Was perusing my feed reader and twitter as well as usual and then it just hit me:

above – HDA + Bernard Tschumi: Roche sur Yon railway footbridge being assembled

below – one of the entries for Dawntown Miami Metromover competition

A new book on mobility and urban form has just been published by Routledge: edited by Michael Guggenheim (Research Fellow at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Zürich) and Ola Söderström (Professor of Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland), Re-shaping Cities: How Global Mobility Transforms Architecture and Urban Form (part of the Architext series) is a collection of writings on

how architectural ideas, social models and building forms circulate round the world and become mediated and adapted to local conditions.

The book shows how types such as skyscrapers, mosques or living history museums are imported, adapted and contested in different societies and how urban landscapes are reshaped by the global circulation of models drawn from elsewhere.

Bearing in mind recents news from Switzerland, this should be a quite interesting read.

Westbury-sub-Mendip is a village in Somerset, England

with a population of about 800, situated on the southern slopes of the Mendip Hills half-way between the cathedral city of Wells and the world-famous Cheddar Gorge.

Some time ago the village Parish Council bought a traditional British red phone booth from BT for £1 — and then transformed it into a 24-hour book exchange library:

Villagers can use the library (which stocks about a hundred books) just by leaving there a book they’ve read, swapping it for one they haven’t, therefore the books are constantly changing.

This is an amazing way to reuse a former piece of urban furniture, turning it into a 24-hour service — should be done in all small communities.

[photos by Bob Dolby]

Association of Art Historians Summer Symposium
Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, 24 - 25 June 2010

Call for Papers

Architectural Objects
Discussing Spatial Form Across Art Histories

The ’spatial turn’ in the history of art has had a significant impact on the understanding of artistic practice and the built environment, and the formal and political complexities of space in a broader sense. This symposium explores the role of architectural theory and practice within multiple art histories, working across theoretical and aesthetic categories
to redefine notions of space and form. From Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International, to the spatial environments of LeCorbusier and Robert Morris, this interrelationship has challenged and reconfigured canonic divisions between architecture, ornament, sculpture and performance. Within a global perspective, the ‘architectural object’ can be traced throughout many histories of cultural production, demonstrated within the sculpted interiors of temples and mosques, the conceptual forms of the stupa or reliquary, or the use of decorative ‘architectura’ within ornamental schemes.

Exploring the ‘architectural object’ as a recurring and ever-changing phenomenon, a twoday symposium will consider a diverse range of papers that discuss this theme across cultural and temporal divides. Topics might include but are not restricted to:

• Sculptural practice and architectural ornament
• Anthropological and cross-cultural studies of the architectural object
• Monumental buildings as public sculpture
• Performing architecture; the social production of space
• Interior design and sculpture; the structural/decorative divide
• The architectural maquette as art object; history of the conceptual model
• The church and the miniature; religious contexts

Keynote speakers include former Henry Moore Fellows Dr. Richard Checketts and Dr. David Hulks. Architectural Objects is hosted in collaboration with the Henry Moore Institute’s Hermann Obrist exhibition, marking the wide-ranging ‘spatial’ production of the prolific architect, sculptor and designer.

Deadline for Paper Proposals: 15 February 2010

To submit a proposal for this session please send a paper abstract no longer than 300 words, along with CV to:

Session Conveners:

• Lara Eggleton, University of Leeds: laraeve8@gmail.com
• Rosalind McKever, Kingston University: rosalind.mckever@gmail.com

Apartment Therapy is running a wonderful photographic tour of Alvar Aalto’s studio in Helsiniki:

Check out Apartment Therapy for the whole tour.

[photos by Aaron Able]

[Click here for part 1 of the gallery.]

More pics after the jump:

Read more »

[Click here for part 2 of the gallery.]

More pics after the jump: Read more »

I really, really hope that, when the art performance will be finally over tomorrow, Rome’s city centre will finally get rid of this, uhm, thing, made of plasterboard, which has been stationing on the banks of river Tiber (on the western end of Tiber Island, to be precise) for way more than a month now:

Let me recap:

1) plasterboard (which is not exactly a water-resistant material);

2) river (which equals water).

Not to mention this thing (called Energy Room…) sports a shape that has absolutely nothing to do with the context it’s been built in, but hey, we’re contemporary artists, who cares about context?

Seriously, I’d like to have a word or two with who had this brilliant idea (<– hint of sarcasm here.).

There’s some sort of COI, as I created Worldwide desktops (which actually isn’t a proper blog, it’s a tlog, to be precise.) myself, but since the original concept is by Michele and being it a collaborative blog I really can’t call it mine.

The aim is pretty simple: to collect pictures of desktops and workplaces from around the world..

It would be interesting to see architects’ and designers’ desktops and workplaces, too — so if you want to contribute, please consider submitting a picture of your desktop (not just a screenshot of your computer’s desktop, we want the real thing!) to worldwidedesktops.tumblr.com enclosing the following information:

Who: (your name, or nickname if you prefer, and a link to your blog/website if you have any) Where: (your location) When: (date the pic was taken) Why: (well, explain why you took the pic or what objects are in the pic and why.)

By the way, in case you’re wondering, here’s my desktop:

The Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio, on the Janiculum hill in Rome, is a small martyrium dedicated to St. Peter  — who was believed to have been crucifixed there — designed by Donato Bramante, commissioned in 1502 by the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Bramante was born in Monte Adrualdo, near Urbino, in 1444. Around 1474 he moved to Milan where he designed several churches in the new antique style; in 1476 the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, commissioned him the rebuilding of the choir of Santa Maria presso San Satiro, and, as space was limited, Bramante, who was also a painter and knew well how to create the illusion of space by the use of perspective, designed a very theatrical apse in bassorilievo to trick the eye.

He then moved to Rome in 1499, working under the patronage of Cardinal Della Rovere, who would later become Pope Julius II. There he was commissioned this masterpiece, regarded as one of the finest examples of High Renaissance architecture, surely being one of the most harmonious, following all the rigorous proportions and symmetry of Classical structures despite its small scale.

It is a monopteral building and was built in the courtyard of the church of San Pietro in Montorio (designed by either Baccio Pontelli, as stated by Vasari, or Meo del Caprino). Originally, according to Sebastiano Serlio, Bramante had designed the courtyard to be circular and colonnaded; however, plans were changed and the Tempietto was built in a rectangular space.

The internal diametre is about 4.5 metres; the dome itself is an emisphere (like the Pantheon’s dome), being as tall as its radius, and its drum is of the same exact height. Everything stands on a Doric tablature borrowed from the ancient Theater of Marcellus and a colonnade of sixteen slender Doric columns on a base of 3+3 steps.

The Tempietto is considered a sculpture rather than a building, being so small it can only welcome about fifteen people in its cylindrical cella.

It has clearly inspired both Bramante himself for his later design of San Peter’s cupola (unbuilt, as eventually Michelangelo’s design was chosen) and Christopher Wren for the design of the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.