Glasgow School of Art By Charles Mackintosh

A very Contrasting space, some rooms are very dark, some rooms are just so light and full of air. The building itself has a romantic and Melancholic context, feels like it is celebrating the unity of architecture, interior and Art. The whole building is like a one piece and you can not exclude anything, even a simple and minimalistic mosaic on the staircase is important and just on the right place. In comparison the the modern buildings of our days, his architecture seems to be all "handmade", one single, unique thing. Light and Shadow Contrasts, dark or even black wood,windows on the ceiling, - masterpiece.

Debbie Han

ARTIST STATEMENT - ‘Graces’ Series 
Artist Statement - ‘Graces’ Series The portrayal of the female nude within the context of art history has a long tradition of idealizing the female body as a subject of art. The tradition of figurative sculpture has strived to immortalize the ideal female form; portrait painting has explored countless styles of depicting women as muses; photography has become the most dominant media in shaping trends of beauty in contemporary culture. If beauty is a cultural conception, what could be a better way to understand a culture and a time than examining such phenomenon? The ‘Graces’ series challenges the familiar and stereotypical idealization of the female body by combining bodies of actual Asian women with western classical goddess heads. The digitally altered skin texture to marble-like smoothness further intensifies the illusive power of these figures. Each ‘Grace’ is captured in the midst of an everyday act, as opposed to an idealized pose of a classical sculpture. Furthermore, each image depicts a specific cultural gesture commonly seen in contemporary Asian society. These ‘graces’ are in essence, a metaphorical depiction of current cultural dynamics and characteristics of the Asian urban culture. At the same time, the intentional positioning of the figures against unspecified space and setting invites open interpretations of the ‘reality’ of these images according to the perception of each viewer.The ‘Graces’ series deconstructs the practice of figurative sculpture and portrait photography through a subversive manipulation of perception and reality. These hybrid figures exist in an illusive realm of the actual with ideal, past and present, and the oriental and occidental, simultaneously embodying all of these contradictions. They reflect challenges and dilemmas of today’s global societies. 

Lebbeus Woods

Lebbeus Woods (May 31, 1940 – October 30, 2012) was an American architect and artist.

Architecture and war are not incompatible. Architecture is war. War is architecture. I am at war with my time, with history, with all authority that resides in fixed and frightened forms. I am one of millions who do not fit in, who have no home, no family, no doctrine, no firm place to call my own, no known beginning or end, no "sacred and primordial site." I declare war on all icons and finalities, on all histories that would chain me with my own falseness, my own pitiful fears. I know only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments, and forms that appear with infinite strength, then "melt into air." I am an architect, a constructor of worlds, a sensualist who worships the flesh, the melody, a silhouette against the darkening sky. I cannot know your name. Nor you can know mine. Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city.

The techniques that Woods describes is against restoration or erasure, but rather maintaining the scar and creating new spaces in between as form of a scab, which he refers to as “injections”, which resist the act of reconciling and connecting the void, but rather offer new opportunities, or “freespaces”. He sees these freespaces as a network through the widespread ruins of the city.

The majority of his explorations deal with the design of systems of crisis:the former of the existing being confronted by the order of the new. His designs are politically charged,and provocative visions of the possible reality; provisional, local, and charged with the investments of their creator. He is best knows for his proposals for San Francisco, Havana, and sarajevo That were included in the publication of Radical Reconstruction on 1997 ( Sarajevo after was, San Francisco after the earthquake, Havana in the grips of the ongoing trade embargo)

Yee Sookyung

Yee Sookyung was born in 1963 in Korea.

This artist transforms traditional Korean objects and concepts into new contemporary forms by recycling fragments by recycling fragments from the works of master Korean ceramicists. Soo-Kyung makes her North American debut via the Vancouver Biennale.

ERNESTO NETO

Ernesto neto is considered one of the absolute leaders of brazil’s contemporary art scene.

his inspiration comes partly from brazilian neo-concretism. at the end of the 1950s and

beginning of the 60s the movement’s best-known proponents, lygia clarc and hélio oiticica,

rejected modernism’s ideas of autonomous geometric abstraction. instead, they wanted to equate art with living organisms in a kind of organic architecture, and invite the viewer to be

an active participant. ernesto neto works with abstract installations

which often take up the entire exhibition space. his materials are gossamer-thin, light,

stretchable fabrics in nylon or cotton. like fine membranes fixed to the ceiling by long,

stretched threads his works hang down into the room and create shapes that are almost

organic. sometimes they are filled with scented spices and hang in tear-shaped forms like

gigantic mushrooms or huge stockings, sometimes he creates peculiar soft sculptures

which the visitor is allowed to feel through small openings in the surface. he also creates

spatial labyrinths which the visitor can enter and thereby experience the work and interact

with it. neto’s art is an experience which creates associations with the body and with something organic. he describes his works as an exploration and a representation of the body’s landscape from within. it is important to neto that the viewer should actively interact with and physically experience his work by feeling, smelling, and touching it.

for malmö konsthall neto will create a completely new work which he is calling

'the malmö experience'. the exhibition in malmö will provide an overview and synopsis

of neto’s previous works and contain a number of important works which will be presented in

a new way. in a huge 'organic labyrinth' of fabrics and shapes, which takes up the entire

exhibition space, the visitor can experience the work from both inside and outside.

the exhibition is based on the colours of the rainbow and the body labyrinth/organism

consists of a number of smaller spaces which together constitute the whole.

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT massaro house

Looking down at the Massaro House cantilevering over Lake Mahopac from its Petra Island perch is like observing an elegant water bird that’s comfortably earthbound but prepared to soar in an instant. It’s the kind of organic design that could only have sprung from one mind. Nearly 60 years after legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright created the home’s original sketches, Putnam County, N.Y. resident Joseph Massaro has allowed that vision to take flight.

In 2000, Massaro sold his successful heating/air-conditioning business and needed “a project” to engage his Type A personality. His thoughts turned to Wright’s plans for the larger house. “I wasn’t a Wright fan before, but the more I lived in the cottage on weekends, the more things I noticed – the spans on the roof, the way every inch of the place was used,” Massaro says. “He was a genius.”

After negotiations over the plans with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation failed to reach fruition, Massaro hired eminent Wright scholar and architect Thomas A. Heinz to oversee the four-year construction. “It’s 5,000 square feet, one level; it’s all open architecture, and it’s just so comfortable,” he marvels. “It’s all African mahogany, the floors are red concrete, the furniture was designed by Wright – it has all built-in furniture. Each room is unique. I was concerned the three back bedrooms were going to be small, but I left it the way it was intended and they’re just so perfect.”

Wright himself called the master bedroom’s design “an island within the island” because it’s completely removed from the other bedrooms and juts over the water. Like Wright’s greatest works, the house not only complements the landscape, it melds with it. The rock incorporated in the design came from Petra Island and winds from the terrace through a dining room wall, into one of the three bathrooms as part of the shower and ends in one of the back bedrooms. A soaring entryway capped with 26 skylights illuminates the natural beauty. It’s the kind of house that requires seeing to believe

We built this house exactly to Wright’s specifications,” Massaro says. “It’s located on the exact spot that he picked.” The Massaro House, as it’s known, also has six working fireplaces and the full range of modern conveniences from radiant heat in the floors to security cameras. A non-Wright house on the island was converted to an artist’s studio and workshop. There’s even an FAA-approved helipad. “You can be on your own island in 15 minutes from New York City and have complete privacy,” Massaro says. “It’s really a full compound out here.”

Scholarly debate has raged over whether the house is truly Wright, but Massaro has no doubts. “Walter Cronkite came out to see this island about a year before he passed away. The house was under construction and he knew Frank Lloyd Wright personally,” Massaro says. “He walked in and turned to me and said, ‘I feel Frank in this house.’ “

Would Massaro ever part with his Petra Island masterpiece? “If the right person came along,” he says. “I put my heart and soul into this, but I’m spending more time in Florida now. I’m thinking of building a Frank Lloyd Wright house that he designed for the ocean.”

Because after you’ve lived under a Wright roof, anything else would just feel wrong.

Tea-house by Archi Union

The Tea House, located in the backyard of Archi-Union’s J-office, is constructed from the salvaged parts of the original warehouse’s collapsed roof. The site was extremely constricted with walls on three sides, and with only one side facing towards an open space that contains a pool. The space was further restricted by a mature tree. The design tries to embody harmony by integrating enclosure and openness, delightful space and logical construction and other complicated relations. This building reacts to the site’s environment; the plan layout is a logically obscure quadrilateral, thus maximizing the amount of space. It is divided into three parts. A covered public area is formed towards the open space with the pool, with an enclosed tea house at ground level and library on the first floor where a small triangular balcony extends around the existing tree. Other more private spaces exist such as a lounge, reading room and service room which are arranged towards the rear of the building; a delightful transitional space was created to connect the public space and the private spaces.

The transitional space was designed around a twisted nonlinear hexahedron staircase, which connects the functional spaces. The stair resolves the vertical transportation issue from the tea house and the library and provides an inner courtyard near the reading room for viewing the existing tree. The space was designed to bring a new experience to an ordinary functional space. Linear space suddenly changes into an expressive form, surging from the tea house then transforming into a tranquil space for the library on the floor above, making the reading room a special place to sit.

The volume is a three-dimensional irregular shape which is impossible to be understood through plans. The twisting shape was designed by scripting in Grasshopper an algorithmic plug-in for Rhino. However such a shape is difficult to translate into quantifiable information for guiding construction. The constraints of manual construction obliged us to invent solutions at the time of construction to realize the advanced digital design with local low-tech construction techniques. Firstly we abstracted the structural skeleton which was subsequently scanned with digital software. This curved shape was then recalculated through interlacing straight lines; these lines were then formed into ruled surfaces filling the void. The spacing was set to the dimension of timber, thus the digital ‘setting out’ could be easily translated into a manually constructible shape.

Sunset Chapel by Bunker Arquitectura

Called Sunset Chapel, the faceted building appears to balance on the rocky terrain and a triangular-shaped aperture forms the entrance. The chapel is located on an upper floor and is reached by internal steps.Slits in the walls provide views out to the surrounding landscape and also allow slivers of light into the space. Concrete pews are oriented towards a glazed wall with a crucifix on the surface. 

Our first religious commission was a wedding chapel conceived to celebrate the first day of a couple’s new life. Our second religious commission had a diametrically opposite purpose: to mourn the passing of loved ones. This premise was the main driving force behind the design, the two had to be complete opposites, they were natural antagonists. While the former praised life, the latter grieved death. Through this game of contrasts all the decisions were made: Glass vs. Concrete, Transparency vs. Solidity, Ethereal vs. Heavy, Classical Proportions vs. Apparent Chaos, Vulnerable vs. Indestructible, Ephemeral vs. Lasting…The client brief was pretty simple, almost naïve: First, the chapel had to take full advantage of the spectacular views. Second, the sun had to set exactly behind the altar cross (of course, this is only possible twice a year at the equinoxes). And last but not least, a section with the first phase of crypts had to be included outside and around the chapel. Metaphorically speaking, the mausoleum would be in perfect utopian synchrony with a celestial cycle of continuous renovation. Two elements obstructed the principal views: large trees and abundant vegetation, and a behemoth of a boulder blocking the main sight of the sunset. Acapulco’s hills are made up of huge granite rocks piled on top of each other. In a purely mimetic endeavor, we worked hard to make the chapel look like “just another” colossal boulder atop the mountain.

Another modern church in my Blog. just as 2 others, it is very simple and minimalistic, it only provides a space, interesting structure and a cross. mainly made of concrete and glass. 

KUBIC, portable open air night club.

Are you tired of going to the same ole' clubs? Why not make your own outdoors? German architects Modulorbeat have created Kubik, a temporary open-air nightclub comprised of 160 large water tanks that light up in tune with the beat. With special wiring, each tank can be individually controlled and glow in any color. Be sure to check out the video to see the full effect!

Light creates a beautiful colored atmosphere, glowing light, connected to the beats of music. it is a very good idea to built such a place.very powerful combination : sound and a light.

Church in La Laguna by Menis Arquitectos

Completed in 2008 by Spanish architect Fernando Menis of Menis Arquitectos, the church comprises four chunky concrete volumes separated from one another by sliced openings.

Two overlapping cracks in the building’s end wall create a large cross-shaped window that is visible from within the nave.

is is a project located in the city of La Laguna on the Island of Tenerife. It is a place

that encourages reflection, a meditation space, an intrinsic space where a person ofany condition can go to find himself in the temple or join with others in the cultural center.

The building exists as a large piece of concrete split and cut into four large volumes,
at these separations movement occurs. This space creates light, allowing to enter
and penetrating into the space, they exist as if to signify a higher meaning inspiring a
spiritual presence and sense of tranquility.

The building stands stark, stripped of superfluous elements that involve distractions far from its spiritual essence. The void has been sculpted to the same extent. The balance of proportions of void and building was vital to developing the identity of the project.

We chose to exploit the properties of concrete, based on its isotropic nature energy efficiency is optimized by the thermal inertia of the walls. The building also gets a better acoustics result; thanks to a combination of concrete and local volcanic stones called picón, which is chopped afterwards and acts as a rough finish that has a degree of sound absorption that is superior to conventional concrete.

Location: Los Majuelos, San Cristóbal de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
Use: Social Center and Church.
Site Area: 550 m2
Total Constructed Area: 1.050 m2
Cost: 600.000 €
Structure: Reinforced concrete
Materials: Reinforced concrete, local stone, golden sheet.
Status: completed Social Center (2005-2008); under construction Church (2005-..)
Client: Holy Redeemer Parish.

Architect: Fernando Menis
Office: Menis Arquitectos