*️⃣Keihan Uji Station

Architect #Wakabayashi #HiroyukiWakabayashi
City #Kyoto
Country #Japan #AP

🔤The station was originally opened on June 1, 1913. In 1995, it underwent a significant redesign by architect Hiroyuki Wakabayashi. His design introduced a circular, open-concept structure that emphasizes natural light and spatial fluidity. #retro #renovation

Uji Station redefines the role of a railway station as a point of connection between tradition and modernity. The structure consists of a series of #rawconcrete arches, with a circular plan centered around an open courtyard. Natural light is actively incorporated, and the shifting shadows throughout the day give rhythm to the space.

The station stands as a symbolic gateway to Uji, blending monumental form with poetic light, and remains one of Wakabayashi’s most celebrated works.

🔤
Function #transportation #metro
Address: Otsukata Uji, Kyoto 611-0021, Japan
Outside google street
Station google street
Google earth

©️
pics by #YingYin
text by paragonet at Instagram, wandrewing at threads, A+U: Architecture and Urbanism and Shinkenchiku

channel map

*️⃣ Poly Grand Theater Shanghai

Architect #TadaoAndo #Ando
City #Shanghai
Country #China #AP

🔤True to Ando's minimal style – demonstrated by projects like Church of the Light – the theatre features a concrete structure, but here it is encased behind a glass and aluminium curtain wall.

Otherwise expressed as a strict grid, the façades correspond to the architect’s clearly stated intentions. Ando says:

“What we proposed was a building that asserts its presence through the intensity of its #interior spaces rather than through overt symbolism in its external form.”

#quote@simoderna

Five large openings were carved through the building to create a series of public Spaces that are exposed to the outdoors but sheltered from the rain. The lining of the tunnel is #aluminium, but painted like wood to contrast with #rawconcrete.

🔤
Colour #grey
Function #entertainment #theatre
Address: 31.3532828, 121.2649960
Google street
Tunnel google street
Entrance google street
#360architecture Website

©️
pics by #YueqiJazzyLi
text by Dezeen, Philip Jodidio and Yueqi Jazzy Li

*simoderna google map

*️⃣Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice

Architect #RocheDinkeloo #KRJDA #Roche #Dinkeloo
City #NewYork
Country #USA #NA

🔤Inspired by bridge and highway construction, the straightforward structure is composed of load-bearing concrete and #corten.

The Ford Foundation is unusual for Manhattan in that it occupies fewer square feet than the site allows. The architects took advantage of the excess space which was devoted to an interior garden within a greenhouse-like atrium. #greenery

The building’s U-shaped plan maximizes workers exposure to park and river views, while the internal garden, protected from New York’s winter climate, serves as both a social condenser and a symbol of the foundation’s philanthropic mission.

🔤
Function #office
Feature #retro #interior
Address: 320 E 43rd St, New York, NY 10017, United States
Google street
Google earth

©️
pics by #IwanBaan
text by Archdaily and Iwan Baan

*simoderna google map

*️⃣Samsung Jong-ro Tower

Architect #RafaelVinoly #RVA
City #Seoul
Country #SouthKorea #AP

🔤Dissatisfied with the design of its 20-story tower being built in Seoul, Korea, Samsung Corporation halted construction and launched a limited design competition in 1994, hoping to salvage the 17 stories of steel frame and concrete floor slabs that had already been erected. Rafael Viñoly Architects won by rethinking the program and creating three unique, but linked, building volumes. The resulting design is a mixed-use facility incorporating offices, entertainment, and an iconic restaurant volume suspended at the top, making the tower an instantly recognizable city landmark.

A circular, tube-like elevator core rises at each of the three corners of the triangle-shaped building, extending high above the office blocks to support the “cloud,” a double-height restaurant and bar, ring-shaped in plan, which floats above the city skyline and provides 360-degree views of Seoul.

🔤
Material #steel
Function #office
Feature #skyscraper #retro #adminvisited
Address: 51 Jong-ro, Jongno District, Seoul, South Korea
Google street

©️
pics by architects and Wikipedia
text by architects

*️⃣La Grande-Motte resort town

Architect #Balladur #JeanBalladur
City #LaGrandeMotte close to #Montpellier
Country #France #EU

🔤The conception of La Grande Motte dates back to the 1960s-1970s when France experienced a period of unprecedented economic growth which began in 1945 and lasted for thirty years, commonly referred to as the "Trente Glorieuses."

The resort town was the major work of Turkish-born French architect Jean Balladur. He approached the former marshland as a blank canvas, drawing inspiration from the modernist aesthetic of the Bauhaus movement, the social-planning techniques behind Le Corbusier's Chandigarh and Oscar Niemeyer's Brasília, and—more surprisingly—the symbolic forms of the pre-Columbian pyramids in Teotihuacan, Mexico.

🔤
Colour #white
Material #concrete
Function #hospitality #hotel
Feature #retro #district
Address: All. des Phéniciens, 34280 La Grande-Motte, France
Google street
Google street 2
Aerial google street

©️
pics by #Kronental, #CharlyBroyez and #Modarchitecture
text by Archdaily