Modern Architecture

The patterns of place

Mathieu Helie — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:00:51 +0000

(This article originally appeared in Get Ahead Magazine, for the Get Ahead Festival of independent short films in Brooklyn.)

Leon Krier's lesson in architecture

Mathieu Helie — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:36:02 +0000

Review of The Architecture of Commun

When fake complexity goes wrong

Mathieu Helie — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:45:54 +0000

Part of the CCTV complex in Beijing burns down. It's hard to tell from the aftermath pictures what is the structural damage and what is the original design.

See Fake Complexity - CCTV Headquarters.

Cinderella architecture

Mathieu Helie — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:37:25 +0000

If you ever find yourself speaking to an architect at a party, most likely the word transparency and the supposed need for it is going to come up over and over. This is a recent concern for the building arts. Modern architecture, traditionally, has been philosophically focused on honesty of materials, or the meaning of forms. Transparency is in a way a renunciation of architecture. Its purpose is to make the form of a building as unnoticeable as possible. Architecture just gets in the way, so making it unnoticeable is the best design choice. Nothing is the new something.

They can't work as a team

Mathieu Helie — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 01:10:57 +0000

From John Massengale comes word that Rem Koolhaas continues to make desperate cries to rescue architecture, while missing what's right in front of his nose.

"The work we do is no longer mutually reinforcing, but I would say that any accumulation is counterproductive, to the point that each new addition reduces the sum's value," - Rem Koolhaas