*️⃣Ciudad de las artes y las ciencias

Architect #SantiagoCalatrava #Calatrava
City #Valencia
Country #Spain #EU

🔤To maintain its city’s cultural standing, the government of Valencia resolved to establish a museum of national importance.

In 1991, Calatrava won the competition for the original project: a telecommunications tower, to be built on the west end of the site. Later that same year, Calatrava received the commission to develop the whole complex, which was also to include a science museum and a planetarium. After a change of government in 1996, the planned telecommunications tower was replaced by an Opera House.

In recognition of the civic importance of the Opera House, Calatrava gave the building the iconographic character of a monumental sculpture. In form, the building is a series of apparently random volumes, which become unified through their enclosure within two symmetrical, cut-away concrete shells.

The Planetarium theater resembles a human eye, set within a pool. The ‘pupil’ is the hemispherical dome of the theater, which is transformed into a globe through its reflection in the pool #water. The concrete socket of the eye incorporates an ‘eyelid’ of vertical, articulated metal slats, which can be raised to permit views across the pool. #kinetic

🔤
Colour #white
Function #mixeduse #public #museum #park #entertainment #theatre #concerthall
Feature #district #retro #adminvisited
Address: Quatre Carreres, 46013 Valencia, Spain
Google street #BestGS@simoderna🔥
Water google street
Park google street
Google earth

©️
pics by Pinterest
text by architects

#bonus@simoderna (Tomorrowland movie and Andor show had scenes filmed here)

*️⃣Little Island Park

Architect #ThomasHeatherwick #Heatherwick
City #NewYork
Country #USA #NA

🔤The idea for the pier came from the existing wooden piles and wondering how a structure could form organically from these rather than being a surface on top. Inspiration for the form of the pots came from looking at the ice patterns that forms around the piles when the water freezes.

The brief asked for a public park and outdoor performance space. Pier 54 had recently been damaged by Hurricane Sandy and the design was inspired by the structural remnants of previous piers and hundreds of old wooden piles poking out of the Hudson River.

Construction was sequenced over three years to minimise disturbance to marine life, and more than four hundred different species of indigenous trees and plants suited to the harsh climate of New York have been planted within the new landscape.

More detailed history of the project on Wikipedia

Project was selected by #Dezeen as the best landscape project in the year of 2022. #award

🔤
Material #rawconcrete
Function #public #park
Feature #onwater
Address: Pier 55 in Hudson River Park at, W 13th St, New York, NY 10014, United States
Google street #BestGS@simoderna🔥
Autumn google street
Night google street
Entrance google street
Google earth

©️
pics by Timothy Schenck, Angela Weiss, Alexi Rosenfeld and Getty Images
text by architects and mnlandscape

*️⃣Church Nianing

Architect #INSITU
City #Nianing close to #Dakar
Country #Senegal #AF

🔤In order to echo the regional particularity of the "seashell coast" bordering Nianing, the architect was inspired by a cymbium, a spiral-shaped shell that is very common on the Senegalese coast: "this shape was then designed according to the constructive constraints of the programme and the optimal bioclimatic orientation. But this choice is the basis for the aesthetics"

This shell-shaped biomimetic building is inspired by termite mounds to preserve the faithful from the heat.

No air-conditioning system has been installed and the church relies entirely on passive ventilation. The secret of this ventilation lies mainly in the high central chimneys: due to its density, the hot air is drawn upwards from the termite mound and is evacuated through these chimneys. This phenomenon leads to a draught in the lower parts of the nest: the air is sucked in through these lower parts thanks to small holes located all around. This is the basis on which the very particular shape of the bell tower was defined by the architect.

🔤
Material #ceramic #rawconcrete
Colour #orange
Function #religious
Address: 83XC+4FW, Nianing, Senegal
Google street

©️
pics by Regis L'Hostis
text by construction21.org

channel navigation

*️⃣Cathedral of Brasilia

Architect #OscarNiemeyer #Niemeyer
City #Brasilia
Country #Brazil #SA

🔤The cornerstone was laid in early September of 1958, when designs were beginning to be proposed and thoroughly planned out by Oscar Niemeyer. With a diameter of 70m, the only visible structure of the cathedral being sixteen concrete columns with a very peculiar shape. Reaching up towards the sky to represent two hands, the columns have parabolic sections.

After the addition of the external transparent windows, the Cathedral was dedicated on May 31st of 1970. Figuratively guarding the exterior of the church stand four bronze sculptures, each 3m high.

Because it is located at the Esplanada dos Ministerios, there is not a fixed community that attends services. A majority of those that come to the Mass are tourists or workers at the Esplanada dos Ministerios. The Cathedral is open daily for public visitation.

🔤
Colour #white #blue
Material #stainedglass #concrete
Function #religious
Feature #retro #interior
Address: Esplanada dos Ministérios lote 12 - Brasília, DF, 70050-000, Brazil
Google street
Interior google street #BestGS@simoderna🔥
Night google street
Google earth

©️
pics by #Prokos and #Viramonte

*️⃣Heydar Aliyev Centre

Architect #Hadid #ZahaHadid #ZHA
City #Baku
Country #Azerbaijan #EU

🔤The Center, designed to become the primary building for the nation’s cultural programs, breaks from the rigid and often monumental Soviet architecture that is so prevalent in Baku, aspiring instead to express the sensibilities of Azeri culture and the optimism of a nation that looks to the future.

Responding to the topographic sheer drop that formerly split the site in two, the project introduces a precisely terraced landscape that establishes alternative connections and routes between public plaza, building, and underground parking. This solution avoids additional excavation and landfill, and successfully converts an initial disadvantage of the site into a key design feature.

Fluidity in architecture is not new to this region. In historical Islamic architecture, rows, grids, or sequences of columns flow to infinity like trees in a forest, establishing non-hierarchical space. Continuous calligraphic and ornamental patterns flow from carpets to walls, walls to ceilings, ceilings to domes, establishing seamless relationships and blurring distinctions between architectural elements and the ground they inhabit.

🔤
Colour #white #monochrome
Material #gfrc
Function #entertainment #venue
Feature #interior
Address: 9VW9+94 Baku, Azerbaijan
Google street
Interior google street

©️
pics by #IwanBaan, #HeleneBinet and #HuftonCrow
text by architects