Preparations for the DOCOMOMO 2004 Eighth International Conference in New York City are progressing. In the following, the Conference Theme and Call for Papers that circulated electronically in May is summarized, the makeup of the Scientific Committee (now called Program Committee) is described and general Information is provided.
News regarding the Second regional meeting on modern heritage: Asia, in Chandigarh, India, February 24-27, 2003. News on Breuer's building demolition. Report on MoMo neighborhood cooperation. News on Villa Cavrois. Sartoris collection in Lausanne. An exhibition on early MoMo in India: Eckhart Muthesius.
News regarding the Villa Schocken in danger, Founding of DOCOMOMO RI, Brazilian DOCOMOMO Working Party report, DOCOMOMO Korea Symposium, Reports from DOCOMOMO Greece, news from the ISC/U+L.
In the literature on New Zealand architectural history, three propositions are typically made about modern architecture there. Firstly, it arrived 'late'; secondly, it came from Europe; thirdly, a local version emerges around 1950 in the work of the Auckland Group. Each of these three propositions is reasonable, but not adequate, and to present a brief critical account of modern architecture in New Zealand it is usefol to review and complicate them.
The municipal library of the Russian city of Vyborg (formerly Viipuri) was designed by Alvar Aalto from 1927 to 1935. Aalto received the commission after winning the architectural competition launched in 1927 for the building. The library, one of the most important works of his pre-war output, represents together with the Paimio Sanatorium, a cornerstone of his international fame. It is considered a masterpiece of the twentieth century architectural heritage. However, the history of the building has been tragic. The present
restoration of the library, which began in 1991 as a joint...
Foreigners' views on Japanese modern architecture rarely appeared in the historiography of modern architecture except in Antonin Raymond's An Autobiography, published in 1973. 1 Raymond, however, was himself deeply committed to design architecture in Japan, so that he did not, in a sense, have enough of a foreigner's neutrality. This paper describes an English architectural iournalist who, conscious of being a foreigner, observed and recorded his impressions of Japan, where he stayed three weeks in 1962. It focuses on his admiration and critique of Japanese modern architecture to...
Modern Asia has not developed in a vacuum but has evolved through sustained interactions with the West, which has had a constant presence in our collective consciousness. This shared experience of the world unites us as Asians. The history of dealing with the West, with our neighbors and with ourselves, is manifested in the myriad forms of our Architecture. The history of Modern Architecture in Asia is the history of how Asians have become modern.
By 1918, at the end of WWI, it could be said that Australia had already sampled a version of what modernism might mean. 1911 saw the awarding of the design of the nation's new capital, Canberra, to Chicago-based architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony. It was to be the 20th century's first modern capital city, a democratic vision of the garden city. That same year also saw the completion of what was for a short time, the world's largest reinforced concreite dome at the Melbourne Public Library, a technological feat that continued the competing embrace of American and British...
It was ten years after Docomomo international was founded that the fledgling Docomomo Australia working party began its iourney
through the challenges of the nnore recent past's conservation. Like Docomomo International, 1the Australian working party stemmed from a conference -the first maior conference in Australia on the conservation of places of the 20 th century. When it examined for the first time the issues raised by the conservation of these places, Docomomo Australia, unlike its earlier counterparts, had ten years of considerations to reflect upon. Many of the initial...
What is Asian Modernity? Could such a concept exist given that Asia is a heterogeneous territory encompassing different entities with rather diverse social, cultural and political contexts? In the past two decades or so, there have been various assertions of different forms of Asian modernities, which have gained widespread circulation and acceptance. Many of these assertions should be understood as part of the politics of opposition, aimed at challenging the hegemony of Eurocentric conceptions of modernity.
This is a 'hot new topic' in Indonesia, largely brought about by the cumulative work of heritage conservation educators and activists over the past fifteen years, and by the more recent spurt of mAAN (modern Asian Architecture Network) activities and the recent meetings in Chandigarh, India. Right now a small group of architects and enthusiasts are at work to prepare a Docomomo working party for Indonesia. 2003 has been declared Indonesia Heritage Year by the network of Indonesian heritage societies and ICOMOS Indonesia, who hope to use the initiative to bring attention to the many forms...
The Chinese city of Tianiin (formerly known as Tientsin) paradoxically presents an almost unrivalled view of early 20th century European architecture. This comes about as the foreign concessions, which were discrete European enclaves, were far more numerous and varied than the better-known concessions of Shanghai. The first were the French and British, established under the treaty signed in 1860 with Beiiing as a somewhat delayed conclusion to the Second Opium war. Each concession was autonomous and provided its own drainage, lighting, road making, and other public works.
In 1931, a 7 .8 earthquake on the Richter scale struck the town of Napier, on the east coast of New Zealand's Nc:,rth Island. In two minutes, the quake had destroyed most of the masonry buildings in the CBD, and the fires, which immediately broke out, reduced! the wooden buildings to ashes. With the exception of a very few builclings which were on the edge of the stricken area, only those erected in the preceding decade survived.
Manila was changing rapidly in the 1930s. The generation that passed into adulthood since the 1 898 revolution transferred Philippine rule from the Spanish to the Americans was now stepping to a new tune. They were enamored with American culture and the English language and wanted to express the new modernity sweeping across the world in the Philippines in all aspects of life, including their architecture.
One of Richard Neutra's three vacation villas in Switzerland is up for sale. This is the Rentsch House { 1963-65 ), not published in the architect's Complete Works, most likely due to the fact that thE~ village of Wengen where it is located demanded a pitched roof rather than the flat roof shown in the original design c,f 1959-60. Design aficionado Tyler Brule should really hailfe this huge house with its sweeping expanses of glass opening to spectacular views of the Jungfrau. Its intended "internationally valid form language" does not at all pander to any local context or building...
The campus of Laval University in Quebec City was planned in the 1940s in response to the rapid expansion of that institution after World War I. Today, the core of the campus represents a coherent ensemble of buildings from the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the context of a society in transition from authoritarian and traditionalist politics to a new liberal vision of the world, as was the case in Quebec during 'la Revolution tranquille', such institutional buildings are a clear public statement of the endorsement of these new social values. The quality of the design of individual...
Enrique Del Moral is recognized as one of the leading architects in the shaping of modern Mexico. He was born in the Mexican state of Guanaiuato in 1906 and enterecl the National School of Architecture in Mexico City in 1923, where he s1tudied under Jose Villagran Garcia, considered the "father of modern a1rchitecture in Mexico". Under his guidance, Del Moral developed a g1reat interest in the Modern Movement, but remained attached to the traditional forms of local culture.
When Poland recovered its freedom after World War I, the concept of modernism, as in all of central Europe, became increasingly popular. Modern architecture, inspired by Poland's rapid progress and changes in the sciences and industry, was built in the main cities such as Krakow and Warsaw as well as in rural regions. This trend was popularized by neww public and military constructions such as Gdynia's harbor buildings. lncrea!singly, architects adopted the design principles of modern architecture and started to reject the prevalent decorative style of the previous decades.
In Tokyo, a masterpiece of modern architecture, built after the war, has found a new role as a public building. The district's office of Meguro-ku {Tokyo) has iust moved to a facility designed by the famous architect Togo Murano ( 1 891 -1984 ). Meguro-ku (Ku means district) is one of the 23 districts in Tokyo. It ranks 14th among the districts in population (246,549 as of June 2003) and 16th in area (14.7 km2). Since around the 1920s, the district has developed mainly as a comfortable residential district with many conveniences.
Qantas House, n° 1 Chifley Square, Sydney, was designed in 1950, at a time when Australia was torn between the tug of Empire and allure of aluminium. Qantas Empire Airways, established in 1920 and nationalised in 1947 as Australia's international airline, itself represented these twin tugs. Its main income was the Kangaroo Route to London while its expenditure included the new aluminium Constellation aircraft purchased from Lockheed in the USA. The design of Qantas House, the international headquarters for Qantas Empire Airways, also reveals an intercourse between the new and old design...
The Asia Pacific region encompasses more than a quarter of the globe - from pole to pole, from the Middle East to the Pacific. The diversity of climate, geography, culture, history and the sheer scale of the Asia Pacific region make impossible generalizations on the effect and role of "modernism" on architectural thought and practice.
A Special Issue of the Open Access DOCOMOMO Journal will be dedicated to buildings and sites of the Modern Movement in Ukraine in order to better present its history and development, as well as its current state to the world community.
Read more about Call for Papers: Special Issue - Modern Movement in Ukraine
