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The United Colors of Tadao Ando

We're pretty sure we can state this is a happy ending mission, with a grown kid who skipped school but still made it in the big time. His name Tadao Ando, and between 1973 and 2007, he realized more than 130 completed projects, based on simple rectangular systems cut through by curved or angled walls. He’s known as the master of concrete which he loves to use to make otherworldly shapes.

Jul 22, 2008

Photos: 45

From Disco to Disco - Beppe Riboli, Disco Designer

Beppe Riboli's discos and clubs are award-winning, lighting-savvy weekend temples, servicing the Italian audiences looking for a nighttime escape from their boring workplaces. Riboli is passionate about shape and color, but he's not a fan of the uncontrolled drinking and drug abuse taking place in night leisure spaces.

Jul 22, 2008

Photos: 24

Fortress of Solitude – Galfetti and Castelgrande

Well, Bellinzona has its own stronghold, in the rocky heart of the city, surrounded by the river Ticino, but it's not a bank. In 1981 the architect Aurelio Galfetti started the work of repairing and remodeling the fortress. But it was more than a simple restoration, it was a monumental project of transformation, redevelopment and regeneration of the whole hill, converted for the occasion to a huge urban park called the “Collina del Sasso.” Though it’s been named a UNESCO World Hertitage Site, some critics have called the project a “severe, unsentimental” renovation, as it fit Galfetti’s ideas about the radical modernization of Italy.

Jul 21, 2008

Photos: 34

Polygon Crash

Be it a street artist playing with billboard ads and walls or young architects renewing the “Platte” - the big, old, bad blocks from the German Democratic Republic times – nothing goes forgotten in Berlin. What once was historical reliquia or plain rubble, becomes – cultural or real estate - gold. There's plenty of good examples of this, from the Heikonaut collective, based in a former kindergarten and taking care of unused buildings to put them back into business, to the Urban Affairs street art exhibition, taking place in a former brewery. (c) 2008 Andrea Chisesi - Panorama/First per checkinarchitecture.com

Jul 21, 2008

Photos: 46

A Le Corbusier Mine

A former mining town, Firminy was known for its poor standards and bad living conditions before mayor Claudius-Petit stepped in and, being a supporter of Le Corbusier's theories on housing, called the architect to create a bunch of brand new buildings in town. Today it looks like Firminy stands more as a Corbusier shrine than as a demonstration of the effectivity of his ideas.

Jul 19, 2008

Photos: 17

The Gospel According to Pasolini - Pasolini in the Friuli

P.P.P. Three identical initials, became over the years, more than an acronym, they became an unmistakable abbreviation for one of Italy's most controversial luminaries. Pier Paolo Pasolini's name is linked to Rome and its suburbs ("borgate") and his use of amateur actors, his open homosexuality and his political declarations, his polymath capabilities and of course his famous films, all of it divisive and often misunderstood. His very first collection of poetry, Poesie a Casarsa, released in 1942, rather than the queer communist anticonsumerist poetry of his films, instead reflecting the rural landscape and agricultural lives (and language) of his mother's native village, called Casarsa.

Jul 17, 2008

Photos: 32

Parsley and Duchamp - Class Tourism near Lake Garda

Think about Disneyland, make it smaller and replace Mickey Mouse, Goofy & Co. with an ugly puppy, meant to be a dragon. Give him the worst name that comes to your mind (in this case, someone decided to call him Prezzemolo, "Parsley"), and you'll know what Gardaland is. With its area of 540.000 square meters, this amusement park is visited by 3.2 million hit-and-run tourists every year, welcomed by a giant Prezzemolo statue overbearing the Peschiera del Garda railway station. Maybe in the area of Lake of Garda blows a strange wind, as confirmed by the MART, which collects almost 10,000 artworks from the historical avant-gardes. Both were built as tourist attractions, but for different classes of tourist. What are the different statements for the region do these two different landmarks make? Who are they built to attract? What kind of tourist spening what kind of money? Are they more alike than meets the eye?

Jul 14, 2008

Photos: 33

Life is a Maze - Lost in the Valsanzibio Gardens

Metaphors of life are countless, every immortal writer or teenage idol has conceived his/her share of them, but to find a place that embodies both the spiritual struggle of a man towards the Truth and a Dantesque-Lewis Carroll-ish aesthetic is pretty rare. The Valsanzibio garden was built around the noble Barbarigo family's villa and was later passed to other blue-blooded owners. The garden features lots of symbolical statues marking an ideal path from the imperfection of human nature to revelation, a complex fountain system and a maze. To get lost in the labyrinth or breathe all the oxygen pumped by the rich botanic varieties of the garden might be worth the ticket price, but redemption doesn't seem to be in sight. Perhaps one must first get lost in this garden of forking paths.

Jul 12, 2008

Photos: 33

Miami Indie Rock Festival

The indie imaginary is about listening to unknown bands, holding hands, and wearing lots of pins on tight t-shirts. To do this in a romantic natural environment is to master the whole thing and making it worth a festival people from Milan, Lombardy and beyond will race to. The Circolo Magnolia, sitting in the roundabouts of the former seaplane landing site of Idroscalo, is a growing venue in the Milan area scene. As a cultural association there're probably not too many people subscribing to it, but the concerts its unusually de-centered location hosts are definitely attracting a big, surprisingly diverse crowd.

Jul 11, 2008

Photos: 34

Camp Rastafari – Rototom Sunsplash Festival

Pulled together under the banner of an international reggae festival, the Rototom Sunsplash Festival acts as a gathering of European rasta and sympathizers whose disdain for organization and all other things “Babylon” is well noted in countless songs. So the gathering functions very loosely with campsites and kitchens, stands and booths for handicrafts and rasta-friendly political issues (though officially the rasta themselves have no interest in politics besides the decriminalization of their ceremonial ganja). The place is a park, but the people transform it to create a zone that fully represents and serves the needs of its subcultural inhabitants.

Jul 9, 2008

Photos: 36

Art Tourism – Faenza Contemporary Art Festival

Focusing on cultural events to draw international attention has proved more effective than putting up ephemeral festivals for any regional variety of sausage. If art can put Faenza on the – cultural – map, we'll have to wait and see. What is sure is the many talks and conferences of the festival seem to hit many of the pivotal issues in art right now, hopefully enough to draw an acknowledged audience (with perhaps a few tourist dollars) into town.

Jul 9, 2008

Photos: 12

The Iron Curtain - Soviet Borders in a Post-Soviet World

It's weird how things change. Bitter enemies since a long time, Germany and USA have something in common. In 2000, influenced by a project born in Boston, the Freedom Trail, Michael Cramer, a German politician, carried on a Gorbaciov's idea, first suggested in the early 90s, about a development of the Iron Curtain. Named after a Winston Churchill's speech, it has been a real border, a supervised stripe surrounded by small villages (excepted for Bratislava, the only capital close to the Curtain) or lost in the middle of nowhere. (c) Gente Viaggi

Jul 8, 2008

Photos: 21

The Day After Yesterday - After an Earthquake in Italy

Deep under the ground of Italy, hide many stories. A ground that, at times, can prove pretty shaky. At 7:34 pm on the Sunday of November 23, 1980, a 6.9 earthquake shook the Irpinian region. At 7:35 almost 3000 people had died, thousands more were wounded and many more left homeless. To live in a temporary emergency trailer is hardly ideal, but the people of Irpinia had to be satisfied with little. And since the rebuilding processes in the region have been slow, some people still do.

Jul 6, 2008

Photos: 20

We don't want you to dance – Milan and indie music

Almost ten years ago, a rather glorious music scene gathered on the fringes of Milan. Never famous like Madchester, Punk London, Motown, or Grunge Seattle, Milan had a smaller scene, but really well-organized. Squats like <a href="http://www.sonorika.com/depositobulk">Deposito Bulk</a>, <a href="http://www.leoncavallo.org/">Leoncavallo</a>, Malamanera, CSOA Vittoria, hosted performances of international bands like Propagandhi, Old Time Relijun, and Against Me!, but also bands from the lively local hardcore scene with Milan-based acts playing every week they weren't on European tours.

Jul 5, 2008

Photos: 18

Rome on Fire – Nero as Independent Magazine

Art magazines are a particular entity in the sense that they have all the onus of critical distance but have to depend for advertising on the people they critique. How critical (or honest perhaps) can you get and still stay in business?

Jun 30, 2008

Photos: 17

Port of Call - Rome's Second City

Like Venice, Roma has got its own Lido, Lido di Ostia. Notorious for being the crime scene of Pier Paolo Pasolini's murder (as well as many of his films), Lido di Ostia was developed by the government on a beach near the ruins of ancient Ostia. Until the tourist town's establishment, the long unpopulated stretch of rather blackish sand had been regarded as very unhealthy. A month ago, Alemanno was elected as Rome's major, and one of his political aims is to convert Ostia into an independent town. The modern buildings and centralizing urban plan shows that Ostia has a strong desire for independence, a will to be seen as a real city, and not merely an attachment of Rome.

Jun 30, 2008

Photos: 25

Slam Trick

At Marina di Ravenna and skaters gather at the Bukowski tavern instead of the Zephyr Shop. You don't smell the legend of Dogtown, but you can sip on some Sangiovese and maybe get yourself a piadina. The Oasi Skate Park, inside of the Bukowski, is a staple for skaters in the area and beyond, yearly hosting the Slam Trick festival.

Jun 29, 2008

Photos: 20

Income with the wind

Italy is not really the place for aeolic energy, and it gets even harder when the authorities try and sneak energy-providing installments over some hills, pissing off the people who live there. This happened in Faeto, but the people of the nearby Alberona got a much sweeter deal. Money for families, no train ticket fee to go to school and work, no energy bill. Everybody seems to be ok with it, but a few doubts still remain.

Jun 28, 2008

Photos: 12

Jump start - Skijumping in Pragelato

The Pragelato Skijumping center was built for the Olympics and it cost a shitload of money. It features the longest trampoline ever used in the olympic history, and some collateral facilities to house athletes and so on. Without mentioning the environmental effects on the nearby forests, the structure is not proving as much of a good deal right now, and the town's officials already need the region's help to afford maintenance costs.

Jun 27, 2008

Photos: 10

Bouldering - Rockclimbing for Alpine Mathemathicians

There's something about the deft and graceful maneuvers of bouldering that looks something like gymnastics for alpine mathematicians. On its face bouldering, rockclimbing without ropes usually along short routes through different hand and foot holds lacks the epic grandeur of mountain climbing, but the strange difficulties of bouldering and the required strength and speed become especially pointed after watching incredibly strong climber fail to get a hand hold on a boulder over and over again. Though still a bit outsider, the sport has the potential to add a new and interesting wrinkle to alpine tourism, especially for Val Masino.

Jun 27, 2008

Photos: 17

"What's Going On?" - Mapping Zero Due Magazine

Peeking from the back pockets of models along Via Montenapolone and from the lunch boxes of high school student riding the Metro and the briefcases of lawyers running down Porta Vittoria for a morning case at Il Tribunale, always an ad or mock-ad winking from it's cover, ubiquitous, indispensable, free, Zero magazine has become the handbook for just about anyone hoping to see Milan outside the men's room at Malpensa. And though it seems to be everywhere, Zero knows its audience. Its distribution is selective, like its contents, and the spots where it's piled up are strategic social hubs, where ever hipsters and culture vultures can be found.

Jun 27, 2008

Photos: 9

A Tale of Two Cities - Giancarlo De Carlo in Urbino

It's rare for an ancient village to develop a new personality, especially after UNESCO has slapped the label "World Heritage Site" on it, which for beter or worse, limits changes. Nevertheless, the city of Urbino had architect Giancarlo De Carlo design most of its city center's new face since the late 50s. Besides being Michaelangelo's hometown, the town features a lot of renaissance architecture and a castle, so it was a delicate - and at times debated - task to remodel.

Jun 27, 2008

Photos: 22

Gods of Metal

For more than a decade now, the Gods of Metal festival, taking place between Milan and Bologna, has nvited glorious - and often aging - bands on Italian ground, to delight Italian and international audiences. This year the Arena Parco Nord will turn into a vast metalhead camping for a three day headbanging marathon. Iron Maiden, Slayer or Judas Priest may not be gods, nor likely to appreciate godly virtues, but they're gonna rock their fans out of their studded boots and dirty trainers.

Jun 27, 2008

Photos: 15

The Rabbit

Monuments are meant to be permanent, but this one, has an installation time of twenty years in which the 60 meter long rabbit like the forgotten toy of a giant baby will rot. And Gelatin members say the bunny is not just for walking around - they are expecting hikers to climb its 6 meter sides and relax on its belly.

Jun 26, 2008

Photos: 16

Green is the new Black

The topic for this year inaugural London Festival of Architecture (an outgrowth of the London Architectural Biennialle, but Biennale’s are out of fashion), is “Fresh,” and at this massively shapeless affair, a gaggle of Italian architects and designers join up to chitchat about last season’s most fashionable topic, sustainability.

Jun 25, 2008

Photos: 20

Re-Movida - Reliving the Post-Franco Movida

As soon as the long time dictator Francisco Franco kicked the bucket, the rest of the country woke up and never went to sleep again. The so called Movida was not just a relieving party habit, but a social movement that shook Spain not only in its punk clubs and dance floors, but down to its very core. Although people would rather call it re-movida these days, the Madrid night life still embodies the sexual liberty depicted in Almodovar's movies and young street traditions like the botellon.

Jun 24, 2008

Photos: 12

Once in a Blue Moon - Development in the Veneto

Nothing changes in Venice. But every once in a great while on the edges of this living museum, some developer manages to sneak in a new project. In Venezia Lido, the thin 12 km island that separates the sea from the lagoon, you can walk down Santa Maria Elisabetta Street, which ends with Giancarlo De Carlo's huge Blue Moon development. Jesolo is now passing through a new phase of construction with the building of the Richard Meier designed apartment complex and the Jesolo Lido Village. With the new projects in Jesolo, city officials and developers are hoping to make the tarnished tourist destination competitive to its more successful neighbor Venezia Lido.

Jun 24, 2008

Photos: 29

Factory City - Olivetti Culture

The Olivetti company had become an institution for the city of Ivrea. A century ago, the company built entire quarters to house its workers and school their children, who even had free orthodontic assistance. The so-called “Olivetti culture” became an example of enlightened industrialism in Italy. Unluckily, the romantic Olivetti image has changed.

Jun 24, 2008

Photos: 18

Top Down - Manufacturing Culture in Hafencity

The city of Hamburg in its long history has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times it's not really worth counting. World War II took out most of the harbor, but it was rebuilt during the post-war boom. Now the harbor is being rebuilt again in the largest European urban construction project (or so the city claims) in the XXI century called Hafencity in the center of Hamburg.

Jun 24, 2008

Photos: 30

Portrait of the Pilgrims - Santiago de Compostela

Who knows how many pilgrims have followed the pilgrim's trail? For a thousand year's, the devote and perhaps the less than devout have been following some stretch of El Camino de Santiago through Spain. A surfeit of research exists but they always seem to concentrate on the individual's spiritual transcendance, and rather than wear this well-treaded path once again, we're less interested in the path than in the voyagers. Who are the travelers, where did they come from, why are they there? Is it everything they'd hoped it would be?

Jun 24, 2008

Photos: 31

The White City - Mussolini and De Chirico in the EUR

In his metaphysical paintings, Giorgio De Chirico foresaw the geometric, grand yet classical aura that fascist rationalism would later embody, and painted it on canvases. Later, this subtle layer of introspective stupor would show in Michelangelo Antonioni's films. If EUR's Colosseo Quadrato seems to be popped out of a De Chirico painting, that's not the only example of fascist rationalism winking at metaphysics. Whole towns in the Agro Pontino area were built that way.

Jun 23, 2008

Photos: 18

Chinese Immigrants in Italy

They say this will be the Chinese century, and all those immigrants packed in the basement probably wish that will raise their wage enough to move out of it. The city of Prato hosts the biggest Chinese community in Italy, most of which lives along Via Pistoiese. Unluckily, some of the economic changes that followed the heavy immigration led to tensions in the local textile industry. Many of the big clothing brands would rather buy a cheaper textile Chinese craftwork – sometimes even made in China – and slap a Made in Italy label on it, rather than pay a decent wage.

Jun 20, 2008

Photos: 29

Surf’s Up, Upriver – River Surfing in Munich

Long blonde hair cascading over dark brown skin, the sun setting in the distance as the surfer leans down on his board to barrel into a crystal blue tube of crashing ocean water, hugging a long stretch of sandy beach. The visual aesthetic and imaginary of surfing locates the capital of the beach sport somewhere along a picturesque coastline in Southern California. And then, there’s Munich. At two spots along rivers flowing through the center of Munich, surfers are congregating, winter and summer, from dawn to dusk, and riding the riverwaves at Eisbach and Floßlände.

Jun 20, 2008

Photos: 33

Space is the Place – Sculpture and Interior Space

The Moore Foundations’s exhibition “Prospects and Interior” explores sculptor’s drawings about architecture and interior space. None of them are quite as exciting as Gregor Schneider’s Dead House UR, maybe they create interesting intersections between art and architecture. Where’s the line between the imaginary solutions of art and the commercial aesthetic object of design?

Jun 19, 2008

Photos: 25

Visiting UPAS Studios

Arguably the first and most successful Italian soap opera, “Un posto al Sole” came out in 1996, altering the landscape of Italian television production. With an Australian chief writer, Wayne Doyle, the serialized drama takes much of its form and structure from international precedents. However, its biggest appeal to the public is the way it still is rigorously and unapologetically Italian in its content.

Jun 19, 2008

Photos: 24

Post-Graffiti by Blu

A recent animation surfaced on the internet racking up a couple million views in the short month it's been up. Titled MUTO and signed by the Italian street artist Blu, the animation follows a series of evershifting tags as they move across the city. With one of his huge pieces still drying on façade of the Tate Modern, some of Blu's sketches and videos will be exhibited in the street-art conscious Patricia Armocida gallery and three yet-to-be-specified locations will be painted with his characteristic illustrations. Blu circles closer and closer to the art world, but taking street art off the streets can be like taking a fish out of the water; it dies.

Jun 18, 2008

Photos: 16

A Bridge Over Troubled Waters – Stari Most in Mostar

The bridge defined Mostar, which before interference had been the most integrated city in the region. Its obliteration seemed to augur the city's death. But after years of painstaking work and at a cost of € 12 million, the Old Bridge stands again, a replica built of the same creamy local limestone, a graceful span arching 90ft (27 meters) across the ravine and suspended 60ft (18 meters) above the river’s banks.

Jun 18, 2008

Photos: 14

The Life Aquatic - Genovese Harbor Style

Genoa embodies the life aquatic. Famous for being one of the most important centers of trade in the Mediterranean area, the city of Genoa would not be Genoa without its seaport. Here Christopher Columbus first learned how to paddle, and generations of Renaissance marketeers have grown exceedingly wealthy from international trade. Even nowadays, after the decay of the sea trade and the rise of the post-industrial economy, the city seems not to forget about its past, and still live by the sea.

Jun 16, 2008

Photos: 16

I Belong to Glasgow – Mackintosh and the School of Arts

To all of you thinking Scotland is all about freezing your balls wearing a kilt and playing pipes: you guys are dead wrong. The Glasgow school heavily influenced art nouveau and shifted the direction of European design. The most renowned member, Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed the Glasgow School of Arts, which is now one of the most exclusive design schools in the world. With this big tradition strongly linked to the town, the students of the Glasgow School or Arts might feel inspired by Mackintosh and his historical relevance. Or maybe not.

Jun 15, 2008

Photos: 33

Ba-da Boom, Ba-Da Bing - Bottoni's Strip Club

After the war, modernist architect and Italian Rationalist Piero Bottoni designed a multifunctional building in Milan’s major commercial district, Corso Buenos Aires. The original project had apartments, shops, a cinema, and private parking for the residents of the offices and flats. Finished in the 1950s, the building, now after more than half century, has become sexy, seedy, and downright decadent.

Jun 15, 2008

Photos: 17

Italo Disco is dead! Long live Italo Disco!

There's nothing more faddish than dance music, from the mash potato to electroclash, like lipstick on a young girl's lips, it hardly last the evening. But as they come and go, they sometimes come again. Once upon a time, between new wave and dance music, there was a music genre called Italo Disco. While disco was dying a brutal death in the US and UK, European dance music soldiered on, with Italo Disco as one of their marching songs. Italo Disco is probably done for, but it doesn't look anyone at Ed Banger was let in on the news. Witness the clubbing potential of the Venetian seaside colliding with the French record label – before it disappears in the maze of past disco fads.

Jun 14, 2008

Photos: 25

Cologne Rock City

It's hard to think of a less probable site fot an indie music scene or an art center than Cologne, a grimy industrial metropolis straddling the Rhine with a population just a hair over a million, depending on who’s counting. The last cultural heyday was sometime in the Middle Ages, and since the 1700s its reputation has rested squarely on the scented water, the infamous eau de Cologne. While the art world flails for an identity from competition with London, Milan, and Berlin, the independent music scene in Cologne thrives. The city’s conferences, concerts, and clubs attract tourists from all over the world. Examining this model, one wonders whether it can be used as an example for development for the rest of Europe or is it only a localized manifestation that can't be exported.

Jun 13, 2008

Photos: 32

"Inglan is Sick" – Race Riots in Northern England

“Inglan is sick.” Linton Kwesi Johnson first said these words almost thirty years ago enumerating all of the injustices suffered by the Afro-Caribbean minorities living in many parts of England, much of which led to riots across the country. Though tensions in and around the Afro-Caribbean community still exist, the ethnic and immigrant map of the UK has changed and now includes people from all over the world. With the exacerbation of poverty, and for the BNP and its supporters, the multicultural policies of the Blair years, have brought the multi-ethnic neighborhoods of the North to a boil.

Jun 12, 2008

Photos: 28

Social Landscapes – University of Leeds “Timescapes”

In building a city, before there are bricks and mortar, before there are streets and sidewalks, doorknobs and sewer pipes, are people, the soft, fleshy center of the microverse we call the city. Understanding how and what people do, what their needs are, and how they evolve over time is fundamental to understanding what they hell cities and architecture are made of and more importantly who they are made for. Despite it’s rather hokey title, the Timescapes project initiated by the University of Leeds attempts to capture the quality of human relationships over time, using both hard and soft data to figure how people change.

Jun 10, 2008

Photos: 30

Future in the Campus (Università della Calabria, Rende)

With a strong presence of 'Ndrangheta, it's not a surprise that construction heresies are a sensitive issue on the calabrese ground. Making the calabreses more responsible about their own land has been taken as a didactic challenge. For example, the Università della Calabria hosts a territorial planning department, with an urbanistic design lab, while the campus itself is now a landmark and a huge urbanistic catalyst to the whole Cosenza province.

Jun 10, 2008

Photos: 31

Symphonic Spaceship - Rem Koolhaas' Casa da Musica

A building's effect on the urban environment and the lives of those who live near it can be very subtle and difficult to tease out. Porto's Rotunda da Boavista is an ample square inside the city's business center and the Rem Koolhaas-designed Casa da Musica is right across the street. Koolhaas wanted to make it as reflective of its context as he could, but as for integrating in the context this building looks like Elton John at a Nazi Rally making an effort by dressing in black.

Jun 9, 2008

Photos: 52

Calatrava's Cup - America's Cup and Architecture

Sailing might look like a boring-to-watch hobby for manly bearded rich guys, but apparently it can unite the masses. A million people gawked at the maniacally designed, engineered and sponsored vessels in the past edition of America's Cup in Valencia. The competition was apparently so satisfied with the Spanish city has been selected to host the next edition of the regatta in 2009.

Jun 8, 2008

Photos: 75

Parking Palermo - Italo Rota and La Kalsa

After the WWII bombings in Palermo, the city's plain view on the open water was replaced by a depressing wasteland where Luna Park attractions popped up, hiding the sea. Connecting the formerly arab quarter of La Kalsa to it was a rather tricky task, but architect Italo Rota seems to have pulled it off. He made the whole area ampler, covered in green and opening the city center to the seaside. He also added a playful touch, by putting thousands of ceramic statues.

Jun 8, 2008

Photos: 29

The Piadina Path

Crossing several cities of Emilia Romagna including Bologna, Reggio Emilia and Modena, Via Emilia tracks a tasty spectrum of the piadina, a typical regional dish locally referred to as “piada” or “piè”. It is a round piece of flatbread, with different thicknesses or ingredients depending on the cook, enclosing the most various toppings.

Jun 7, 2008

Photos: 20

Fair Play – Art Basel

During the span of Art Basel and Liste, art professionals and art lovers crowd the Basel streets: the former to put their hands on the hottest selling material and the latter to smell some of the VIP atmosphere. Not to miss the chance, the city is also trying to trickle down its cultural appeal to local institutions grouping them under the Art City Basel label along with the fairs. Whether they help the art or not, these kind of events do lend a hand to a city's reputation.

Jun 6, 2008

Photos: 14

Hippie Chic

The imaginary of Ibiza is totally saturated, the final parable of the hippie imaginary is being written by the wealthy. It's so totally bankrupt that one of our advisors asked us to do a mission on it.

Jun 6, 2008

Photos: 20

Stone Age – Sassi di Matera and Martella

Italy’s Shame. After years of endemic poverty and the problems of plumbing, one Italian prime minister made this pronouncement about the city of Matera, ''la vergogna nazionale,” Italy’s Shame. Carved from the living stone, the city’s caves have been inhabited by cavemen and troglodytes, Romans and Pagans, Catholics and Communists before being largely abandoned in the ‘50s, following the erection of new buildings on the outskirts in an attempt to wipe Italy’s shame off the map. Both Matera and its intended replacements, specifically the village of Martella, have changed dramatically over the years, especially recently. (c) 2008 Moira Ricci

Jun 5, 2008

Photos: 35

The Big Snake of Corviale

Corviale most commonly refers to one massive block of buildings. The locals have nicknamed this huge complex “Il Serpentone” or “the Big Snake.” Built in the early 70s after Le Corbusier's social-architectural theories, it was supposed to be a residential community providing every possible service to its tenants. But from its inception this utopian vision has been plagued with problems, and was never fully completed.

Jun 3, 2008

Photos: 55

Wedding Planner - Micamoca Berlin

In an attempt by art dealers to drum a up a local market to compete with London, Paris and Milan, Gallery Weekend Berlin limps forward into another edition with high hopes amidst a Berlin torn between it’s anti-market roots and the increasing dominance of commercial galleries, between general gentrification and preserving pockets of its Bohemian spirit. Straight out of Via Ventura in Milan, Mariano Pichler's Micamoca migrates to colonize another postindustrial area, filling it with contemporary art from Pichler’s own collection to try energize occupancy by artists and galleries in his recently purchased building.

Jun 2, 2008

Photos: 19

"I Heard that Lonesome Whistle Blowing" - John Cage's Train

We often remember a trip for its soundtrack. There is always that one particular song that we just can't help but playing inside our head, and that makes our backpack feel just a little lighter. But what happens if the soundtrack to a trip is the trip itself?

May 31, 2008

Photos: 9

Surfing Sardinia

From mine shafts to curling tubes, surf city Sardinia here we come. Intrepid surfers all over the world never stop searching for hidden beaches and tasty waves as yet unclaimed. round the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean, Italian surfers have found beaches and mapped waves all over the island. Abandoned mines with abandoned villages attached them overlook some of the surf spots. With the collapse of the ancient mining industry, which path offers the best opportunities for the community?

May 30, 2008

Photos: 11

Festarch

If architecture means being responsible for the quality of collective life and not just the mere process of building, the Festarch festival in Cagliari might be of some use to Sardinia. The region is the most independent and isolated in Italy, yet a touristic one, with a coastline raped by the politicians' abusive villas and pillaged by the summertime hordes.

May 30, 2008

Photos: 108

The Baths and the Valley

Both Zumthor's Therme Vals and the new Caminada’s interventions at Vrin share the same care for landscape and community integrity. Zumthor achieved a clean monolith effect balancing geometric shapes and natural materials in his Baths, while even phone booths or graves have a strong connection with local traditional architecture and nature in Vrin.

May 29, 2008

Photos: 31

The New National Opera

In Oslo, a new opera house just opened to the usual fanfare (with the excitingly original title of "the New Oslo Opera House". And the building seems to affect the landscape rather than attempt to transform it.

May 27, 2008

Photos: 40

Culture Factory – L’Usine

On the Right Bank of the Rhône, L’Usine Culture Centre has morphed from goldroughing factory, to squat, to underground culture factory. This alternative arts center hosts regular gigs and shelters an art-house cinema, club, bar and gallery. The line-up is eclectic, the atmosphere bohemian. Founded in 1989 by collective "Etat d'Urgences" (State of Emergencies), the site was subsequently “donated” to them by the city, though there’s some evidence that city might be trying to shut the august alternative venue down, though so far without success.

May 26, 2008

Photos: 23

Steam Masters – Climate Change and Economy in South Tyrol

The guys at the Cron4 wellness center like aufguss so much they even set up a contest gathering Aufgussmeisters from all over the region to show what masterful fanners they are. Maybe (naked) health tourism isn't much of a community thing, but in a way or another the contest is an effective way to draw outsiders' attention and get them to spend tourist dollars.

May 25, 2008

Photos: 29

The Prague Fringe

Prague: Not Just for Hookers Anymore. The Prague Fringe Festival is built on the model of Edinburgh’s most famous alternative festival, but rather than opening in the shadow of a better funded event, the Prague festival is not in the fringe of a bigger festival but perhaps merely on the fringe.

May 24, 2008

Photos: 24

Cloudy Dunes

May 22, 2008

Photos: 10

The Good Volcano - Renzo Piano's Vulcano Buono Mall

Renzo Piano designed the Vulcano Buono, especially its central plaza, to become a vital social space, with ample room for people to gather in and spend their spare time. The regional officials of Campania meant the complex to be one of several attempts to increase trade and employment in the Nola area. And the commercial investors want to make money. All three visions are vying to use the imaginary of the volcano to create a building that serves their interests in the region.

May 22, 2008

Photos: 18

Palast der Republik 2008

The bronze façade of the Palast der Republick erected in 1976 used to be a shining symbol of the GDR (aka socialist East Germany). Those who favored demolition want to rebuild the Berlinerschloss, the old castle that once housed the emperor of Germany and was bombed to smithereens in WWII and finally put out of its misery by the Communists.

May 21, 2008

Photos: 17

Underground Paris - With Gilles Thomas

There, 20 meters under the surface of the Paris, are German bunkers, bone piles from Montparnasse, punk crash pads, catacomb art, defunct phone cables, a scrabble game abandoned by gnomes, beer can lanterns, and inscriptions dating back to the French revolution, when they started to realize that the mining that was done under the city was making the city cave in.

May 20, 2008

Photos: 33

Post-it Barcelonas - CCCB, Las Rambla, and Raval

No neighborhood is more representative of Barcelona's melting pot culture than the Raval, where contemporary art institutions like the Macba co-exist with a casbah environment populated with moroccan and pakistani immigrants. There also is the CCCB, which is now pairing with the Rambla-based Santa Monica art center in exhibiting a really interesting project titled Post-it Cities, documenting temporary and spontaneous social, commercial and architectural realities all over the world.

May 19, 2008

Photos: 95

The Day After - Expo Hanover 2008?

Expos (or Expositions or World’s Fairs as the case may be) have a brief brilliant before sputtering out. Usually Expos silently drift into the past (either remembered fondly like Toronto 62) or happily forgotten (most of the rest of them), they’ve been used for various purposes over the past century and half of their existence.

May 19, 2008

Photos: 39

Cannes Film Festival - Cinema and the City

Since 1939, the city has grown and changed alongside its most famous festival, from infrastructure to attitude. In the end, the festival is so famous it’s surely difficult to say anything new about it, but one still can approach it in a new way.

May 17, 2008

Photos: 90

Multiversity Conference

It’s become a cliché that artists break in blighted neighborhoods for developers, either consciously or unconsciously the relationship of the two have become a part of policy. First let’s amend this cliché just a little and make “artists” the more academic but precise “cultural-cognitive workers,” which very loosely defined, includes architects, designers (graphic, industrial, etc.), writers, gallerists, filmmakers, fashionistas, and musicians, as well aspirants and groupies to all the above.

May 15, 2008

Photos: 19

Renzo Piano's Culture Factory - Parco della Musica

The ubiquitous, world famous (and increasingly tiresome) architect Renzo Piano, who designed the Parco della Musica, defined it in his usually poetical way as a “culture factory” and “music city”. Just like a city, the Parco della Musica auditorium in Rome features a square, a – musical – library, bars and restaurants. And just like a factory, its oversized dimensions and huge maintainance costs have affected the Olympic Village quarter it sits right next to.

May 14, 2008

Photos: 14

Wonka's incinerator by Friedensreich Hundertwasse

Viennese architect and eco-activist Friedensreich Hundertwasser succeeded in the task of turning an incinerator, nasty symbol of industrial pollution, into an eco-friendly, funky and kitschy Christmas tree that has also become an unlikely landmark and popular tourist attraction.

May 13, 2008

Photos: 33

Tourist Class

You might want to see, say, Venice. One of the seven wonders/tourist traps of the world. An average of 100,000 tourists per day queue in the Marco Polo airport or spray out of Santa Lucia's gates to crowd the Venetian streets, sidewalks and bridges, challenging their nerves to catch a glimpse of Piazza San Marco or to jump on a gondola. A tourist's mission is to enjoy his stay. Be it on a car, a train, a plane or a gondola. Document how tourists and the industry that exists to profit from them, change the viability of the city. (c) 2008 Alessandro Coco

May 12, 2008

Photos: 100

Alpini Reunion

Few things inspire patriotic enthusiasm – or a healthy hunger – as an Alpini meeting. As they sing their choruses, thinking back to the old days when they were zipped up in precarious mountain camps freezing their balls, the young repeatedly toast to the glory of the feathered heroes uniting a city under the Tricolore, and around a table.

May 11, 2008

Photos: 15

Dissonanze Festival

One can’t be positive whether Dissonanze is crossing borders or breaking them down entirely. Between the historical and the contemporary, the institutional and the underground, art and music, border bending abounds at this festival in ancient buildings rarely used for such dissonant purposes.

May 9, 2008

Photos: 8

Stormy Weather- Magnet at the ZKM

Magnet is a project that takes place in three different art venues at once – four, including the internet – trying to find a meeting point between art and science and a way to create a deeper and articulated perception of nature through visual expression. Rhythms and intensities in nature articulate themselves in a visual translation to be enjoyed and interpreted by human eyes, in real time.

May 8, 2008

Photos: 9

Free Poland!

Polish Express goes beyond the typical free press (read: Metro, London Express etc) and caters to a very specific audience in its coverage. The publisher organizes cultural, social, musical and sporting events for the Polish expatriates including immigrant job fairs and marches for Pope John Paul II (that’s Papiez Jan Paweł II to you).

May 7, 2008

Photos: 76

The Piano Teacher - Viennese Classicism and Sadomasochism

After its apex during the 19th century empire, Vienna went through a time of troubles, from the fragmentation of the empire to occupation by the Nazis. Something became a bit twisted in the process of evolution. Its worldly sophistication took on a darker tone, from the harmony of Viennese Classicism to the disharmony of Viennese Actionism, perhaps by way of one of Sigmund Freud. Explore the real spaces and people of Vienna using "The Piano Teacher" as your guide.

May 6, 2008

Photos: 229

Glacial Railway

Like a glacier drifting out of cyberspace, or a twenty-first century digital snowstorm, Zaha Hadid’s newly designed railway line and stations move with the shattered geometries and undulating forms of the Alps updated for our time. Her Supermodernist style attempts to create a new element of cultural tourism as climate change erodes the winter high season that keeps these slopes in business.

Apr 30, 2008

Photos: 29

The Space of History - Shahryar Nashat at Attitudes

Nashat explores the history of state violence, art, and sex in his artistic practice. Discipline and Punish meets Janson’s History of Art with a passport and a little gay sex thrown in.

Apr 26, 2008

Photos: 16

Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz

In Stuttgart, the birthplace of the internal combustion engine, the Mercedes-Benz Museum through multiple floors in an innovative design. The museum houses the collection and the history of the company.

Apr 26, 2008

Photos: 45

Urban Expansion Dubai Style - New Portier Quarter

The royal family headed by Prince Rainier III had the Fontvieille and Larvotto quarters built out of the sea in the 60s and 70s in Monaco. Now his heir Albert II is planning a giant floating island - to be named Portier – extending the coast line and adding new buildings on the sea.

Apr 20, 2008

Photos: 22

Making Isola a Green Island

The Isola quarter is commonly known to be a breeding site for the counter-culture. Every year the Green Island event involves arts and handicrafts workshops, design and architecture studios, proposals for urban installations and photography, all dealing with public spaces and green areas.

Apr 17, 2008

Photos: 46

Transumanza during the Salone del Mobile

Though the Salone del Mobile originated in 1960 and is now one of the most important fairs of its kind, the Zona Tortona only became a site for the Salone almost ten years ago. Nevertheless it has quickly achieved to be one of the main ones.

Apr 17, 2008

Photos: 15

Tinsley Towers Come Tumbling Down

After energy corporation E.ON slated them to be torn down, local writers and designers Tom James and Tom Keeley saw an opportunity to make these two industrial monuments into cultural landmarks. They envisioned the cooling towers could become a successful museum, but despite the duo's efforts, E.ON announced the towers needed to be demolished quickly. Mission by Silvia Cannarozzi, Cristina Crippa

Apr 16, 2008

Photos: 57

Mall Rats

At the point where the two river of Lyon come together, the quick moving Rhône and the slower Saône, the colors of the two rives collide before mixing. they converge just after a peninsula that has rather than being a tourist spot to admire the confluence, a factory quarter full of smoke belching factories. The city of Lyon's current plan to redevelop the quarter involves building a massive complex, with a mix of cultural institutions, shops, and housing called the Lyon Confluence. The mayor in the past has already, self-admittedly, sold the soul of Lyon to Dubai, is he now trying to replace the void with a massive mall?

Apr 11, 2008

Photos: 12

Squallyoaks

It used to be cliché that a city needed cheap rents and neighborhoods ripe for redevelopment to attract artists, but in London the young cultural producers have decided to forgo rent entirely to stay within the city: they take over any space available and sometimes the spaces become useful in crafting a legendary poetic, such was the case of the Ratty Rat Rats and their most famous squat the Toilet Factory. (c) 2008 Ale Zuek Simonetti

Apr 10, 2008

Photos: 34

Architecture against Racism

The recently built Stephen Lawrence Centre serves both as a memorial to a murdered black architecture student and as a functioning community center to improve opportunities for young black people in South London. But it has already been vandalized five times in what are believed to be racially motivated attacks. (c) 2008 Ale Zuek Simonetti

Apr 10, 2008

Photos: 24

Making art fly

La Caixa just built another art fortress in Madrid. Once again they chose a previously industrial environment, a former power plant called Central Eléctrica del Mediodia. Herzog & De Meuron took the delicate task of converting the building into a major cultural insititution. Located between the Reina Sofia and the Prado, the new CaixaForum has high-class neighbors to keep up with, but the architecture does help. (c) 2008 Filippo Romano

Apr 10, 2008

Photos: 45

"Arrusti e mangia"

Catania has two souls, two different ways to show its identity: hiding or uncovering itself. During the night, all the way along in Via Plebiscito, Catania's downtown, people gather around smoky grills. Groups of friends showing their new "hacked" motorcycle, families or couples, everybody likes to have a cheap portion of "polpetta" or horse meat and talk with the grill cook. (c) 2008 Alessandro Coco

Apr 10, 2008

Photos: 29

Small and Forgotten Spaces - Gruppo A12

The city is rife with folds. Little spaces, in plain sight, that exist as if they were hidden from view. Forgotten and unused, they languish, unloved, like houseplants left to die from neglect. Gruppo A12 , a collective that works at the edges of architecture, urbanism, and art, have taken to mapping these spaces in Milan, finding them, and taking them out of their abandonment. And after they’ve been identified, they (and also encourage others) to remake them through little acts and gestures, small events to "improve their wordless qualities."

Apr 9, 2008

Photos: 19

The Street and the Market

Context is one of the hottest cores in contemporary art today and there’s no better place than Wentworth to let reality shape art. The Street will be launched on March 30, at Toynbee Hall, with speakers ranging from artist Nedko Solakov, to writer Lars Bang Larsen. After the opening, Solakov set up a year-long lottery for people to participate. They need to buy something at the Petticoat Lane market, deposit it at the shop and wait. If they win, they get a piece by Solakov. (c) 2008 Ale Zuek Simonetti

Apr 8, 2008

Photos: 33

One day at Pigneto

Pier Paolo Pasolini's inspiration and a typical background for Italian neorealists, the former suburb of il Pigneto sits squatly on the borderline between its working class pasts and its creative future, an urban island of a particular appeal. The cinematic history of the district is picked up by local cultural nodes. Not only is the movie theater Nuovo Cinema Aquila is about to be finished renovating , but other new interesting and hybrid activities are regularly emerging. (c) 2008 Moira Ricci

Mar 27, 2008

Photos: 105

The Architecture of Nowhere/Everywhere

Italo Rota, an Italian architect who has been calling for “the end of minimalism” in design, has refurbished the Casino Kursaal’s interiors. In the city of Lugano, modern casinos have been considered as stern and plain meeting places. Therefore, Italo Rota’s concept could be considered as a starting point to reflect on design as a pervasive actor in any kind of consumption.

Mar 13, 2008

Photos: 17

One Day at the Stadium - St. Jakob and Herzog & De Meuron

Designed by world famous Swiss architecture duo (and hometown boys) Herzog and De Meuron, the solar-powered St. Jakob Park stadium hosts a number of architectural innovations including a unique shape and infrastructure, as well as HdeM’s signature effect, a vast outer skin for the building, with colors that can be altered for stunning effects.

Mar 9, 2008

Photos: 23

Architecture and Politics - Trouble in Novoli

The north-western Florentine suburb of Novoli is a little like those kids who grow up with a lot of problems,the kind who's parents were too busy bickering over shit instead of taking care of them. It started as a swamp, then an industrial area property of FIAT, and then it was supposed to be redeveloped, but with oh, so many trials and tribulations.

Mar 8, 2008

Photos: 7

The little “Las Vegas” of Brianza

In the 60s, Italian industrialist Mario Bagno bought the whole of Consonno to build a gambling amusement park: part-Disneyland, part-Vegas. With the next heavy rain season, landslides buried much of Bagno’s fantasy in mud. Fascinated by its decadent appeal, young people from Lecco and other surrounding cities used to hang out in Consonno and have psychedelic freak-outs and ecstatic dance parties, but because of recent vandalizing authorities put up fences and some areas are now off-limits.

Mar 8, 2008

Photos: 6

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