hoping to release a clip soon...

The Venice Architecture Biennale has opened, and the Hong Kong Pavilion includes Tszwai So's fim E-Motion-AI City on which I collaborated with concept, words and v/o. We are working to make it open-access - so stay tuned!

In print in Abitare magazine (no604) - my article about Richard Rogers' last project, the Drawing Gallery at Chateau la Coste, France. 

 in print April 2021

In French magazine l'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui no.442, themed Places of Worship, I supply text (English/French) for the cover-featured Punchbowl Mosque, Sydney by Candalepas Associates!  

My recent online columns in Chroniques d'Architecture  (French language)

Idée Lumineuse? Bright Idea?

I look at light pollution, a brief history of light and architecture, and London's Illuminated River           published May 

Togetherness is Here To Stay

A call to architects for post-Covid 'Emotionalist' architecture - the urgent emotion is joy!              published April 

Cladding

After the tragic horror of the Grenfell Tower fire, the UK's cladding cris rolls on. Why are we cladding anyway?  published March 

March 2021 in print:

C3 magazine no.412 carries my essay 'The Corporate Drive to be in Good Shape'. Looking at four big contemporary corporate buildings, it's Helen & Hard's new Stavanger bank HQ that shows the way forward with its timber structural frame.

I also interview Helen & Hard, and Christian de Portzamparc about his new 'grand projet', the Suzhou Cultural Center. 

February 2021 online:

Elephant World: Designing spaces good for companions bigger than us.

A wonderful project designed for coexistence, and an inspiring interview with its architect Boonserm Premthada.

(Scroll the German text to find the English!)

journal A, Feb 2021

Qu’est-ce que d’être un critique d’architecture? What is to be an architecture critic? IN FRENCH 

Chroniques d'architecture Feb 2021

.... and NOW blogged as

Confessions of an Architecture Critic

in ENGLISH

December 2020

Frances's top architectural magazine l'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui has a theme of Bigness. My contributions include interviewing planetary scientist Ravit Helled, who is working on the Juno mission to Jupiter. We talk of very big things!

My pre-covid talk Post-Digital Psychogeography has just reached 1000 views on YouTube! Not bad for a 50 minute lecture video. It's as super-relevant as ever - jplease WATCH! From Guy Debord's psychogeography, the keynote ranges across urbanism, learning from China and the existential threat of The Singularity.

LISTEN to my Floornature podcast! I'm interviewed by Christiane Bürklein and Virginia Cucchi and we talk about architectural writing, Emotionalism, the Singularity, China and more... It's a good listen!

November 2020

The new c3 magazine no 410 arrived from Korea with my essay 'Market Halls- Links in Civilisation' and interview with Ma Yansong of MAD architects about the cover story, his Beijing nursery project.  

My very interesting month included interviewing planetary astrophysicist Ravit Helled and Italian architect Francesca Torzo. I'm not going anywhere in lockdown, but I'm covering territory!

October 2020

 Tszwai So of Spheron Architects was live in a Hong Kong Venice Architecture Biennale curatorial preview/ presentation, with a glimpse of our film 'E-motion-AI-city'. 

Stepping into the Synthetic Forest with Andreas Greiner. A Berlin artist working in the zone where biology and technology meet has used AI to generate a forest.

Published in CoBo Social

September 2020

Toyin Ojih Odutola's 'A Counterveiling Theory'- a review of a new African myth presented in an epic show at the Barbican

Published in CoBo Social

July 2020

Very honoured to be named Contributing editor for Korea's stunning architecture magazine C3 (published in Korean and English)!

I'm quoted in the Daily Telegraph article ''The future of skyscrapers' by Tom Ough

I talked on InstaLive with Christiane Bürklein, following the fabulous new MVDVR-curated Baumeister (architecture magazine in German and English) in which I question how Germany is going green. Unfortunately tech problems mean no recording of my live interview, but there's related instagrams here. 

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