Author Archives: Aventinus

City of Fashion? Where’s the architecture?

Cesar Pelli’s project for the Citta della Moda in Milan brings to mind the following thoughts: While private entities seek to extend their control over urban space and public bodies surrender management to commercial concerns, the iconography of the public … Continue reading

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Fashion versus Convention

“Today, the idea of erudition, of the architect as connoisseur has been rejected. It is curious that in a world of increasing specialisation, where artists and scientists are making dynamic new work from within their disciplines, architects have followed the … Continue reading

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The fashionable money is on Semper…

“…the beginning of building coincides with the beginning of textiles. … The Wall is the structural element that formally represents and makes visible the enclosed space as such, absolutely, as it were, without reference to secondary concepts. We might recognise … Continue reading

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Monument and Sign

“In the San Lorenzo we see today, the various types of additions to it, from the medieval … to the Renaissance …, are still apparent, while the entire structure occupies the place of the ancient Roman baths, in the very … Continue reading

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Surface reflections

“Today fashion may again offer a model for architecture… . The fluid boundaries in contemporary women’s fashion underscore the continued rigidity in architecture discourse, an avant-garde moralism that is all too evident in the peculiarly puerile debates – deconstructivism versus … Continue reading

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Gladrags

Oskar Kokoschka, Gertrud and Arnold Schönberg, and Adolf Loos in Berlin’s Bristol Bar, 1927. “In the beginning was cladding. Man sought shelter from inclement weather and protection and warmth while he slept. He sought to cover himself. The covering is … Continue reading

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On with the motley

Listen…

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Restaurant recommendation: ‘Da Ugo’ Rome

Continuity in Architecture demands good food – the sketch was supplied by Robert Evans of Evans Vettori Architects, Matlock direct from this atmospheric Roman trattoria.

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Rus in urbe

Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens (Location) were once famous for floral displays, and “New Piccadilly” was treated to a temporary makeover during Easter 2006 with the Ando wall festooned with roses. In summer 2005, Dale Street had been enlivened by a temporary … Continue reading

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Topography of Triumph

The Italian Football Squad’s triumphant return to Rome as World Cup winners recalled the entries of previous victors into the city: It is indeed as if the war were still being fought, now for the benefit of the throngs crowding … Continue reading

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Trickledown Urbanism

In contrast to the landscape of civic veneration produced for the Cenotaph in St. Peter’s Square, the present generation of Manchester’s city fathers favour a landscape of civic disportment. Not the least surprising arrival in “New Piccadilly” during the 2005 … Continue reading

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Thought for the decade…

‘In contrast to Rem Koolhaas’s notion that freedom is an absence of architecture – as, for example, when he describes the open space of a town square as embodying the greatest possible freedom – we side with Rossi’s belief that … Continue reading

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