Archizoom
Understanding The Region: Kashef Chowdhury interviewed by Christophe Catsaros
— by Christophe Catsaros
Archizoom
Faraway So Close: the work of Kashef Chowdhury – Niklaus Graber interviewed by Christophe Catsaros
— by Christophe Catsaros
In the Archizoom gallery of the EPFL, Lausanne, this fall ‘Faraway So Close’ is on show, presenting the work of Kashef Chowdhury. Christophe Catsaros sat with its curator, Niklaus Graber to discuss the relevance of this work and subject.
Archizoom
Kashef Chowdhury: a climate balancing act
— by Christophe Catsaros
In the Western imagination, Bangladesh is more likely to conjure up images of human and environmental disasters than of quality tropical architecture. Two years ago, the Rohingya exodus was just another in a long list of catastrophes that had punctuated the history of a country with a population greater than that of Russia and a land area barely larger than that of Greece.
Interview
An Atlas to navigate the profession: Interview with Gianpiero Venturini
Curated by Itinerant Office, the book ‘ATLAS of emerging practices: being an architect in the 21st century’ has just been launched at the New Generations Festival in Rome. Volume editor Francesco Degl’Innocenti sat down with Itinerant Office founder Gianpiero Venturini, to discuss the findings of their research on the European context, and break a few misconceptions about the profession.
Volume #55
Gilgamesh in a Blockchain Age
— by James Hendrix Elsey
How do we live forever? Cultural memory is something which binds individuals together across time and space, creating the sense that although mortal, there is a greater continuity persisting both in the pre-life and after-life.
Article, Volume #55
All is Flux: Collective Memory & the Complex Whole
— by Rory Sherlock
The establishment of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in 2003 marked a profound shift in the custodial objectives of UNESCO as an organisation and the mechanisms it utilises preserve global culture. Since the introduction of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (WCH) in 1972, Unesco policy had, to that point, been driven and dominated by a single, concise, and ultimately incomplete mandate; namely, the evaluation and preservation of material structures.
Review
X-Ray Architecture: Modernism and Tuberculosis
— by Christophe Catsaros
In the hierarchy of major themes that shaped the modern spirit in architecture, hygiene, the imperative of a more salubrious habitat and city, is undeniably at the top of the list. With the book ‘X-Ray Architecture’, Beatriz Colomina, historian and theoretician of architecture and teacher at Princeton, chooses to make this a structuring principle, more to do with the fear of death and the repressed unconscious than the spirit of innovation. Is modern architecture as hysterical as that of the Baroque period?
Article, Volume #55
Neoliberal Urbanism and Inner-city Football Culture
One thing gentrification thrives on is heritage. Whether it is the grand redbrick houses of a run-down neighbourhood, or the rich and diverse culture of working-class areas, the middle-class drivers of gentrification are attracted by a sense of history. But as much as gentrification fetishizes heritage, it consumes it, mutates it, and sometimes destroys it.
Article
Liberland
— by Hans Larsson
The story of Liberland, an anarcho-capitalist utopia founded on the Danube in 2015, needs to be told in the inverse direction than that of traditional national founding stories. Rather than a land that gets retroactively invested with a founding myth, it is a founding myth actively searching for a land – and using any means to get there. Hans Larsson met with the President and architect of this Eldorado 2.0
Editorial, Volume #55
Priceless
— by Arjen Oosterman
We’re hunter gatherers by nature (yes, women too). And hoarders. We cling onto stuff. We collect during the significant moments of life, only to let go when we move house or get within eye sight of our final destination. There is a fine line between ‘to possess’ and ‘to be possessed’, but either way, there are not many of us that take pride in owning nothing. Whoever had the opportunity to visit one of the main interior lifestyle fairs in Europe or elsewhere will recognize the feeling of despair in the face of the limitless amounts and varying multitudes of ‘stuff’. And yet, we don’t seem to want to do without (anytime soon).
Discover the full Volume 55 ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’ editorial.