Herbert Wright on

Architecture and Cities

- selected online stories

News

Visual Arts reviewed

Fiction

Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 - (almost) the Whole Thing

I open the Blueprint review and with Francesca Perry, Ruth Lang and Johnnny Tucker, try to digest this impossible offering. 5 pages online. 'Can any flavour linger after bingeing at such a blowout?'  In the end, I'm left with 'an underlying anxiety that the poetry of architecture cannot be oblivious to the problems of the real world'

Blueprint 359/ designcurial July 2018

Reflecting the Romans

Elizabeth de Portzamparc's Musée de la Romanté in Nimes

Blueprint358 coverstory/designcurial May/June 2018

It's Alright Now, In Fact it's a Gas

The Ladykillers hijacked a lorryload of loot in the shadow of the Gasholders, Kings Cross. 63 years later, Wilkinson Eyre have made the Gasholders into unique flats

Blueprint 357/designcurial April 2018

Finding the Truth Where It Hurts

Forensic Architecture is a research group that seeks the truth about some of the darkest events of our time. A show at the ICA, London reveals some of their work

Journal of Wild Culture April 2018  

Billion Dollar Cube

Trump tweeted that he'd steer clear of the new US Embassy in London by Kieran Timberlake - but I checked the outpost out

Blueprint/designcurial March 2018 

A Knight's Move: Rathbone Square

London's new secret garden by Make Architects and Gustafson Porter + Bowman

designcurial March 2018

It's Bronzed and Breathing 

...and it cost a Billion: The Bloomberg HQ, London by Foster+Partners

Blueprint/ designcurial Jan/Feb 2018

A spotlight on Shenzhen's Urban Villages - and the future of cities

Unexpected lessons from UABB 2017 and the world's miraculous not-so-instant megacity

blog February 2017

... and see article below...

Talking of Shenzhen's Urban Villages ... interview with Meng Yan of Urbanus, co-curator of UABB Shenzhen 2017

CoBo Social January 2018

Note: Blueprint published full review of UABB SZ  in March - print only. 

Chicago Architecture Biennial '17: Architecture enjoying itself, but...

The theme was Make New History, the highlight was a replay of old skyscraper style wars. The big new history that Trump is making was hard to find 
Blueprint / designcurial Dec 2017

I Was a Juror at SCI-Arc's Graduate Thesis Weekend

Does top Los Angeles architecture school SCI-Arc still have the radical edge of its past? In September, I was invited to judge graduate projects and see for myself.  

Blog October 2017

Note: This blog was edited and re-re-published as

 California Dreaming: Exploring the Visions of SCI-Arc Graduates 

designcurial November 2017

Raw, robust industrial chic

AHMM's new White Collar Factory at London's Old Street Roundabout

Blueprint 354, designcurial Sep/Nov 2017

Ready for the Rain:

Renzo Piano's Centro Botín

The futuristic new art centre in Santander, Spain, is shaped like two lungs in porcelain,  floating over the waterside 

Blueprint 354/ designcurial Sep/Oct 2017

The vGGG house in Berlin Mitte

Between a power station and legendary clubs, a new block by Gonzalez Haase has an internal and external dialogue with Berlin

Blueprint 354/designcurial Sep/Oct 2017

Buried Treasure

The world's first porcelain courtyard marks the spot in Amada Levete's V&A extension -- beneath is a vast new gallery

Blueprint 353/designcurial July/Aug 2017

An Oasis of Calm in The City

An ephemeral skyscraper, a calm urban lane and gardens in London's changing roofscape- Angel Court by Fletcher Priest

Blueprint 353/designcurial July/Sep 2017

Warsaw Rising: Libeskind's Złota 44

Daniel Libeskind’s luxury tower challenges a Stalinist icon on Warsaw's skyline. I couldn't resist asking his thoughts on social high-rise too.

Blueprint 353/designcurial July/Sep 2017

The War in Poland

The Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk is masterful architecture by Kwadrat with a brilliant display under Paweł Machcewicz's direction. The architecture stands but the Polish government is at war with what's inside it.

Blueprint 352/designcurial May/July 2017

... see also:

Professor Pawel Machcewicz's Last Interview as Director of the Museum of the Second-World War

dated 31 March 2017, blog For The Record

Mies and Stirling at RIBA

I review the excellent show about their designs for the City site by the Bank of England, adding some overlooked facts!

(Sorry about repeated para near the end)
Blueprint 352/DesignCurial May/June 2017

The Curve, Slough - bblur architecture, CZWG and Colorminium's sweeping riposte to Shakespeare, Betjeman and David Brent 

Blueprint352 March/designcurial May 2017

Frame Work

The Europa Building is the new European Commission HQ. Within a huge box made of window frames, a curvaceous form floats like a captured moon. And architect Philippe Samyn builds in many more surprises

Blueprint 351/designcurial March/Apr 2017

Imagine Moscow at the Design Museum  How the show was designed, and the heroic unbuilt architectural visions in it from Leonidov, Iofan etc - a feast of Soviet avant-garde and social realism

Blueprint 351/ designcurial March 2017

Finding the Meaning of Peter Märkli

The Swiss architect with a cult following displays drawings and models in London

FAD magazine March 2017

Waving not Drowning- Elbphilharmonie

Herzog and de Meuron's amazing new wavy crystal fantasy in Hamburg, pregnant with a vast concert hall 

Blueprint 350/designcurial Jan/Feb 2017

Gone West- Design Museum

From Robert Matthew's 1962 Commonwealth Institute to London's new Design Museum -the history , the architecture, the shows... and interviews with director Deyan Sudjic and architect John Pawson. (Includes Designers in Residence interviews, one by Wang Shu )

Blueprint 350/designcurial Jan/Feb 2017

New Wave

Deliciously curvy new gallery building at MAAT in Lisbon, by Amanada Levete Architects - includes interview

Blueprint/ designcurial Nov/Dec 2016

Lisbon & Oslo

Architecture Triennales

The unique comparitive review!

Blueprint Nov/designcurial Dec 2016

... see also:

 Lisbon Architecture Triennale - Strangely, it's about Architecture review

COBO (Hong Kong) November 2016

Irregular French Rise

In 1966 Pritzker Prize winner Christian de Portzamparc plunged into New York’s alternative underground scene. 50 years later, his third Manhattan skyscraper opens. What was he doing 50 years ago, and what's he doing to the contemporary skyline?

Blueprint 348 Sept/designcurial Oct 2016

The Shining Obelisk

London's One Canada Square is 25 years old. This behemoth personified global capitalism - how is it doing now? Full story from dockland desolation to fintech startups

Blueprint Sep/designcurial Nov 2016

A Brief History of Tokyo Bay Plans

The latest Big Plan to build on Tokyo Bay is from KPF. It follows visionary solutions by many, including the Metabolists and Norman Foster. But vision and reality are different things, as Tokyo's development shows.

The Global Urbanist August 2016

Big Mac

The longest building in Paris just had a €1-billion makeover. The new Entrepôt Macdonald is a collaboration with 15 architects including Christian de Portzamparc and Kengo Kuma. It's an off-the-beat grand projet, but does this monster megastructure work?

Blueprint/designcurial May/June 2016

Big Switch

Tate Modern Switch House - adventures in geometry, movement and materiality. And a game of stairs. Includes interview with Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.

Blueprint 347 July/designcurial Aug 2016

RSHP move into their own skyscraper

The Richard Rogers-founded practice relocate to the heart of the City of London, high up in the Cheesegrater

Blueprint July/designcurial September 2016

Venice Architecture Bienalle 2016

Curator Alejandro Aravena's theme is Reporting from the Front, but what's the Big Message? Where is architecture going? Cate St Hill and I also offer the best pavilions and exhibitions + photography by Paul Raftery.

Blueprint 347 July/ designcurial Aug 2016

A letter from Tokyo

The most advanced city on Earth isn't just shaped by earthquakes and economics – animes and architects shape dreams there too. I seek the big picture from above, and the future beyond the futuristic

Blueprint 346 May 2016 + blog

Zaha Hadid 1950-2016

My tribute to her for Blueprint magazine

designcurial 1st April 2016
 

All the Wood's A Stage

The beautiful Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois by Studio Gang

Blueprint/ designcurial March/May 2016

All Change: Arnhem Centraal station - the curviest transit hub ever. Ben van Berkel of UNStudio showed me round and round.

Also, a round-up of 5 more big new Netherlands stations, including Mecanoo's Delft and Bentham Crouwel's Rotterdam
Blueprint 344 January (cover story) /designcurial March 2016

Diogo Seixas Lopes 1972-2016

In memoriam of the Portuguese architect, writer and curator. Includes Diogo's page for Blueprint written with fellow Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2016 curator André Tavares

designcurial February 2016

Shenzhen UABB 2015 reviewed
What is this Aaron Betsky-curated exhibition in China's original boom megacity? And what's the big message?
Blueprint/designcurial Jan/Feb 2016
.... and see story below

All Tomorrow's Cities
In a city with hardly a yesterday, clues to tomorrow's cities are revealed. Shenzhen's UABB 2015 examines powerful ideas for an urbanising planet
Journal of Wild Culture January 2016

The Woo Building?

Howarth Tomkin's new Woo Building for the Royal College of Arts in Battersea, London
Blueprint/designcurial Jan/March 2016

Belgrade Waterfront: an unlikely place for Gulf petrodollars to land
A €3.5 billion project underway in the Serbian capital has divided opinion. There's more to it than just an ambitious plan bringing shining towers and updated urbanism to Belgrade- it's exposing political faultlines and encroaching on Savamala, the ground zero of the new Belgrade cool.

online December 2015 in...

Chicago Architecture Biennial 2015: Fresh Breezes in a Windy City

The first Chicago Architecture Biennial exploded with ideas and reached out across the city. But what was the agenda? And does it restore Chicago to centre-stage of architecture?
Blueprint / designcurial Nov/Dec 2015

Wax Works

Frank Lloyd Wright's fantastic buildings at SJ Johnson in Racine, Wisconsin
Uncube blog, November 2015

Return to the Barbican
(text in English & French)
L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui 409, Nov 2015

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A Cut Above: Zaha Hadid's Messner Mountain Museum

It's modest in size and half-invisible from the outside - the Messner Mountain Museum bridges one of Zaha Hadid's earliest designs with her most recent. Includes interview with ZHA director Patrik Schumachar

Blueprint Sep / designcurial Oct 2015

A Letter from Copenhagen

Denmark’s global design presence goes back to great modernist Arne Jacobsen, designer of Fritz Hansen furniture and architectural icons. In this bastion of urban cool, who's now colouring the world’s favourite chair? I meet artist Tal R and his giant dog

Blueprint Sep/ designcurial Oct 2015

I chaired a Design Museum Super Talk, with designers Alexa Pollman and Chris Green and GLA Regeneration Team's Levent Kerimol. Theme: Migrating Studios? The Future of Creative Spaces. And I raised... questions about regeneration.
blog September 2015

A Pretty Picturehouse
London's Picturehouse Central by Peter Hudspith Architects is glitzy + saves heritage
Blueprint September 2015

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Skyscraper Comments go international in Metro newspapers
In July 2015, was interviewed for an 'expert's opinion' by Daniel García Casillas for Metro World News.
The interview (original English here) is now surfacing in García Casillas' article published in various Metro newspapers.
Here in Spanish (from Santiago, Chile)
In French (from Montreal, Canada)

Strata and Surprises in Sauerbruch Hutton's latest building, in the French Rhineland

designcurial August 2015

A Distant Echo of Gothic

Henri Gaudin's last building in France- a conservatoire composed of conical sections, echoing an abandoned abbey. I travel to Soissons to see the Cité de la Musique et de la Danse, and track down the veteran architect in his Parisian Chinatown retreat.

Blueprint July 2015, designcurial Sep 2015

Melancholy and Architecture
A review of the book by Diogo Seixas Lopes, about Italian architect Aldo Rossi and his San Cataldo Cemetery

Bluprint July 2015, posted online May 2018

Mons- European Capital of Culture
More than a box of chocolates: How a load of new museums and art has sexed up a historic Belgian town, and why it's worth a visit!
Blueprint/designcurial July 2015

Visions from the Temple of the Sun
A critical look at photographer Patrizia Mussa's vision of Jean Balladur's strange resort, La Grande Motte
designcurial July 2015

The Colonel's Recipe
The no.2 and no.3 tallest towers by Colonel Richard Seifert, London's no.1 commercial architect of the 60s/ 70s, are both going residential. What's happening with Centre Point and Kings Reach Tower? Includes interview with fashion pattern übermeisters Eley Kishimoto

Blueprint/designcurial July 2015

Charles Correa (1930-2015)

A personal memory of the man, and Blueprint's profile of the life and work of perhaps India's greatest architect
designcurial June 2015 (includes archive from Blueprint August 2013)

Jeddah's Kingdon Tower; how much higher can skyscrapers go?

The Chicago-designed one-kilometre skyscraper going up in Saudi Arabia is the finale of The Guardian's History of Cities in 50 Buildings

online June 2015 in...

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Expo Milan 2015- The Pavilions from Beyond Europe

Blueprint's 'Best of the Rest': I choose 7 of the 10 selected, including Chile, Russia, Turkmenistan, UAE and USA. Other contributions from Veronica Simpson and Johnny Tucker
Blueprint/ designcurial May/June 2015

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Living on the Edge in Paris
New housing bridges a social chasm- a look with Jean-Christophe of Hamonic + Masson
designcurial April 2015

The (St)ability of T(h)rust & (€)motion
The European Central Bank's new Frankfurt headquarters, and a mad but important interview with its architect, the great deconstructivist, Wolf Prix of Coop Himmel(b)lau

Blueprint/ designcurial March 2015

Rather Not Go Blind
MUMA's extension of Manchester's Whitworth Gallery brings the park into the building, and the building into the park.
Blueprint/ designcurial March 2015

Storming Heaven- review of DAM (Deutsche Architekturmuseum)'s exhibition charting the story of high-rise in Frankfurt.
Blueprint/designcurial March 2015

London's First Tower Block was...

(selected in designcurial's UK Top Ten)
designcurial Feb 2015

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Moscow Urban Forum 2015

Winter is a crazily cold time to host an international urban convention in Moscow. What is the city up to, and what about the just-breaking economic crisis? I report...

DesignCurial/ Blueprint Feb/Jan 2015

Jumping the Tracks

The railway divided Portuguese town Vila Franca. Miguel Arruda re-unites them with a best amongst new European libraries

Blueprint/designcurial Jan/Feb 2015

Inclined to Agree
Going up London's Cheesegrater with Richard Rogers, and what Europe's most advanced and landmark skyscraper is all about- legibility, modularity, pubic realm... How hi-tech has evolved
Blueprint 337/ designcurial Nov/Dec 2014

La Belle et la Bête: Full report on the secret metallic animal housing the Fondation Pathé, Paris, and interview with Renzo Piano, including exclusive photo of his secret hideaway thinking room!
Blueprint 336/ designcurial September 2014
 

Lisbon: Vibrant, Historic and Contemporary
First of three reflections on Portugal for homeland , the newspaper of Portugal at the Venice Architecture Biennale
homeland Aug/Sept 2014

The new National Library of Latvia the largest new library in Europe, and interview with legendary Latvian-American architect Gunnar Birkerts
designcurial/Blueprint August 2014

Amazing Earls Court- it looks like the last month to save this vast London venue- here's why we should

blog August 2014

Hurra! four Librarys...

SUPER-WIZZ bildings for swots inc the Latvian job and why the Francais have to call them Biblioteques!
le Flaneur column
RIBAJournal July/August 2014

Eternity evades Egyptian Deities in Kensington
The twilight of a truly fantastic wall of Egyptian Gods, one of the last remnants of PoMo genius Ian Pollard's design that made London fun
blog/gallery July 2014

Plane-Speaking

Architecture at Heathrow, Queen's buildings from 1625 onwards, Longbox: the ultimate Airport, and how to make the best of a 5.5km runway for SKYLON!

Flaneur column, RIBA Journal July 2014

Panic in the Streets of London!
The skyscraper debate: a look at the NLA show 'London's Growing Up!' and some straight talk about the real problem
designcurial / Blueprint magazine May 2014

Sandwiches and Water
Not being at the Venice Biennale- Pros and Cons (with musings on Canaletto v Guardi, psycho-deaths and sandwiches)

Flaneur column RIBA Journal 2014

Paolo Mendes da Rocha's Museum of Coaches in Lisbon
Brazil's greatest living architect has designed an extraordinary building with New World form and vision, and a humanistic approach to public realm. It won't open until 2015 but I'm there.
designcurial / Blueprint April 2014

Paolo Mendes da Rocha speaks
Brazil's greatest living architect and Pritzker winner, interviewed about the Museum of Coaches
designcurial / Blueprint April 2014

Bad Timing: The Flaneur considers who's telling the time, clocktowers, deep time and what to do with short-term thinkers.

Invisible Buildings: The Flaneur looks for them

RIBA Journal April and March 2014

Two-of-a-Kind: FRAC Dunkirk by Lacaton & Vassal
A spectacular new art centre at France's northern-most city recycles a vast ship-repair shed and doubles it with an exciting new translucent volume
designcurial / Blueprint magazine Feb 2014

Zaha Hadid's Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan
This fantastic curvy cultural icon may be the most free and dynamic expression of Hadid's total fluidityyet ... it's also an engineering tour-de-force, and it also connects to the forgotten masters of thin-shell design, particularly Félix Candela. Cover story, includes Q&A with Ms Hadid.
Blueprint 332, January 2014

>request PDF!

Caruso St John's intervention at Tate Britain, London
from Blueprint 332, January 2014

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The Past is an English Country
2013 was English Heritage's centenary... or was it? Interview with chief executive Simon Thurley + works by Caruso St John (Chiswick House Café), Terry Brown ex GMW (City projects) Bennetts (Royal Shakespeare Theatre) and Denton Corker Marshall (Stonehenge Visitor Centre)
designcurial / Blueprint magazine Jan 2014

Power  Surge
Baku, fossil fuel boomtowns, man camps and an ingenious plan for the Thames tideway Tunnel...
Le Flaneur column in RIBAJ- The Magazine of the Royal Institute of British Architects January 2014

Out of this World
Mars, vernacular architecture, Dr Strangelove and OMA...
Le Flaneur column in RIBAJ- The Magazine of the Royal Institute of British Architects December 2013

Werner Sobek Responds
The great German architect, engineer and material specialist says 'it's a mistake to assume that high-tech and low-tech are mutually exclusive'
DesignCurial December 2013

Maggie's Centre Aberdeen: A Gentle Retreat in a Hard Town
A visit to Snøhetta's beautiful haven conjures up diverse architectural references, from Kubrik to penguin pools
Arkitektur N (Norway) November 2013

Oslo Architecture Triennale 2013: Behind the Green Door reviewed
The Rotor-curated Triennale and green initiatives in the hip northern metropolis spell out that difficult word Sustainability
Blueprint 331 November 2013

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Going Up the Wall
George Harrison, Stirling Prize, Oslo and the new Berlin Wall
Le Flaneur column in RIBAJ- The Magazine of the Royal Institute of British Architects November 2013

Mecanoo's Library of Birmingham
Blueprint 330, September 2013
and in French, below...

(Sans photographie de l'interieur. Version traduit de Blueprint)
Le Courrier de l'Architecte Octobre 2013

Between Heaven and Earth + Chairman Zhang's Brave New World
Report from CTUBH Conference 2012- what's happening with high-rise?
including... EXCLUSIVE Interview with Zhang Yue, BROAD Group Chairman and developer of Sky City, the most Utopian vision of urban living since le Corbusier
Blueprint 330 September 2013

> request a PDF

Birmingham Discography
Is there a Secret Protocol to make Birmingham's architecture go round in circles?
Le Flaneur column in RIBAJ- The Magazine of the Royal Institute of British Architects October 2013

A Skyline That Never Sleeps
A brief history of London's skyscrapers- and which of them in the strata of high-rise history 1929-2015 that help make London the world's most exciting city. From Strutt & Palmer's stylish quarterly magazine
&London Autumn 2013

One Waverton Street
A pub in London's Mayfair is now a luxury townhouse by Squire and Partners
Blueprint 330, designcurial Sep 2013

Checking Out at the Check-in
Considering hotels, a Hong Kong cockroach, and rooms that change while you sleep...
Le Flaneur column in Royal Institute of British Architects Journal September 2013

Charles Correa
A profile of the giant of Indian architecture. Much was written during his RIBA retrospective, but this is more than the standard interview and a look at the show's chosen 'greatest hits'. I say it: by comparison, his timeless legacy leaves many Pritzker winners' works looking 'trivial, parochial or dated in comparison'

Blueprint August 2013

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Álvaro Siza
A new Taschen book by Philip Jodidio is a visual feast, but the author's missed some things
Blueprint August 2013
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Sweets- Amsterdam's Bridge-houses and an Exhibition about them by Space & Matter
Blueprint August 2013

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On The Eighth Day... Eduardo Souto de Moura
Portugal's second Pritzker-winning architect and disciple of Siza is interviewed

Blueprint July 2013

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Texas Tech University's Land Arts Program
Blueprint July 2013
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Getting it Rijk- Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum restored and refreshed by Cruz y Ortiz

Blueprint June magazine 2013

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Alex Haw of atmos studio profiled- the Shoreditch architect who's more than the god of small spaces
(This photo © Barbara Doux)
Blueprint May 2013

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If You Build It, Will They Come?
Report on Architecture Foundation's discussion at Tate Modern about big cultural projects in Abu Dhabi, Kong Kong and St Petersburg, and asking if the Bilbao Effect is still relevant

Blueprint (previous website) April 2013

>request PDF

Note the pdf says 2012- this should be 2013!

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Motioning A Table

Up with the construction crew on London's RSHP-designed Leadenhall Building (aka Cheesegrater) to see the installation of a Yellow Table. Skyscrapers go modular. Warning: vertiginous photography!

Blueprint/designcurial April/Nov 2013

Thanks for the View, Mr Mies: Lafayette Park, Detroit book review
Blueprint April 2013

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Lining Up: The High Line Effect
Major feature about urban linear parks- interview with its architects Liz Diller of RS+F, and a look at projects in Seoul, Birmingham, Madrid, London and Rotterdam
Blueprint March 2013
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Special K: Théâtre St Nazaire
Karine Herman of Paris-based K-architectures has brought a lyrical approach to the French seaside town's new theatre, with it's almost billboard-facade finish and classical theatrical flourishes
Blueprint January 2013

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The Renzo Piano-designed Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo
Light-harvesting glass and Norwegian wood make the crisp, gentle drama of Oslo's new contemporary art gallery.
Blueprint December 2012

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Zaha Hadid's PierresVives
A look at the huge sci-fi civic building beamed into the South of France, and Ms Hadid's thoughts about it
Blueprint November 2012

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Lisbon Open House launches: My amazing day!

As curatorial consultant to the launch edition of Lisbon Open House, I am happy to report that it was a phenomenal success! Here's how my Saturday went.
Blog October 2012

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Made In China- Are Chinese architects finally turning the tables on foreigners, and tackling the issues of China's urban explosion? And what about Wang Shu's Pritzker?
Interviewed are Ma Yansong of MAD (Beijing), Li Hu of OPEN (Beijing), Dennis Lau of DLN (HK) and Chris Wilkinson of Wilkinson Eyre (London)

LEAF Review October 2012 (from page 15)

Teatro Thalia- after 150 years, a magical theatre ruin in Lisbon is brought back to life, in an an extraordinary remodelling by the legendary Gonçalo Byrne, with Patricia Barbas and Diogo Lopes
Blueprint October 2012

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The Novium- the new city museum by Keith Williams is a cool, considered addition to the tight ancient townscape of Chichester
Blueprint October 2012

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Renzo Piano and The Shard

The history and anatomy of the new tallest skyscraper in the EU, and...

Renzo Piano talks about The Shard, Ronchamp, Centre Pompidou, the Pritzkers... and his 'fuck' moment

Blueprint June 2012

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Expedition to the Genex Tower
At Belgrade's Western Gate stands perhaps the world's most fantastic Brutalist high-rise
Blog June 2012

Paris Stalingrad to the Peripherique
A Paris off the beaten track, behind the grand railway termini in the north
Blog April 2012

Terry Farrel's Shenzhen skyscraper KK100
A giant of post-modernist architecture and master planning talks about his work, his influences and his pratice's new skyscraper, the ninth tallest in the world. Includes Rowan Moore's 1986 article on Farrell.
Blueprint February 2012

Touring the near and the elsewhere
Following my touring talk with curator Gaia Persico of a major show of urban photography and art
Blog February 2012

Long Live Chungking Mansions!

Hong Kong's legendary epicentre of the world

Blog January 2012

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Sampling the Urban Future in Shenzhen

The instant mega-city that may be defining the 21st century

Blog December 2011

Vladimir Tatlin never got to build his 400m-high Tower to the Third International in St Petersburg, but in London, Jeremy Dixon has just built a (slightly smaller) one- again!
Blueprint December 2011

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Heathrow has a Third Runway and it's almost Ready for Take-Off!
Blog November 2011

Postmodernism: What is the V&A's take?
It's all GoGo with PoMo these days- a major show at the Victoria & Albert Museum says... what?
Blog September 2011

Post Modernism debate at ICA originally posted by Blueprint September 2011

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Trinity Buoy Wharf is London's odd secret art quarter, and home to Michael Farraday's experiments and James Douglass' Experimental Lighthouse (1863)
le cool May 2011

Mumbai's Skyline- Going Up?

What's up in Mumbai? Who are these tycoons reaching for the sky? Where's the planning and infrastructure?

blog March 2011

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Charles Holden's Piccadilly Circus
A huge, dreamy structure, invisible from the street yet bang in the centre of London'
le cool February 2011

Escher at Home
A Surrealistic Astroturf house in Austria by Albert Otis and Reinhold Weichlbacher

Wired March 2011Three Gorges Dam- what a Stator
Wired (UK) September 2010

Taipei 101's massed tune damper
Wired (UK) June 2010

The Rolex Learning Centre, Lausanne, designed by SANAA
Wired (UK) February 2010

Shared Space- desegregating pedestrians and vehilcles is a big idea for 2010
Wired (UK) November 2009

Comment: Time to re-assess the clichés about Dubai!
Blueprint March 2009
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Slit House by Eastern Design Office in Shiga, Japan, challenges the idea of inside and outside
Contemporary 21, 2008/9

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The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock
A review of the book by Steven Jacobs
Blueprint April 2008
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László Rajk- profiling Hungarian master of deconstruvist architecture and author of the outrageously eclectic Lehel Market, Budapest

Blueprint January 2007

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