March 2

Racconti di qui by Davide Vargas – Book trailer

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A man wandering along the sidewalks in a lonely afternoon. The man is attracted by the street. The cracks, the cigarette butts, the corks all swallowed like fossils, the height differences on the path, a spiderweb like shattered glass opening inside the asphalt. Where is he going? Nowhere, there is no longer a real place where that man might be going, since he’s going here. That’s how the protagonist of Tales of Here moves, a man sucked in the world and convinced that by paying more attention to them things will reveal their secret to him, and narrating their lives as they were a character made of asphalt, concrete, sewers, jetties, facades, cracks, dumps, holes, squares, sands, alleys, dead ends, sea: chasing a truth that is shouted by the physionomies of hurt things, and hidden by the silent, knowing human ones.

Davide Vargas is an architect and lives in Campania. His projects are featured on the major Italian magazines. His short stories have been published by “Nazione Indiana”, “Sud”, and “Abitare la terra”. Tales of Here is his first collection. Read more

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 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 15

9 architetti x 9 paesaggi italiani. Photogallery

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(Text by Angelica Di Virgilio, photos © Vincenzo Caputo)

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A couple of weeks ago we presented you 9 architetti x 9 paesaggi italiani, held in Bari and open until January 30, 2010. Today we show you a selection of photos of the exhibition display by Vincenzo Caputo. The setting was realized by architect Mauro Sàito within Teatro Margherita, a location still on the stocks waiting for a more definitive future and use.

Entering the foyer you find yourself in a long peninsula-shaped area, an hypothetical section of Italy presenting, from North to South, the showcased project models realized by the architects invited to join the exhibition (Stefano Boeri, Cecchetto & Associati, Gambardellarchitetti, Garofalo Miura Architetti, Metrogramma, Nowa, Mauro Sàito, Beniamino Servino, Studio Archea): from the Domus Malles project by Metrogramma in Bolzano, to Nuovo Ospedale del Golfo in Formia (Latina) by Garofalo Miura Architetti, up to the deep south with the ICS Square project by Nowa in San Michele di Ganzaria (Catania). Read more

December 9

ARCHITETTURA “DI FACCIATA”
The underground car park by mag.MA architetture

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(Drawings courtesy of mag.MA architetture, photos by Alberto Piovano, texts by mag.MA architetture and by Ester Baia)

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sketch

The 105-place car park, on two below-ground floors, is near a small historic town centre. The railway separates it from a few houses perched above the sea on a ribbon of coastline. At this point the railway line runs above the promenade and is characterized by high supporting walls, embankments and an underpass through which vehicles coming off the main road can get to the shore. Read more

November 30

L’architettura italiana è un frammento di paesaggio!

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(Text by Luca Molinari and Angelica Di Virgilio)

loc-per-mostra

Il lavoro di nove autori dell’architettura italiana contemporanea come frammenti attivi del nostro paesaggio. Questo è il punto di partenza della mostra e, in fondo, la provocazione culturale che sottende questa iniziativa.
L’architettura, con la sua presenza fisica e la sua forza iconica, diventa, ogni volta, un nuovo frammento che può contribuire, o meno, al rafforzamento e al cambiamento del territorio in cui si inserisce. Ma non solo.
L’architettura contemporanea italiana, dopo almeno tre decenni di pesanti stravolgimenti delle coste, delle campagne e delle nostre città, ha una decisiva responsabilità culturale nell’indicare alcune, potenziali, strade da seguire nella ridefinizione di un paesaggio in cerca di una diversa identità. Read more

November 30

Welcome to Espaiñ. New book by photographer Jordi Bernadó

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(All materials courtesy of ACTAR)

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Jordi Bernadó’s new photography book, Welcome to Espaiñ, recently released by Actar is an irresistible bad trip among the streets of Spain. Humourous and audacious his images get the viewer inside an unreal, or too real, spanish landscape. Fiction becomes true and reality blurs into phantasmagorical. Bernadó’s eye and acumen reveal the anecdotical in each photograph and a non-recognizable gaze of Spain comes out. It’s a different Spain. It’s Calderón de la Barca (La vida es sueño), Goya, Cervantes, Gondry…it’s an architect’s vision and pun, a great traveller’s look on his country. After portraying the most important urban settlements worldwide and being internationally featured, Bernadó hit the mark with his homeland. Read more

November 24

House in Canobbio by Davide Macullo Architects

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(All images courtesy of Davide Macullo Architects)

A 16898

A 16754

Nestled on the Alpine slopes north of Lugano, this house is characterised by a volumetric architecture that emerges from the terrain and follows the natural contour of the land. Its constructed volumes embrace the land in an organic and fluent sequence of spaces, each relating to each other and to the surrounding landscape. In order to communicate an identity and a language to the inhabitants, the project has a strong and precise form, its clearly identifiable geometric structure delimits an organised development of spaces. Carved in a clear square geometry, the spaces meet the slope and extend in a spiral, fluent movement that continuously changes the perception of the space and its relationship to the exterior, offering striking panoramic views across the hinterland and to Lake Lugano. Read more

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