Product Description

Arquitectura Viva 177 ART FACTORIES
Prada, Whitney, Pérez, Long
Dossier: Mobile Roofs

New Museums. In comparison to the correct and dry minimalism of white and aseptically lit galleries, the new set of museum buildings explore industrial spaces: atmospheres of more character made out of old factory plants or new constructions inspired in the large scale and the finishes of industrial sheds. The four cases featured in the new issue of Arquitectura Viva are commented on by renowned international critics. Fulvio Irace looks at the Fondazione Prada’s new center in Milan, a work of Rem Koolhaas; Kenneth Frampton at the new Whitney in New York, by Renzo Piano; Michael Webb at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, by Herzog & de Meuron, and finally Li Xiangning at the Long Museum in Shanghai, by Atelier Deshaus.

The Art/Culture section presents the careers of two masters of peripheral and alternative modernity who were born in 1930 and have left us this year: the Indian Charles Correa, who fused the language of the Modern Movement with the typological and construction traditions of his country, and the Mexican Carlos Mijares, who made brick and traditional vaults the main features of his architecture.

Finally, the magazine’s technical dossier turns at mobile roofs, with an article presenting its historical evolution and its contemporary applications illustrated by three examples: the Shakespeare Theater by Renato Rizzo in Gdansk (Poland), the cover of which opens by means of two huge sluices; the revamping of a swimming pool in Lingolsheim (France) by Urban Kultur, with its movable spherical caps; and the Starlight Theater in Rockford (USA) by Studio Gang, which draws inspiration from the technology of the lids of large American stadiums.

Nuevos museos. Frente al minimalismo correcto y seco de las salas blancas y asépticamente iluminadas, los nuevos museos exploran los espacios fabriles: atmósferas con carácter que surgen de intervenir sobre viejas factorías o que producen los edificios de nueva planta inspirados en la gran escala y los acabados de los galpones industriales. Es el caso de los cuatro museos presentados en el nuevo número de Arquitectura Viva, que comentan críticos internacionales de renombre: Fulvio Irace presenta la sede de la Fundación Prada en Milán, de Rem Koolhaas; Kenneth Frampton, el nuevo Museo Whitney en Nueva York, de Renzo Piano; Michael Webb analiza el Museo Pérez de Miami, de Herzog & de Meuron; y, finalmente, Li Xiangning hace lo propio con el Museo Long en Shanghái, de Atelier Deshaus.

La sección de Arte/Cultura presenta la trayectoria de dos maestros de la modernidad periférica y alternativa, nacidos en 1930 y fallecidos este año: el indio Charles Correa, que acrisoló el lenguaje del Movimiento Moderno en las tradiciones tipológicas y constructivas de su país; y el mexicano Carlos Mijares, que hizo del ladrillo y de las bóvedas tradicionales el argumento principal de su arquitectura.

Además, el dossier técnico de la revista se dedica a los cubiertas móviles, cuya evolución histórica se presenta a través de un artículo, y cuyas aplicaciones contemporáneas ilustran tres ejemplos: el Teatro Shakesperiano de Renato Rizzi en Gdansk (Polonia), cuya cubierta se abre mediante dos inmensas compuertas; la rehabilitación de una piscina en Lingolsheim (Francia), de Urbane Kultur, con sus casquetes movibles; y el Teatro Starlight en Rockford (EE UU), de Studio Gang, inspirado en la tecnología de las cubiertas de los grandes estadios norteamericanos.

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ART FACTORIES
Prada, Whitney, Pérez, Long
Dossier: Mobile Roofs

Contemporary art has moved from the white cube to the factory. The abstract purity of the halls deemed most appropriate to display the art of our time has been replaced with the sturdy materiality and the industrial atmosphere of the latest generation of museums. As much the colossal scale of sculptures and installations as the production methods or the everyday materials of many of the pieces exhibited demanded environments of this kind, and in fact a large number of art institutions have chosen to move into obsolete factories. But even new art buildings evoke, with the dry emphasis or the severe firmness of their construction, functional rather than symbolic spaces, where one imagines the roar of machines rather than the rumor of steps. Just as the stately halls of ancient art were abandoned in the past, today the hermetic prisms of the avant-gardes are being left behind.

Far from being understood as chests that custody and display precious objects, the institutions of the latest art are conceived as gathering places, active agents of social change, and spaces for the production of messages, meanings, and narrations, where the arts system is legitimized by becoming part of the collective realm. Factories of ideas and performance stages, the museums and foundations of recent art hope to become tools of local identity and nodes of a global network that shares experiences and activities, trying to reconcile the political vocation of many of its actors with the inevitable constraints of the art market. Often promoted by tycoons or patrons that wish to perpetuate their name or display their generosity, these precincts of the arts perform a public service that is never easy to articulate without abrasive friction with their private origin.

Factories indeed, but always hesitant between artifact and artifice, the institutions of contemporary art combine their productive condition with their scenographic nature, and very many of them have managed to go beyond the narrow boundaries of the conventional Kunsthal to become social containers, as perhaps befits the artistic expression of our time. Located in four world cities of heterogeneous cultural life – New York, Miami, Milan, Shanghai – and associated with very different collectors, from the mythical Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney or the controversial Jorge M. Pérez to couples like Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli or Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei, the four buildings included here have in common the interpretative genius of their architects, all of which have known how to put the different sites and programs at the service of people and the arts.

News
Greece: Mimesis and Catharsis
The Discreet Guggenheim
Japan Rejects Hadid
Photography and Architecture
Derrida’s Last Text

Fulvio Irace
Distilled Culture
Fondazione Prada, Milan
Rem Koolhaas / OMA

Kenneth Frampton
Social Condenser
Whitney Museum, New York
Renzo Piano / RPBW

Michael Webb
Hispanic Civics
Pérez Art Museum, Miami
Herzog & de Meuron

Li Xiangning
Industrial Vaults
Long Museum, Shanghai
Atelier Deshaus

Art / Culture

Rahul Mehrotra
Visions of India
Charles Correa, 1930-2015

Fernanda Canales
Interwoven Architecture
Carlos Mijares, 1930-2015

Books
Elements of Venice
The Unequal City
More Humane Urbs
Interpreter and Soloist
In Praise of Detail

Technique / Construction

Ausías González
From Light to Expressive
Three Cases

Renato Rizzi
Shakespeare Theater, Gdansk
Urbane Kultur
Swimming Pool, Lingolsheim
Studio Gang
Starlight Theater, Rockford

Products

Jeremy Rifkin
Domestic Factories