About 20 years ago Richard Sapper visited Dieter Rams. "We were talking about the things that each of us was doing," says Sapper, "and at a certain moment Dieter said: 'Well, you are doing many things that are quite closely related to what we do, but yours are much more exciting.'" Sapper, who is 80, leans back in his sofa and smiles.
Design, People | Share Article
On the eve of the Olympics, Justin McGuirk ponders the social and political consequences of London's white-hot real estate market and asks: what ever happened to the city that pioneered the modern ideal of social housing?
Architecture, Cities | Share Article
It began with a drive. A couple of friends and I set out one day to drive the circumference of São Paulo. We thought we would make a film about it, and in fact the photographer Thelma Vilas Boas – one of my companions that day – shot some beautiful footage. But we never made that film (largely because Thelma and I live on different continents), so instead it became a piece of writing.
Architecture, Cities | Share Article
If, in the traditional communist view, the revolution was to be led by the industrial proletariat, then how do we explain the recent wave of urban protests? Are we witnessing the emergence of a new revolutionary force made up not of factory workers but of urbanites more generally?
Cities, Reviews | Share Article
Two books into a trilogy that he calls “the homo faber project”, the sociologist and philosopher Richard Sennett is revealing just what an ambitious task he has set himself. It is no less than to investigate the skills we need “to sustain everyday life”. Along the way, he is developing an uncanny knack of tuning into the zeitgeist through what seems like a crackly old wireless.
Design, Reviews | Share Article
Over the last decade, Colombia has been a touchstone of what good design and enlightened politics can do for cities. If Barcelona was the urban exemplar of the 1990s, urbanists these days are more likely to mention Colombia's capital, Bogotá, and its second city, Medellín. In both cities, a succession of dynamic mayors has used transport infrastructure and new public buildings as tools of social change. But this tale of two cities doesn't come with two happy endings.
Architecture, Cities | Share Article
In the northwest of Argentina, a revolutionary movement called Tupac Amaru has developed a new model of social housing, and redefined what we should expect from it. Welcome to the country club.
Architecture, Cities | Share Article
In the north of Lima is a housing estate that could have changed the face of cities in the developing world. Its residents go about their lives feeling lucky that they live where they do, but oblivious to the fact that they occupy the last great experiment in social housing.
Architecture, Cities | Share Article
It begins with a photograph. It’s a blow-up of a faded colour picture of the Great Mosque at Djenné, in Mali, from some time in the mid-20th century. In the picture, the largest mud structure in the world still looks healthy.
Architecture | Share Article
The GBU-28 was the primary tool in the redesign of southern Beirut. This two-tonne laser-guided bomb, designed to destroy concrete bunkers, was untested on apartment blocks until 13 July 2006, when Israeli F-15 fighter planes started bombing Dahieh, the city’s southern suburb. Now, in Beirut’s own Ground Zero, an ideological and logistical battle is beginning: what to do with Dahieh?
Architecture, Cities | Share Article
What’s the name of that English designer who did the spiral bookshelf, asks Enzo Mari, stirring the air with his cigar stub. Ron Arad? "Merda Pura!" he screams in Italian. “Pure shit,” deadpans our interpreter as Mari thunders away. “Pure shit! Who cares?” The outburst startles us.
Design, People | Share Article
Jenin took ten days to destroy and three years to rebuild. The Palestinian refugee camp, in the northern West Bank, held the world’s attention for a brief moment in April 2002 when Israeli tanks and bulldozers moved in against armed insurgents, levelling more than 500 homes and leaving nearly 4,000 residents homeless. The scale of the destruction prompted accusations that the incursion was a war crime – but it was also an act of urban planning.
Architecture, Cities | Share Article