Preston Scott Cohen’s Tel Aviv museum

Preston Scott Cohen’s modern museum revamp gives boost to Tel Aviv art scene

Tel Aviv's recently expanded modern art museum, with its dazzling new building no less an attraction than the art showcased inside, has given a home to hundreds of displaced Israeli works and helped boost the city's cultural scene.

Located in the centre of the city's cultural complex, the program for the Tel Aviv Museum of Art Amir Building posed an extraordinary architectural challenge: to resolve the tension between the tight, idiosyncratic triangular site and the museum's need for a series of large, neutral rectangular galleries. The solution: subtly twisting geometric surfaces (hyperbolic parabolas) that connect the disparate angles between the galleries and the context, while refracting natural light into the deepest recesses of the half buried building.

The reason for the four-year, $50 million building project was to provide a space for the collection of Israeli art that was growing in the museum's storage rooms. Many of the newly displayed pieces include elements of Israeli society, from military conscription to the agricultural communes known as kibbutzim. Alongside these nationally inspired contributions, works by renowned German artist Anselm Kieffer – which were inspired by Jewish faith and mysticism – make up a special exhibit for the new wing's opening. The new wing, designed by Massachusetts architect Preston Scott Cohen, has doubled the size of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art by 19,000 sq. m. (200,000 sq. ft.) and lured a growing number of art fans through its new, triangular concrete and glass complex since its November 3 unveiling.

Cohen’s building represents an unusual synthesis of two opposing paradigms for the contemporary museum: the museum of neutral white boxes and the museum of architectural spectacle. Individual, rectangular galleries are organized around the "Lightfall", an eighty-seven foot tall spiraling atrium. The building is composed according to multiple axes that deviate significantly from floor to floor. In essence, it is a series of independent plans and steel structural systems stacked one atop the other, connected by geometric episodes of vertical circulation.

Alésia Museum opening in 2012

Subtle historical references found in Bernard Tschumi Architects' Alésia Museum

The Battle of Alésia was waged by Julius Caesar in September 52BC against a united league of Gallic residents in a French settlement in Burgundy. A major hill fort - Alésia - was the site of the vicious encounter which was eventually won by the Romans, and it is this historic location which has been transformed by architectural theorist and celebrated designer Bernard Tschumi.

On 23rd March 2012, an opening ceremony will be held for the first phase of the Alésia Museum; a cylindrical band of wooden elements that houses an interpretive information centre. This interactive facility will educate visitors on the events of the Battle of Alésia through a series of active exhibitions and displays, with information accessible to those of all ages.

Great care has been taken here to minimise disruption to the historic site and to form a fitting - and historically accurate - tribute to the violent conflict. As such, the roof of the interpretive centre has been planted with shrubs and grasses in order to minimise visual impact when viewed from a neighbouring hill (the historical position of the Gauls), and a wooden envelope constructed to reference the Roman fortifications of the era. Bernard Tschumi Architects admits: “To be both visible and invisible is the paradox and challenge of the project.”

Plans are underway for a second, corresponding building to act as a more traditional museum. Designs suggest a form of similar cylindrical appearance but clad in stone rather than wood, ‘evoking its trenched position’. This will be located on the hill to mark the location of the Gauls and will house historical objects recovered from the site in an alternative educational approach.

Plans are to sink this second building into the hill itself ‘so that from above it appears as an extension of the landscape’; aside from this, the lush green hills remain largely the same today as in 52BC. The second volume is due to complete in 2015.

source:http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com

Christian de Portzamparc, Carnegie 57, New York City

Carnegie 57, is a new “ultraluxury” condo building, designed by French starchitect Christian de Portzamparc, on 57th Street across the street from Carnegie Hall, in New York.

The $1.3 billion skyscraper is actually the first major property development to come after the global financial crisis put hundreds of projects in the Big Apple on hold and upon its completion in 2013, will be the tallest residential building in the city, at 1,005 feet, eclipsing the Trump World Plaza.

There will be 136 apartments in the tower, above the 210-room Park Hyatt hotel which will sprawl over the first 20 floors. Gary Barnet, the project’s developer, seems confident that his tower will attract both design kudos and deep-pocketed buyers.

Josep Liinas, Atlantida cultural centre, Barcelona

Its been a while since we last posted a purely European project and we found this project to be the perfect opportunity to do just that.Atlantida is a cultural center, designed by the Catalan architect Josep Llinas, situated in Vic, just 60 km north of Barcelona.The 10.500 m2 of the Atlantida cultural center, feature an 800-seat theatre, a 400-seat auditorium, a music school, 100-seat performance space, a library and a restaurant.
According to the architect in relation to the location, the site is placed between the boundary of the consolidated town and the future expansion areas. The transition from one fabric to the other is articulated by a strip of natural land supported by the Meder River. In the northern edge, the consolidated town is composed by courtyards where the rear façades of row housing look over.
The imposing asymmetrical building which is destined to become a landmark for the city of Vic, opened its doors in April 2010.

Frank Gehry, Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Las Vegas

Frank Gehry’s newest project, the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, in Las Vegas, is a leading research centre for degenerative brain diseases.

The sculptural building cost almost $100 million and consists of two wings connected by an open courtyard.

In the ordinary northern part of the building is a research center and hospital, in the creative south part – the life activity center.

In this project the architect manipulates space and materials to create stunning structures that captivate the imagination and although the two parts of the building differ from each other, they also act like two parts of the whole.

The Gehry teams have created a masterpiece of architectural design, blending strong visual impact with superior efficiency in patient care.

According to WAN, Gehry decided to design the building because he, like founder Larry Ruvo, has been affected by degenerative brain diseases. Ruvo’s father had Alzheimer’s and Gehry’s analyst’s wife had Huntington’s disease.

Therefore, this building is like a tribute to those they lost, and also a beacon of hope for finding treatments or cures for these unfortunate ailments.