In 2013, the Fuzhou Government hosted an international invited competition for the Strait Culture and Art Centre with the goal of strengthening the cultural image of the city and the Mawei New Town development area. PES-Architects’ winning proposal aims to offer an extraordinary experience for ordinary users by creating a new type of “cultural shopping mall”. The cultural programmes of the Centre are complemented with commercial and family-oriented entertainment services to create a modern hybrid complex. This format is typical of the new phase of cultural building in China.
Project: Fuzhou Strait Culture and Art Centre (SCAC)
Location: Mawei New Town, Fuzhou, China
Photography: Marc Goodwin, Zhang Yong, Virgile Bertrand
Software used: Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, ODEON
Client: Fuzhou New Town Development Investment Group Co.,Ltd.
Lead Designers, Architecture and Interior: Pekka Salminen (chief designer), Martin Lukasczyk (project architect), Lai Linli (project manager)
Main Design Team: Li Wei (project coordinator), Guan Xiaojing (project manager), Yizhou Zhao, Masahide Nakane, Matti Kankkunen, Anna Blomqvist, Clara Juan, Uros Kostic, Antonio Barquinha, Martin Genet, Dou Jian
Team Members: Dragan Jevtic, Pauli Rikaniemi, Tuukka Päivärinne, Timo Kujala, Piercarlo Torri, Sami Lauritsalo, Yin Liang, Tuomas Pinomaa, Fan Yujing, Siiri Murtola, Beatriz Redondo, Jazz Fu, Tristan Hughes, Jarkko Salminen, Karla Diaz, Mia Bungers, Marcelo Diez
Last night, a ceremony and the inaugural concert marked the official opening of Taiwan’s national arts centre, the National Kaohsiung Centre for the Arts (Weiwuying).
Incorporating a 2,236-seat Opera House, a 1,981-seat Concert Hall, a 1,210-seat Playhouse, a 434-seat Recital Hall and an Outdoor Theater, the centre is a new cultural hub for East Asia. The spectacular venue utilises its architecture and programme to combine artistic excellence with complete openness and accessibility. Designed by Dutch architects Mecanoo, the heart of Weiwuying is the vast, sinuous Banyan Plaza open to the public at all hours and home to a wide-ranging programme of participation.
Zaha Hadid Architects has been selected by the jury of the international design competition to build the new Sverdlovsk Philharmonic Concert Hall in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
Considered the capital of the Urals, the city of Yekaterinburg is Russia’s third largest economy. Its population has increased by over 10% in the past decade to 1.5 million and continues to grow as the primary hub and meeting point connecting east and west, Europe and Asia; attracting the many cultures, talents and industries from across Eurasia.
Yekaterinburg has built a rich musical tradition and established its reputation as a cultural and artistic centre. The city’s acclaimed Ural Philharmonic Orchestra has performed in more than 20 countries and collaborates with renowned artists worldwide. The orchestra cultivates aspiring young talent and has as its foundation a dedicated, passionate and growing society of music lovers in Yekaterinburg and around the world.
The Voxman Music Building celebrates musical performance at every turn, embracing a collaborative and exploratory student-driven model of education that treats every space as performance space. The building shares this sense of musical discovery with the community through a transparent expression. The pattern of streets and open spaces in the mixed-use district of Iowa City extends directly into the building’s multi-level interior spaces, cultivating a sense of vertical urban vitality and acknowledging its place within the community.
Project: Voxman Music Building at the University of Iowa
Location: Iowa, Iowa City, USA
Photography: Tim Griffith, Arturo Rojas, Wayne Johnson, Adam Hunter
Client: University of Iowa
LMN Architects Project Team Design Architect + Interior Designer: Mark Reddington, FAIA, (Design Partner); Sam Miller, AIA (Partner in Charge); Stephen Van Dyck, AIA (Project Designer); Wendy Pautz, AIA (Programming); Scott Crawford, Assoc. AIA, Steve DelFraino, AIA, Thomas Gerard, Alexander Harner, Jessica Harner, Erick Katzenstein, Julia Khorsand, Winnie Lam, John Mrozek, Assoc. AIA, Erik Perka, Assoc. AIA, Mary Anne Smith, AIA, Andrea Stewart, Alex Woodhouse (Project Team)
Associate Architect: Neumann Monson Architects – Kevin Monson, AIA (Principal in Charge), Chris DeGroot, AIA (Principal), Josh Rechkemmer, AIA (Project Manager), Jesus Chucho Loria, AIA, Andrew Mixdorf, Assoc. AIA, Brad Nowasell, AIA, John Phung, AIA, Alese Van Holland (Project Team)
The Guangxi Culture & Art Center in the Nanning metropolis in southern China has been ceremonially opened. Following the completion of similar projects in Tianjin, Chongqing und Qingdao, this is the fourth grand theater to be completed by von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp) in China. Nanning, the capital of Guangxi province, now has the benefit of this type of venue which, with its wide-ranging cultural events program, is very popular in China and thus adds to the city’s attractiveness. Following the completion of Nanning’s trade exhibition and conference center, this is gmp’s second building for the city that adds its distinct appearance to the city’s skyline.
Design: Meinhard von Gerkan and Nikolaus Goetze with Dirk Heller
Project Managent: Dirk Seyffert
Competition Design Team: Christoph Berle, Hanna Diers, Jessica Last, Mikael Stenberg, Wu Ziheng, Xu Xinling
Detailed Design Team: Christoph Berle, Cai Feng, Maike Jäger, Liwen Knoll, Jessica Last, Holger Schmücker, Alexander Schnieber, Mikael Stenberg, Marcus Tanzen, Xu Xinling
Project Management: China Wu Di, Lin Wei, Wang Zheng, Pan Mei, Liu Yangjiao
Partner Practice in China: ECADI, Shanghai & Shanghai Modern
The Nuremberg Concert Hall extends the historically rich heritage of the Meistersingerhalle and enriches the cultural city of Nuremberg with a unique musical experience in which music and space become one. Based on Nuremberg’s landmark, the duality of its the twin castles, two buildings side by side create a synergetic connection to a coherent unity. Connected in a symbolic ‘band’, a circulating podium made of natural stone links the ensemble.
The solid base grounds the structure, which creates an inviting lightness through its vertical foyer as a central distributor together with a translucent, energy-optimized roof construction.
The Oignies coal mine closed in 1990, leaving a whole population and its industrial mining heritage in disarray (pithead buildings, industrial buildings, head frames). The project to reinstate this territory marked by decades of mining operations, began in 2005 with the competition mounted by the Hénin-Carvin Intermunicipal Council (14 municipalities, 125,000 population). Hérault Arnod’s competition-winning project proposes a program based on music and sound, in memory of the massive noise produced by this industrial site when in production, now fallen silent in its abandonment.
Tags: France, Oignies Comments Off on 9-9 bis Transformation of a Former Mine Site Into a Cultural Complex in Oignies, France by Herault Arnod Architects
The new building for Iceland’s largest bank, Landsbankinn in Reykjavik, is not only the city’s bank but also the city’s house – the building interacts with and includes the entire city while also offering an architecture in close relation to the raw Icelandic nature and the city’s historic urban fabric.
This transformation from basement to recording studio lie between high technicity and aesthetic research in a noble way. Located below a residential building, the first purpose was obviously the acoustic performance ( in terms of isolation and quality of acoustic demand). Besides the technical result, it was essential to invent an engaging visual atmosphere for these places of creation. Here, the decoration is not accessory, it characterize the space. The global morphology of the caissons being largely compelled, it had to find a way from a quasi-military geometry and provide some playful dimension. The “patchwork” proposal, a combination of “stains” expanding all over the walls the floor and the ceiling, weaken the links with the space, and like an anamorphosis, energize the place.The random geometry segmentation was also perfect for the treatment of the acoustic demand. The selection of materials and colors is inspired by Ethiopian music.
Snøhetta has completed the new Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design (KMD) of the University of Bergen. This open, robust and interactive building gathers KMD’s 350 art and design students under one roof, while simultaneously connecting the faculty and the city of Bergen.
October 11 marked the official opening of the Snøhetta-designed Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design (KMD) in Bergen, Norway. Replacing the former Bergen Academy of Art & Design (KHiB), the new KMD has undergone a historic fusion, assembling the previously scattered faculty buildings under one roof. This new 14,800m2 cross-disciplinary faculty is now the second largest cultural building in Bergen after the 1,500-seat Grieg Concert Hall.