Articles by Niall Patrick Walsh

The French Senate has stipulated that Notre-Dame cathedral must be restored exactly how it was before the major fire that damaged the landmark. As reported by French news site The Local, The French Senate approved the government’s restoration bill but added a clause that it must be restored to the state it was before the fire, seemingly ending the international competition planned by the French government for new ideas for the cathedral’s restoration.

The Swiss-born artist Paul Klee lived between 1879 and 1940, and was a noted Bauhaus lecturer who experimented deeply in color theory. His vibrant, mechanical sketches which formed the basis for his Bauhaus teaching throughout the 1920s, have now been made freely accessible online after the Zentrum Paul Klee published almost all 3900 pages of his personal notebooks.

Arata Isozaki has officially received the 2019 Pritzker Architecture Prize, in a ceremony at the Château de Versailles in France. Isozaki, who has been practicing architecture since the 1960s, has long been considered an architectural visionary for his transnational and fearlessly futurist approach to design. With well over 100 built works to his name, Isozaki is also incredibly prolific and influential among his contemporaries. Isozaki is the 49th architect and eighth Japanese architect to receive the honor.

Topotek 1 and Labics have won a competition to design the UCBM Masterplan for the Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome. The 90-hectare project encompasses urban design, landscape, and architecture, founded on the goals of addressing connectivity, openness, and accessibility, while also acknowledging and integrating elements from the surrounding context.

Construction has begun on the Loop of Wisdom in Chengdu, China, designed by Powerhouse Company. The red, walkable, curvy roof follows the landscape and twists through a lush, vivid park, promoting themes of health and beauty. The scheme will house the Exhibition and Reception Centers for the surrounding Unis Chip City masterplan, founded on the principles of people, nature, and technology.

Bubble Design Competitions has unveiled the winners of their inaugural international competition, challenging teams to “Eliminate Loneliness Through Design.” Organized in response to the global crisis of loneliness and isolation in the modern age, the competition aimed to demonstrate the power of architecture and design to tackle society’s pressing issues.

Emmi Keskisarja & Janne Teräsvirta Arkkitehtitoimisto & Company Architects have designed a futuristic green vision for an island in Finland. Titled “Emerald Envisioning for Luonnonmaa 2070,” the scheme is set on Luonnonmaa island on the Finnish West archipelago coast, close to the city of Turku. The vision for the island is one where climate change and biodiversity decline are combated through a reimagination of the urban connection with nature.

MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong, has released details of their design for Terminal 3 at Harbin Taiping International Airport in Northern China. Referencing the gentle slopes of the surrounding landscape, and the region’s immense snow and ice, MAD’s scheme creates an architectural poetry that settles into its locale in the spirit of a snowflake falling to earth, while simultaneously expressing the surreal, interstellar space of future air travel.

Gustafson Porter + Bowman have been selected to reimagine the landscape of the Eiffel Tower, seeing off tough competition from three other finalists and 42 entries. Titled OnE, the scheme is founded on a unifying axis: celebrating the Eiffel Tower at the center of a line that connects the Place du Trocadéro, the Palais de Chaillot, the Pont d’Iéna, the Champ de Mars and the Ecole Militaire.

Carlo Ratti Associati has won an international competition for Reinventing Cities, with the design of a new research center placed under a 200-meter-long (650-foot-long) vineyard. Situated close to Milan’s Fondazione Prada, the VITAE project will connect the street level to the roof via a seamless footpath, and will contain a new office building and center for scientific research.