TATLIN NEWS #38

here as a fundamental element in perception of space, which can function as an interesting descriptive and procedural tool on various levels of design. MOBILE CITY Public space has always been a means of communication between people, but what kind of space could emerge, if communication is carried out via various devices? Artificial intelligence has gained control over the sphere of communication extensively, and in Japan, a country with highly developed technologies, this process has reached its culmination, therefore, architects and sociologists ask themselves a question, if emergence of public space of new kind is possible. And if so, what would it be like. Nowadays mobility means owning a communicator, so that people can be in touch with people, people with things, things with things; transition from direct perception to indirect is especially characteristic of young people. This is why curators of Docomo contest addressed them with a request to provide their vision of the new communication space. New social values of the mobile community are aimed at the future increasing establishment of technologies. Therefore the task set by sponsors of the exhibition was also futuristic. One had to demonstrate the mobile community ten years after. We should point out that mobility has some strange quality, since it is a small percentage of people moving from one place to another and making use of technologies who make the community mobile. This is why development of technologies and the internet, population issues, decrease of birth rate and increase of elderly population, attitudes to family and national minorities, energy issues and development of the world economy fell into the area of interest. Nowadays all these issues find no reflection in space, and the contest was meant to improve the situation. The topic found an echo in the souls of young architects, being refracted

into a peculiar play of architecture and graphics. Ryue Nishizawa who was on the jury of the contest, said that he tries to turn “applications”, which of course include the concept, into an architectural structure, when designing. When designing an office building, for example, thoughts on whether it would be a sky-scraper or a one- storey extended open space, can be referred to as thoughts on structure. But virtually any shape could be given some or other explanation and related to some existent object, and the architect looks for complex relations within this existing shape. In that regard public space opens up fascinating prospects, since it could be considered from the point of view of architecture, or one can study presence of information technologies, encouraging visitors to read meanings immediately. Designers who won the contest had probably take both ways into consideration. hierarchy and clear borders have gained the most acclaim. By the decision of the jury the first prize was awarded to a project, which combined maximally closed per- sonal space with open one. A city-dweller can choose the mode of his presence himself, whether it would be physical or abstract. At the same time personal space can be public, too, because it does not lock up, and communication is permanent. Dynamic links implied by the notion of mobility serve as a basis for this project, obtaining a texture of a network enmeshing the city. The project awarded the second prize was based on the idea that people busy communicating via their cell phones have turned into a passive crowd. By encour- aging them to be more active (of- fering them to sing), the authors create preconditions for direct communication, eliminating the barrier of reality and realization. The third prize was awarded to a Planar solutions with precise

concept implementing high tech- nologies, such as personal infor- mation, e.g. what shops a person likes to go to, what labels he wears, what places he goes to, which is stored in a special IC-tag; and if two people with similar interests meet each other, their contact is visually recorded. All in all, many utopist projects have been presented to partici- pate in the contest this year, just as it was the previous time, but as interrelated technologies and cit- ies develop, their implementation might be possible in the near fu- ture. PORTFOLIO KL!NGMANN bureau advocates a non-standard approach to ar- chitecture They believe that eve- rything in this world is a brand, including this kind of human activities; not only well-known names or pretentious projects, but architecture itself is a brand, too. Therefore they treat design and reconstruction as branding. Romantic attitude to this compo- nent of human activities as some “charismatic aura of sense” makes architects search for hidden mech- anisms for architecture to interact with the human environment and embody it into their projects. As- signing primary importance to the anthropological principle, the bu- reau creates projects that are safe from the point of view of creating a life style, that is, actually does things that curators of various contests expect participants to do. Designing three-dimensional brands of the environment, Anna Klingman and her colleagues build a world that is somewhat idealistic but seeking to be implemented. WHITE SPECTRUM object Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art design started 1999 construction completed 2007 total reconstructed area 71323 m 2 total new construction area 50292 m 2

customer Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art architects STEVEN HOLL ARCHITECTS (Steven Holl, Chris McVoy, Martin Cox, Richard Tobias, Gabriela Barman- Kraemer, Matthias Blass, Molly Blieden, Elsa Chryssochoides, Robert Edmonds, Simone Giostra, Annette Goderbauer, Mimi Hoang, Makram el-Kadi, Edward Lalonde, Li Hu, Justin Korhammer, Linda Lee, Fabian Llonch, Stephen O’Dell, Susi Sanchez, Irene Vogt, Urs Vogt, Christian Wassmann) landscape architects Gould Evans and Olin Partnership artist Walter De Maria photo Andy Ryan text Eugenia Bakhturova Steven Hall has nearly regeneratedasaJapanesearchitect, notwithstanding the fact that the place of his permanent residence is the USA. He is one of the few American architects who prefer the lucidity of mind to using a great number of modern technologies. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is his recently implemented object, which falls into simple volumes, which is connected with the context in many respects. The first museum building was constructed in 1933 by Wight and Wight architectural bureau, a company influenced by classical works. The building itself does not contradict with the environment in any way, since the colonial style has always been popular in the US. The idea to carry out large-scale reconstruction of the museum was conceived in 1996 during celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the project. Positioning itself as a partner of Kansas society the museum addressed the people. By means of polls it was found out that museum lacks space and new programs. Steven Hall was invited to find the solution of this problem. The original task was to reconstruct the existing building and create a new attachment. Hall divided such attachment with an area of 50,000 square meters into five parts, creating a sort of a large- scale installation. The first one of the five blocks forms a reception zone with a spacious lobby, a cafe, a library and a book store. Going through the other four blocks, a curved axis connects the first block with the main building.

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