September 19, 2015
Conceptual artist Wilfredo Prieto s kitchen. He designed the kitchen himself and had it made by local craftspeople. Image Courtesy of Hannah Berkeley Cohen via Curbed
For decades, Cuba s communist economic system has essentially outlawed all forms of private architectural work. In 2011 though, wide-ranging economic reforms brought a challenge to this status quo. In this article, originally published on Curbed as In Cuba, Architecture and Design Blossom Under New Laws, Julia Cooke explores how these laws to bring about a more flexible economic system are allowing a different kind of architecture to emerge.
This May, visitors were allowed into Havana s long-defunct Tallapiedra electric plant for the first time since it was shuttered in the 1960s. They could climb the grated stairs to the plant s nave, see how the light glinted off unchipped white and green tiles set in place in 1915, how tiny, stalky trees had grown out of clumps of dirt where machinery once sat
December 22, 2016
The European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe has announced the 355 projects from 36 countries which have been nominated for the 2017 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award. Among the countries included, France and Spain are represented the most among the selected projects, with each country featuring 28 times. Meanwhile, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine appear in the prize for the first time, with Georgia offering a commendable 7 listed projects.
Among the building types included on the list, as in the 2015 Prize housing and cultural buildings dominated. However, the 2017 Prize sees an increase in the number of educational buildings and mixed use buildings compared to two years ago.
Winning Entry: Exhibition Space. Image Courtesy of UNESCO
Last month the UNESCO office in Afghanistan, in collaboration with the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture, announced the winning design for the Bamiyan Cultural Center. An Argentina-based team, led by Carlos Nahuel Recabarren alongside Manuel Alberto Martínez Catalán and Franco Morero, was selected from 1,070 design entries from teams in 117 different countries. Now, all of these submissions will be posted in an online gallery on the Bamiyan Culture Centre website for the next three months. “The competition achieved beyond expectation and contributed to portray a new and positive image of the culture sector in Afghanistan. This exhibition aims to showcase the extraordinary effort that the architectural community and each and every applicant put into this competition,” writes UNESCO.