SelgasCano’s Surreal Auditorium in Western Spain | 2017-08-02 | Architectural Record

The Spanish firm pays respect to nature by jolting it with the surreal.The plastic congress center is alien to both its natural setting and to the scruffy city outskirts behind it, a condition underscored at night, when the skin becomes a glowing lantern. Inside, this sense of estrangement is all-encompassing. The ETFE, luminous in daylight, transforms the perimeter circulation areas and upper stories—with their planes of soft yellow and pale aquamarine floors and ceilings—into numinous, otherworldly spaces. Into this ethereal realm, the slash-cut of the entry portal pops with its vivid oranges, yellows, and pinks, while the auditorium’s red seating, floor, and the lower portions of its walls make this space “the warm heart” of the building, according to Cano.

Source: SelgasCano’s Surreal Auditorium in Western Spain | 2017-08-02 | Architectural Record

Vijversburg Visitor Center by Junya Ishigami & Associates and Studio Maks | 2017-08-01 | Architectural Record

What happens when nature, science, and architecture come together? If done well, a work of art is created. A recent example of this sits hidden in the grounds of Park Groot Vijversburg in Tytsjerk, a small town in the Dutch province of Friesland, 93 miles northeast of Amsterdam. It is a slender glass pavilion designed by Studio Maks and Junya Ishigami & Associates as an extension to the park’s 19thcentury villa. The Rotterdam- and Tokyo-based architects, respectively, were not looking to create a structure with a distinct shape but a building that would “melt into the environment,” as Ishigami puts it. Indeed, by not only blending nature and architecture, but using the latter to emphasize the first, they achieved something much more meaningful than an eye-catching form.

Source: Vijversburg Visitor Center by Junya Ishigami & Associates and Studio Maks | 2017-08-01 | Architectural Record

Out now: Portman’s America: & Other Speculations, edited by Mohsen Mostafavi

Portman’s America
& Other Speculations

Edited by Mohsen Mostafavi

Legendary architect, artist, and developer John Portman, Jr., is recognized for radically reshaping the relationship of architecture to city and citizen. He pioneered the role of architect as developer, and redefined the design and function of the American hotel with his trademark soaring atrium.

Source: Out now: Portman’s America: & Other Speculations, edited by Mohsen Mostafavi

In Portman’s America, new photographs from Iwan Baan document the architect’s work in bare, candid fashion. Writes The Architect’s Newspaper, the book’s images “reveal a humanism” to Portman’s designs, as “amid the drama, Baan’s work captures the everyday.” Embedded within are essays that offer close readings of landmark Portman projects, with contributions from architects, theorists and historians, including Jennifer Bonner, Preston Scott Cohen, K. Michael Hays, and Alexander S. Porter.