El Mercado do Kinaxixe en Luanda era un soberbio edificio moderno diseñado por el arquitecto portugues- angoleño Vasco Vieira da Costa. Este arquitecto, uno de los precursores del Movimiento Moderno en Angola, trabajo en el taller de Le Corbusier a mediados de los años 1940. Kinaxixe era un edificio racional de gran fuerza expresiva. A mi personalmente me recuerda a algunas obras de arquitectos brasileños como Vilanova Artigas, Mendes da Rocha o Reidy. Lamentablemente despues de años de abandono fue demolido en 2008.
Como tu y como yo el arquitecto de este fascinante edificio en Nairobi era extranjero. Karl Henrik Nøstvik era un arquitecto noruego que con 40 años, en 1965 fue a Kenya a diseñar y construir este complejo. Luego vinieron otros edificios gubernamentales que necesitaban ser construidos despues de la independencia del pais en 1963. Como tu y como yo Karl Henrik Nøstvik se quedo a vivir en el pais y se establecio en Nairobi como arquitecto.
"The search here was inspired by what one could call the 'art' and poetics of motor racing, specifically Formula 1, coupled with the making of a place that celebrates Abu Dhabi as a cultural and technological tour de force" (Asymptote Architecture)
In Seoul we went to the world’s tallest art gallery located on the 59th floor of the 63 City skyscraper. Just some four floors higher there is also an observation deck known as ’63 Golden Tower’ where we enjoyed an amazing view of this incredible city.
The new National Library of Belarus resembles an enormous gem to symbolize the enduring and powerful worth contained in books as legitimate holders of knowledge and culture values. The geometric name of the big glazed shape is Rhombicuboctahedron. That is a solid analyzed as early as 1509 by Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli in his book "The Divine Proportione" which also included illustrations by Leonardo da Vinci.
"My aim was to create an architecture which at once acknowledges the place in which it is built, yet sacrifices nothing to modern technical capability. At the same time I was concerned to understand analytically the reasoning behind traditional architectural devices of environmental control such as courtyards, screen walls, natural ventilation and reflected light." (Rifat Chadirji) The Iraqi Federation of Industries Administration Building is shown in the center of the picture.
The Oduduwa Hall of the University of Ife in Nigeria was designed by Israeli architect Arieh Sharon and local firm AMY Ltd. Sharon studied at the Bauhaus under Gropius and Meyer and then returned to Israel where he worked for the Israeli government planning department. In the mid-1950s he worked in his private office and designed among other buildings the new campus of the University of Ife in Nigeria. The hall is named for legendary Oduduwa who was the founder and first king of Ife, the ancient Yoruba city.
The Rashid Karami International Fair in Tripoli was commissioned to Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in 1963, but construction was interrupted by the Lebanese civil war in 1975 and never completed. The immense complex remains largely abandoned and it has become a famous contemporary set of ruins. This is the perfect example of the kind of abandoned and dismissed urban areas that Rem Koolhaas named in his "The Generic City" as "Third Landscape", ironically in Tripoli, whose name means triple city.
"El aprendizaje de la arquitectura es hora de desvelos, mucho vivir con los ojos pegados a las cosas, sufriendo la lucha de arrancarle a la vida su verdad pletorica y oculta." (Ricardo J. Bermudez)
"The culture of the Pacific is a culture of lightness and of the ephemeral. Lightness, or the wind, is much more durable than the stone." (Renzo Piano)
Scottish architect Basil Spence built the "Beehive" to house the executive wing of the New Zealand Parliament buildings in Wellington. Spence is also famous for having designed the extraordinary Coventry Cathedral in England.
The fantastic Fiat Tagliero building in Asmara is a 74 years old gas station in the Italian Futuristic style. The station has a central tower that houses the cashier desks, a small shop, an office, and two massive 50 feet long cantilevered canopies at each side designed to resemble the wings of an airplane. Undoubtedly this is one of the best modern buildings in all Africa.
Me alegro mucho recibir tu postal del Liceo Frances
de Madrid. Este, como otros tantos liceos y centros
de cultura, fue fruto de la politica de descentralizacion
del ministro y gran intelectual frances André Malraux.
Tu paralelismo entre la colaboracion de arquitectos
franceses y españoles materializada en esta obra tan
expresiva y nuestro proyecto me lleno de optimismo.
Sigo preservando ese optimismo con la ilusion de que
algun dia tambien nosotros podamos materializar
nuestra idea.