Form follows metaphors: a critical discourse analysis of the construction of the Israeli Supreme Court building in Jerusalem

This article examines critically the role of architecture in the construction of national identity, using the case of the Israeli Supreme Court building. Through critical discourse analysis of texts that accompanied the design and construction of this building, I propose to study the interrelations between the production of the architectural object and the practice of the construction of an Israeli national identity. The existing body of knowledge that supports this article claims that the creation of national identity is a socially constructed process, which involves a variety of practices including education, music, army service, as well as the design of the built environment. It is important to note that the realisation of such practices does not occur as a natural process, but rather as a result of power relations, embodied within the national sphere. Following this line of argument, the paper proposes a critical approach, which aims to move towards the politicisation of the term 'sense of place'. In this context, concentrating on the Israeli Supreme Court building is not an arbitrary decision, since this institution is at the focus of the Israeli civil arena, and its building became a 'land-mark' and symbol of architectural quality. Following the texts written by the architects and critics, I would argue that this building reflects - and thus strengthens - the hegemonic interpretations of Israeli social and cultural reality. This interpretation is characterised by using selective historical and biblical references, in order to create through architecture an 'iconographic bridge' into an imagined collective past. However, this bridge reproduces the antinomies that frame Israeli space and transform it into 'our place', that is West versus East and Local versus Diaspora.     

Architecture as the built message of power: Buenos Aires under Evita's spell

All totalitarian governments try to capitalise upon cultural production for their own benefit, as metalanguages that reaffirm their values, and this includes architecture. The best-known example of this phenomenon is that of Nazi Germany, where the architect Speer transformed German cities into suitable settings for political display.

This can be found, also, in Argentina, during the first two Juan D. Perón governments (1946–1955), under the influence of his wife Eva Duarte, known as ‘Evita’. In those days the social and political value of aesthetics was maximised, and architecture was converted into a political imagery. The aim was to create an urban stage to highlight the image of the leader.

It is interesting to notice that the stylistic options that Germany, through Speer, and other totalitarian states adopted, were among those considered. Following the connotations that architectural styles developed through history, Neo-classicism was chosen for institutional buildings, whereas the vernacular languages that appeal to some kind of ‘national identity’ were the option for domestic architecture.

So, the ‘Peronist city’ was not ‘one’, but at least ‘two’, solved by juxtaposition and assemblage. In spite of their differences, these two types of architecture defined artificial settings: on the one hand, the city of political power, on the other, the city of dwelling as space of illusion.     

A thousand youth clubs: architecture,mass leisure and the rejuvenation of post-war France

The relationship between mass leisure and architecture has too often been conceptualised unevenly. The canonical story of post-war France holds for example that politicians drafted heroic and encompassing leisure programmes that were subsequently ‘concretised’ by architects in their designs. Architecture figures in these histories as a passive portrayer of political ideas, as merely a mute accommodator of mass leisure programmes.

In this article I want to suggest a more active role for architecture. I will develop two hypotheses. First, within the context of post-war France the concept of ‘mass leisure’ did not correspond to a pre-given definition of functions or programmes, nor to a well-established set of practices, that had to be housed, accommodated or staged by architecture and urban planning. On the contrary, mass leisure was a newfangled category that needed to be established and defined – and this took place through intense engagement with architecture. In other words, architects and architecture had an active role in the definition of mass leisure that reached far beyond an accommodating capacity. Secondly, architecture for mass leisure often had the function of a laboratory and fulfilled a paramount role in architectural culture. Within projects for mass leisure new architectural typologies were developed, and more importantly, new architectural definitions of urbanity were tested.     

Marketing importance and marketing performance measurement of architecture firms in Singapore: an exploratory study

While marketing is a known element of successful practice, architects are yet to be convinced of its full potential. Little was known about the marketing practice in architectural firms in Singapore. Attempts were made to determine the realities of formalized marketing approaches and their importance to architectural firms in Singapore through a questionnaire survey (where 95 architectural firms participated) and follow-up interviews. A total of 34 usable responses were collected. This was investigated using the ‘Architecture Business Development Process’ as a framework, which found evidence to suggest that marketing has been recognized as an important component of architectural practice in Singapore. The results show that the adoption of the ‘marketing concept’ in the architecture profession is still in its formative stages. Architectural firms – and small and medium ones in particular – need to fully capitalize on this area of business knowledge in order to influence, command and understand the market for them to remain financially viable as a practice. Despite little attention being paid to measuring the performance of marketing outcomes, almost all the respondents and interviewees acknowledged its increasing importance. With greater corporate governance, these firms are beginning to realize the significance of marketing, and are evaluating their practices to ride the market for success. This move indicates a positive step in bridging the disparities between architecture practice and design.     

Common Artefacts

With offices in Beijing, Mumbai and London, Serie Architects is an international practice that spans Asia. Here, co-founder and principal Christopher CM Lee looks beyond the superficial ‘exotic’ stereotypical image of ‘orientalism’ that was traditionally imposed on Asia by the West. With particular reference to Serie Architects' Tote, Mumbai, and Yan Zhenqing Museum in Linyi, China, he shifts the question of identity to what is common within the context of architectural production: what might imbue architecture with social and cultural validity? How might it be possible to attempt to create ‘common artefacts’ through the most typical elements – the ‘dominant types’.     

The garden suburb of the Garbatella, 1920–1929: defining community and identity through planning in post‐war Rome

Situated in the industrial district of Ostiense, the Garbatella neighbourhood was primarily designed to house railway and dock workers built by the Istituto per le Case Popolari (ICP), a national building society founded in 1903 dedicated to public low‐cost housing. The Garbatella distinguished itself from other ICP neighbourhoods in Rome by its remote location and its experimental Garden City‐influenced design, adapted for a Roman context. The first period of construction from 1920 to 1923 saw the Garbatella develop along the lines of Ebenezer Howard’s model of the Garden City. While those who planned the neighbourhood continued to aspire to Howard’s ideals, the Garbatella’s rapid expansion (by 1930 it boasted the highest population density in the city) meant that it failed to live up to these aspirations. Despite increased population levels and the construction of larger multi‐functional ‘super‐blocks’, the architecture and planning of the Garbatella contributed to the fostering of a sense of community and a distinct Roman identity. This article investigates the way in which this architectural style established a ‘dialogue’ with and drew inspiration from the city’s rich and varied history, while contributing a new layer to the urban palimpsest of Rome.     

面向形式生成的极少主义建筑建构逻辑研究

受密斯建筑设计中建构逻辑“显”与“隐”的启示,以极少主义建筑简约形式与复杂建构的二元矛盾为切入点,探讨其建构逻辑与形式生成之间的规律,进而归纳出两种关系类型——“建构”逻辑之于形式的清晰性表达与“反建构”逻辑之于形式的抽象性表达,并在此基础上总结两种建构逻辑对应的操作方法及形式表达。立足于建构的语境,促进设计与建造的关联性,并对国内建筑设计实践有所启示。     

The Arab village: a genealogy of (post)colonial imagination

This article critically discusses the image and the imagining of the Arab village produced by two cultures, the national-Zionist from the 1930s onwards, and the national-Palestinian during the last decade. Unlike fellow theorists and researchers, we are reluctant to be satisfied with the claim that throughout history the Jews, establishing their identity vis-à-vis the rural and oriental ‘other’, perceived the Arab village in an inversely mirrored manner. Instead, we suggest that it took the Arab village only a few years to transform from an object which represents the ‘other’ and a signifier of the backward enemy, to what we would define as ‘still life’, a-historical and de-politicised. The Arab village, we would argue, became an object, a source of colonial imagination in the Israeli architectural culture, which sought the ‘local’ in order to establish a national identity, without associating it with its creator, the Arab society. Within this framework, we also suggest that through a process of ‘mutual contamination’ the Arab village is perceived and politically re-constructed by Palestinian architectural discourse and practice within the boundaries of Israel.     

A thousand youth clubs: architecture,mass leisure and the rejuvenation of post-war France

The relationship between mass leisure and architecture has too often been conceptualised unevenly. The canonical story of post-war France holds for example that politicians drafted heroic and encompassing leisure programmes that were subsequently ‘concretised’ by architects in their designs. Architecture figures in these histories as a passive portrayer of political ideas, as merely a mute accommodator of mass leisure programmes.

In this article I want to suggest a more active role for architecture. I will develop two hypotheses. First, within the context of post-war France the concept of ‘mass leisure’ did not correspond to a pre-given definition of functions or programmes, nor to a well-established set of practices, that had to be housed, accommodated or staged by architecture and urban planning. On the contrary, mass leisure was a newfangled category that needed to be established and defined – and this took place through intense engagement with architecture. In other words, architects and architecture had an active role in the definition of mass leisure that reached far beyond an accommodating capacity. Secondly, architecture for mass leisure often had the function of a laboratory and fulfilled a paramount role in architectural culture. Within projects for mass leisure new architectural typologies were developed, and more importantly, new architectural definitions of urbanity were tested.     

广西侗族传统风雨桥的基本建筑形制浅析

民族建筑承载着不同地域人民的聪明才智,是建筑领域的瑰宝。对民族建筑文化及设计手法的研究不仅能够为中华建筑的传承与创新奠定基础,也是提高民族自信的力量源泉之一。本文以广西侗族传统风雨桥为研究对象,从其主要基本建筑形制出发,在梳理其历史 背景的基础上分析了广西侗族地区传统风雨桥的建筑特征,揭示了其主要的形制和分类特点,以期能为传承侗族民族形式建筑及文化精神提供理论参考。     

Dark Matter

Following material and theoretical encounters the author has with “dark matter” in her daily life in the Otway Ranges in south-east Australia, this article explores architecture’s complicity with climate change and possible paths for its redemption. Dark matter is simultaneously the building materials produced from crude oil, the production of which is a significant contributor to global warming, and speculative practices of resistance: “dirty” material explorations with dynamic, messy materials by a range of architects and theorists since the 1990s; Donna Haraway’s “compost” thought; and Philip Ross’s “mycotecture”, architecture made from mycelium. The paper argues, with reference to Felix Guattari’s ecosophy, that these “speculative fabulations” model new social and mental ecologies that could transform architectural practice.     

论风景园林师执业资格制度

如何实施风景园林师执业资格制度是热门议题。介绍了国家职业资格管理体制以及梳理风景园林行业职业资格,回顾了风景园林执业制度筹备历程,探讨了风景园林师职业资格实施依据和制度路径选择。研究表明,风景园林师的执业资格制度是有法可依的,可以选择实施名称为“风景园林专业技术人员”或“风景园林师”的职业水平评价类执业资格,或者名称为“注册风景园林师”的职业准入类执业资格。在比较我国建设行业现有执业资格制度之后,提出应该坚持选择“注册风景园林师”的制度路径。     

搭接技术与艺术的桥梁——建筑构造教学探索有感

针对建筑构造教学中存在的一些问题,研究尝试了重视构造原理的教学模式,采用优秀的建筑案例引导学生的构造学习,并通过构造实体模型制作强化他们的理解,实现建筑构造与建筑设计教学的横向联系。     

建设工程领域“黑白合同”法律效力问题浅析

从高法《关于审理建设工程施工合同纠纷案件适用法律问题的解释》中关于“黑白合同”法律效力确定依据出发,结合工程建设实践经验,讨论了“黑白合同”的概念、基本特征以及存在的不同情形,分析了不同情形下的不同法律效力.     

MONSTROUS BODIES: Architecture and the Play of Appearance

Post-war cities epitomise both a disjunctive and resonance between the end of the nation-state, on the one hand, and a preoccupation with reinventing the city through building, on the other. Programs of ‘reconstruction’ and ‘remaking a city’ are preceded by destruction: a destructive force has altered the face of the city buildings have been destroyed and damaged, their ordered and ordering materiality is eroded, and the city is no longer an image of an idealized symbol of unity and identity. Belying the mythical power of architecture as a material and symbolic force, is also its fragility. Architecture can be monumentally erected and can have a presence and persistence that inspires awe and wonder, but it can also, just as easily be de-erected, demolished, destroyed. It can be de-constructed in a way that the literal sense of the term signals its symbolic frailty. Perceiving the symbolic as intrinsically tied to the physical articulation and presence of the architectural edifice, both reveals and conceals that the symbolic is also tied to fantasy, memory and fiction.¹ Drawings that precede construction are projections of an idealized image of something that does not yet exist, and photographs that remain after a building is demolished are representations ofa past reality that is now fictional.²     

绿色建筑技术在建筑设计中的优化与结合

文章结合具体工程项目,针对绿色建筑技术在建筑设计中的优化方法进行了研究,提出绿色建筑设计应整合建筑、结构、设备、建筑物理等专业,在项目初期就结合先进的计算机模拟技术分析,实施"整体设计"。在每个专业之间寻找结合点和平衡点,满足建筑创作、建筑功能、生态属性等要求,采用的具体绿色技术措施做到绿色目标与资金投入的最优化。     

The unintended consequences of government policies and programmes for public open spaces in inner-urban Sydney

Sport is important internationally; but in Australia, it is part of the national identity. The enjoyment of public open space for sport is, therefore, an assumed community right. We interviewed key staff from inner Sydney councils about management issues associated with public open space. The greatest concern was sporting fields – formal and informal – which were considered to have exceeded carrying capacity mainly because of the unintended outcomes of government programmes/policies spanning; (1) ‘healthy lifestyles’ which increased public open space use; (2) ‘urban consolidation’ increased inner-city population density with associated increased usage and loss of open space; (3) ‘temporal water restriction’ during drought (not ‘water budgets’) which intensify management issues; and (4) ‘building the education revolution’, meaning that public open space lost from schools results in increased pressure on public open space. Consequences have increased human pressure on public open space without commensurate consideration for the management and/or expansion of these areas.     

建材价格异动对固定价格合同履行影响的研究

固定价格合同是常见的施工承包合同形式,但是采用固定价格合同时承包方将承受较高的风险,特别是近年来建材价格异常变动加剧,使固定价格合同难以正常履行。《合同法》等相关法律为固定价格合同在难以履行的情况下进行调整提供了法律依据,2009年最高人民法院以司法解释的形式明确了情势变更原则,使得应用情势变更原则调整固定价格合同有法可依。文章对南京市施工企业的实地调研为固定价格合同的调整和情势变更原则的应用提供了现实依据。     

Socially Inclusive Design in Denmark: The Maturing Landscape

With a tradition of social inclusion and innovative contemporary design, Denmark leads the way internationally in its architectural provision for an older population. Architect, author and researcher Terri Peters highlights some pioneering housing schemes in Denmark that use architecture to reduce the stigma of old age in the creation of environments that are overtly ‘homey’ or domestic – breaking away from the sanitised environment of the ‘nursing home’ – and that employ nature and landscape to positive effect, as a means of promoting healing and health.