PROJECT MANAGEMENT Florian Kobler, Cologne - IDATBCN

years, in charge of both the Akron Art Museum in Ohio and BMW Welt in Munich, has since struck out on his own, creating astonishing
competition designs that seem to take the complex forms of the late 20th century one large leap forward. Tom Wiscombe created his own
firm, EMERGENT, in 1999 and worked recently on two projects published in this volume, the National Library of the Czech Republic (Prague,
Czech Republic, 2006–07, page 150) and the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art (Shenzhen, China, 2007, page 144). Wiscombe’s
seductive imagery for these unbuilt projects may blend the powerful angles of Coop Himmelb(l)au with the kind of computer technology from
which “blobs” first emerged, but he puts forth a thoroughly contemporary vision that could well be very influential in years to come.
While Wiscombe has considerable experience in translating computer-driven ideas into built form, others seem to have accepted the
idea that some of today’s architecture will never be built in the real world. Worldwide press attention has been focused on the Web site “Sec-
ond Life” (www.secondlife.com) that has been described as a “metaverse”—which is to say a fully immersive 3D virtual space in which
players interact (as avatars) with each other socially and economically. One architect featured in Architecture Now! 6, Scope Cleaver, can only
be described as being virtual himself, since he declines to give any “real-world” information about himself. Rather, he writes that he “entered
‘Second Life’ in January 2006,” as though he might well not have existed at all before that date. Scope Cleaver has designed a large
number of virtual buildings in “Second Life” that can readily be visited. His Princeton University Gallery of the Arts (2007, page 460) is part
of a rather extensive effort by the prestigious university to project itself into “Second Life.” The University owns seven sims (65 536 m 2
regions) in “Second Life,” administered by Princeton’s Office of Information Technologies, Academic Services. Scope Cleaver has emerged as
a principal designer of structures that may well play a “real-world” role in broadening the horizons of education. Although he is clearly not
bound by the usual rules of architecture, Scope Cleaver creates his structures without relying on external CAD tools, preferring to use only
elements that can be found within “Second Life.” As he says, “Second Life” buildings involve “fantastic shapes that push the limits of virtual
building while retaining realistic structural components.” Though fashion certainly plays some role in the success of a site like “Second Life,”
its 20 million registered users (many inactive) are an indication of the potential for similar virtual environments that may well take a place in
the future development of architecture.
THE WAYS OF THE LORD
INTRODUCTION
Though surely not as great a source of significant contemporary architecture as cultural institutions, places of worship, in one form or
another, continue to generate invention and cutting-edge design. The reuse of places of religion for other purposes sometimes poses the
problem of deconsecration, with the reticence some users may have when asked to dine or party in a former church. One of the more suc-
cessful of such recent initiatives is the Selexyz Dominicanen Bookstore (Maastricht, The Netherlands, 2005–07, page 352) by the architects
Merkx+Girod working within the former Dominican church of Maastricht, built in the 13th century. Though the building had not in fact been
used as a church since the French occupation that began in 1794, the architecture retained its decidedly ecclesiastical, even Gothic appear-
ance. The designers won a prestigious Dutch award for this project in 2007, the Lensvelt de Architect Interior Prize. The jury’s comment on
their work deserves to be cited: “In Maastricht, Merkx+Girod Architecten have created a contemporary bookshop in a former Dominican