CONTINUITY IN ARCHITECTURE

Work by CiA year six students at this year’s Archaeology’s Places and Contemporary Uses Workshop, created in collaboration with students from the schools of architecture in Barcelona and Venice, and the School of Archaeology in Catania.

More pictures 

Archaeology’s Places and Contemporary Uses: Website

The 10 CiA students (with staff members Sally Stone and Eamonn Canniffe) participating in the international workshop at IUAV in Venice have had a busy first week. A briefing day was followed by two days of fieldtrips to significant archaeological sites and the project sites at Caldonazzo, Riva del Garda and Concordia Sagitarria. International design teams were formed with the other students from Barcelona, Catania and Venice and the projects will be presented in exhibition to a prestigious jury next week. The workshop’s homepage can be visited at THIS LINK…

The B.Arch. studio presentations are being held on 22 September 2009. If you would like a preview/reminder of the CiA studio proposal go to THIS LINK

Sally Stone and Eamonn Canniffe are currently participating in a joint architecture/archaeology workshop with schools of architecture from IUAV, Barcelona and Palermo. If you are interested in their architectural and gastronomic adventures, you can follow their Twitter feeds:

Sally Stone Eamonn Canniffe

CiA staffer Sally Stone has successfully obtained Erasmus Intensive Programme funding for a student project studying the relationship between architecture and archaeology in north-east Italy. The experimental workshop, run in partnership with IUAV (Venice) and ETSAB (Barcelona), will focus upon the protection of key archaeological sites in the territories of the Veneto and Trentino.

The project will kick-off the CiA BArch programme for the autumn term at Manchester School of Architecture and will result in proposals for shelters, buildings and other interventions that relate directly to the sites of archaeological interest. Staff and students will be on site in Italy for two weeks in late September.

Sally Stone coordinated the Manchester School of Architecture application collaborating with Margherita Vanore from IUAV and Pilar Cos from ETSAB for the Erasmus Intensive Programme funding. Sally and Pilar have previously worked together on the Interventions Project, an international project for students from Manchester and Barcelona.

Illustration from ‘Venice for Modern Man’ published by Italia Nostra

A film made by a group of Manchester School of Architecture students as part of the History of Architecture course.

More fieldtripfilms

The exhibition (LINK) celebrating the quincentenary of the birth of Andrea Palladio currently at the Palazzo Barabaran da Porto in Vicenza (until January 6 2009 and then transferring to the Royal Academy of Arts in London) is a stunning collection of work, which will renew interest and scholarship in its subject from both academics and practitioners. The magnificent setting in the piano nobile apartments of the palazzo are fully exploited to display engaging models and paintings of a significant portion of his work

The models, largely the property of the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio housed in the palazzo provide sectional studies of the volumes and spaces of churches, palaces and villas, and amplify the brilliance evident in the superb selection of Palladio’s original drawings (mainly from the RIBA Drawings Collection in London). The narrative sequence of the exhibition works well in the context of its setting and leads both the afficionado and the ingenue through the complex and specific context of work that changed the direction of architecture in Italy and Britain. This is a ‘must see’ show.

The RIBA promise a new online resource Palladio and Britain (LINK) coming soon.

(Even local Mancunian interest is satisfied for CiA by the presence of a pair of Canaletto’s paintings from Manchester Art Gallery depicting Palladio’s Venetian churches of San Giorgio Maggiore and Il Redentore).

Revisiting Roma Interrotta.

(Standard CiA camera salute - Ed.)

Carlo Scarpa was commissioned to design the Olivetti Showroom in 1956 and the work was completed over the next couple of years. The site was awkward, long and thin, and at about four meters high, hardly able to support a second level. But it was also engaging, a corner position overlooking St Marks Square. Scarpa placed long wooden balconies along the long edges of the space, and these were accessed from a slightly off-centre stretched suspended marble staircase. Together these served to accentuate the length and height of the space, while also allowing the qualities of light and air to be gradually appreciated as the visitor moved from the entrance to the centre of the shop. The tiled floor appeared as if moving water and the display tables that were cantilevered from the windows seemed to float into the space.

Olivetti have long since left the premises and the shop now houses objet d’art. The decorative finishes are beginning to age, the plaster is stained, the bronze is tarnished and in places the marble has decayed, but the distinctive character and exquisite nature of the space is still very evident.

Venice Architecture Biennale 2008: A Movie

See also our earlier review.

The vast exhibition of contemporary architecture which is the Venice Biennale (curated by Aaron Betsky) opened last weekend in a stormy atmosphere which made the exhibitions oases of rather damp calm, despite the unsettling, luxurious aspirations of some of the exhibitors. How nature, not to mention the current economic storms, intrudes on the best laid plans! The utopian visions of the digital future and interactive environments with new fluid forms are presented in a stunning display at the Arsenale. Marked by a particularly stimulating entrance area (Rockwell Group with Jones/Kroloff) that sets a high standard which the subsequent sequence of displays extend in a series of varied rooms. Much of this material is not new (either in ideas or forms), but is presented here as a spatial experience which tantalises the visitor with possible worlds. The indulgence of the creators in focusing on their own concerns betrays the self-referential interest of much of this work. The MVRDV/Philippe Rahm section for example, with its futuristic urban animation, relaxing naked people and musician improvising on a saw suggests nothing more than the continuing polarity between attention seeking techno-geekiness and a late revival of hippiedom, ideas first synthesised forty years ago by Superstudio.

The displays have a strongly historicist feel, with some of the original characters, represented especially by Coop Himmelblau, expanding on their ideas for interactive autonomous environments. The Roma Interrotta exhibition of 1978 is revived as an antechamber to a display of contemporary ideas for Rome, Uneternal City, which takes the earlier urban speculation forward. The other developments of that era are acknowledged in the Italian Pavilion at the Giardini with exhibitions of Madelon Vriesendorp’s provocative images for OMA, Zaha Hadid’s early models and paintings and various works from the office archive of Frank Gehry. The form-laden nature of this work sits somewhat uncomfortably with a series of displays which deal with the social and ecological aspects of contemporary concern, but then in totality the exhibition seems to tip the hat quite frequently to once-were-deconstructivists, as if in memory of Betsky’s own involvement in defining that movement.

The British Pavilion presents a series of housing projects, solid buildings ill-served by the the witlessness of the display. dRMM’s work in particular suffers from the miserable position their models occupy. Contrast this unappealing tightness with the engaging generosity of the French Pavilion, which has pivoting models encouraging engagement from the exhibition visitors, and the German Pavilion’s reassuringly ‘chaotic’ ecological display.

The real surprises within the many varied displays are perhaps best summarised by the Mexican contribution at the Arsenale which provides some welcome social content in distinction to the overwhelmingly form driven displays there. At the Giardini the USA Pavilion provides a cooler response to similar issues, a development which can only be welcomed.

As always the Nordic Pavilion hovers elegantly at the centre of the Giardini. This year it presents a monographic exhibition on the work of the pavilion’s architect Sverre Fehn which in its tranquil confidence provides reassurance that all novelties in architecture eventually pass away…

Former Co-op building on the main street of Youlgrave, Derbyshire. Now the Youth Hostel.

On a recent visit to Venice, Continuity in Architecture noted the changes that have been made to Carlo Scarpa’s masterly interpretation of the Venetian Palazzo, the Querini Stampalia Foundation. These changes are apparent even before entering the building, Scarpa’s delicate bridge is no longer in use as the entrance, and instead the visitor accesses the building from around the corner. This does seem to destroy the careful sequence of entrance spaces, although this was difficult to ascertain as the meticulous foyer rooms with their moats are now exhibition spaces. When CIA visited, they were blacked out to contain a geometric installation of tiny lights. The recital room was lined with transparent plastic, another installation rather than a protective device we hope. But the elegant courtyard garden, containing the moving water, appeared intact.