Машините за станување на Ле Корбизје

Façade Polychrome de “La Cité Radieuse” Le Corbusier de Briey en Forêt © Photo Pascal Volpez © F.L.C. / ADAGP, Paris, 2017.

Constantinople Reconstruct 

Inspired by the wealth of complex spatial elements, artist extraordinaire Antoine Helbert had painted an entire collection of illustrations that portray the historical scope of the  great city in its hey-days from 4th to 13th century AD. His works, in his own words, cover the numerous plans, elevations and sections of the major monuments of Constantinople that date from that extensive time-frame of 800 years.

http://www.realmofhistory.com/2017/05/16/constantinople-reconstructed-4th-13th-century/

Dresden Frauenkirche: Promoting reconstruction and funding

During the last months of World War II, residents expressed the desire to rebuild the church. However, due to political circumstances in East Germany, the reconstruction came to a halt. The heap of ruins was conserved as a war memorial within the inner city of Dresden, as a direct counterpart to the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed by German bombing in 1940 and also serves as a war memorial in the United Kingdom. Because of the continuing decay of the ruins, Dresden leaders decided in 1985 (after the Semperoper was finally finished) to rebuild the Church of Our Lady after the completion of the reconstruction of the Dresden castle.

The reunification of Germany, brought new life to the reconstruction plans. In 1989, a 14-member group of enthusiasts headed by Ludwig Güttler, a noted Dresden musician, formed a Citizens' Initiative. From that group emerged a year later The Society to Promote the Reconstruction of the Church of Our Lady, which began an aggressive private fund-raising campaign. The organisation grew to over 5,000 members in Germany and 20 other countries. A string of German auxiliary groups were formed, and three promotional organisations were created abroad.

The project gathered momentum. As hundreds of architects, art historians and engineers sorted the thousands of stones, identifying and labeling each for reuse in the new structure, others worked to raise money.

Günter Blobel, a German-born American, saw the original Church of Our Lady as a boy when his refugee family took shelter in a town just outside Dresden days before the city was bombed. In 1994, he became the founder and president of the nonprofit "Friends of Dresden, Inc.", a United States organization dedicated to supporting the reconstruction, restoration and preservation of Dresden's artistic and architectural legacy. In 1999, Blobel won the Nobel Prize for medicine and donated the entire amount of his award money (nearly US$1 million) to the organization for the restoration of Dresden, to the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche and the building of a new synagogue. It was the single largest individual donation to the project.

In Britain, the Dresden Trust has the Duke of Kent as its royal patron and the Bishop of Coventry among its curators. Dr. Paul Oestreicher, a canonemeritus of Coventry Cathedral and a founder of the Dresden Trust, wrote: "The church is to Dresden what St. Paul's [Cathedral] is to London".^[2]Additional organizations include France's Association Frauenkirche Paris, Switzerland's Verein Schweizer Freunde der Frauenkirch, among others.

Rebuilding the church cost €180 million. Dresdner Bank financed more than half of the reconstruction costs via a "donor certificates campaign", collecting almost €70 million after 1995. The bank itself contributed more than seven million Euros, including more than one million donated by its employees. Over the years, thousands of watches containing tiny fragments of Church of Our Lady stone were sold, as were specially printed medals. One sponsor raised nearly €2.3 million through symbolic sales of individual church stones.

Funds raised were turned over to the "Frauenkirche Foundation Dresden", with the reconstruction backed by the State of Saxony, the City of Dresden and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony.

The new golden tower cross was funded officially by "the British people and the House of Windsor". It was made by a British blacksmith whose father was one of the bomber pilots who were responsible for the destruction of the church.^[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_Frauenkirche

The longer someone had been studying architecture the more contrarian their tastes.

In 1987 a psychologist called David Halpern did a survey of students rating buildings by attractiveness and while almost everyone had similar tastes, uniquely the architecture students rated everyone else’s favourite as their least favourite and vice versa. Curiously the longer someone had been studying architecture the more contrarian their tastes.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/03/new-tory-manifesto-make-beauty-affordable/

Berlin in 2019

The new Humboldtforum in the shape of the ancient Royal Palace of Berlin in the Center of Berlin gives back its former world-famous identity, The authority of the palace also gives back the importance to the ancient buildings of the ensemble of the center, the palace now again forms the ensemble which was destroyed by its demolition: a masterpiece of architectural arts will be back to Berlin in 2016.

http://berliner-schloss.de/en/new-palace/new-images-of-berlin-2019/

THE CLASSICAL TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE AND PAGAN STATUARY OF WASHINGTON, DC

Research and Writing by James Veverka




In 1792, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Johnson placed of an advertisement announcing a Capitol architectural contest in a Philadelphia newspaper. The ad contained rules and requirements for the sizes and numbers of rooms and such. The judges of the competition were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Commissioners of the District of Colombia. The philosopher Jefferson, a classically educated man like most of the founders, saw in temple designs like the Temple of the Sun, the Parthenon and the Roman Pantheon a symbolism of democracy science, and philosophy resurrected. Jefferson, Washington and the committee thought that the new capitol building should symbolize a Temple of Liberty in a secular sense. Entries were mostly Renaissance Palladian, a classical revival style of the that period. But the truly classical entrees from classical antiquity were the most liked by all. The committee took the symbolic nature of the Capitol seriously. For them, the design must symbolize the functions and themes of the capitol.

Модернизмот не го признава јазикот на минатото

Roger Scruton, “After Modernism”, in: City Journal, 2000

Architectural modernism rejected the principles that had guided those who built the great cities of Europe. It rejected all attempts to adapt the language of the past, whether Greek, Roman, or Gothic: it rejected the classical orders, columns, architraves, and moldings; it rejected the street as the primary public space and the facade as the public aspect of a building. Modernism rejected all this not because it had any well-thought-out alternative but because it was intent on overthrowing the social order that these things represented—the order of the bourgeois city as a place of commerce, domesticity, ambition, and the common pursuit of style.

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Roger Scruton, “After Modernism”, in: City Journal, 2000.

културниот континуитет наспроти светот на бизнисот

Принц Чарлс констатира дека во менталниот склоп на светот на бизнисот и градежништвото длабоко е всадена идејата на футуризмот.

 Еднакво, нему му е туѓа идејата за културниот континуитет..[1]

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[1] ПРИНЦ ЧАРЛС: recent attempts to reopen the debate on Paternoster Square in London, which featured in the first Vision of Europe exhibition, show once again how deeply embedded in the psyches of the commercial and construction worlds is the notion of futurism, and how alien the idea of cultural continuity appears to be.

Helsinki again among world’s top 10 liveable cities

 Economist Intelligence Unit’s 15th Global Liveability Ranking assessed 30 factors divided among five areas to assess quality of life in 140 cities worldwide. The five areas included stability, infrastructure, education, healthcare and environment.

Leading the 2017 index, the world’s most liveable city, Melbourne in Australia, scored full marks (100 points) for health care, education and infrastructure. Its overall score was 97.5 out of a possible 100 points.

The Austrian capital Vienna placed second in the index with a total of 97.4 points, followed by Canada’s Vancouver with 97.3. Toronto was ranked fourth, while another Canadian city, Calgary, tied with Australia’s Adelaide for fifth position. Perth in Australia ranked seventh, ahead of Auckland New Zealand in eighth place and Hamburg, which rounded out the top 10 after Helsinki.

Helsinki, which came in ninth with 95.6 points, scored full marks for stability and health care, but posted weak results for cultural experiences and the environment. The Nordic city received fairly high marks for education though – 91.7, while in terms of infrastructure, the city was awarded 96.4 points

https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/helsinki_again_among_worlds_top_10_liveable_cities/9781098s

15 Great Movies That Use Architecture Brilliantly

Cinema and architecture have always had a special relationship, because of the way in which they explore ideas using the dimension of space. Architecture in cinema can carry numerous symbolisms, and urban alienation can be the stage in which the action takes place, or be the main protagonist in silent but highly meaningful sequences.

Architecture, with its levels, its curves, its shapes and its dimensional contrasts with the human figure, can create visions of power and fragility and can bring sentiments of decadence or grandeur, of a surging future or a fading past, as it can be a mirror of the condition of a society. The metaphorical and social implications of a particular architectural landscape are matchless and can easily be explored by cinema in purely visual sequences.

Read more: http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2016/15-great-movies-that-use-architecture-brilliantly/#ixzz4Dqym7Wbs

http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2016/15-great-movies-that-use-architecture-brilliantly/

Реконструкција на градот според Леон Крир

Le Corbusier The man behind the Grenfell Tower disaster

A final nail in the coffin of Le Corbusier's dream for urban housing

In the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire in London, an inferno which turned a 24-storey block of flats into a Roman candle in a couple of hours, killing at least 79 people, there will be inquiry upon inquiry to find who was responsible. (See Karl Stephan’s article below.)

I hope the name Le Corbusier (1887-1965) comes up. It was this Swiss-French architect who inspired a generation of high-rise apartment blocks. His famous dictum, “A house is a machine for living in” gives the flavour of his uber-rational designs.

His only building in the United States is the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University. He designed it in his studio in Europe and it is said that when he arrived for the opening ceremony, he gasped, “Oh my God, they’ve built it upside down.” True or not, it gives you an idea of the inhumane starkness of his style.

Le Corbusier’s geometrically pure high-rises were favourites of architects around the world. It was just the people who lived in them who hated them. But they didn’t matter too much.

After the wretched failure of the urban forests of concrete designed by acolytes of Le Corbusier, architects have returned to small-scale, human, eco-friendly and sustainable projects. It can’t come too soon. The faster we bury Le Corbusier the better.

https://www.mercatornet.com/conniptions/view/newsletter-20170620/19989

Raw Concrete: The Beauty of Brutalism by Barnabas Calder – review

Raw Concrete: The Beauty of Brutalism by Barnabas Calder – review

The architectural style of brutalism, which lasted roughly from the 1950s to the mid-70s, may never attract the same readership, but there is nonetheless a burgeoning industry, following brave celebrations of the style in the writings and broadcasts of Owen Hatherley and Jonathan Meades, of books that wield the B-word: Brutalism: Post-War British Architecture; This Brutal World; Space, Hope and Brutalism; Brutalism Resurgent; Concrete Concept: Brutalist Buildings Around the World. Also, the related Concretopia. There is a brutalist London map and you can buy notecards of brutalist London. As Barnabas Calder notes in his contribution to the genre, Raw Concrete: the Beauty of Brutalism, there are now plates, mugs, T-shirts and indeed tea towels that celebrate it.


http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/18/raw-concrete-beauty-of-barbarism-barnabas-calder-review

Braunschweiger Schloss

Што е ова?

не е дворец, не е музеј.

УРБАНАТА РЕНЕСАНСА ПРОТИВ МОДЕРНИСТИЧКАТА АРХИТЕКТУРА

УРБАНА РЕНЕСАНСА

Урбана ренесанса е поим што се употребува уште од 1992 година. Се повикува на традиционалните принципи на урбаниот простор и претставува алтернатива на функционализмот на модерната архитектура.

Ова треба да се истакне: денес не е само проблем што постојат модернистички згради, туку што има архитекти и идеолози кои сакаат да не убедат дека нивната изградба била и е неизбежна и е нужна и во иднината. Ова треба да се чита вака: дека модернистичката архитектура е последниот и највисокиот степен на развој на светската архитектура.

Но не е така. Денес може да се бира, како во демократијата, меѓу разни стилови. Токму тој што го отфла постоењето на избор има недемократски и тоталитарни ставови.

прочитај повеќе: 

http://www.avoe.org/urban-renaissance.html

The Meaning of Monuments

• ROGER SCRUTON
• 
  

 Monuments, however, do not only commemorate public figures who have deserved well of the nation. They commemorate the nation, raise it above the land on which it is planted, and express an idea of public duty and public achievement in which everyone can share. Their meaning is not "he" or "she" but "we." And the successful monument does not stand out as a defiance of the surrounding order, but endorses it and adds to its grace and dignity.

The controversy over Frank Gehry's design for a "memorial park" to President Eisenhower — a vast array of hideous metal walls, covered with reflections on the President's humble origins, and mutilating (should it be built) an important public area of the capital city — has alerted Americans to the difficulty, in modern conditions, of obtaining an appropriate monument. Simple gravestones commemorate private people, and are inscribed with words of love from the few who will seriously miss them. Monuments, however, do not only commemorate public figures who have deserved well of the nation. They commemorate the nation, raise it above the land on which it is planted, and express an idea of public duty and public achievement in which everyone can share. Their meaning is not "he" or "she" but "we." And the successful monument does not stand out as a defiance of the surrounding order, but endorses it and adds to its grace and dignity.

Washington has many such monuments. But they belong (for the most part) to another era, when architects and sculptors were prepared humbly to retire behind their own creations, so as to respect the city and its meaning. In proposing Gehry as the architect of the Eisenhower memorial, however, Washington has opted for another and newer conception of the architect's role, and it is important to understand this if we are to grasp the extent and seriousness of their mistake. The Eisenhower family has objected to the plans on the grounds that the resulting collection of screens and narratives seem designed to belittle the former president, to cut him down to size, to redesign him as the barefoot boy who looked in wonder on the high office that miraculously came his way. But this belittling of the subject is exactly what the monument intends. By belittling the President the memorial would exalt its architect. And the true subject of his memorial park, like the true subject of every building that Gehry has ever built, would be Gehry.

This, it seems to me, shows us the reason why monuments are these days so hard to commission, and so invariably disappointing. Architects, who once were servants of the people who employed them, and conscious contributors to a shared public space, have rebranded themselves as self-expressive artists, whose works are not designed to fit in to a prior urban fabric, but to stand out as tributes to the creative urge that gave rise to them. Their meaning is not "we" but "I," and the "I" in question gets bigger with every new design.

Кензо Танге - продолжена рака на Ле Корбизје

Tadao Ando, one of Japan's greatest living architects, likes to tell the story of the stray dog, a stately akita, that wandered into his studio in Osaka some 20 years age, and decided to stay. "First, I thought I would call her Kenzo Tange; but then I realised I couldn't kick Kenzo Tange around. So I called her Le Corbusier instead."