December 31

Interview to Nayyar Ali Dada & Associates

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(Interview by Aresha Gul to Nayyar Ali Dada & Associates, all projects and images © Nayyar Ali Dada & Associates)

What are your contemporary projects? How do you think these will sustain Pakistan’s contemporary culture considering that Pakistani architecture is mainly inspired by history?

Contemporary Architecture, if designed with appropriate values, must and will survive in any environment, let alone Pakistan. Nayyar Ali Dada has proven this assumption and his body of works over the last three decades gives evidence that any country of the world can accept such an approach.
Almost all our projects should be considered contemporary because they follow a certain thought process. The idea is to not forget our roots, culture, history and arts but also not get caught up in replicating the well-established imagery or repeating it exactly as it used to be centuries ago. We have to be forward looking without forgetting the general context. An architectural expression should embody inspiration and creative ideas that have risen from various elements in a society and are deeply engrained in its cultural and artistic practices, given that Architecture is no less than an art form itself – a rather complicated one too, since it plays a significant role in our built environment.
Another element is that of ‘Humanism’, which clearly puts the user in the centre of all things. Whether you talk about function, scale, history, or imagery for that matter, the idea of humanism guides us to keep things in perspective and stay real as such values contribute towards global and environmental issues eventually.
Amog our contemporary projects: Alhamra Arts Centre, Lahore (AKAA Winner); Habib Bank Regional Headquarters, Lahore; ABN Amro Bank, Lahore; MCB Headquarters Lahore; EFU Insurance buiding, Lahore; Grindlays Bank, The Mall, Lahore; Punjab House, Islamabad; The Expo and Convention Centre, Lahore; Serena Hotel, Islamabad.

Habib Bank Regional Headquarters, Lahore Read more

December 30

MCB headquarters in Lahore by NAYYAR ALI DADA & ASSOCIATES

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(Text by architect Omar Hassan, text and images courtesy of NAYYAR ALI DADA & ASSOCIATES, special thanks to Aresha Gul who collected and revised all materials)

The MCB headquarter building in Lahore is a seminal work of architecture. The design of this building faithfully follows the simple design premise developed for the Project. The design concept deals with notions of implied imagery and iconography, transparency, the framing of views to and from the building, orientation with regard to the sun and aptly responding to the site’s context.

Implied Iconography and Urban Context

MCB is the third largest bank in Pakistan and, like other financial institutions in the world, needed a robust public image. NAD had experimented with notions of grandeur and monumentality in the design of the EFU building located down the street from the MCB building. However, the architectural interpretation of this theme has really blossomed in a subtle and sophisticated way, in the MCB building in Lahore. Read more

December 29

Nayyar Ali Dada, portrait of a Pakistani architect

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(Text by Aresha Gul, all images and drawings property and courtesy of NAYYAR ALI DADA & ASSOCIATES)

The Mall Road of Lahore is a very busy road and is quite close to the Walled City of Lahore (the old Mughal Lahore). All along the Mall, the beautiful tree-lane road, there is a sprinkling of historical buildings dating back to the British Empire. The Lawrence Garden, now called Jinnah Garden or Bagh-e-Jinnah; the Gymkhana Club, with a superb 18 hole Golf Course; the Aitchison College or Chief’s College, that spreads over 800 acres of gardens and exotic buildings built 20 years ago for just 8 students more than a hundred; The Governor House. All are beautiful buildings dating back to colonial times. You cannot but simply admire the line this nostalgic historical journey into the past.

I am always mesmerized by one particular building each time I drive down the Mall, and though this is not an historical building, its modernity blends with the old architecture all around it. It is the Habib Bank Headquarters in Lahore. At first glance, you wouldn’t really guess that the building belongs to the present. This attractive building was designed by none other than Nayyar Ali Dada, the pride of Pakistan.

Habib Bank Limited project, © NAYYAR ALI DADA & ASSOCIATES, Lahore

When I reviewed Mr. Dada’s other works, I came to the conclusion that Mr. Ali Dada is a sensitive artist who knows exactly how to set up his ideas and, at the same time, to respect the environment surrounding them, without sabotaging the actual essence of history. Read more

December 28

The ways of Fashion and Design

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Aversa – Facoltà di Architettura SUN
Chiostro di San Lorenzo
December 16, 2009 – January 7, 2010

Between hand-made and Made in Italy, an intricated close-up on clothing and objects outlines the ways of fashion and design, drawing unusual visual paths shaping a history that’s yet to be written.

The exhibition is part of the “Storie per il design” class, in the Design and Fashion course’s first year, curated by professor Francesca Castanò and professor Ornella Cirillo. Le vie della moda e del design aims at highlighting the existing connections between the campanian textile tradition and industrial-bred innovation on national scale during the XX century. Read more

December 23

Panic Attack! Is sci-fi going global?

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(Text by Nicola Bozzi)

As you might have read somewhere (like here, here or here), Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Alvarez has just signed a deal with Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures for a future feature sci-fi movie. Raimi was impressed by a short clip Alvarez created and posted on YouTube (see video above), immediately becoming a hit on the video-sharing platform. AtaqueDePànico shows some giant robots attacking the city of Montevideo and destroying all its landmarks, eventually exploding and reducing everything to rubble in a surprisingly good FX spree.

Little else happens in the short movie, which has nonetheless been compared to Neill Blomkamp’s Alive in Joberg, the one that eventually led to District 9. Which one is better and YouTube’s exact role in hi-jacking the attention of the Hollywood industry’s talent scouts are debates I’ll leave for other occasions. What I’m really curious about is: where will Alvarez’s feature film be set?
As we’ve seen before, Peter Jackson’s support to District 9 has been rather invisible and not patronizing, allowing Blomkamp’s movie to become an unprecedented example of sci-fi imagery going global and enriching itself with unexpected locations and social actuality. Seeing Johannesburg taking the place of New York as the theater of human-alien confrontation was one of the reasons why I think the movie is significant: it was also an opportunity to legitimate the ascension of local geographies to the status of global imagery. Read more

December 22

More pictures from the Marina Ballo Charmet exhibition

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(All photos courtesy of Marina Ballo Charmet)

Berlino

Parigi

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December 21

At Land: Bodyscape & Cityscape
Marina Ballo Charmet @ Storefront, NYC

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At Land: Bodyscape & Cityscape – Photographs and Video by Marina Ballo Charmet
Curated by Jean-François Chevrier
Nov 19 2009 – Jan 9 2010
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11:00AM – 6:00PM
Closed Sunday and Monday.

The work of photographer and artist Marina Ballo Charmet, whose formal training is as a psychoanalyst, is centered on what she describes as “inattentive, unintentional observation, irrational and without direction”.
This retrospective exhibition, curated by critic and writer Jean-Francois Chevrier, presents a selection of photographic and video works produced since 1995 that investigate a variety of subjects ranging from the ordinary and the mundane in the urban landscape to the human figure. Ballo Charmet’s work constitutes less an attempt to provide a pictorial rendition of these subjects than an endeavour to evoke the “unperceived” in our daily experiences. Her photographs of the urban landscape concentrates on shreds of the city: details of sidewalks, the upper levels of buildings that pulse in and out of the margins of our field of view; her exploration of the human body concentrates on specific areas such as the area between the breast and the mouth, the first field of view a baby becomes familiar with.

The images featured in her Parks series – an ongoing project that has taken her to public parks in Milan, London, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, Palermo and New York – are photographed close to the ground, revealing each park as its own universe. Ballo Charmet’s work is less an exercise in representation of her chosen subjects – whether they be details of cities, urban landscapes, portions of the human figure or parkscapes, than an investigation of how we perceive them. Read more

December 18

The making of Dutch villas + Multiplicity

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PlurimaPalermo-1

PlurimaPalermo-2

December 17

Black or White Office.Loft F27 by schlosser+partner

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all materials courtesy of schlosser+partner

Büro.Loft F27_002

The concept “Black or White“ is the underlying idea of a radical new design for an urban apartment in the north of Graz. Modern architecture has transformed a two-storey apartment built in the 1990s into a multi-functional loft serving as home and office. Whereas the owners see the apartment as the perfect fusion of functional and extravagant design, some visitors tend to regard it as too austere. Read more

December 16

MIND: 11 Milan design schools in the net

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index

MIND: 11 scuole di design milanesi in rete

Un’alleanza tra 11 scuole di design milanesi, promossa dal Comune di Milano insieme con ADI, Triennale Design Museum e Alintec.

L’iniziativa, battezzata MIND Milan Network Design, vuole proporre Milano a livello internazionale come polo di formazione al design: saranno disponibili oltre 200 borse di studio, con un investimento complessivo di 3,2 milioni di euro, per la partecipazione a Master organizzati dalle scuole aderenti.

Ecco le scuole che fanno parte del network, con i Master previsti dall’iniziativa:

* Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, New Media Art Design
* Fondazione Accademia di Comunicazione, Brand design and Strategy
* Domus Academy, Interaction Design
* IED Istituto Europeo di Design, Product Design
* Istituto Superiore Architettura e Design, design Materials
* Libera Università delle Arti, Lighting Design
* Milano Fashion Institute, Fashion and Design Retail
* NABA Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Interior Design
* POLI.design, Yacht Design
* Politecnico di Milano, New Tech-Style Design
* Scuola Politecnica di Design, Visual design

Il programma comprende anche l’organizzazione, insieme con la triennale, di un ciclo di conferenze aperte al pubblico sul design, tenute da esperti internazionali.

MIND viene presentata da Letizia Moratti, sindaco di Milano, Davide Rampello, presidente della Triennale di Milano, Luisa Bocchietto, presidente nazionale ADI, Luigi Rossi Bernardi, assessore alla Ricerca, innovazione e capitale umano del Comune di Milano, con la condivisione degli assessori comunali Massimiliano Finazzer Flory, Massimiliano Orsatti, Giovanni Terzi.

Al termine della presentazione Andrea Branzi, curatore del Triennale Design Museum, terrà una conferenza sul tema “Il design a Milano”.

bandiera ingleseMilan Municipality in co-operation with ADI, Triennale Design Museum and Alintec promote the network MIND to stress the city role as an international training pole for design. More than 200 scholarships – 3, 2 million euros invested – will be granted to attend Masters in the school and universities which have joined the programme.  MIND includes a series of lectures by international design authorities open to public audience. The initiative will be presented tomorrow by Milan mayor, Letizia Moratti;  Davide Rampello, Triennale director, Luisa Bocchietto,  ADI national director, Luigi Rossi Bernardi, Milan spokesman for Research, Innovation and human capital, together with the town councillors Massimiliano Finazzer Flory, Massimiliano Orsatti, and Giovanni Terzi. A lecture by Andrea Branzi, Triennale Design Museum main curator on the theme “Design in milan” will follow.

MIND presentation
Triennale Design Museum
Teatro Agorà
Viale Alemagna, 6
Milan
h 11 am

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