Product Description

Arquitectura Viva 229 Christ & Gantenbein

CHRIST & GANTENBEIN. DOSSIER AFRICA: TOSHIKO MORI, LOCAL STUDIO, ARCHITECTOPIA, ALBERT FAUS// EUSEBIO LEAL, JUAN SERRANO, FEDERICO CORREA, ENZO MARI IN MEMORIAM

Arquitectura Viva 229 Christ & Gantenbein

Architecture has a difficult relationship with color. If heroic modernity embraced a clinical, hygienic white, subsequent revisions extended the palette to the natural tones of raw material, but without giving up on the ascetic ideal of chromatic relinquishment. This strict professional discipline – despite episodes like neoplasticism or the interiors of the Jaoul, which compete with those of Kaurismäki or Almodóvar – has not always been well understood by users, who often find colorless construction dull, and have expressed their preferences by tuning their houses, paint pot in hand. A famous case was the immaculate housing block by Siza in Berlin, welcomed by neighbors with a graffiti, Bonjour tristesse, which ended up naming the project, and with bags of paint cast on the facade to leave shiny splashes of color; a different reception from that obtained by the striking polychromy of the Hundertwasser apartments in the same Kreutzberg district.
But color is not always popular among users, and a good example is the residential block raised in Madrid by Ricardo Legorreta, where one of the main complaints were the bright tones that the Mexican architect had learned from Luis Barragán. On other occasions the public appreciates chromatic freedom, in the technological works of Sauerbruch Hutton,
in the basic constructions of Anna Heringer, or in projects like the MUSAC in León, where the stained glass windows of the cathedral gave Mansilla and Tuñón the cue to create what is today a favorite spot for wedding photos. Used as an affordable remedy to alleviate the monotony of Kilamba – the city built by China outside Luanda –, to revitalize the urban context of Tirana, or to bring optimism to the favelas in Rio, color can also be polemic when applied on sidewalks to set new civic rules in Barcelona, or to convey empathy by painting the concrete surface of a building by Fisac in Getafe.
Trained in chromatic austerity, we architects feel inevitably closer to the Henry Ford who offered “any color car as long as it is black” or to the Jean Nouvel who defends “theoretical gray.” But around us unfurls an explosion of color that illuminates with a rainbow the steel supports of Terminal 4 at Barajas Airport or gives a kindergarten air to the European Council conference room. Puzzled as once were the lovers of classical architecture when Hittorf unveiled the violent polychromy of the Greek, we go over the writings on color theory from Goethe to Owen Jones, the classes of Itten and Albers at the Bauhaus or the projects of Bruno Taut, and promise to heal from our chromatic anorexia. We know well that color is not guilty, and yet we feel relieved when we see the painter Pérez Villalta abandon flashy colors and go for the sandy hues of Piero’s frescoes. Guilt is not in the color, but in the eye.

Christ & Gantenbein
Expresionismo racional
Dossier: África

Actualidad / News

Luis Fernández-Galiano
Colores culpables Color and Crime
Focho: Partida americana US Election
Destellos de Holanda OMA, MVRDV
Aparejos orientales Zhu-Pei, Roarc Renew, Lotus
Casas: G. Hevia / C. Poblete House by the Ranco Lake
Interiores: GPY Arquitectos Casa de los Volcanes
Exteriores: Edoardo Tresoldi ‘Opera’
Contributions: Tiempos interesantes Le Corbusier, 1937

Christ & Gantenbein

Ampliación del Museo Nacional de Zúrich
Swiss National Museum Extension

Centro LIST
LIST Customer Center

Casa del Chocolate Lindt
Lindt Home of Chocolate

Arte y cultura / Art and Culture

Luis Fernández-Galiano
Las grandes esperanzas Architectural Chronicles, 1976-1992

Mauricio Vicent
Piedras y personas Eusebio Leal, 1942-2020

Julia Ramírez-Blanco
Arte para la vida Juan Serrano, 1929-2020

Llàtzer Moix
Razón con raíces Federico Correa, 1924-2020

Juli Capella
Conciencia estética Enzo Mari, 1932-2020

Libros / Books

Intimidad epistolar Louis Kahn in Love
Arte cívico The Beauty of Good Urbanism
La virtud en el medio On Raul Mehrotra’s Work
Profundidad de campo Toshiko Mori’s Gaze

África / Africa

Toshiko Mori
Escuela y residencia para profesores en Fass
Fass School and Teachers’ Residences

Local Studio
Albergue para jóvenes Limpopo en Bela-Bela
Limpopo Youth Hostel in Bela-Bela

Architectopia
Guardería Eco Moyo en Dzunguni
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Albert Faus
Escuela de secundaria en Youlou
Youlou Secondary School

Michael J. Sandel
La desigualdad ante el virus
America at a Crossroads: a Moral Renewal