Rem Koolhaas
Rem Koolhaas
He became famous before completing his first building, due to its special talent in writing. Koolhaas’s first book was Delirious New York, written while he was traveling in the United States. He got eventually acclaimed for its practical abilities as well. Specialists say that his work is a perfect bond between the Modern and the Deconstructivist styles, but there are some that consider that his structures are rather part of the Humanist style.
The most populous buildings designed by Koolhaas are: the Central Library in Seattle, Casa da Mùsica in Porto, Museum of Art at the Seoul National University and China Central Television Headquarters in Beijing.
His work
Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid was born in Iraq and was the first woman to win a Pritzker Architecture Prize (often called the Nobel Prize in architecture). She completed her studies in London, where she started working at the architecture company of her former teachers. In 1980, she opened her own practice in London – Zaha Hadid Architects.
Although she is a winner of numerous international contests, she had the misfortune of never seeing many of her projects built. Forbes ranked Hadid the 69th most powerful women in the world in 2008, while New Statesman ranked her the 42nd most influential figure on the planet in 2010.
Her work is generally daring, unconventional and artistic and her structures are often characterized by a Deconstruvist approach. MAXXI – the National Museum of the 21st Century Arts is considered to be her finest work, but the subsequent structures are also highly acclaimed: the Bridge Pavilion in Zaragoza, Bergisel Ski Jump in Innsbruck, Phaeno Science Center and the Opera House in Guangzhou.
Her works
Norman Foster
Norman Foster
Foster is Britain’s greatest builder of landmark office buildings. After earning his Masters degree at the Yale School of Architecture, Foster created his own company – Foster and Partners.
The firm’s breakthrough was The Willis Building in Ipswich, designed with open-plan office floors, roof gardens, a 25m pool and gymnasium – a true revelation for its time (1974). Through his work, Foster managed to transpose in architecture, the effect of globalization upon the major cities of the world.
During his four decade career, he obtained more than 190 awards and citations and won 50 national and international contests. In the latest years of his activity, a major part of his work is based on environmentally responsible technologies that help lower the buildings’ carbon footprint. Norman’s work cannot be defined otherw than exceptional and truly remarkable.
His structures are setting new standards for the interaction between building, the environment and people. There are dozens of grand works signed by Norman, including the following: the Millennium Bridge in London, 30 St Mary Axe or the Gherkin in London, Hearst Tower in New York City, Wembley Stadium in London and Torre Caja in Madrid.
His works
Walter Burley Griffin
Walter Burley Griffin
Walter Burley Griffin is an American architect and landscape architect that designed Canberra, Australia’s capital city. He developed the L-shaped floor plan and the carport and it was the first user of reinforced concrete.
In 1911 the Australian Government held an international competition to build the country’s new capital city. Griffin also participated in the contest and his plan was selected as a winner in the next year. World War I broke out in 1914, so the funds for the new capital were considerably diminished. Griffin confronted himself with slower progress of working than he expected.
The creation of a Federal Committee to supervise his work in 1920 made Griffin to resign from the project and completely withdraw from any further activity in Canberra. All of his buildings plans for Australia’s new capital were never built. Afterwards, he opened offices in Melbourne and Sydney. One of the first major projects after leaving Canberra was the Capitol Theatre in Melbourne.
In America, his work consisted of building family houses in the states of Illinois and Iowa. He also got the chance of designing Newman College at the University of Melbourne, Palais de Danse in St. Kilda (later destroyed by a fire) and Castlecrag, a suburb of Sydney.
His work
Santiago Calatrava
Santiago Calatrava
Calatrava was born in Valencia and is one of the greatest architects, sculptors and structural engineers Spain has seen in the last century. The early world-wide recognition led to offices opening in Valencia, Zürich, Paris and New York City.
He started his career running numerous civil engineering projects, such as bridges and train stations. The bridge Puente del Alamillo in Seville is the most prominent work as a civil engineer and it rapidly became a landmark of the city. The Montjuic Communications Tower in Barcelona and the Allen Lambert Galleria were his first works as an architect. The 54-story twisting tower in Malmö, Sweden (HSB Turning Torso) was also designed by Calatrava and is the second tallest residential buildings in Europe.
Calatrava has less than two decades of designing amazing buildings, but he holds an impressive portfolio that will open more record-breaking opportunities in the future. He is currently designing the future station at World Trade Center Transportation Hub and it is planning numerous other projects.
His work
Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Janneret, known under the pseudonym Le Corbusier (French for “the raven-like one”), was not only an architect and a pioneer of the International Style, but also a designer, urbanist, writer and painter. He was one of the first in his branch that was concerned by the quality of life in big, crowded cities.
Le Corbusier started his five decade career with designing villas through the use of modern techniques. He designed Villa Savoye near Paris, a construction that is said to be a milestone for modern architecture. This was Le Corbusier’s idea of a machine a habiter (“a machine for living in”), a remarkable project that proved to be as beautiful and functional as a machine.
Le Corbusier thought that his austere and unornamented buildings will help to build cleaner and brighter cities in the future. This concept lead to two developments: The German Bauhaus style, concerned on the social aspects of designing buildings and America’s International Style – a symbol of the Capitalism, a prevailing style among the office builders and upper-class people. Le Corbusier’s major buildings include Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, The National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp and The Centre Le Corbusier in Zürich.
His works
Alvar Aalto
Alvar Aalto
Aalto was contemporary with the economic boom and with the industrialization of Finland, therefore many of his clients were major Scandinavian industrialists. No less than four architectural styles are reflected in his work he has done throughout the years, that is why in our times Aalto remains one of the most versatile architects of the world.
In the 1920s, Aalto was and adept of the Nordic Classicism style and he expressed himself through a series of single family houses. Functionalism is the second style he tried and his best work in this period is the library of Viipuri, in present called Vyborg, Russia. This structure is particularly famous for its wave-shaped ceiling in the main auditorium, while the exterior has a typical modernist structure.
His mid career was marked by experimentation, a time of redbrick buildings that started with the Baker House of the MIT and reached its apogee with the design of the Helsinki’s University of Technology. Monumentalism is unfortunately his last career stage. Two of his greatest projects are the Finlandia Hall in Helsinki and the Aalto Theater Opera House in Essen, completed after his death.
His work
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario