Yes they’ve done it again …

The Women’s Weekly have another Word Search with an Architectural Theme.

The words to find are: Balcony, Column, Corridor, Cupola, Design, Excavation, Facade, Flooring, Foundations, Fresco, Geodesic dome, Glazed, Mantelpiece, Mezzanine floor, Panel, Partition, Passage, Pillars, Roof, Shutter, Spiral staircase, Stud, Tiles, Transom, Truss, Vestibule.  Bonus points for: Butanol, E2 and Code compliant.

You are warmly invited to the opening of the next exhibition at Toi Poneke Gallery

Built Fabric

Mizuho Nishioka & Tane Moleta

Thursday 4 March, 5.30pm

Built Fabric is an exhibition of two different mediums - photography and architectural drawing. Both artists explore the idea that the constructed, or built, environments exist as representations of our value systems. Does the act of demolition and disposal ultimately indicate that our appreciation of the use of space constantly changes?

Built Fabric runs until 26 March 2010  

Open: Mon-Fri 9am - 7.30pm

Toi Poneke Gallery 

61 Abel Smith St 

Te Aro

Wellington 

Ph: 385 1929       

E: artscentre@wcc.govt.nz

On Sunday 7th March we’re having a Site Visit to visit a couple of special Bill Toomath houses, for the first 30 people to rsvp to arch@architecture.org.nz - we’ll be taking off from the City Gallery at 2.00pm and returning you about 4.00pm. There’s a small $5 cover charge, and afternoon tea will be provided.

This is part of the events to tie in with the Bill Toomath exhibition at the City Gallery in Wellington (well worth a visit - fantastic little exhibition in the newly revamped Michael Hirschfeld gallery). You can read more about it here, or here, and even here. We’ll see you there.
toomathtwohouses

If you’ve come here today from reading the Capital Times - then welcome! We’ve been around since 1946, and provide a voice on architecture, design, and urban issues in Wellington. The current issue of the Capital Times has picked up on our submission for Wellington 2040 - a Council run call for submissions on what the city might look like in another 30 years time.

While no one knows for sure, in about 30 years, there are bound to be a few changes. We’ve put together a scenario of what the city might be like then - and included some nice big images for the Council, hoping that they will be as excited by the future possibilities as we are. Read the rest of this entry »

In March this year the Architecture Centre Network is hosting a one day international symposium at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The symposium will discuss:

·        The role of the regional, city and local leaders in improving design quality
·        Spatial planning and improving public spaces in complex areas
·        Design excellence
·        Built environment education
·        Communicating architecture to a wider public
·        Innovative temporary interventions in the public realm
·        Community participation
·        Collaborative working

For further information visit their website.

No, no, don’t get upset with me, apparently it’s true.

You see, I’ve got one of those new-fangled iPhone things, and downloaded an application - Architecture - by two Dutch blokes Bas Berck and Vincent Verwell, at a software company called Makayama. Yes, I know, sounds Japanese, even if it is all just double dutch. But don’t rush off and get it. Not yet. Because it is the:
Worst.
App.
Ever.

Thing is, you turn it on to look for the nearest piece of modern architecture, and things look ominous. It asks if it can use your current location, and as the CIA aren’t after me yet, I say OK. It tells me that it can pinpoint me with accuracy to the nearest 500m, which is OK, as if they try to get me, they might get that old lady Mrs Clusterfutt up the road instead.

But then it says that the nearest city is “Sidney” and even there it appears there is only one building in the town - the Sydney Opera House. Spelling guys, spelling! I know it is engrish and all, but really, it is a major city. Surely you’ve heard of it before? Helpfully, it tells me that I am 2233 km away from there.

Then to add insult to injury, it tells me that the next nearest building of modern architectural worth after that is the Petronas Towers, and they’re a mere 8869.9 km away.

And so it goes.

So, you see, there really is no architecture in New Zealand.

What these guys need is a local NZ based partner…..

This Friday is the Centre for Building Research (VUW) symposium on 1980’s architecture. Robert Venturi is the designated Godfather of Po-Mo architecture because the publication of ‘Learning From Las Vegas’ (2nd ed. 1977). But I prefer his earlier  treatise, Complexity and Contradiction, where Venturi cites Paul Rudolf’s critique of Mies:
All problems can never be solved, indeed it is a characteristic of the twentieth century that architects are highly selective in determining which problems they want to solve. Mies, for instance, makes wonderful buildings only because he ignores many aspects of a building. If he solved more problems, his buildings would be far less potent.
- and from which emerges ‘less is a bore’. Post-Modernism Architecture had a fairly dreadful habit of making complex buildings that not only failed to address the complexities of the programme, but made new and even bigger problems.
But anyway, the quest is on to name the finest Po-Mo architecture in New Zealand, and though the temptation maybe to just aim for the tackiest pile of plastered polystyrene you can think of, I think Post-Modernism was the saving grace of architecture. And thus, speaking seriously (no matter how much Po-Mo likes to to ridicule seriousness!) I nominate Manning/Mitchell Architects School of Music Building in Auckland, New Zealand’s finest piece of Po-Mo.