502. Darmstadt. Villa Olbrich. Kunstler Kolonie

Dear Enric,

"Art holds fast when all else is lost" (German proverb)

Regards,
R

501. La Cite d'affaires de Paris. Plan Voisin

Dear Ken,

The Le Corbusier's Plan Voisin exhibited for the first
time in the Pavillon de L'Esprit Nouveau of 1925 and
showing a radical scheme for the rebuilding of part of
Paris. It was financially supported by Voisin, aircrafts
and automobiles french manufacturer.

"subway; ground level and elevators; raised highways.
Then, sixty floors of building. At the top, the armored
platform against aerial bombardments." (Le Corbusier)

Sincerely,
R

500. Expo 92 Sevilla. Pabellón Finlandia

Querida Cristina,

Esta postal es la número 500 de este blog
y está dedicada al inolvidable y
afortunadamente aún existente Pabellón
de Finlandia de la Expo 92 de Sevilla. El
pabellón está compuesto por dos
volúmenes antagónicos pero también
complementarios: la "máquina" de acero
y la "quilla" de madera. Cada uno
representa lo que Finlandia tiene de
internacional y de regional, siendo al
mismo tiempo una feliz reinterpretación
del famoso desfiladero finés llamado "La
garganta del infierno". Curiosamente el
efecto más poderoso de esta composición
es el sobrecogedor vacio que se crea entre
ambas estructuras y que da acceso al
interior.

Mil besos.
R

499. Sidi Harazen, Piscine Circulaire

Dear Emile,

In Fez, at the site of the shrine of Sidi Harazem, there is
an outstanding thermal bath complex designed by
Jean-François Zevaco. The architecture of this place is
full of delicious references to Le Corbusier and Niemeyer
creations.

Regards.
R

498. Baha'i House of Worship, New Delhi, India

Dear Aston & Eileen,

The Bahá'í temple in New Delhi was completed in 1986
and designed by Iranian architect Fariborz Sahba.
Although inspired by the lotus flower, its design is also
very much influenced by Utzon's Sydney Opera House.

Hope you are doing well.
R

497. Design for the Amsterdam City Hall

Dear Ian

An international competition for the design of the new
Amsterdam City Hall was held in 1967. 803 entries
were received. Seven of the final twenty designs were
then selected and their designers asked to further
elaborate their schemes. Rafael Moneo was among
these seven finalists. He stated about his project: "The
filtering of light from the roof is the main theme of the
internal space, thus the reception-rooms have been
conceived as real light-wells"

Holzbauer won the competition, but the project was
first postponed and eventually replaced by the Stopera
Complex.

Regards.
R

496. Agadir. La Reserve

Dear David,

I found this great postcard and thought you would love it.
It is sad though to think that this splendid structure
disappeared in the horrific earthquake that in 1960 almost
destroyed the entire city of Agadir.

Best.
R

495. Hotel Savoy-Bandung. Indonesia

Mon cher David,

The wonderful Hotel Savoy in Bandung reminds me the
architecture of the first years of Frank Lloyd Wright or
the energetic horizontal lines in Erich Mendelsohn's
projects. The pretty much unknown dutch architect,
Albert Frederik Aalbers, designed this fabulous building
to be built at that time in the Dutch East Indies, today
Indonesia, where he had moved in 1928 to open his
professional office.

Again thank you and congratulations for your wonderful
blog: http://archipostcard.blogspot.com/

Cheers.
R

494. Cimitero Brion a San Vito di Altivole, Treviso

Dear Michael,

"I defend the need for decoration in order to achieve a
life of expression and meaning in architecture and I
oppose the definition of spaces denoted by bare
stereometry and simplistic formalism" (Carlo Scarpa)

Best.
R

493. Warshaw Residence (unbuilt). Los Angeles

Dear Harold,

"Modern man pays no attention to structural members.
There are no more columns with base, shaft and cap,
no more masses with foundation course and cornice.
He sees the daring of the cantilever, the freedom of the
wide span, the spaceforming surfaces of thin wall
screens" (Rudolph M. Schindler)

Regards.
R

492. Poznan. Wieza Gornoslaska

Dear Bruno,

The expressionist water tower of Posen was built in 1911
as an exhibition building for the Ostdeutsche Ausstellung,
before being finally used as originally intended. The
monumental form of the tower was seen then as a symbol
of "German" power. The architect, Hans Poelzig, built
among others important structures the huge office building
for the 1931 IG Farben Corporation in Frankfurt.

Best regards.
R

491. Zaragoza. El Rincón de Goya

Querido Pablo,

El Rincón de Goya, edificio mítico construido en 1927,
es la primera obra racionalista española. El edificio, que
contenía una biblioteca con libros sobre Goya y un
pequeño museo, era también un pabellón abierto a un
hermoso jardín.

La mayoría de los periódicos de la época se burlaron de
él. Uno de ellos decia: "No hay motivo de disgusto. El
monumento es realmente interesante. Ocurre solo que se
halla aún sin desembalar"

Un abrazo a ti a toda tu familia.
R

490. 30 St Mary Axe, London

Dear Mark,

The Swiss Re Building aka "The Gherkin" is London's
first environmentally sustainable skyscraper. The 

building consumes up to fifty percent less energy than 

a comparable high profile office tower. It was aerodynamically designed to reduce wind load on the structure. Since it was opened in 2004 the building has become an overnight icon of London.

Best regards.
R

489. The Solomon Guggenheim Museum

Dear Arata,

"The space within becomes the reality of the building."
(Frank Lloyd Wright)

"The Guggenheim", Wright's last major work and one
of the 20th century's most important architectural
landmarks.

Sincerely,
R

488. Belo Horizonte. Praca da Liberdade

Dear Lucio,

"My architecture followed the old examples. The beauty
prevailing over the limitations of the constructive logic"
(Oscar Niemeyer)

Regards.
R

487. Aarhus. Raadhustaarn

Cristina,

Contemplando la impresionante torre
del Ayuntamiento de Aarhus he
recordado lo que decía Pablo
Palazuelo sobre la geometría: La
geometría es lo que está en el fondo
de la vida y es lo que la construye.

Mil besos.
R

486. The Toronto Dominion Centre

Dear Chuck,

"Architecture is always the
three-dimensional expression out of
a cerebral conclusion"
(Mies van der Rohe)

Best.
R

485. Crown Zellerbach Building. San Francisco

Dear Michael,

The Crown Zellerbach Building was
the first glass skyscraper built in San
Francisco when finished in 1959.
Wonderful floor-to-ceiling green
tinted glass and beautiful details can
be seen all over it.The most striking
features though are the sunken garden
at the ground level plaza, the elegant
glass pavilion lobby and finally the
offset opaque service core facing
Market Street as a wonderful
counterbalance to the glass office
space box.

Thanks for your help.
Best regards.
R

484. New York World's Fair-Ireland (Eire)

Dear Dennis Michael,

The Irish Pavilion for the 1938-9 New York World's Fair
was the first appearance of Ireland as an independent
country at an international trade fair. The Irish Government
wanted the building to have a modern and high quality yet
recognizably Irish character. Architect Michael Scott
produced a shamrock shaped building, built in steel,
concrete and glass.

Best.
R

483. Bus Station from Custom's House Park, Dublin

Dear Mary Alice,

After talking to you about this blog, I realized I had done
a terrible mistake: I still didn't have not even a single
postcard about an Irish modern building. To compensate
my error, today I'm "sending" to you a wonderful
postcard of famous Busáras. The central bus station in
Dublin was built between 1945 and 1953 with a strong
public opposition because of its external appearance,
function and excessive cost. Architect Michael Scott was
also responsible of the design of the wonderful 1939 Irish
Pavilion of the New York World's Fair. He is considered
by many the most important architect of the twentieth
century in Ireland.

Sincerely.
R

482. Panorama over Stockholmsutstallningen

Dear David,

"Asplund's architecture explodes all the boundaries.
The purpose is a celebration with no preconceived
notions as to whether it should be achieved with
architectural or other means. It is not a composition in
stone, glass, and steel, as the functionalist-hating
exhibition visitor might imagine, but rather a composition
in houses, flags, searchlights, flowers, fireworks, happy
people and clean tablecloths" (Alvar Aalto on the 1930
Stockholm Exhibition)

Best.
R

481. Moscow. Planetarium

Dear Jennifer,

"Each form is the frozen temporary image of a process.
Thus, any work merely represents a way station in the
process of becoming, and not a frozen goal"
(El Lissitzky. 1924)

Best
R

480. Ljubljana. Narodna in univerzitetna knjiznica

Querido Jose,

"Ambos, el olvido y la memoria, son por
consiguiente, el sueño de una totalidad
que encierra en si, en la sombra o en la
luz, el pasado. Pero este sueño es
inalcanzable, en la medida en que el
pasado parece concedernos unicamente
una vision gris y continua y sin relieve, o
bien como escapados de sus mallas, unos
pocos fragmentos fugaces, sin relacion
entre si, que, sin embargo, parecen, por
la misma fuerza con que se nos presentan,
contener una vida secreta, el enigma de
una posible felicidad" ("Metamorfosis.
Imagenes del pensamiento" Franco Rella)

Saludos.
R

479. Paul Sauer Bridge across Storms River

Dear Sean,

Completed in 1956, the Ricardo Morandi designed bridge
across Storms River is peculiar for having inclined spandrel supports that radiate out from the main arch rib. The use of these inclined supports is a Morandi trait seeable on almost all of his bridges.

Regards.
R

478. Edificio Sede do Ministerio da Educacao e Saude

Dear Lucio,

The Ministerio da Educacao e Saude
building in Sao Paulo was the first
government modernist building in the
Americas, and the largest one that Le
Corbusier had built until then.

Respectfully.
R

477. Liceo Andres Bello. Caracas 1948

Querido Carlos,

El primer edificio del Instituto Pedagogico de Caracas
es el Liceo Caracas luego renombrado Liceo Andres
Bello que data de 1936 y que representa la asunción del
movimiento racionalista en la arquitectura moderna
venezolana. Su arquitecto fue Cipriano Domínguez,
formado como tal en Francia en el taller de Le Corbusier.
En el año en que esta elegantisima construccion es
terminada el maestro suizo esta en Brasil trabajando con
Costa, Niemeyer, Reidy y Moreira en la Ciudad
Universitaria y en el Ministerio de Educacion. Es en este
momento cuando empieza la epoca dorada de la
arquitectura moderna en Sudamerica.

Saludos cordiales.
R

476. Londrina. Est.do Parana. Vista Parcial

Dear Paulo,

"The level of happiness in a particular community usually
can be seen in the degree of beauty of the city where this
community lives in" (Vilanova Artigas)
Showed in the picture, to the left of the big building and
characterized by a graceful series of arches the 1950
Londrina Bus Station by Vilanova Artigas.

Respectfully.
R

475. Dhaka, Bangladesh

Dear Eliel,

"Architecture is the reaching out for the truth"
(Louis I. Kahn)

Best
R

474. Sevilla. Estadio Olimpico de la Cartuja

Querida Olga

"Nos interesa que la arquitectura siga teniendo misterio,
que haya expectación ante lo que va a ocurrir y que
entrar por una puerta lleve tiempo"
(Antonio Cruz & Antonio Ortiz)

Feliz Año Nuevo!

R

473. Above San Francisco

Dear Aston,

"There are no perfect answers. The earnest search is all
we can expect.” (Pietro Belluschi)

Best Wishes for the New Year.
R

472. Educatorium, Utrecht, Netherland

Dear Shoei,

"Raw material worth just what you do with it"
(Mies van der Rohe)

Best.
R

471. Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Querida Luz,

"El paisaje retiene
alrededor del pez inmovil
toda la luz del fondo no visible"

(Homenaje a Klee-J.A.Valente)

Feliz Navidad.
R

470. Flughafen Halle Leipzig b. Schkeuditz

Dear Leopold,

As you can see in the picture the view over the airfield
is the main theme of this airy and functional new restaurant
building for the Schkeuditz Airport recently finished in
1931. It has been designed by Swiss architect and
Bauhaus teacher Hans Wittwer. Did you meet him over
there? I really hope this building will manage to survive
through this unsettled times we chance to live.

Best regards my friend.
R

469. Bauhausbauten in Dessau

Dear Sybille,

The Torten district in Dessau was built between 1926
and 1928 for the Reichsforschungsgesellschaft by
Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius. The new district was
organized from a central small square where the tall
cooperative building was located. From there, and
spreading out in concentric rings, two-story row houses
with small gardens behind were laid-out.

Best regards.
R

468. Terneuzen. Stadhuis

Dear Remment,

In this design for the Terneuzen City Hall there is a sort
of uplift spiral movement feeling produced by interesting
relationships between the different building masses that
make up its structure.

Best.
R

467. Moscou. Maison du Journal Isvestia

Dear Louis,

The Izvestia building is located on Pushkin
Square in Moscow and it was finished in
1927. The initial design was inspired by
another newspaper building project: the
Gropius and Meyer entry for the Chicago
Tribune building competition of 1922.

Best.
R

466. The Dagens Nyheter in Stockholm

Querido Cesar,

El edificio del periodico Dagens Nyheter en Estocolmo
es obra del afamado arquitecto Paul Hedqvist que lo
completo en 1964. Hedqvist fue el arquitecto del
aeropuerto Bromma y de numerosos y magnificos
colegios en esta inolvidable ciudad.

Un abrazo.
R

465. Turku

Dear Leopold,

I have just arrived in Turku. I'm staying at the new
(still some construction going on) Hospits Betel Hotel.
I read in the architectural periodical "Arkkitehti" that
this building, the one across the alley and the bell 

tower of the next door church shared same architect: 

Erik Bryggman. I will sending you this issue along 

with this postcard.

Regards to Suse and all the best to you.
R

464. Radiostation du Soviet de Moscou. Chabolovka, 53

Dear Richard,

The famous Shabolovka Radio Tower
is shown in this vintage postcard. The
tower, built in 1922, is 150 meter high
and built from a series of stacked steel
hyperboloids. Originally it was designed
to reach 350 meters (surpassing Eiffel
Tower) but a shortage of steel forced to
reduce its height.

Sincerely.
R

463. Valparaiso. Escuela Naval Arturo Prat

Querida Rosi,

Dice Helio Piñon que el Proyecto revela la Geografia
Oculta. Al Pensar en esa misteriosa Geografia concluyo
que la de Mario Perez de Arce y su Escuela Naval
debe ser su nocion maravillosamente poetica del paisaje
entendido como configuracion armoniosa de tierras y
mares y su sabio planteaniento de la Modernidad
insertada en la misma.

Espero que estes bien.
Un beso.
R