Magazine

The 17th Venice Architecture Biennale opened on May 22 despite the ongoing pandemic. Curator Hashim Sarkis’s theme, How will we live together?, proves to be highly relevant. The Biennale cannot answer this question but nevertheless poses it emphatically. Sarkis deserves great praise for... Susanna Koeberle

March saw the fifth anniversary of Zaha Hadid’s death, something the architecture scene took surprisingly little notice of. An exhibition at Galerie Gmurzynska in Zurich, intended as an homage, focuses on the Pritzker Prize winner’s enthusiasm for the Russian avant-garde. Elias Baumgarten

The Urban Environment House is a new nearly net-zero building in Helsinki's former docklands designed by Lahdelma & Mahlamäki architects for the city's Urban Environment Division. Its completion during the pandemic means the building is yet to be occupied by city workers, but hopefully... Ulf Meyer

In their new book, Old Is New: Architectural Works by New Material Research Laboratory, artist Hiroshi Sugimoto and architect Tomoyuki Sakakida reveal the inner workings of the practice they formed in 2008. Although the name New Material Research Laboratory expresses innovation, the duo... Ulf Meyer

Sergei Tchoban – Lines and Volumes: Encounters with the Architect, Artist, Collector and Museum Founder is a new book of conversations between curator Kristin Feireiss and Russian-German architect Sergei Tchoban, who has practices in both countries but, as the subtitle makes clear, is... John Hill

Madeline Carey reviews Building for Hope: Towards an Architecture of Belonging, the new book by Marwa al-Sabouni, a follow-up to The Battle for Home, the memoir that brought the Syrian architect international acclaim five years ago.  Madeline Beach Carey

Swiss-Architects Editor in Chief Elias Baumgarten recently interviewed architect Saikal Zhunushova, who placed third in the 2021 Foundation Award, which annually recognizes the innovate work of Swiss architecture offices less than five years old. Born in Kyrgyzstan and now based in Winterthur,... Elias Baumgarten

Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America opened in late February at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. Curated by MoMA's Sean Anderson and Columbia University's Mabel O. Wilson, the exhibition explores "how people have mobilized Black cultural spaces, forms,... John Hill

Patrick Lüth, the managing director of Snøhetta’s Innsbruck studio, talked to Austrian-Architects about social and ecological sustainability and the digitalization of architecture. Elias Baumgarten

The Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn, released in 1962, is considered the first monograph on the great American architect. It is also the first of nearly 100 books by influential "information architect" Richard Saul Wurman. Long out of print and hard to find, a facsimile edition... Richard Saul Wurman, as told to John Hill

Aldo Rossi: The Architect and the Cities is a major retrospective opening on March 10 at MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome. The exhibition explores the architecture and theories of Italy’s “unusual architect.” Ulf Meyer

The 760-page Atlas of Digital Architecture is an ambitious reference book about the myriad ways architects use computers. With contributions by two-dozen experts in the digitization of architecture and hundreds upon hundreds of illustrations, the book is a nearly complete picture of the... John Hill

In Japan: Nation Building Nature, Joachim Nijs searches for an “alternative interpretation of Japanese architectural history” through a matrix of four ecological phenomena. Ulf Meyer — a fellow European as enthralled with Japan as Nijs is — read the recently published book and sent us... Ulf Meyer

In which we take a look inside Formgiving, the new monograph on BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group, in the context of the three monographs the firm has produced with Taschen over the last twelve years. John Hill

OMA – Office for Metropolitan Architecture and Ingenhoven Architects are building a vertical city in Tokyo for Mori Building Co., Ltd. All that's missing are the Olympic Games. Ulf Meyer

Between April and December, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Swiss-Architects editor Elias Baumgarten interviewed a slew of German, Austrian, and Swiss architects: virtual conversations that were transcribed into the five-part D-A-CH Talks series. The fifth conversation is translated... Elias Baumgarten

For sure, 2020 is a year many people would like to soon forget, what with the coronavirus pandemic derailing the events that regularly attracted architects and leading to the deaths of some notable figures in architecture, among other things. Nevertheless, against the backdrop of the pandemic,... John Hill

The biographies of architect Rudolf Hamburger and his wife Ursula are outstanding, since Rudolf’s journey through life brought him deep into Asia in 1930, while Ursula later worked for various secret services and finally as an author in the GDR under the name of Ruth Werner. Author Eduard... Katinka Corts

Architecture must change in order to address the climate crisis. But what directions do architects want to take? Snøhetta is making an interesting contribution to the debate: In southern Norway, the firm has designed an office building that produces more energy than it consumes over its life... Elias Baumgarten

What more can be written about Countryside, The Future, the highly ambitious and much anticipated exhibition by Rem Koolhaas and Samir Bantal/AMO that recently reopened at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City? John Hill

Two of the Netherland’s most prominent architecture firms are reshaping Rotterdam’s Museumpark: MVRDV is giving the city an art depot that looks like a bowl; and Mecanoo is renovating the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, whose art will be stored in the depot. Ulf Meyer visited Rotterdam to take... Ulf Meyer

While his generation failed in its attempt to change society through architecture, Wolf D. Prix says today’s young talent does not even try to do so, preferring to take refuge in a romanticized past. What is urgently needed are fresh concepts for the next twenty years. Elias Baumgarten

A new exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark, explores Anupama Kundoo’s "handmade houses" and other projects that "just take time." Ulf Meyer visited Anupama Kundoo – Taking Time, the fourth installation in the museum’s “The Architect’s Studio” series,... Ulf Meyer

Following a seven-month closure, Eileen Gray reopens on October 13 for a brief run at Bard Graduate Center on Manhattan's Upper West Side. World-Architects got a peek at the exhibition recently and also explored the accompanying virtual exhibition and the companion catalog. Here is our... John Hill

Holger Kleine’s book The Drama of Space aims to help a general audience, not just architects, understand the effects that spaces have on people. By analyzing buildings through drama, the book is also, so argues Georg Windeck, a discourse on architecture's receptiveness to other... Georg Windeck

Beyond all the scandals, the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt (BER) promises to achieve what architecture is supposed to achieve. The airport is scheduled to open at the end of October. Falk Jaeger

Although The Disquieted Muses: When La Biennale di Venezia Meets History opened to the public on August 29, restricted travel during the coronavirus pandemic makes seeing non-local exhibitions difficult. In turn, World-Architects editor John Hill, based in New York, took a remote glance... John Hill

In June author Adrian Duncan won the inaugural John McGahern Book Prize from the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Irish Studies for Love Notes from a German Building Site. Named for one of the most important Irish writers of the twentieth century, the annual prize recognizes the... Madeline Beach Carey

The second and expanded edition of Michael Green and Jim Taggart's Tall Wood Buildings: Design, Construction and Performance builds upon the successful first edition from 2017 to present more case studies of high-rise timber structures and argue for more of them to be built. Georg Windeck

The semi-annual Vectorworks Design Summit allows Vectorworks users the opportunity to connect with other users, interact with the company’s software developers, and hear about new developments for future updates. This year’s Design Summit was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, John Hill

The new Deichman Library opens to the public in Oslo’s Bjørvika district on June 18. The building, known as Deichman Bjørvika and designed by Lund Hagem Arkitekter and Atelier Oslo, reveals its true qualities on the inside. Ulf Meyer visited the building ahead of its opening. Ulf Meyer

The second Architecture & the Media conference, organized by the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, took place May 11 - 14, 2020, two years after the inaugural event was held at the... John Hill

Belgium's Osar Architects is a leader in designing healing communities in healthcare and related sectors. World-Architects spoke recently with Osar Architects about their projects, Building Information Modeling, BIM "translators," and how Osar uses John Hill

Two of Paris's most iconic buildings have been transformed by two of Japan's most famous architects: Tadao Ando has redesigned the Bourse de Commerce and SANAA has reworked the La Samaritaine department store. The projects, both commissioned by French billionaires, were nearing completion but... Ulf Meyer

Binke Lenhardt and Hao Dong head the Beijing-based firm Crossboundaries. They design conversions and modular buildings in China, but they also teach courses for children and... Elias Baumgarten

TAMassociati, based in Venice and with offices in Bologna and Trieste, is working on high-profile projects with Renzo Piano and for the Aga Khan Development Network. But the studio has been active in social design and building sustainably since its inception decades ago. World-Architects... John Hill