Articles by Romullo Baratto

Japanese architect Kengo Kuma won the closed contest to design the expansion of the gardens of the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon and the new entrance of the Modern Collection of the Gulbenkian Museum. The result was announced last Saturday by the Portuguese newspaper Expresso.

While visiting a city one has never been to before, it is common to go to touristic places, the ‘must-see’ spots advertised in the media. On the other hand, when establishing residency in a place, it is likely that one will start to attend some less popular locations, and will often spend a long time without passing by the city’s most famous touristic sights. Artist Eric Fischer has developed a project that explores precisely the difference in perceiving – and photographing – a city from the point of view of tourists and locals. The work, which is entitled Locals and Tourists, gathers the maps of 136 of the largest – and most visited – cities in the world.

Traveling around Japan can be an impressive experience for a Western tourist – especially if they have some connection with architecture. In addition to the huge cultural differences, the country is known for its rich architectural production – eight of the 42 Pritzker Prize laureates are Japanese – which has maintained its consistency since the 1960s.

Of all arts, there is one that is truly capable of embracing architecture, and that is the cinema. The ability to represent spaces, moving in the course of time, brings cinema closer to architecture in a way that goes beyond the limitations of painting, sculpture, music – for a long time considered to be the art closest to ours – and even of dance. Both in cinema and in architecture space is a key subject, and although they deal with it in different ways, they converge by providing a bodily – and not only visual – experience of the built environment.

Among the most renowned and well-established offices in the world, OMA – Office for Metropolitan Architecture, founded in the 1970s by Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis, Madelon Vriesendorp, and Zoe Zenghelis, is definitely part of the pantheon of the most famous. Curiously, although it receives large commissions and has already built several emblematic works in different countries, the office is often associated with an approach that is less focused on architectural design, going beyond the strict limits of the disciplinary field and encompassing other areas of practice.

More than 120 old maps from the David Rumsey Map Collection were inserted in Google Maps and Google Earth, allowing us to learn how several parts of the globe were in the past. The maps can be seen by activating the ‘Rumsey Historical Maps’ layer in Google Earth or through a version of Maps developed for the project.

The Bulgarian artist Christo will wrap the famous Arc de Triomphe in Paris with recyclable blue fabric in his next work. The work, which will open on April 9 and last for two weeks, coincides with a large exhibition of the artist at the Center Pompidou which brings together works done in partnership with his late wife, Jeanne-Claude, during the period in which they lived in Paris.

As a way of representing architecture, photography has certain undisputed qualities. With it, it is possible to present to a project from a distant corner of the globe to people anywhere in the world, showing everything from general views to internal spaces and constructive details – extending the reach and, in a way, the access to the architecture.

Architecture can be understood through many prisms but is often seen solely as the response to material demands – housing, leisure, commerce, etc. But perhaps no space is more emotionally and symbolically loaded than that of sacred spaces. Designing spaces for worship (religious or otherwise) can be one of the most creative and liberating tasks of this profession. These spaces transcend the terrestrial plane of mere material to become part of a universe of subjectivity and faith.

The Fundació Joan Miró presents Lina Bo Bardi Drawing, the first exhibition to focus specifically on the role of drawing in the life and work of the Italian-born Brazilian architect.