New iPad App Explores the Architecture and Urban Design of Berlin, Beirut & Venice
Architecture and urban design apps are appearing so fast its hard to keep up with the latest new site to investigate city history and growth. But a new one—Archipelago Town-lines—is the result of a 3 year-long research on three key places: Berlin, Beirut, and Venice. It uses original photo galleries, video, and audio content and interactive data visualization features, as a guide for new urban geography, history, and lifestyle of these three very different cities. These places are then place holders for the analysis of contemporary urban trends, in order to propose a new possibility for growth.
Daniel Libeskind Adds Three Intersecting Cubes to the Jewish Museum Berlin
(Courtesy Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin)
Daniel Libeskind’s second contribution to the Jewish Museum Berlin since 2001, the Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin, will open this Saturday, November 17. The 25,000 square foot Academy is located just across from the original museum and now houses the museum library, a growing archive, and will also house lectures, workshops, and seminars.
Video> The Sound and Light of Berlin’s Trees
(Courtesy BUND)
Even as Berlin loses green space, the city remains Europe’s greenest with more than 400,000 trees. One of the grandest, a 100-year-old chestnut tree towering over Montbijoupark, was the center of Tree Concert, a public art project that took place in September to bring light, literally, to the city’s diminishing greenery with a glowing LED sculpture circling the trees trunk.
Chipperfield to Revamp Mies’ Neue Nationalgalerie
Ciro Miguel/flickr
Stirling Prize winner David Chipperfield will renovate of Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, beating out more than 20 competing proposals. The museum, which houses the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation’s modern art collection, has not undergone any major renovation since it was completed in 1968.
While the commercialization of museums raises eyebrows in some circles in America, in Germany such criticism is much more forceful and threatening. Activist groups have derailed the planned May 24th opening in Berlin of the BMW Guggenheim lab, according to Bloomberg News. They argued that the mobile lab–which debuted in New York and is traveling the globe, all bankrolled by the German luxury carmaker–would accelerate the gentrification of the Kreuzberg district. The Guggenheim has faced criticism for its sponsors and activities many times before, so this episode is not likely to spur much institutional reflection. According to the report, the Museum is currently shopping for a new host city.
Quick Clicks> Fun in the Sun, Sun-Filled Fast, Transit Trending, and LEGO Gate
GE Solar Panel Carousel (Courtesy Will Giron via Inhabitat)
Solar-Powered Fun. New York City’s first solar merry-go-round just opened at the South Street Seaport, offering free rides to kids through September 7th. GE’s Carousolar is powered by 100 solar panels made of ultra thin semiconductors able to withstand extreme humidity and UV ray exposure. The green fun isn’t just for kids—GE also provided solar-powered cell phone charging stations for adults around the carousel, reported Inhabitat.
Sun-Filled Fasting. According to Dubai’s top cleric Mohammed al-Qubaisi, residents of the Burj Khalifa, world’s tallest skyscraper, will have to wait a few extra minutes to break their fast during Ramadan. Muslims living above the tower’s 80th floor should fast two additional minutes after dusk while those above the 150th floor wait an additional three minutes, The Guardian reported. Al-Qubaisi explained that just like early Muslims living in the mountains, the residents of the highest floors must adjust their fast due to the extended visibility of sunlight.
#ThingsNotToDoOnPublicTransportation. Public Transportation is trending on Twitter and the end result is a humorous user guide to transit etiquette. Transportation Nation rounded up some of their family-friendly favorites.
LEGO Gate. While not yet officially announced, European blogs have been abuzz that the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin will be the next in LEGO’s Architecture line of miniature real buildings. Unbeige revealed the series’ designer Adam Reed Tucker developed the Brandenburg model, representing the 2nd building outside of the US (the first was SOM’s Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai).
Hejduk Saves Face?
Hejduk's Kreuzberg Tower, as seen on March 31. (Courtesy SLAB Magazine)
We recently reported on the defacement of John Hejduk’s Kreuzberg Tower and Wings in Berlin, the architect’s poetic 1988 project built as part of the IBA program. After an international outpouring of angst over the developer’s “renovation” of the building—in just two weeks, more than 3,000 people signed an online petition, with testimonials penned by architects including Peter Eisenman, Steven Holl, Thom Mayne, and others—the building’s managers, BerlinHaus GmbH, have now said they will meet with the design community to take public opinion into consideration, and perhaps rethink their plans. Read More
Defacing Hejduk
Hejduk's Kreuzberg complex in happier days. (Courtesy architectureinberlin)
The late John Hejduk, dean of Cooper Union, a member of the Texas Rangers, and an influential member of the New York Five, built very few buildings, preferring to leave architectural ideas on paper. But he did build several housing projects in Berlin as part of the influential IBA program, and now one of his finest projects, the Kreuzberg Tower from 1988, is being defaced by its new owners in the name of “improvement.” Kazys Varnelis sends word that a petition is being created to protest this destruction. The effort is being led in part by Hejduk’s daughter Renata, an architectural historian who urged the new owners to halt the work, but apparently received a rude response. According to architectureinberlin, Renata explained: “I tried everything I could to get them to stop and at least consult with the Estate and other architects who were interested in helping to preserve them. They were completely uninterested and felt their facade changes would be much better than the original.” Help save the tower by spreading the word, signing the petition, and putting pressure on the new owners to reconsider their actions. You can see the terrible plans after the jump. Read More
The Banality of Fashion
The offending images: These were among the photos from a fashion shoot done at Peter Eisenman's Holocaust memorial in Berlin. (Courtesy New Statesman)
First the cracks, and now this? Sure, Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin has seen its fair share of controversies over the years, but it doesn’t get much worse than a fashion shoot for an in-flight magazine. According to the New Statesman‘s scoop, easyJet had no idea the Holocaust memorial had been used as the backdrop for a bunch of models because its magazine is produced by an outside company. That company has yet to speak up about the matter, so it remains unclear whether the fine folks at INK publishing are ignorant or just stupid. Looks like Hannah Arendt is right once again. Read More
Megastructures Reload
La Villa Spatiale by Yona Friedman & Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz
A derelict old German mint in Berlin has been taken over until November 2 by Megastructure Reloaded an exhibit of 1960′s visionary architecture drawings, models, and films. Descending into the mint’s basement/bunker Archigrammer Dennis Crompton has created an installation that includes Yona Friedman’s la Ville Spatiale, a film of the Archigram guys walking around The Centre Pompidou with Cedric Price, and a toy-like model of a Constant Nieuwenhuijs skyscraper. The dilapidated ground floor has series of interpretations of the themes by young megatsructuralists like New Yorkers Tobias Putrih and Katrin Sigurdardottir. Read More
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