Milan memory/invention – Nuovo Polo Fiera Milano
The new trade fair is located on the site of the former AGIP refinery at Rho-Pero, an area of over 2 million sqm that has recently been reclaimed, and close to functional infrastructures of urban and territorial communication that is planned to develop …
Berlin built/built on existing tissue
The empty areas left behind by the “wall” have triggered a long debate on the city and its design. Planners have proposed to build on the existing tissue, an ancient method on which basis cities have been built on top of one another in layers, where bu …
Berlin built/built on existing tissue – Blocco Schützenstrasse
The Schützenstrasse block in Berlin, designed by Aldo Rossi, is one of the most authoritative examples and lessons on the importance of continuity, understood as a project’s ability to present past, present and future in one single act. Fragments, pers …
Berlin built/built on existing tissue – Neues Museum
In 1997 David Chipperfield Architects won an international competition for the restoration of Friedrich August Stüler’s Neues Museum, originally built between 1841/43 – 1859. Located on Museum Island in the heart of former East Berlin, the building was …
Graz art/architecture
Art and architecture have, in history, always been closely bound by a single urban destiny associated with the presence of monuments. Modernity, with its dogmatic goals defined for design, as solutions to the needs and functionality of living, has ofte …
Graz art/architecture – Kunsthaus
In the late Nineties the city of Graz decided to found a new museum of contemporary art. After two competitions, launched in 1988 and 1998 respectively, which had not resulted in the construction of any of the winning projects, in 2000 the turn has com …
Graz art/architecture – Mur Island
A twist in the river, a node in the river, a circulation-route in the river. The node is an island; it’s a dome that twists into a bowl that twists into a dome. The bowl functions as a theater. Bleachers wave in and out; when the bowl isn’t used as a t …
Beijing iconic/aniconic
With the recent Olympic games a series of striking buildings have been built: the new stadium, the new airport, the new public television headquarters (CCTV). The introverted Beijing, secluded in courts protected by walls, obstinately horizontal, poor …
Beijing iconic/aniconic – National Stadium
The National Stadium is situated on a gentle rise in the centre of the Olympic complex to the north of Beijing. Its location is predefined by the master plan. All other urban and architectural decisions were initiated by our competition project and sub …
Beijing iconic/aniconic – 798 art zone
In 1952, following the directives for cooperation between the Soviet Union and the new People’s Republic of China, the farming village of Dashanzi on the northeastern outskirts of Beijing was chosen as site for a new industrial district for the develop …