Barcelona, city of genius

For someone as fascinated by architecture and cityscapes as I am, Barcelona is a dream of a city.  It is beautiful in a strictly urban fashion, and contains buildings and textures and colours of every kind to please the eye and the brain.

Home to both Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali, Barcelona was the playground of Antoni Gaudi.  Our hotel was in the Gracia neighbourhood and within walking distance of several Gaudi “monuments”.  The Sagrada Familia church didn’t impress me, though I was impressed to learn that several million visitors per year make it one of Spain’s largest attractions.  However, Gaudi’s more domestic architecture, such as the Casa Mila …

… and the Casa Battlo ….

were interesting distractions just a block each from where we were staying.  A more modern rendition of Gaudi-esque forms was also close….

Each of these buildings features balconies; and I was particularly taken with the range of balconies throughout Barcelona.  Each building seemed to be different and each building seemed to revel in these marvelous excretions.

And then, there is the modern stuff!  Barcelona’s skyline seems to change every decade, with each generation of architects seeking to make their mark.  Just two examples among so many:  There is the glorious Torre Agbar:

(image from http://viajeteca.com/europa/espana/Barcelona)

And a marvelous red building that I saw only on our way out to the airport …

(image from http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cataluna/Toyo/Ito/hay/mejor/arquitectura/arbol/elpepiespcat/20090318elpcat_3/Tes)

This is part of Las Torres Fira, by architect Toyo Ito.  No wishy-washy rust colour;  just red and proud of it.

We had barely a day in Barcelona, with too much to see.  I need to return there and just spend a good long time looking at the architecure of the place.  I have absolutely no idea whether it actually works as a city, but for the visitor with an eye to its looks, that hardly matters.

A Classic Wright House For Sale

The Fawcett Ranch House near Los Banos, California, is for sale.  It is one of the most complete examples of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural vocabulary.

All this and 80 acres of San Joaquin Valley farming land can be yours for the surprisingly low price of $2,700,000.  I would if I could.

Small Spaces

For a decade, I have written about people living in small spaces:  a couple who live on their balcony; a street person who makes a home in a doorway, for example.  My stories, and plans for more, are filled with the ingenuity required to live in such tight spots.  But nothing I had fantasized about prepared me for the real-life inventiveness of Gary Chang in Hong Kong as told in this fascinating piece from the New York Times.

Chang has managed to cram 24 different floor plans into his tiny 344 square foot apartment.

Using shifting wall units suspended from steel tracks bolted into the ceiling, the apartment becomes all manner of spaces — kitchen, library, laundry room, dressing room, a lounge with a hammock, an enclosed dining area and a wet bar.

In the last two decades, he has renovated four times, on progressively bigger budgets as his company, Edge Design Institute, has grown. His latest effort, which took a year and cost just over $218,000, he calls the “Domestic Transformer.”

Incredible ingenuity.  I couldn’t possibly live in it, but I appreciate the design skills that have brought it about.

The Economy Gives Retail A Malling

Earlier this summer, I wrote about the proliferation of empty malls around the world.  Now it seems, in North America at least, that problem could soon get worse.  General Growth Properties Inc., the USA’s second-largest mall operator, is close to bankruptcy.

Chicago-based General Growth Properties said in an SEC filing late Monday that it has $900 million of property secured debt and $58 million of corporate debt coming up for renewal by Dec. 1. It also faces another $3.07 billion in debt that matures in 2009.   But “given the continued weakness of the retail and credit markets,” the mall operator fears it may not be able to refinance its loans at lower rates to meet its short-term cash needs … “Our potential inability to address our 2008 or 2009 debt maturities in a satisfactory fashion raises substantial doubts as to our ability to continue as a going concern,” the company said in the filing. Shares of General Growth Properties tumbled 66% to 46 cents on Tuesday.

General Growth properties are in 44 States, including the Paramus Park Mall in New Jersey, Cumberland Mall in Atlanta, Water Tower Place in Chicago and the Glendale Galleria in California.  And they are not alone in this time of trouble as several other large mall operators have significant debt coming up for renewal at the end of 2008 and early 2009.  Store vacancies at regional malls are up 6.6%, the largest increase since early 2002, according to real estate research firm Reis.

We could well be facing the prospect of some major city malls becoming empty echoing hangars.  The real problem is what do you replace them with?  Most downtown malls, at least, are huge spaces embedded in the physical infrastructure on and below our streets.  We cannot simply knock them down and replace them with parks or other amenities. Maybe we could at least use them as homeless shelters in the winter.

A New View Of Paris

Quoting directly from BD The Architect’s website:

This 180m-high Herzog & de Meuron-designed pyramid tower is a proposal for the first skyscraper in Paris for 30 years.

The 50-storey building will be situated in the south-west of the city at the Porte de Versailles.

It has been nicknamed the ‘Delanoë tower’ after the city’s socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoë, who won the fight to bring high-rises back to Paris after convincing the city council in July to make exceptions to the 30-year-old ban.

The ban prohibits buildings of above 37m-high and was inspired by the 210 Tour Montparnasse.

I have a soft spot for spectacle.  But I don’t know about this.  Not everything has to be prime time.  There are good reasons to break through barriers with more mundane (though no less superbly engineered) designs, designs that deliver a purpose, designs that improve without causing so much fuss.  Maybe that’s what’s needed first to get Paris comfortable with the high life again.

Institutional Architecture Can Be Good Architecture

The image below is of a design for the new British Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia.

I’m not at all sure what caught my eye, but I do like this.  It seems to escape the block paradigm, and brings the public right into the centre of the building.  The all-glass exterior will bring an organic look to the streetscape.  And it is not too big to overpower the people or the neighbourhood.

The Extreme Home

Some while ago I wrote about how my wife and I like to look at other people’s houses. This week, Forbes takes us to the extreme — the two billion dollar home in Mumbai, India, that is now almost complete for Mukesh Ambani, the fifth richest man in the world. Yes two BILLION dollars. But you get quite a bit for the money. The 27-story skyscraper contains 400,000 square feet of living space.

From the article: “The home will cost more than a hotel or high-rise of similar size because of its custom measurements and fittings: A hotel or condominium has a common layout, replicated on every floor, and uses the same materials throughout the building (such as door handles, floors, lamps and window treatments). The Ambani home, called Antilla, differs in that no two floors are alike in either plans or materials used. At the request of Nita Ambani, say the designers, if a metal, wood or crystal is part of the ninth-floor design, it shouldn’t be used on the eleventh floor, for example. The idea is to blend styles and architectural elements so spaces give the feel of consistency, but without repetition. Antilla’s shape is based on Vaastu, an Indian tradition much like Feng Shui that is said to move energy beneficially through the building by strategically placing materials, rooms and objects.”

The first six floors are parking garages for family, staff, and visitors. “Hanging vertical gardens dot the exterior. While they make for good decoration, their key function has to do with energy efficiency: The hydroponic plants, grown in liquid nutrient solutions instead of soil, lower the energy footprint of the home by absorbing heat and sunlight and providing shade that helps keep it cool.”

I believe one might question how one man has amassed $43 billion in assets. But, once the guy’s got it, I can’t think of any reason why he shouldn’t spend it any way he wants. Looking through the pictures, I don’t much care for this place but if he and his family enjoy it then good for him.

The Pritzker Prize

The Pritzker Prize is the Nobel of architecture and the 2008 award has gone to French architect Jean Nouvel for his “insatiable” creative experimentation.

I’m not a great lover of his work, finding much of it too “blocky” for my taste. However, his roof over the Lucerne Cultural and Conference Center works really well as a reflection of the environment.

And this incomplete work in Abu Dhabi is fascinatingly hard to grasp.

Congratulations to him. Recognition by one’s peers is the greatest satisfaction.