No. 50—Amnesia in Mesopotamia
In 2003, Bagdad’s National Library was reduced to rubble eradicating a complex culture, whose ghosts loot the Iraqi psyche indefinitely. Art historian and archeologist Zainab Bahrani shares her story.
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Document No. 86–Wang Shu Wants to Kill All The Icons
When architect Wang Shu was awarded the Pritzker Prize earlier this year, he became the first Chinese citizen to receive the profession’s highest honor. However, the name that he and his wife, Lu Wenyu, have given their Hangzhou-based firm—Amateur Architecture Studio—signals their rejection of China’s architectural mainstream and its propensity for mega-developments and flashy, iconic [...]
ContinueDocument No. 158—In The Studio With Aranda/Lasch
The walls in the Downtown New York studio of Aranda/Lasch seem like a giant pin-up board of inspirational material, lined with hand sketches, folded paper models, futuristic computer renderings, crystalline formations in starch and plastic, and what looks like little Christmas ornaments made of acrylic. If these aren’t the kind of wall pinnings you’d expect [...]
ContinueDocument No. 25—Marvels from the Mist
The National Art Schools may be the most famous, albeit unfinished, architectural legacy of the Cuban Revolution. Envisioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in 1961, the 5-building complex was built with a surge of collective optimism in an ideal setting at Cuba’s formerly luxurious (and exclusive) Country Club Park.
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