© Trevor Mein

• Interiors Designers: Woods Bagot
• Location: 5 Martin Pl, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia
• Area: 9000.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Trevor Mein

• Design Team: Amanda Stanaway, Josephine Meldgaard, Kate Lange, Kine Husas, Pei-Lin Chen, Petra Bonamy, Todd Hammond.
• Builder: Shape
• Project Manager: CBRE
• Electrical Services: Medland Metropolis
• Mechanical Engineers: Thwaite Consulting
• Structural Engineer: Aurecon
• Acoustic: Acoustic Logic
• Audio/ Visual: Innovatech
• Catering Consultant: Cini Little
• Bca Consultant: Mckenzie Group
• Cost Consultant: WT Partnership
• Lighting Consultant: Light Practice


© Trevor Mein

Built in 1916, the strong architectural language of the Commonwealth Bank’s iconic ‘money box’ building provided a strong foundation that inspired the design for Challenger’s new workplace. Creating 9,000 sqm of workspace across four levels, the design by Woods Bagot was focused on bringing people together. Strategic in both concept and design, the design fosters alignment to grow the capability of the organization in line with business objectives. Looking back in order to create a forward-thinking workplace, work floors comprise individual and project based work stations, semi-open meeting pods and small, bookable private meeting rooms.

© Trevor Mein

Woods Bagot Workplace Interiors Sector Leader in Sydney, Todd Hammond said the design created a workplace with longevity that leveraged the heritage character of the building while paying homage to the future, as well as Challenger’s youth and innovation.

© Trevor Mein

“Fitting-out a heritage building means you approach the design differently. While we placed functionality at the core of the concept, the existing heritage void set a pivotal starting point from which to centre the heart of the project.”

Plan 1

Shared by multiple tenancies, the void is complemented by a glazed feature stair that contributes to the distinctive aesthetic of the space. The stair acts to connect all four Challenger floors, providing both physical and visual linkages across the business. Comprising steel construction with Australian Blackbutt timber cladding, the stair sits adjacent to the void, with glazed balustrades enabling a highly transparent feature that references the organisation’s objectives.

© Trevor Mein

“Fortunately, working with an agile client like Challenger, the cultural value of inserting the stair into the floor plate was already understood. We worked to increase the void on the Challenger floors so the stair wouldn’t disrupt the heritage footprint,” added Todd.

Plan 2

“Separated from the existing heritage void, a four-storey timber box provides a frame for the stair to sit within, simultaneously elevating the feature to become a key statement of organizational integration, connectivity and wellness.”

© Trevor Mein

The look and feel of the interiors embodies both the heritage architecture and the modern reuse of the building. Carefully considering client and employee experience, the language of the details are refined while maintaining a warm ambiance to create a welcoming reception to greet both staff and visitors. 

© Trevor Mein

Upon entry, clients and visitors are introduced to the space via the custom concierge desk at reception featuring seamless technological integration. Situated on Level 2, reception blurs into a town hall-style breakout zone for internal forums, social gatherings and presentations. Positioned adjacent to the café, commercial-grade kitchen and living green wall, the town hall area has provided a dynamic zone that functions at the heart of information exchange.

© Trevor Mein

Throughout the fit-out, the finishes scheme develops the heritage-inspired palette using natural stones and textured glazing. Ceramic wall and floor tiles alongside bronze trim and fluted glass bricks reference the past, while contemporary furniture enables modern functionality, detailed considerately with the heritage overlay.

© Trevor Mein

The repetitive and articulated nature of the space connects back to the heritage features of the building. The decorative timber beams and ceiling panels replicate the pattern of the heritage glazing, while maintaining a modern feel. The geometric motif in the ceiling in reception is inspired by the original stained glass windows of the heritage windows. Client-facing heritage meeting rooms are also situated on Level 2, finished with Harbour Bridge steel paint framing in a nod to the heritage aesthetic and the Sydney context too.

© Trevor Mein

Considering workplace efficiency and employee wellbeing, Challenger’s new workplace delicately balances collaboration and the requirement for privacy, facilitating a productive environment that builds engagement, and enables connectivity within the Challenger community.

http://ift.tt/2cLXOwA

© Dirk Weiblen

• Architects: Linehouse
• Location: 135 Yanping Road, Jing’An, Shanghai, China
• Area: 2200.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Dirk Weiblen

• Collaborating Designer: Evelyn Chiu

© Dirk Weiblen

From the architect. WeWork Yanping Lu is located in the Jing’An district of Shanghai. Nestled in what was once the British settlement, the area was occupied by a neighbourhood of longtangs. These houses and laneways are scattered throughout the area, and many now exist as remnants of their previous lives. These longtangs are sectionally cut, revealing the structure and interiors of the buildings and the way residents once occupied these laneway houses. Linehouse used this as their conceptual approach in developing the co-working space for WeWork.

© Dirk Weiblen

Upon entering, a house framework envelops the reception, composed of white metal channels with the interior of the channel painted teal blue. Polycarbonate is layered upon the structure filtering the lighting; in moments this is peeled back to reveal the structure beyond. The reception desk is composed of salvaged TVs and radios; objects commonly seen in the laneways of Shanghai.

2nd Floor Plan

This play of sectionally cut structures continues in framing the pantry and seating nooks.  Materials are layered, fixings exposed, revealing tectonically how the wall has been composed together.

© Dirk Weiblen

A gridded rebar structure is inserted into the pantry area, moments of the volume are cut away allowing for guests to occupy the voids; leaners and shelving are integrated into the framework.

3rd Floor Plan

An oak wood structure, lined with backlit polycarbonate, leads you to the meeting rooms and phone booths. Seating nooks and phone booths are nested within the framework, allowing users to experience both sides of the ‘wall’.

© Dirk Weiblen

Mosaic tiles line the bathroom interiors; their colours are placed to create ‘shadows’ on the floors and wall of the objects occupying the space.

© Dirk Weiblen

Custom graphics were developed for all the wallpapers and murals. Inspired by Shanghai’s White Rabbit candy, a motif of rabbit wallpapers and artwork was developed. Meeting room wallpapers take reference from common Chinese games played in the laneways; Chinese chess and tangram. Motifs often seen in the streets of Shanghai are stamped throughout the public seating areas, playing on Chinese and English words encapsulating the community spirit of WeWork. 

© Dirk Weiblen

http://ift.tt/2d2FMT7

© Ben Hosking

• Architects: OSK Architects
• Location: Seddon VIC 3011, Australia
• Project Contributors: Ben Waters, Will Loft, Anna Margin
• Area: 140.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Ben Hosking

• Consultants: Kersulting Engineers, Green Rate Consultants, Cost Plan Consultants
• Contractor: SOGA Constructions

© Ben Hosking

Seddon House by Melbourne based studio OSK Architects transforms what was a disused inner city car park into a compact family home.

© Ben Hosking

Designed for 3 generations of the one family, the form of the building responds to the modest proportion of its neighbouring buildings, from the street appearing as a single storey construction. 

Diagram

“Having the building read at different scales, from different angles, was the real challenge of the project.’’ said Ben Waters, Principal of OSK Architects

© Ben Hosking

“At first glance the building registers as a simple single storey structure, one that follows the logic of its street context. From the north, you realise a second floor fits within the roof form… the scale of the house opens up as you move around it.”

© Ben Hosking

‘’The project emphasises the roof as a unifying architectural element. It’s geometry defines the scale and architectural expression of the building whilst controlling light and temperature throughout the year. It collects rainwater, allows for cross ventilation and provides the property with power via an integrated solar system.’’ 

© Ben Hosking

The site is located within a flood zone, and in response the building floats above the natural ground level to avoid inundation. A highly engineered concrete slab is suspended above the landscaping, supported by screw pile footings, raising the finished floor level of the house above 100 year flood levels. 

© Ben Hosking

Built for a passionate, creative family who are environmentally conscious, the building combines  passive and active technology to reduce energy consumption. Air,  water and materials are all recycled throughout the design.

© Ben Hosking

Thermal mass principles are adopted on the southern ground floor wall, constructed as a reverse brick veneer structure which helps keep interior temperatures consistent. 

© Ben Hosking

Large operable awning windows open the house up to the north elevation, whilst small highlight openings to the south allow for optimal cross ventilation. 

© Ben Hosking

Inside the house material details are highly crafted to form individual expression throughout the spaces. Small eccentricities including recycled 1950s sandblasted glazed doors, fitted with found river stones as handles, joyfully articulate the unique character of the building and its inhabitants. 

© Ben Hosking

http://ift.tt/2d9QxC3

Bishop Edward King Chapel / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Niall McLaughlin Architects

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced Níall McLaughlin, founder of Níall McLaughlin Architects, as winner of the 2016 RIBA Charles Jencks Award. The award is given annually to an outstanding architect or practice “that has recently made a major contribution internationally to both the theory and practice of architecture.”

“Niall McLaughlin is a great inspiration for architects today, especially the young, because of his masterful skill in drawing from all traditions – classicism, modernism, postmodernism,” said jury member and award namesake Charles Jencks. “All the “isms” are under his belt, not on his back, and he extends them all through the commitment to architecture as an art and professional practice.”

Previous winners of the award include Herzog & de Meuron (2015), Benedetta Tagliabue (2013), Rem Koolhaas (2012), Eric Owen Moss (2011), Steven Holl (2010), Charles Correa (2009), Wolf Prix (2008), Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos (2007), Zaha Hadid (2006), Alejandro Zaera-Polo and Farshid Moussavi (2005), Peter Eisenman (2004) and Cecil Balmond (2003).

Portrait of Niall McLaughlin. Image Courtesy of RIBA

“Niall’s body of work exemplifies the spirit of this award, which recognises the ability to seamlessly and in this case, beautifully, build theory into one’s practice,” said RIBA President Jane Duncan. “I am in awe of the materiality and the craftsmanship, of the dedication, the collaborative relationships and the contextual sensitivity with which Niall’s buildings are created, all of which make him a most-deserving winner of the 2016 RIBA Charles Jencks Award.”

Bishop Edward King Chapel / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Nick Kane

Bishop Edward King Chapel / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Niall McLaughlin Architects

This year’s jury consisted of Charles Jencks (landscape designer, architectural theorist and writer), RIBA President Jane Duncan, Lily Jencks (Director, Lily Jencks Studio and JencksSquared), Deyan Sudjic (Director, Design Museum) and Brett Steele (Director, Architectural Association School of Architecture), and was chaired by David Gloster (RIBA Director of Education).

Alzheimers Respite Centre / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Nick Kane

Alzheimers Respite Centre / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Niall McLaughlin Architects

Said Níall McLaughlin on winning the 2016 Jencks Award:

“I am honoured to receive the RIBA Charles Jencks Award; particularly given its special emphasis on a simultaneous engagement with theory and practice. For me, architectural practice includes drawing, writing and building as interlinked activities. It is a continual ferrying between an engagement in the natural processes required to bring something reliable and concrete into being, and the need to clear a space for the expression of doubt, possibility and a half-glimpsed ideal. I acknowledge the distinguished list of previous winners of this award; and I am very grateful for the recognition.”

Athlete's Housing / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Niall McLaughlin Architects

Athlete's Housing / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Niall McLaughlin Architects

The award will be presented Tuesday 25 October at the RIBA in London, where McLaughlin will also give a public lecture chaired by Charles Jencks.

News via RIBA.

http://ift.tt/2cpmh9n

© Chris J. Roberts Photography

• Architects: DLR Group
• Location: Auburn, WA, United States
• Area: 44703.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2011
• Photographs: Chris J. Roberts Photography

• Participants: Jody Miller Construction, The Robinson Company, Karen Kiest Landscape Architects, OTAK

© Chris J. Roberts Photography

Lakeland Elementary School is one in a set of four elementaries designed under the same archetype for Federal Way Public Schools. DLR Group’s design for this school re-thinks what a school should look like. From the outside the bright colors and translucent “bars” break the mold of typical school design.

© Chris J. Roberts Photography

Inside there are a variety of different sized learning spaces, the majority of which are not customized to a specific purpose, maximizing possible uses and flexibility. The literary commons features bookshelves with built in reading nooks. Interior finishes are simple and raw, allowing this school to be built at a significantly lower cost per square foot than other schools at the time. Structure and utilities were intelligently placed to maximize options and minimize expense in any future renovation.

© Chris J. Roberts Photography

Plan

© Chris J. Roberts Photography

Lakeland Elementary is designed to serve 450 students in 44,000 SF. Classroom spaces are balanced with small group break-out areas. The literacy commons doubles as the main circulation space and features a library, reading nooks, story-time area, computers, and a group presentation area. A moveable wall between the music room and cafeteria allows for performances. Also included are office space and a kitchen. Outdoor amenities include outdoor classroom, play fields, and covered play areas.  Daylighting, efficient heating system and flexible design helped meet WSSP sustainability goals. DLR Group provided planning, architecture, engineering and interiors services.

© Chris J. Roberts Photography

http://ift.tt/2cunLOj

© Methanoia

Construction is now underway on Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s (SOM) OH-1 redevelopment project in the Ohtemachi District of Tokyo, Japan. Covering a 20,000 square meter (215,000 square foot) site, the project constitutes one of the largest revitalization projects in Tokyo’s history. The complex includes two high-rise, mixed-use buildings containing a luxury hotel, commercial office space, retail and cultural facilities, and is centered around a park and public area that will visually connect the development to the adjacent Imperial Palace East Gardens.

© Methanoia

A product of their context and SOM’s design approach – “balancing tradition and innovation” – each of the project’s two towers takes on its own scale, massing and materiality. The 160 meter tall Tower A faces the Imperial Palace, and harmonizes with its historical context, employing techniques inspired by traditional Japanese craftsmanship in its granite and glass cladding.

Facing the Ohtemachi district, the 200 meter tall Tower B features a glass and steel skin as it rises from the city to “establish a strong presence on the skyline as an emblem of contemporary Japan.”

Groundbreaking Ceremony. Image © Mitsui Fudosan | Mitsui & Co.

In total, the towers will contain a total floor area of  360,000 square meters. Included in that number is a flexible event space overlooking the park and plaza area that will be equipped host a range of events from musical performances to international conferences. Both towers have been designed with a range of sustainable features to reduce energy consumption.

On the western section of the site, the 6,000 square meter (64,500 square foot) park will feature a reflecting pool and plaza landscaped with native flora, as well as a new setting for the historic Masakado’s Shrine located on site. OH-1 will also provide direct access to several metro lines, ensuring its accessibility via the Tokyo public transportation system.

Groundbreaking Ceremony. Image © Mitsui Fudosan | Mitsui & Co.

Once completed, OH-1 will serve as a new corporate headquarters for Mitsui & Co, one of the largest general trading companies in Japan. The project is the next in a line of collaborations between SOM and developer Mitsui Fudosan, who together have created a series of major developments throughout Tokyo totaling more than 2 million square meters.

“We are thrilled to partner once again with Mitsui Fudosan on this transformative project, which will revitalize Ohtemachi to become not only a world-class business center, but also the heart of a vibrant, 24-hour neighborhood,” said Mustafa Abadan, SOM Design Partner. “Our design bridges Tokyo’s past and future—honoring the historical and cultural signi cance of its site, and at the same time, signaling Japan’s stature at the forefront of technology and innovation.”

The project is scheduled for completion in 2020.

News via SOM.

http://ift.tt/2cHT8EP

© Mariela Apollonio

• Architects: Gradolí & Sanz
• Location: Carrer d’Alegret, 14, 46020 València, Valencia, Spain
• Architect In Charge: Carmel Gradolí, Arturo Sanz
• Area: 108.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: Mariela Apollonio

• Constructor: Ensecon Obras S.L.
• Quantity Surveyor: Julia Fernández Sorókina
• Interior Design And Lighting: Carmen González Úbeda

© Mariela Apollonio

From the architect. Restoration of a town house overlooking two streets with a minor different in altitude between both. The main façade has been maintained along with the two main bays forming the existing construction, with a new side annex being added to this that contains the rear façade and where the garage is housed. This new construction has been taken advantage of in order to create a basement floor intended for installations, washroom and storeroom.

© Mariela Apollonio

Floor Plans

© Mariela Apollonio

The courtyard, still reduced in size, once again becomes the focal point of the dwelling. The space containing the living room – kitchen – dining area is projected towards the interior of the courtyard with a staggered section glass house.

© Mariela Apollonio

Section

© Mariela Apollonio

http://ift.tt/2cDhAoH

A photo posted by Wappato (@wappato) on Sep 19, 2016 at 1:19pm PDT

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

A year after the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria was destroyed by the Islamic State, a 3D-printed recreation of one of its most iconic structures has begun its world tour. Originally erected in London’s Trafalgar square in April, on Monday, the replica of Palmyra’s Arch of Triumph was unveiled in its new location outside city hall in New York City.

The Palmyra Arch of Triumph prior to its destruction.. Image © Wikimedia user Bgag. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Two-thirds the scale of the original, the reconstructed arch was carved from Egyptian marble blocks using a team of Italian stone-carving robots, which followed a 3D model of the arch assembled from photographs taken of the structure prior to its demise.

A photo posted by The Art Newspaper (@theartnewspaper.official) on Sep 20, 2016 at 12:31pm PDT

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

For centuries, the 1,800-year-old arch served as the entrance to the Temple of Bel, the center of religious life in Palmyra. Even after the city’s abandonment, the monument remained an important example of Roman architecture in the Middle East.

The Arch of Triumph will remain in New York for one week as it coincides with the United National General Assembly, before traveling to its next location in Dubai.

#UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs and The Future, Mohammed Al Gergawi participates in an installation of a reproduction of the Arch of #Palmyra (original destroyed by #ISIS in Syria) in front of City Hall in New York City, says, "with this installation the message is clear; whatever they [ISIS] destroy, we make sure to rebuild. Whatever they are trying to erase from our humanity, we make sure to save it. This is our fight against extremism" #UAEUSA #NYC #UNGA

A photo posted by UAEembassyUS (@uaeembassyus) on Sep 20, 2016 at 11:35am PDT

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

The project is the result of a collaboration between archaeologists at Oxford University’s Institute for Digital archeology (IDA) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to preserve the historic architecture of threatened or destroyed sites through the digitization and recreation of their artifacts.

Read more about the project, here.

News via the Guardian.

A photo posted by Nadeem Omar Shad (@the_real_nadeem_shad) on Sep 19, 2016 at 3:14pm PDT

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

http://ift.tt/2d972OE

© Edmund Sumner

• Architects: Aukett Swanke
• Location: Reading, United Kingdom
• Area: 185000.0 ft2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Edmund Sumner

• Qs: Sweet

© Edmund Sumner

Aukett Swanke has completed No 1 Forbury Place, a 185,000sqft Grade A office development that brings Central London design standards to Reading, Berkshire.

Developed speculatively by owners M&G and development manager Bell Hammer on a site adjacent to Reading railway station, the entire building was let last year to Scottish and Southern Energy ahead of completion, making it the largest letting in the Thames Valley for over a decade.

© Edmund Sumner

It will be followed by a second phase on the adjoining site. Together, they will form a landmark for both Reading’s newest business district, and for the city as a whole.

© Edmund Sumner

© Edmund Sumner

Aukett Swanke‘s design responds to the historic urban context of the neighbouring Forbury Gardens through the massing and sculpted form of the Forbury Place buildings. Laid out over eight storeys, the building has large flexible floorplates, which narrow to the upper levels to form a roof terrace that overlooks Forbury Gardens. The terrace is protected from nearby Forbury Road by extra-tall glass balustrades that provide uninterrupted views beyond over the Thames Valley, the Cotswolds and countryside to the south.

Plan

The design incorporates a structural diagrid that gives a distinctive and dynamic identity to the new building. The glazed east and west façades are protected from solar gain by vertical fins that twist to create a pattern that becomes increasingly solid towards the centre of the building. This gives a sense of movement for those passing by the building, with further animation provided by the varying effect of different light conditions on the bronze-coloured blades. These blades are held in place by bespoke brackets designed by Aukett Swanke in collaboration with specialist fabricators. They also provide the inspiration for a dramatic feature wall of twisted blades in the double-height reception area.

© Edmund Sumner

Inside, generous 26,000 sqft floorplates are well lit by both the external floor to ceiling windows and a full height central atrium. The latter is supported by a slender steel frame that echoes the external structural diagrid. Feature bronze profiles at each floor level help create a kaleidoscopic effect to views up through the atrium when combined with the reflected light from the roof.

© Edmund Sumner

http://ift.tt/2d8OfTJ

© Darren Bradley

A century since the founding of the National Memorial Association and the start of a campaign by African-American war veterans for a monument of African American culture, the National Museum of African American History and Culture will finally be opened on September 24th. The Museum took $540 million and four years to build, resulting in a striking, and refreshingly unorthodox, architectural construction on Washington DC’s National Mall. The Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup JJR team, led by Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye, defiantly broke the white-marble-Corinthian-column convention, opting instead for a bronze-coated aluminum façade bound to provoke a reaction from the critics.

© Darren Bradley

“The most impressive and ambitious public building to go up in Washington in a generation” – Christopher Hawthorne, LA Times

Hawthorne celebrates the building’s architectural character and beauty of the façade’s “shifting personality” in different qualities of light. However his praise for the NMAAHC does not stop at the building’s aesthetics. Hawthorne highlights the museum’s bold mission to, on one hand, provide a beautiful design, while on the other uplifting the African American culture on a site dominated by white monuments:

The museum’s skin — has that typically benign architectural term ever been more charged? — allows it to stand apart from the Mall’s white-marble monuments like a rebuke.

Due to the history of the museum, the site and the nation in which it is built, the political and cultural prominence of the NMAAHC is hard to ignore. Hawthorne acknowledges Adjaye’s vision to use this to the building’s full advantage, while at the same time applauding the architects’ respect for the museum’s context:

The building itself is perhaps the most powerful display of all, a careful, strategic and sometimes defiant exploration of the relationship between black culture and government prerogative, which is another way of saying it is a piece of architecture supple enough to please the archivist and the activist alike.

Half of the building has been “buried” underground, as a result of Washington’s height regulations. Not only does this produce a neat design above-ground, but also helps to communicate the progression of African American history:

The NMAAHC is undeniably an imposing architectural object, monumental and temple-like. Yet it also suggests something that has been unearthed, a box pulled from the ground and dusted off; much of its 420,000 square feet of interior space is buried below street level.

© Darren Bradley

“Although credited as lead designer, Adjaye is one of four architecture practices responsible for the project, a cocktail of divided responsibilities that feels like too many cooks.” – Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian

Wainwright is the only critic to point out the difficulties that can arise from having many voices involved in the design process. Clearly, he attributes some of the museum’s limitations to these circumstances, providing an explanation for some critics, who have been disappointed by the comparison of the building with original visualizations:

The whole project, then, was co-ordinated in the cloud, using BIM modelling software, and there are moments where you sense the left hand might not have quite understood the right hand’s intentions, areas that appear to have slipped through the contractual cracks.

Although Wainwright, like Hawthorne, pays tribute to the museum’s success in holding its own on such a sensitive site, he goes on to comment on what he sees as several architectural shortcomings of the NMAAHC. These include the bronze coated aluminum façade, initially intended to be fully cast in bronze, as well as the intention to have much larger surfaces of the perforated metal, which have instead been replaced by smaller repeated elements:

These choices don’t ruin the effect, but they lend the building a slight cheapness – a feeling that gets more pronounced when you step inside.

Some of these drawbacks resulted from lack of funding, as well as structural difficulties. Wainwright recalls the architects’ original design proposals, expressing a clear disappointment in the materialized result:

The circulation areas, housed in the gap between the outer facade and the gallery levels within, promised to be a dramatic sequence up escalators and along cantilevered landings, veiled by the lacy mesh. The result feels half-baked. From the inside, the cumbersome steel structure needed to hold up the facade takes up most of the view, while the impact of specially framed vistas to nearby monuments is lessened by clunky fixings.

However, on the whole Wainwright concludes that the building, while not perfect, works adequately in its setting:

Despite some clunks, the result has a compelling, spiky otherness, standing on the Mall as a welcome rebuke to the world of white marble monuments to dead white men.

© Paul Clemence

“As a freestanding largely symmetrical object, the new museum has something in common with its neighbors, but as a dark-clad structure that eschews classical columns for apparently floating horizontal layers, it does not.” – Rowan Moore, The Guardian

None of the critics can avoid discussing the building’s intricate relation to its site, and Moore is no exception. His review of the NMAAHC is very much in line with that of Wainwright’s, remarking on the dissonance between the original renderings and the aluminium reality:

It is not flawless, as it sometimes feels assembled or panellized more than crafted. The bronze-colored screens are not the delicate, seamless things suggested in computer visualizations. The build-up of the exterior cladding – glass wall plus screen plus substantial fixings for the latter – impedes the sense of connection between inside and out.

Despite this, Moore focuses on the building’s conceptual vision and achievements. In accordance with the other critics, he emphasizes the building’s strength that lies in its complexity. Due to the intricate nature of the NMAAHC, certain imperfections can be hard to avoid, but on the whole the architectural novelty hits the mark:

There are moments of gawkiness that can be engaging or uncomfortable, depending on your taste. But it achieves its main, difficult task, which is to be both American and African American, and to be of its location but also different from it.

© Paul Clemence

“Architecture and identity rarely fuse as convincingly as they do here.” – Justin Davidson, NY Mag

Davidson, like many of the other critics, comments on the division between the museum above and below ground, going into more detail about its successful role in serving the African-American story the museum wants to tell:

Visitors enter a broad, open lobby that serves as the museum’s midpoint, both overture and interlude between the historical journey below and the celebratory galleries above.

However in contrast to his fellow critics, Davidson seems to take no issue with the compromised bronze structure, strongly endorsing the aluminum façade which he calls “the most seductive aspect” of the building’s design:

Its dark bronzed skin broods in the glare of morning, glows in the late afternoon sun, and at all times contrasts with the marble-white uniformity of Washington’s official architecture. You could hardly ask for a more literal, or more effective, architectural assertion of a building’s mission.

The bronzed panelled canopy is an extrapolation of railing designs wrought by slaves, reflected and rotated to create a pattern covering the building. Davidson notes not only the beauty and practicality of the structure, but also its symbolic relevance that seems to orbit the not yet opened, yet already historic, monument:

Standing on an indoor balcony, we look out at the capital campus through a clarifying scrim. Adjaye has reframed the nation’s preeminent icon as an object behind glass — an ambiguous symbol best comprehended in the context of black America’s story.

© Paul Clemence

http://ift.tt/2cHeNwS