Architecture in the news

He preferred caves to goldfish bowls and had a transparent-bottomed bath poking through his kitchen ceiling – but most of his audacious work has been demolished. In a new exhibition, it rises againA striking matrix of slender steel struts and intersecting planes of glass stands on a street in midtown Manhattan, forming a crystalline tower amid a regular row of townhouses. The layered elements of the facade appear to slip and slide past each other, puncturing a vertiginous stack of interior spaces, where suspended staircases connect floating mezzanines and houseplants trail from hovering balconies. It is a beguiling place of mirrors, cubbyholes, partitions and folding panels, a plexiglass and plasterboard palace that feels as if it might reconfigure itself at any moment – just like the Japanese toy robots displayed on one of its pristine white shelves.This is the Modulightor building, the futuristic domestic vision of Paul Rudolph, an architect known for his imposing brutalist hulks, but who went through numerous different guises over the decades. He started out building breezy beachside homes in Sarasota, Florida, in the 1950s, before becoming the macho maestro of megalithic megastructures in the 1960s. After a fall from favour, as the world turned against such strident modernism, he concluded his career concocting camp New York party pads in the 1980s – when he wasn’t painting models of Voltron robots. Continue reading…

Schelling Architecture Foundation refuses to give James Bridle the €10k prize after signing of open letterA German architecture foundation has rescinded one of its €10,000 (£8,360) awards from a British artist over the signing of an open letter promising a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions, citing the German parliament’s controversial antisemitism resolution as a factor behind the decision.The Athens-based artist and author James Bridle, who uses they/them pronouns, was announced in June as the recipient of the Schelling Architecture Foundation’s theory prize, awarded every two years, for their “outstanding contributions to architectural theory”. Continue reading…

Two homes have been built at the National Gallery of Victoria to show how space can be used lazily – and smartlyGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailAustralians like our space; it’s a good thing we have a lot of it. But do we always use it smartly? Australians now build and live in the biggest homes in the world, outstripping even the US and Canada. In the last 60 years, our houses have more than doubled in size – from 100 sq metres to 236 sq metres – while the number of people living in them has declined.And this month a 236 sq metre house has sprouted up in the back garden of the National Gallery of Victoria. There are no bedrooms or bathrooms inside – in fact, there are no rooms at all, just a labyrinth of windowless walls that feel dark and oppressive. But then the maze ends, opening out on another house – this one 50 sq metres – that feels like a sudden respite. Despite being smaller, it feels roomier with its high ceilings and a beautiful play of shadow and light coming through slotted pine walls. It’s not the size, it’s the way you use it.Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Continue reading…

In a book of two halves, Jenkins seeks to educate readers in the ‘language’ of style as well as offer a polemic on the ravages visited upon our cities by modernist planners“My dream is that people’s eyes will be opened instinctively to their surroundings,” says Simon Jenkins at the end of his new book. “I want people to point at buildings, laugh, cry or get angry. I want them to hate and to love what they see. I want them to speak architecture.” So he has written A Short History of British Architecture, which he hopes will help people understand what he calls the “language” of styles – such things as the difference between Doric and Corinthian columns, or between early English and perpendicular gothic.It turns out to be two books in one. The first 200 pages are a brisk rattle through four-and-a-half millennia of the greatest hits of British building from Stonehenge onwards, talking about cathedrals, country houses and monuments rather than the places of everyday life, delivered with the measured if sometimes opinionated tone of a benign tour guide. Continue reading…

State’s housing pattern book, launching in 2025, seeks to cut red tape and reduce development application times with pre-approved designsGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastFive winning terrace and apartment designs will be pre-approved in a new NSW government “pattern book” in a bid to fast-track housing development in the state.The designs were selected from more than 200 in the state government’s Pattern Book Design Competition, submitted by architects from Australia and around the world.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…

Her splashbacked, single-surfaced, cubbyholed, foldaway paradise revolutionised kitchen design. But Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky grew to regret her world-conquering creationOn the sixth floor of a quiet residential street in central Vienna, a tiny kitchen offers a masterclass in stylish functionalism. Every inch has been designed for efficiency, yet the first impression is one of warmth and comfort. The kitchen’s deep orange splashback and the dark green cabinets with red interiors are all bathed in natural light, with sweeping views of the city rooftops beyond.This is the work of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, the architect, activist and resistance fighter who in 1926 designed the Frankfurt Kitchen – the prototype for the modern fitted version now standard in the west. It introduced many features we now take for granted: continuous countertops, built-in cabinets and drawers optimised for storage, a tiled splashback – all designed as a complementary whole. Continue reading…

China is moving mountains and flattening neighbourhoods. But Dong Gong is sparking a revolution – by working slowly with what’s already there. As a book of his great projects appears, he shares his philosophyArtificial boulders fill the studio of Vector architects in Beijing, like the result of a dramatic landslide, their craggy polystyrene surfaces rendered with chalky grey plaster. One rock has a striking house sprouting from its summit, a group of intersecting cubic volumes crowned with a curving barrel-vaulted roof. Another has a cluster of industrial looking buildings nestled at its base, connected by an intricate colonnade. A third features a series of momentous terraces and rectangular pits carved into a gulley, with the air of an ancient burial site. These are the enigmatic visions of Dong Gong, an architect who has risen to prominence in China as a conjuror of mesmerising spaces, crafting libraries, schools and museums that feel grown out of, or hewn into, their sites, built with extraordinary attention to detail. His seashore library in Aranya feels like a miniature jewel-like version of Le Corbusier’s La Tourette monastery, marooned on the beach, where daylight pierces through angled shafts and plays across the sculpted concrete walls.His courtyard elementary school in Shenzhen is a protected oasis, its classrooms and running track wrapping a grove of mature banyan trees in the middle of the bustling high-rise metropolis, a world away from the usual state-mandated educational barracks. While Chinese cities continue to build at relentless speed, moving mountains and razing neighbourhoods overnight, Dong’s approach is to slow down, and draw on the value of what is already there. “China’s current economic slowdown has actually been helpful,” he says, sitting in his office in Beijing, where a framed drawing of La Tourette leans against the wall. “It means we can slow down too, and rediscover a kind of thoughtfulness.” While big commercial offices that worked for the country’s major real estate developers are struggling, the likes of Vector architects see the current moment as a chance to take stock, recalibrate, and encourage their clients to approach things more carefully. Where demolition was once the default, the economic lull has given more currency to the option of retaining and reusing existing structures – a boon for both heritage and the environment. Continue reading…

Whitfield, Northumberland: Even if you know the science behind it, the sight of beech and sycamore trees in full blaze can still astoundLast week, it was village fireworks that lit up the Whitfield Valley. Today, the woodlands are glowing with reds, oranges and yellows in a dazzling display. Wet weather has kept the trees hydrated, while warm temperatures have held back leaf-drop. The woods around Cupola Bridge are a place to slow down and experience the best autumn colour for years.The bridge is named after a cupola lead-smelting furnace that stood nearby where the waters of East and West Allen meet. Spanning the conjoined rivers, the three-arched bridge has bulky breakwaters and castle-wall solidity. The view downstream is of great slabs of limestone pavement, crevassed into rectangles, splitting the river into two levels that form sideways waterfalls down its middle. Continue reading…

Darlington public school in Chippendale wins major building design prize at 2024 World Architectural festival in SingaporeFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA Sydney public school has been crowned the World Building of the Year, beating competition from towering skyscrapers, museums and major transport hubs to claim the title.Darlington public school in Chippendale won the major building design prize at the 2024 World Architectural festival in Singapore, triumphing over more than 200 shortlisted entrants.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…

Sumptuously textured, carbon negative and just a bit more expensive, hempcrete is being increasingly used in eco-friendly buildingGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastMichael Leung first came across hempcrete after a family tragedy.When his father-in-law died from asbestos-related mesothelioma, Leung, an architect, swore off using toxic materials in building. Continue reading…

Landscape and architecture photographer Vincenzo Pagliuca was always fascinated by the empty, isolated houses scattered around the Campania region of southern Italy where he grew up. Since 2016 he has travelled along the Apennine mountain range that runs almost the length of the country, photographing uninhabited rural houses and abandoned holiday homes linked to ski tourism – now unused due to lack of snow. These images, collected in the book Mónos, were shot during the winter months to capture the particular quality of the light. “A house immersed in a winter landscape, even more so in its isolated state, evokes an ancestral sense of shelter and protection,” says Pagliuca. “It becomes an archetypal image of intimacy, inviting us to reflect on the psychological significance of home for human beings.”Vincenzo Pagliuca’s Mónos is published by Hartmann Books (£28). To order a copy for £25.20 go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. Continue reading…

A 250-year-old animal stable nestled in an Italian mountain village is now a family home – with a see-if-you-can-spot-it mirrored looSheer Alpine mountains and forested valleys are both neighbour and inspiration for Italian designer and architect Riccardo Monte. His home, a 250-year-old former animal shed, is tucked into a tiny Italian village in the Ossola valley, not far from the Swiss border and Lake Maggiore.Riccardo lives with his English partner, photographer and filmmaker Katie May, their six-year-old son, Julian, and collie, Lupa. The couple met in London more than a decade ago when their paths crossed in Hackney’s Dolphin pub. But they left a few years later, burned out by the frenetic pace of the metropolis, for a slower pace of life in Riccardo’s home county. Continue reading…

Ahead of a new exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, writers make a case for each of Renaissance art’s big three, from the secretive genius of Leonardo and Raphael’s beguiling brilliance, to the space-filling majesty of MichelangeloBy Charles Nicholl, biographer of Leonardo da Vinci Continue reading…

On the continent, stylish, sustainable, community-minded social housing is a given, and nowhere more so than in Spain – from an elegant Barcelona women’s refuge to cool, solid stone houses in MallorcaIn Britain, as our government has promised, we’re going to have a “council housing revolution”, the building of as yet unknown numbers of homes at genuinely affordable rents, a return to policies of 50 and more years ago in order to address the well-known housing crisis. Which is welcome. It also raises the question of what these homes may be like, of their quality as well as their quantity, whether they are stacked-up accumulations of units or places that contribute to their communities and enrich the lives of their inhabitants.Luckily there are, close at hand, outstanding examples of how this might be done, in cities and countries on the continent of Europe. In many of these places, public bodies and architects see their job as doing more than meeting numbers of homes completed. They also want to make beautiful places to live, sustainable to build and run, with homes planned to suit contemporary ways of living, and with shared and public spaces given as much importance as the private interiors. They seek to reduce environmental impacts by using natural materials, and to adapt existing buildings where possible rather than demolish them. They aim to reduce the costs of heating and air conditioning almost to zero – a simple-enough ambition, and extremely important to their tenants. Continue reading…

These days it sits awkwardly above a Subway on a busy Melbourne street, but head inside and find a truly spectacular space that has survived a centuryIt sits in the centre of Melbourne, arguably on its most prominent street, and yet the Capitol theatre feels like the most overlooked building in the state. The beloved but strangely occluded Chicago-Gothic cinema, designed by married American architects Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin, turns 100 years old this week. It seems the perfect time for a reappraisal of this 20th century architectural wonder – its truly spectacular interior remaining stubbornly tucked behind a utilitarian facade.The Capitol was commissioned by a conglomerate of businessmen who had already developed Luna Park and had worked with the Griffins (famous for designing Canberra) on the neighbouring Palais de Danse in St Kilda. The first of the large “picture palaces” – single-screen cinemas designed to take advantage of the booming interest in movies – the Capitol was notable at the time for its multi-use configuration of cinema and office space, as well as its idiosyncratic ceiling in the auditorium consisting of geometric panels augmented by thousands of coloured lights. Continue reading…

Mildura’s Powerhouse Place wins for sustainable architecture and urban design, while Sydney renovation for Atlassian boss takes top awardFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastWith its whirring engines and towering smoke stacks, Mildura’s power station was hailed as a technological marvel of the early 20th century.When a new engine was installed to help light up the regional Victorian city in June 1925, the local newspaper proclaimed that there would finally be enough “juice” for everyone.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…

In this very readable and moving biography, the Sunbaker photographer comes across as someone who spoke against his myth – but also traded on it until the endGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailDuring the summer of 1937-38, at Culburra beach, in Dharawal and Dhurga country on the south coast of New South Wales, a young man emerges from the surf and lies face-first on the sand. His friend, who is holding a Rolleiflex camera, exposes two negatives, one of which he’ll dismiss due to technical inadequacies.Decades later, this image will be considered the most iconic photograph taken by an Australian. It will also be the most printed.Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Continue reading…

Inkpen, West Berkshire: The ‘old girl’ is 100 years old – as are many others built around Britain after the first world war. We give it the celebration it deservesI’m not sure I’ve ever sung Happy Birthday to a building before. Something caught in my throat – and looking round at my fellow villagers, I could see I wasn’t the only one. Our village hall is a hundred years old – one of many around the country sharing a surprisingly radical, rural centenary around this decade.After the first world war, the newly formed National Council of Social Service set up a village halls department, and communities rallied behind a desire to provide lasting memorials with practical, educational, joyful purpose. Their aim was to bring scattered, shattered rural communities together. They were particularly important for women, who were unwelcome in pubs and often had family to care for. Continue reading…

Architectural writer who believed that buildings not be considered in isolation but as part of the fabric of a cityJoseph Rykwert, who has died aged 98, was a historian and critic of architecture of exceptional intellect, cultural breadth and distinctive outlook. His books and his teaching changed the understanding of his discipline and helped to move the design and planning of cities and buildings away from the functionalist mindset that dominated postwar building. In 2014 he was awarded Britain’s leading honour for architecture, the Royal Gold Medal, one of a very few times that it has been given to a writer rather than a practitioner.Rykwert’s first book, The Idea of a Town (1963), by exploring the rituals that underlay the founding of ancient cities, sought to restore the importance of such things as memory, feeling, intuition and instinct in the making of the places where human beings live. It was an important part of a wider reaction to technocratic approaches that were causing widespread destruction in cities across the world. It is now commonplace for developers and planners to talk about “placemaking”, by which they mean the ways in which architecture and landscape work together to make social urban spaces, a concept that owes much to Rykwert’s belief that buildings should not be considered in isolation but as part of the fabric of a city. Continue reading…

Minster Court, which once served as Cruella de Vil’s HQ, faces a bland redevelopment to provide more office space in the CityMinster Court, a pink granite-and-marble neo-gothic office block in the City of London, a work of 1980s excess sometimes known as Monster Court or Dracula’s Castle, is to be defanged. Its owner M&G Real Estate is going to obliterate its pointy bits and “reimagine” its entrance, in order to create “a landmark in sustainable design”, and provide such things as a “tenant amenity village”, a roof terrace, and a “new cultural offer”. Also, perhaps most relevantly to their bottom line, they want to smother it in several extra floors of office space, to the extent that there will be little recognisable left. Last week, attempts to list this unique work having failed, ominous hoardings went up around it.This building, which served as Cruella de Vil’s headquarters in the 1996 version of 101 Dalmatians, got a mixed critical reception when it was finished. But as is often the way with architecture that dares to be tasteless, it has won hearts since. The Twentieth Century Society, which fought for its retention, says that “the Square Mile will be so much the poorer and blander without its theatrical slice of Gotham on the skyline”, and it’s hard to disagree. Continue reading…