PROJECT MANAGEMENT Florian Kobler, Cologne - IDATBCN

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P 14.15 8 9 most recent works, an installation for the so-called Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square (Model for a Hotel, 2007–08, page 456) is in reality nothing more than a stack of skewed, colored glass plates, and yet its appearance, varying considerably depending on the angle of view, poses interesting questions about how architecture can go about better dissolving its sometimes too heavy presence. From some angles, Schütte’s work almost disappears, a result that many architects have sought to no avail. But then again, art does not obey the same rules as architecture in most instances—a rule that certainly applies to the Fourth Plinth installation. What can be admitted readily is that architecture has sought out a cross-fertilization that can be found in art, design, or even industrial applications, as the use of shipping containers shows. The openness demonstrated by this fact allows architecture to evolve in sometimes unexpected directions, and sometimes to break free of the gravity that so weighs down many “traditional” buildings. Though few buildings are meant to be incinerated like Arne Quinze’s Uchronia, the escape from the rules of architectural permanence implied by the work of Quinze does have an almost immediate bearing on what contemporary architecture can do. FEET IN THE SAND, HEAD IN THE STARS Although it may be fashionable to affirm that “globalization” is greatly reducing the variety of contemporary architecture, the fact remains that different cities, and indeed different climates, impose varying approaches, even if the fundamental methods and materials of architects are often quite similar. The skyscraper culture of a city like New York imposes limits, both in terms of potential use and because of the rather complex zoning restrictions that may apply, according to the sites concerned. Two of architecture’s “star” designers have been called to Manhattan to work on towers that may, in their own way, each redefine some of the stylistic conventions that have long applied to the city. Renzo Piano completed the New York Times Building near Times Square in New York in 2007 (page 394), marking an improvement in the quality of the architecture in the immediate area. Piano’s 52-story, 228-meter-high tower is occupied on the lower 28 floors by the newspaper, and on the upper 24 by real estate and law firms. The core of the design, the newsroom of the daily, occupies three floors, grouped around an internal garden planted with 15-meter-tall paper birch trees, ferns, and moss. This garden, and its trees, which are, after all, the source of the paper used by The New York Times in a metaphorical and even a literal sense, together with the willful transparency imposed by the architect, demonstrate the Italian’s ability to deliver a quality design that does not necessarily meet with the expectations that one might have had of the co-designer (with Richard Rogers) of the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1977). Since the basic form of a Manhattan tower is imposed by the city’s grid and the high cost of land, Piano has used the subtlety for which he is known to create an American building with a European sensibility. 8 Renzo Piano, The New York Times Building, New York, New York, USA, 2005–07 9 Renzo Piano, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, USA, 2006–08 While Piano may well have left his radical instincts behind some time after the completion of the Centre Pompidou, it can be said that Jean Nouvel has remained something of an irritant in the ranks of well-known architects. His buildings retain their ability to surprise and even to upset. The new Tour de Verre (New York, New York, 2007–12, 10/11), designed by the French architect with the developer Hines, will change the very profile of mid-town Manhattan, rising 75 stories next to the Museum of Modern Art. The New York Times, which has long been something of an arbiter of taste in the city, wrote of the project in glowing terms, “A new 75-story tower designed by the architect Jean
10 + 11 Jean Nouvel, Tour de Verre, New York, New York, USA, 2007–12 Nouvel for a site next to the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown promises to be the most exhilarating addition to the skyline in a generation. Its faceted exterior, tapering to a series of crystalline peaks, suggests an atavistic preoccupation with celestial heights. It brings to mind John Ruskin’s praise for the irrationality of Gothic architecture: ‘It not only dared, but delighted in, the infringement of every servile principle.’” Nouvel’s tower is clearly more audacious than the recent additions to the Museum of Modern Art signed by the Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi, a fact that led The New York Times to make a rather unfavorable comparison between the two projects. Nouvel’s Tour de Verre is also slated to add new space to the Museum, and the paper commented, “The additional gallery space is a chance for MoMA to rethink many of these spaces, by reordering the sequence of its permanent collection, for example, or considering how it might re-situate the contemporary galleries in the new tower and gain more space for architecture shows in the old. But to embark on such an ambitious undertaking the museum would first have to acknowledge that its Taniguchi-designed complex has posed new challenges. In short, it would have to embrace a fearlessness that it hasn’t shown in decades. MoMA would do well to take a cue from Ruskin, who wrote that great art, whether expressed in ‘words, colors or stones, does not say the same thing over and over again.’” 5 10 INTRODUCTION Whether because of zoning restrictions or simple conservative thinking, New York has not proven to be the most inventive city when it comes to contemporary architecture. Manhattan as a whole might be considered a quintessentially modern urban area, and yet its bits and pieces seem to date more from the 1930s than from the new century. Other cities, such as Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, are rising at a hectic speed and hope to become new centers in their own right, for business of course, but also for architecture. Until recently, Dubai has relied on large Western architectural practices with little imagination, but that situation is fast changing with such famous names as Zaha Hadid now signing major projects. Sitting on the Arabian Gulf, just next to the great deserts of Saudi Arabia, Dubai must cope with a series of complicated circumstances that make it physically different from New York, for example. With a population made up largely of expatriates and summer temperatures that can soar to about 50° centigrade, this is not really a place for walking about, enjoying the urban scenery. People move in cars and seem astonished to see anyone other than workers from Bangladesh exposed to the afternoon sun. Cities like Los Angeles long ago developed a car-based urban culture, but in Dubai it is a matter as much of climate as of distance. The Saudi developer Adel al Mojil has sought, through a high-level competition including such architects as Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima, to pose the ques- tion of just what kind of person might want to use the enormous complex he plans to build at the limit of the new Business Bay area in Dubai. Calling his project “The Edge” (Dubai, UAE, 2008–, page 418), Al Mojil asks what the needs of the “knowledge worker” of the future may be. Positing the emergence of Dubai as a real world financial center and not simply an oil-fueled mirage, The Edge is to be a 350 000-square- meter, 600-million-euro colossus of a project including offices, hotels, residences, retail—in short everything needed for a “knowledge worker” to live, eat, and sleep the few months he or she may remain in the United Arab Emirates. This is surely not the scheme imagined by Renzo Piano when he designed the New York Times Building, a pure office facility. Nouvel’s Tour de Verre will have hotel and apartment space, as well as galleries for the Museum of Modern Art and offices, but residents would by no means be encouraged to live their entire life within its walls. The inventive Spanish firm RCR was selected to build The Edge after the 2007 competition. Their mirage-like series of towers rising from a “floating carpet” platform is aesthetically interesting and quite new in its conception. Although the project may evolve somewhat before 11
Page 1 and 2: IMPRINT PROJECT MANAGEMENT Florian
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTS 8 INTRODUCTION Einleitung/
Page 5 and 6: 1 Olafur Eliasson, The New York Cit
Page 7 and 8: years, in charge of both the Akron
Page 9: 6 Peter Zumthor, St. Niklaus von Fl
Page 13 and 14: 13 UNStudio, Hotel Castell, Zuoz, S
Page 15 and 16: 15 Valerio Olgiati, Atelier Bardill
Page 17 and 18: 16 + 17 PTW Architects, The Watercu
Page 20 and 21: P 518.519 A large square in front o
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Page 24 and 25: The interiors of the building are f
Page 26: P 524.525 PEKKA VAPAAVUORI Arkkiteh
Page 29 and 30: Green-patinated copper cladding and
Page 31: PEKKA VAPAAVUORI

PROJECT MANAGEMENT Florian Kobler, Cologne - IDATBCN

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