The June issue focuses on the importance of geometry as an immutable principle and testimony of our civilization. Domus 1058 opens with three essays: in The Power of Geometry guest editor Tadao Ando explores the different approaches to architectural forms; Ajay Manthripragada recounts the famous spiral staircase that Franco Albini and Franca Helg designed for La Rinascente in Rome; Cameron Wu recalls that geometry can never be fooled.
Domus 1058 is on newsstands. An issue dedicated to shapes, solids and geometries
Geometry is the focus of the June issue of Domus. As guest editor Tadao Ando recounts, it is the fundamental principle of human creations. From architecture to art and design, it is the testimony of our civilization’s passage on earth.
Photo Roberto Gennari
Text Ajay Manthripragada. In the picture the spiral stair of La Rinascente in Rome viewed from above. Photo Courtesy Fondazione Franco Albini
Text Masahiro Harada, Mount Fuji Architects Studio. In the picture the hotel A&A Liam Fuji in Okayama, Japan by Mount Fuji Architects Studio and Liam Gillick. Photo Ken'ichi Suzuki
Text from the project description. In the picture Six Square House, Bridgehampton, New York, USA. Photo Alan Tansey
Text from the project description. In the picture Six Sections by Studio Link-Arc in Zhangzhou, China. Photo Quingshan Wu
Text from the project description. In the picture Shade-Water-Breeze-Fold by the studio S-MAO Sancho-Madridejos Architecture Office in Murcia, Spain. Photo Juan Carlos Sancho
Text from the project description. In the picture the redeveloped station in Tapachula, Mexico by the collective C733. Photo Rafael Gamo
Text Angela Maderno. In the picture Liam Gillick, "The Work Life Effect", exhibition at the Gwangju Museum of Art, 2021. Photo Courtesy Gwangju Museum of Art
Text Manu Baño. In the picture the lamp OBJ-01 by the spanish designer Manu Baño. Photo Alejandro Ramirez
Text Daniel López Velasco and Itzhel Libertad Cerón López. In the picture the silicone syringe Helix. Photo Courtesy Daniel López Velasco and Itzhel Libertad Cerón López
Text Michael Meredith, Hilary Sample.In the picture the tables Furniture No. 7 by MOS Architecture Model. Photo Michael Vahrenwald
With Jean Nouvel, Sou Fujimoto, John Pawson, Farshid Moussavi, Paul Smith, Thom Mayne, Steven Holl, Manuel Aires Mateus, Frida Escobedo and Dominique Perrault. In the picture A new house for my dog by Paul Smith
Text Beppe Finessi. In the picture the pavilion for the Fiera del Mare in Genoa by Angelo Mangiarotti. Photo Casali/Domus Archives
Text Takashi Suo. In the picture aerial views of the construction site showing the functional areas accessed by walking beneath a gabled roof. Photo Courtesy Yashima Mountaintop Park © Takashi Suo
Text Andrea Caputo. Illustration Michele Tranquillini
Presented by Giulia Guzzini. In the picture the Glifo wall light designed for Penta Light.
Coordination Giulia Ricci. Illustrations Alessandra Scandella
Text Antonio Armano. In the picture faucet from the Allure series with the Brushed Cool Sunrise finish. Photo Courtesy Grohe
Promoted by Art & Culture Development Foundation under the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Curated by Massimo Valz-Gris. Foto Courtesy Chirst&Gantenbein
Text Marina Jonna. In the picture The Resource Rows, Copenhagen, Denmark. Photo Rasmus Hjortshøj
Text Giulia Ricci. In the picture Burkina Institute of Technology, Koudougou, Burkina Faso. Photo Kéré Architecture
Text Valentina Croci. In the picture Powerhouse Telemark, Porsgrunn, Norway by Snøhetta. Photo Ivar Kvaal
Testo Alessandro Benetti. Nella foto Proyecto Público Prim, Città del Messico. Foto Onnis Luque
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- La redazione di Domus
- 04 June 2021
In the Euclidean Geometries section, we discover three projects that start from geometric principles: a hotel in Japan created from a series of squares simulates a labyrinthine journey through different levels and multiple overlaps. Also in New York, a house by Young Projects uses the rearrangement of square geometries, typical of local barns, to create an elegant contemporary home.
In Obscured Geometries, we discover an interactive space for children and adults formed by six intertwined hollow cylinders, a playground to “to engage, to participate and ultimately become part of the creative work”. Shade-Water-Breeze Fold by S-MAO Sancho-Madridejos Architecture Office, on the other hand, is a residential project inspired by the art of folding, that is created by a building body folded from a single surface to form openings and geometries necessary to climate the environment.
In Structural Geometries, the redevelopment of an old train station devastated by Hurricane Stan brought culture, sports and community back to a neighborhood in Tapachula, Mexico. The Art section presents the world of Liam Gillick and parallels with the art of Josef Albers, among “forms and materials that draw on construction and manufacturing systems”, in a dialogue about visual and sensory perception.
The column Around the Project opens with the story of the Padiglione Fiera del Mare in Genoa, the project of Italian architect Angelo Mangiarotti to display (and observe) the great ships that passed through the sea. In Japan, the Yashima Mountaintop park was created to revitalize the summit area of the mountain of the same name through a 3D modeling process based on the topography and organic geometry of the place, and on the need to respect the shape of the natural environment. In Studio Visit we meet the Dutch studio Anne Holtrop for whom “at the base of the work there is an in-depth research on materials and their applications”, as told visually by their projects scattered all over the world.
In this month's Diary: at the Round Table with Ubaldo Occhinegro, Paola Viganò, Lina Ghotmeh and Nicolas Swetchine the starting question is: “How can we design infrastructures that are more sustainable?” the result is an interesting conversation on the need to revise the dialogue between architecture and design for the cities of the future.
In House like Me Carlos d’Ercole enters the house of Miquel Barceló, Spanish painter living in Paris, with an immersion in his world made of paintings, photographs and sketches.
These are followed by pages dedicated to the voices of design, including exhibitions, displays, jewelry, objects and public spaces for children. The designer Paolo Metaldi recounts his work among inspirations from the 1950s and Enzo Mari. We discover the sketches for a bedside table by the Milanese designer Nanda Vigo and in Switzerland, a careful restoration allows us to rediscover the history and the potential of a building that was a pioneer of prefabrication in the residential sector. The Diary concludes with an interview by Domus editor Walter Mariotti with Giuseppe Cornetto Bourlot, president of Lunedes (which in 2019 acquired Luxy, maker of Francesco Favaretto’s famous Italia chairs) about the tradition of Italian design and the opportunities that the post-pandemic future holds.
Together with issue 1058 we attached the special EcoWorld, an insert dedicated to sustainable materials and processes. The Diary column of this insert opens with a conversation between designers: Monica Förster, Raffaello Galiotto, Francesco Bettoni and Tom Dixon talk about their ecological approach to different materials used in the production process. These are followed by pages dedicated to the processing and use of ethical and avant-garde materials in the world of fashion, furnishings, crafts and architecture. Walter Mariotti takes the works of multidisciplinary artist Aoi Huber Kono to talk about “regenerative design”, followed by a conversation with her about graphic design, art and the importance of colors in life. We conclude in the Architecture and Design sections with new projects and reconversions under the banner of upcycling and the ethical use of materials.
Casa del Mantegna, Mantua.
An exercise in almost unreal lightness expressed in the relationship between stair and structure, the spiral stair designed by Franco Albini and Franca Helg for the Rinascente in Rome perfectly mediates the challenges of site and construction.
The result of collaboration between architecture and art, the hotel is defined by its simple square geometry and an artistic intervention reflecting on the global environmental crisis.
Composed of six square modules arranged around a triangular courtyard, the house reinterprets the traditional form of Long Island barns.
A process of subtracting matter transforms the solid volume of a regular parallelepiped into six large hollow interlocking cylinders, a playhouse for children.
Part of a larger residential project, the building defies the local climate thanks to its roof, which was conceived with the design gesture of folding.
The conversion of the site into a public park is marked by a large roof that reinterprets the geometry of the railway lines.
United to the work of Josef Albers by a geometric-abstract idiom, the practice of Liam Gillick pushes far beyond the sensorial boundary in an attempt to explore more stratified experiences.
The Spanish designer’s lamp is the product of a simple gesture and his love of raw materials and pure geometric figures.
Inspired by the art of origami, this thermosetting silicone syringe offers a sustainable alternative to the billions of disposable devices used every year and creating major disposal problems.
Sliding one over the other and fixed through holes in the surface, standard sheets of aluminium – inexpensive and widely available – give rise to a series of tables featuring variable geometric compositions.
This segment was established as a way of showcasing the diversity of thought that can emerge around a single idea. Each month an array of artists and designers who shape objects, spaces and buildings is given the freedom to express themselves visually on the theme we explore in each issue.
Asked to design a pavilion for the display of big ships at the Fiera del Mare in Genoa in 1963, Angelo Mangiarotti conceived a small construction with views of actual ships in transit, a large canopy looking out to sea.
3D modelling and on-site mock-ups have made it possible to respect the topography of Setonaikai Park and adapt the organic structure of Yashima Mountaintop Park to its site.
For the Dutch architect, the material gesture – or the choice of material and the way of intervening in its application – is the basis for giving expression to projects. His studio in Bahrain with large open-air spaces is the workshop where they take shape.
Valerio Sommella, the designer we interview this month, sees recent developments in the world of lighting. Over recent years designers have been able to come up with objects that are flexible in terms of form with greater colour stability and better energy efficiency, as demonstrated by the products presented in this section. In addition to these achievements, that have reconfigured every aspect of the entire sector, rapid development in the field of digital technology has made available solutions for controlling these lights from a distance, thanks to wireless connectivity. The next frontier therefore could well concern the full integration of the advantages of LED technology with systems of management, in such a way as to transform light into an intelligent infrastructure.
In today’s cities, which are more and more hybrid, infrastructures have a territorial scale. How is the dialogue with architecture evolving? How can we design more sustainable infrastructures? We spoke with Paola Viganò, Lina Ghotmeh, Nicolas Swetchine and Ubaldo Occhinegro.
Thomas Fuhr, co-CEO of the multinational with German roots, describes Grohe’s winning combination: teamwork and different approach philosophies.
The Uzbek pavilion at the International Architecture Exhibition examines the traditional mahalla. An example of social resistance and cohesion shaped by both climate and religion.
Reuse of building materials is a fundamental key to architectural design that addresses climate change, resource scarcity, urbanisation and more.
On a flood-plain in West Africa, experimentation with local clay and technical innovation allowed for quick construction while combating climate-related problems.
Facades, roof and indoor layout, all designed according to their exposure to sunlight, make this office building produce more than it consumes.
A polycarbonate roof reactivates a historical building and exalts its dilapidated charm, left intact in the name of long-term sustainability.