Recombinant Landscapes in the American City

How are urban actors, such as landscape designers, community groups, developers and local politicians, actively restructuring their environments to meet the challenges of the American city in the new global context? Grahame Shane outlines the approaches to landscape that have been emerging since the mid-20th century and are set to recombine urban assemblages whether they are located in historic city centres, postindustrial waterfronts or suburban sprawl. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Berlin's empty heart

In the early 1990s, all the energy and enthusiasm for the newly unified western and eastern Europe seemed to centre on Berlin, and the reconstruction of the city's Potsdamer Platz in particular. Now, well over a decade later, with the completion of the Beisheim Center, the final piece in the redevelopment of the Platz is in place. Howard Watson asks why, at a time when Berlin is being hailed as one of the most vibrant and artistic cities in Europe, there should be a vacuum at its very heart. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Alice Tully Hall,New York

This sensuous redesign of a 40-year-old concert hall at the Julliard School is the first major project completed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in their planned remodelling of the entire Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. Jayne Merkel believes this lively, elegant, personal and welcoming building bodes well for the dozen other public places and performance spaces that the architects will be renovating there over the next few years. It also suggests that the most respectful way to treat historic structures may be to meet them head-on. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rebuilding from Below the Bottom: Haiti

The devastation of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on 12 January 2010 makes this issue of AD especially pertinent, and the subsequent earthquake in Chile shows that strategies to rebuild after each crisis must be very different. Jayne Merkel and Craig Whitaker argue that, although there is much to be learned from previous disasters, no single response pertains. In Haiti, international architectural talent and expertise are irrelevant - even undesirable - until the social, cultural and political factors that helped devastate this once verdant and prosperous land are better understood. It is important to move slowly at first in order to go faster later. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

从收藏到建筑从建筑到收藏——纽约克罗埃斯特博物馆

纽约克罗埃斯特博物馆是一个收藏中世纪建筑与艺术品的博物馆。周围20英里的森林保证了它的永久环境与景观。建筑师查尔斯·科伦斯利用中世纪建筑构件的收藏品建成了这个举世瞩目的博物馆,并使之成为纽约大都会博物馆的分馆。欧洲12-14世纪不同地区和不同风格的建筑样式得以再现,不仅有效地保护了收藏品,还把藏品还原到原有的建筑空间与环境当中,成为建筑史与博物馆历史上的奇迹。     

Drawing Time

Taking place in time, drawing is ‘the fundamental act of design’. It is instrumental in formulating duration in terms of process and also the ways in which architectural environments might be experienced. In this article, Brian McGrath , Dean of the School of Constructed Environments and Professor of Urban Design at Parsons School of Design in New York, reflects on three decades of experimental graphic work, which take a layered, multidimensional and augmented approach to representation.     

I am a Camera: Electroland

Hugh Hart describes how West Coast practice Electroland has repurposed surveillance technology in an interactive installation in Top of the Rock - the observation platform on top of Rockefeller Center, which has become one of New York's premier visitor attractions. This playful, seemingly whimsical public art is the product of a creative partnership between architect-trained Cameron McNall and programmer Damon Seeley. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Top of the rock observatory

Smack dab in the middle of the famous cluster of Manhattan towers, a new tri-level, indoor-outdoor observation deck on top of the tallest building in Rockefeller Center (the ge Building) brings visitors close to the surrounding pinnacles with overviews of the New York archipelago. One surprise, as Jayne Merkel explains, is that this sensational tourist site, with a glittery, spiralling, three-storey entrance, was designed by Michael Gabellini, the New York architect known for pristine boutiques in elegant old buildings, such as the Jil Sander store in the former Royal Bank of Scotland on London's Saville Row. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.