April 17

Portaluppi Foundation presentation at Palazzo Litta

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(All images courtesy of Portaluppi Foundation)

post_skne

Study for S.K.N.E. skyscraper, New York, 1920.

The following days promise to be full of meetings and cultural spurs. Milan is in a state of ferment, not only for the 2009 Milan Salone del Mobile, for which people are coming from all over the world, but also because of the traditional National Culture Week, a yearly celebration promoted by the Ministry for the Arts and the Environment and taking place from April 18 to April 26.

The event, which first made its début 24 years ago, aims to promote national heritage through specific events and opening all public cultural institutions. This year’s tagline is Culture belongs to anybody: join in, well represents the spirit of the Culture Week: supporting popular attention on arts through exhibitions, lectures, workshops, concerts, shows, movies, guided tours and exceptional openings in every Italian region. Private institutions, local and territorial authorities, foundations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and abroad italian institutes for culture are all contributing.

Out of the many events, we’re particularly happy to announce the presentation of the Piero Portaluppi Foundation, taking place this monday April 20th, at 5 p.m, at Palazzo Litta, corso Magenta, 24, Azzurra Hall. Read more

April 15

World’s best building contest is on

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Photo © Archivio Federico Brunetti

After last year’s edition, won by the new amazing Bocconi University building in Milan, also featured on Yearbook, the prestigious World Architecture Festival 2009 has been launched. See the full press release below. Read more

February 23

Cibic & Partners and Palladio

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Andrea Palladio, palazzo Valmarana a Vicenza.
[Londra, Royal Institute of British Architects]

As we already mentioned before, contemporary architects love Palladio. Here’s an update about Andrea Palladio – His Life and Legacy, the exhibition currently hosted by the Royal Academy of Arts in London to celebrate the 500 year anniversary of the 16th century architect’s birth.
Cibic & Partners is also among the selected studios taking part in the event, after curating the set up for the monographic show in Vicenza, Palladio’s hometown. In London, Cibic presents a contemporary revisitation of the architect’s poetic and creativity, reading it as a system based on simple and repeatable shapes, allowing combinations of different and new objects. Read more

February 20

Europe celebrates 100 years of Futurism

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While Paris, London and Rome celebrate the historical value of Futurism, Milan – the movement’s unquestioned cradle and its most vivid hatching location – revives it with grand celebrations and a lot of dedicated events, bringing Marinetti’s legacy back to life in the multiplicity of its expressive languages. Futurism’s contribution to art and culture was omnivore, explosive and vital, spanning from painting, poetry, cinema, sculputure, photography, theatre, music and fashion to communication, advertising, and finally architecture. Read more

February 11

OMA’s Television Cultural Centre on fire

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The Chinese new year didn’t start with the right foot for OMA’s cultural television center. To be completed in the next May, the spectacular 40-storey skyscraper next to the China Central Television Headquarters caught fire last night, due to stray fireworks fired by local partiers. Here’re some pictures of the building on fire, and also a video.

OMA's building on fireOMA’s building on fire. © Reuters / China Daily

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February 6

Bauhaus’ 90th Anniversary

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During its relatively short life (it was founded in Weimar in 1919 by Walter Gropius and shut down by the Nazi government in 1933, after moving to Dessau in 1925) the Bauhaus managed to set the standards that would since define modernism, design, and education in the applied arts. The school was run by prestigious personalities like Gropius himself, Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, with teachers the likes of Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Josef Albers, Max Bill, Piet Mondrian and László Moholy-Nagy. It influenced architecture all over the world and also had a huge impact on furniture design. The original Bauhaus buildings, which currently house the Bauhaus University, are classified as a world heritage site under UNESCO and plans are also in the works for a new Bauhaus museum in 2013. Read more

November 20

100 Years of Olivetti in Italy

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Olivetti has been one of the most notable examples of enlightened industrialism in Italy. Deemed “subversive” during fascism and politically active since the end of WWII, Adriano Olivetti (1901-1960) did not only achieve to expand the company his father Camillo had founded in 1908, but he proved a different kind of relationship between a competitive brand and the people working for it was possible. In Ivrea, the Olivetti employees had better assistance, homes and salary and the company’s influence on the city and its inhabitants was economical, social and architectural. Olivetti factories designed by Gian Antonio Bernasconi, Annibale Fiocchi, Marcello Nizzoli or Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini and Ignazio Gardella have entered architecure handbooks.

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November 7

Magazines’ Anniversaries & Obituaries

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Like any respectable character, architecture magazines grow up, get old and die, beating a time that imposes transformations and slow metamorphoses to avoid extinction.

We acknowledge Blueprint’s glorious 25 years, Area’s first 100 numbers and the outstanding 80 years of Domus, true, ever-green dean, always on the battlefield. But we shall also signal the closing of Lotus and the embarassing silence surrounding the – hopefully temporary – ending of Architecture d’Auhourd’hui. These two disappearances are not minor losses: it’s two solid and sophisticated witnesses of world architectural culture in the XX century we’re talking about. And we’re afraid the void they left behind will hurt. Read more

 

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