37. Eight Buildings that will Rock Your World in 2016

Pingtan Art Museum, by MAD Architects, image via MAD Architects

 

It's that time of year again, the one that many of us have been eagerly awaiting. Christmas is over, along with its insufferable carols, jingles and commercials. New Year's hangovers have disappeared, as have most New Year resolutions. Post-gorging diets are in high gear, as we atone for seasonal overindulgences.

Far more importantly, it's time for our annual look-ahead to the futuristic, envelope-pushing structures that will rock our world in 2016.


The Falcon Soars

Image via Foster + Associates

 

Lord Norman Foster may be 80, but he continues to show the young Turks how the future will look. This year will see the completion of his Sheikh Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi, with a design said to represent the wing tips of a falcon. It's part of the (supposedly) huge Saadiyat Cultural District. I said "supposed" because there are strong rumours that Frank Gehry's Guggenheim will be shelved for a much cheaper military installation; meanwhile there has never been any indication that Zaha Hadid's Performing Arts Centre will move ahead to construction. To date, Jean Nouvel's flying-saucer shaped Louvre is the only cultural project completed. That's what happens in a petro-economy when the price of oil takes a dive. 

The Discs have Landed

Image via Atelier Jean Nouvel

Speaking of Jean Nouvel, the French master builder will see his vision of the Qatar National Museum come to full fruition this year. Sticking with his space vehicle motif, Nouvel has shifted from a single giant flying disc to a couple dozen intersecting smaller ones that look like they've been randomly scattered across the desert floor. The new structure will be built around an existing palace. According to the Qatar Museums Authority, "the tilting interpenetrating disks that define the pavilions’ floors, walls and roofs, clad on the exterior in sand-colored concrete, suggest the bladelike petals of the desert rose, a mineral formation of crystallized sand found in the briny layer just beneath the desert’s surface."


It's Raining Silver

Image via Snohetta

If you were to drop giant molten silver ingots from the sky, what you'd you get - besides a hernia and very burned hands - would be something that looks a lot like the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, in Dahran, Saudi Arabia. The facade of the flowing metallic structure, designed by Norwegian company Snohetta, will be made from stainless steel tubes that will be intricately and individually formed and bent, then wrapped around the building. The structure is said to mirror the flowing dunes and sculpted rock formations of the Saudi landscape. The Center will house an auditorium for the performing arts, cinemas, a 200,000 book library, museum, exhibition hall and archive.

From Quarry to Gem

Image via Coop Himmelb(l)au

Put an abandoned Chinese cement quarry in the hands of alchemists like Coop Himmelb(l)au, Austria's most innovative architecture firm, and what you'll get in return is a magical winter gem. The Deep Pit Ice and Snow World will be located in the Dawang Mountain Resort area near the city of Changsha, capital of Hunan province. The project will combine an entertainment Ice World with an indoor ski slope, a water park, restaurant and shopping facilities. 

The complex will consist of two sculpted buildings. The dominant horizontal one will span 170-metres from cliff-to-cliff over a sunken and hanging garden, creating a new leisure space of islands, water, cliffside pathways and ramps connecting the building to the surrounding natural heritage. A cantilevered swimming pool will be part of the water park attractions, with a 60-metre high waterfall dropping into the former quarry pit. A separate sculptural 100-meter tower will host a five-star hotel and will be connected to the Ice World via a grand garden Plaza.


Art Museum or Rorschach Test?

Image via Mad Architects

Ever since Santiago Calatrava and Zaha Hadid created the template for futuristic arts buildings, the formula has been pretty straightforward. The structures have to be white, weird, wavy and sufficiently organic or abstract to lend themselves to the interpretation of the observer. 

Pingtan Art Museum, on an island off the coast of China near Taiwan, may reflect these qualities to the extreme. From some perspectives, like the one at the top of this page, it looks like a giant stingray. From others, like the one just above, it resembles a mousepad. Some have compared it to a pile of sand dunes. Whatever your perspective, there's no denying that Yansong Ma's creation will be the largest privately funded art museum in Asia - housing a collection of more than 1,000 Chinese artworks and objects in a 40,000 square-metre structure.


Latin Heat

Image via Fr - EE

The city of Miami continues its transformation from time-worn tourist hub to urbane arts centre. The latest addition to the creative scene will come in a few short months when the Latin American Arts Museum (LAAM) opens its doors for the first time.

The building, which will consist of four white platforms, each rotated at a different angle to is central axis, has a touch of Zaha Hadid in its soul. But in reality, it's all the brainchild of Mexican architect Fernando Romero and his company FR - EE. With generous-sized terraces, LAAM will have a fair amount of outdoor garden space and sculptures. The  museum's opening exhibition will feature the work of world-reknowned Colombian artist/sculptor Fernando Botero, signalling its strong intentions to become one of the great Latin American arts centres in the world.


Like a Fine Wine....

Image via Moshe Safdie

...Moshe Safdie just keeps getting better with age. The Israeli-born, Canadian-raised, U.S.-educated architect made his first big international splash with his Habitat building at Montreal's Expo '67. He was, at the time, celebrated as a 29-year-old wunderkind. But Safdie, now 77 has probably done his greatest work since he turned 70. In 2010, his Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore - the one with the three 57-storey towers topped by a boat-shaped infinity pool - opened as one of the most stylish and spectacular hotels in the world. The following year, he further adorned the marina area with his equally imaginative Museum of Artscience, whose design is supposed to resemble a lotus flower, but which most people agree resembles a bunch of bananas with the ends cut off. 

Photo by Seymour Kanowitch

Safdie seems to have found new life in Singapore. His next contribution to the city-state, Sky Habitat (a rethinking of his original Habitat?) is preparing to open in just a few months. Sky Habitat will, in fact, consist of two 38-storey residential towers, identically (wedge-) shaped but facing each other in opposing directions. The towers will be connected at three levels. The bottom two bridges above ground will be, essentially, walk-through gardens. The third will connect the buildings at rooftop level and is a more modest version of the infinity pool at Marina Bay Sands. By 2017-18, Safdie will be adding a massive glass dome with gardens and a 40-metre waterfall to Singapore's Changi Airport.


Colombian Colossus

Bogota's BD Bacata, a complex of three towers, is going to be a project of "firsts". The first skyscrapers built in Colombia in 35 years. The first skyscrapers in the world financed by crowdfunding - with $145-million supplied by 3,000 investors. And the tallest of the towers will be the no.1 building in Colombia, with 66 storeys soaring 853-ft high. In two of the the three buildings, the floors will be grouped in rectangles with increasingly wide setbacks as the buildings climb. The project was designed by Barcelona-based Alonso-Balaguer y Arquitectos Asociados. It's worth noting that the firm's design is infinitely superior to a later one created by the much-celebrated BIG architects for World Trade Centre No. 2.

Images via Alonso Balaguer y Architectos Asociados

36. An Art Nouveau Gem in Valencia

Those of you who regularly read my blog have undoubtedly noticed that I've been writing a lot lately about WOWchitecture in Southeast Asia. That's what happens when you spend four months in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. Today, though, I'd like to return to my hometown of the past two years, Valencia, Spain and share with you a relatively unknown Art Nouveau gem called Casa Ferrer.

The Art Nouveau movement swept across Europe and America from about 1890 until the beginning of WWI in 1914. It went by many different names and stylistic variations, depending on the location: Modernisme (Spain), Jugendstil (Germany) and Stile Floreale (Italy) to name a few.

When the movement hit Valencia near the end of the 19th century, the city was more than ready for it. With an urban area of 100,000 people, Valencia was bursting at the seams. The city's medieval walls had just been knocked down, leaving all kinds of new lands ripe for development. And Valencia, as one of Europe's largest trading ports, had the money for a grand renewal.

In 1907, Valencian architect Vincente Ferrer, was ordered by his high-society father, to build a family home on a prime corner lot in the heart of the new city. The style he chose was the Art Nouveau variant called Viennese Secession. Why Viennese Secession? No one really knows. Maybe he liked their motto, "To every age it's art. To every art it's freedom." In plain English (actually, plain German) it meant that architects no longer wanted to keep recycling classical designs; they wanted to create new designs that matched the spirit and energy of the age. 

Or maybe Ferrer just liked the influence on the movement of Glasgow architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who embraced symmetry and repetition of geometric forms, usually squares. (Yes, I know that Glasgow isn't in Austria). Then again, maybe he just wanted to hang out with the hip and fun guys in the Secession movement, led by the already famous Gustav Klimt (seated):

Photo via: theviennesesecession.com

Whatever the reason, Ferrer accomplished what he set out to do: borrowing various elements from the Secession movement, combining them with his own fertile imagination, and delivering something the likes of which Valencia had never seen before. Like curved rooflines with oculus (rounded) windows:

Garlands of roses underscored by checkerboard patterns linking ceramic roundels and triglyphs:

More roses connecting the three sections of the façade:

And tiled Ginkgo leaves creating art forms in the usually vacant space separating  window levels:

Like most of the Art Nouveau masters, Ferrer took some of his design work from the outside of the building and carried it through to the interior, albeit in a more subdued and understated form. All you have to do is walk through the gingerbread-house main door:

Pass through the lobby where lights mirror the ceramic patterns outside:

Mirrors mirror the roses on the outside door:

And painted tiles add a floral display to the ceiling:

And before you know it, you'll be scooting past the inner doorway:

And walking up the leaf and rose-laden wrought-iron stairway:

Photo via: rondom1900.nl

 into the inner sanctum of the Ferrer family.

Speaking of whom, neither Ferrer's father, nor much of high-society Valencia were exactly thrilled by his artistic vision. It was too avant-garde. Too fanciful. Too foreign. But Ferrer was a man of strong will and determined direction, and he continued adding his Art Nouveau flourishes to the Valencia skyline. Perhaps one of his most refined works, a cinema, was built in 1910, just a year after Casa Ferrer was finished. Regrettably, only a part of the façade remains today.

 

Meanwhile, Ferrer's colleagues like Demetrio Ribes kept turning out wilder and more whimsical Art Nouveau designs, like Valencia's train station, Estacio del Nord, finished in 1917:

 

 

But that's a story for another day....



35. The Petronas Twin Towers - As You've Never Seen Them Before

Mention the term "Twin Towers" and people in North America and Western Europe will assume you're talking about the late, though not entirely great, former giants of south Manhattan. But use the same words in Asia and everyone will believe you're referencing the Petronas Twin Towers. Soaring 88-storeys into the the sky over Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the identical towers topped out in 1988 at 1,453 ft. - then the tallest towers in the world.

The Petronas Towers, named after the country's state-owned oil company, immediately captured the global imagination. Argentinian designer Cesar Pelli became an instant "Starchitect" by shrugging off the boxy international style dominating the skyscraper scene at the time, and creating beautifully angular towers that reflected Malaysia's history. I can't describe them any better than skyscraper.org did, so I'll just quote their words.

"Pelli's design answered the developer's call to express the 'culture and heritage of Malaysia' by evoking Islamic arabesques and employing repetitive geometries characteristic of Muslim architecture. In plan, an 8-point star formed by intersecting squares is an obvious reference to Islam; curved and pointed bays create a scalloped facade that suggest temple towers. The identical towers are linked by a bridge at the 41st floor, creating a dramatic gateway to the city." 

In addition to being among the most magnificent towers in the world, the Petronas Towers are among the most frequently photographed. You may not know their name, but you've probably seen them dozens - if not hundreds - of times. You've seen them by day:

 

 You've seen them by night: 



You may have even seen them during what photographer's call "the blue hour":

But my goal isn't to show you what you've already seen. There's already enough déjà vu in the world. When I spotlight an internationally renowned work of WOWchitecture, my aim is to present it to you in a way that you've never seen it before.

So let me ask you this: have you ever seen the Petronas Towers from up close? Real close? So close that if you held your position for more than 30 seconds you'd need to see a chiropractor the next day? 

Sure, you've seen a zillion photos of their tapering minaret-shaped tops:

But how about their shiny silver-pillared entryway?

Or their beautiful and futuristic - kind of neo-deco - ceiling lamps in the reception area?

Maybe you have been to the towers and even gone inside for a personal eye-balling. I'll bet you haven't seen them in the full bloom of a three-week long Chinese New Year celebration:



The above three shots are not from the actual towers themselves, but from the shopping mall that connects them. Still, the Petronas Towers complex is made up of much more than just a couple of connected skyscrapers, however magnificent. There is also, for example a park that sits at their base, with an artificial pond where children cool off during the always baking afternoon sun, parents watch the nightly light show, and kids of all ages admire the marine -themed metal sculptures:

 

 

For my money's worth, the Petronas Twin Towers is one of the three greatest skyscrapers in the world - or two of the four greatest - depending on whether  you count them as one building or two. The others on my list are The Chrysler Building in New York and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. None holds a fixed spot in my mind - on any given day any one of them could be my favourite. Of the three, the only one I haven't seen in person is the Burj. I'm still hoping to get there one day, and maybe then I'll be able to give you a more definitive answer as to which is my absolute favourite.

 

In the mean time, all I can say for certain is that while other individual towers may have soared past them in height, the Petronas Towers remain the tallest identical twins in the world. That's a record that's held for 27 years, and I see nothing in sight that's going to challenge it. 

34. Angkor - As You've Never Seen it Before (Part II)

My last post seemed to draw a lot of interest from WOWchitecture readers. Clearly, there is a sizeable demand to see beyond the cliched views provided by media, movie makers and promotional materials. That's not surprising. Angkor Archeologial Park is 400 square miles, and there's so much more to see than just Angor Wat, Angkor Tom, 900-year-old celestial nymphs, and trees devouring buildings. So let's carry on for another post.

You can tell a site is really beautiful when even the behind-the-scenes repair work looks artistic. Check out the temporary supports propping up buildings awaiting the installation of something more permanent by UNESCO:

This close-up of the window looks even more artistic:

One of the most under-promoted and underrated features at Angkor are its doors. For most ancient cultures living at the same time as the Khmers - like the Maya of Central America and Mexico - a doorway was just the empty space in between archway supports. But look at this gem at East Mebon:

Or this amazing jewel of an entryway at Banteay Srei:

Seen here in it's full glory:

Where the portals, when open, reveal even more fascinating treasures:

Banteay Srei (Citadel of Women) is both special and unique within the Angkor sphere of influence. It is the only major complex not built at the behest of a king, but rather by one of his advisors. Construction was completed in 967, some 200 years before Angkor Wat, and it is said to reflect the most Indian-like style at Angkor. It's on a much smaller scale than Angkor Wat, and Tourism Cambodia likes to refer to it as, "an exquisite miniature; a fairy palace in the heart of an immense and mysterious forest."

Most significantly, whereas most Angkor structures are covered in laeterite - a hard and difficult material to carve - Banteay Srei was built of soft, pink sandstone which gives way to an artisan's tools like a knife going through wood.
By any yardstick, Banteay Srei's buildings - its temples, towers, libraries, lintels and pediments, are the most ornate in the entire Angkor empire:

Banteay Srei is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva (aka "The Destroyer) and draws on the panopoly of devils and demons that populate Hindu mythology:

Despite all this splendour, if you show up at Banteay Srei first thing in the morning, you'll probably have the place all to yourself for the couple of hours it takes to see it. Why? Because it's about 23 miles north of Angkor Wat. And in the heat and humidity of the Cambodian jungle, that's about 45 more tushy-jarring minutes on a tuk-tuk than your average tourist is willing to put up with. Their loss. Your gain.