Just part of a masterful rant about the state of architectural criticism from BLDGBLOG:

“The Archigram of today is not studying with Bernard Tschumi and openly imitating The Manhattan Transcripts. The Archigram of today works for Electronic Arts, has no idea who Walter Gropius is, and offers more insights about the future of urban design, space, and the built environment to more people, in more age groups, in more countries, than any practicing architectural critic will ever do, writing about Toyo Ito.
Videogames are the new architectural broadsides.”

Excellent.
—
* happens to be the title of a book about Archigram that I haven’t read yet…

Has to be in the running for best article headline of the year, and – simultaneously, a Morrison/Ellis story waiting to happen. It’s in fact from a piece by Deyan Sudjic on the singularity of citybuilding that is China, and specifically Beijing:

There are dumps of steel everywhere. So much steel, in fact, that it starts to become only too clear how the Chinese hunger for the metal has pushed up world prices to the point that British construction sites are rediscovering the art of building in concrete. There is enough steel here to explain why Australia has reopened iron-ore mines and why ship brokers have taken bulk carriers out of mothballs from their anchorages in the Falmouth estuary…

By some estimates, half the world’s annual production of concrete and one-third of its steel output is being consumed by China’s construction boom.

Definately worth a read, if just to boggle at the rate of change of the rate of change, conveyed by Sudjic’s personal recollections of his visits to Beijing over the last fifteen years. And also how “starchitects” like Rem Koolhaas frame the somewhat Faustian nature of their work there:

Westerners such as the critic Ian Buruma question the propriety of designing a building that can be seen as endorsing the propaganda arm of a repressive state that tells a billion people what to think. It is criticism which Koolhaas dismisses with growing impatience. ‘Participation in China’s modernisation does not have a guaranteed outcome,’ he told one interviewer. ‘The future of China is the most compelling conundrum, its outcome affects all of us and a position of resistance seems somehow ornamental.’

Resistance Is Ornamental – the cry of the globalist neomodern Borg-in-Prada?

New life goal: stay in at least three of the suites by different architects at the under-construction Hotel Puerta America in Madrid.

From John Pawson’s site

“The Hotel Puerta América project brings together a team of collaborators which includes Jean Nouvel, Marc Newson, Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster, Christian Liaigre, David Chipperfield, Kathryn Findlay, Jason Bruges, Arata Isozaki, Jonnie Bell, Harriet Bourne, Ron Arad, Plasma Studio, Araki, Richard Gluckman, Teresa Sapey, Vittorio & Luchino, Felipe Saes de Gordoa, Javier Mariscal, Fernando Salas and Arnold Chan.”

There is a sneak preview (in audio) in this week’s “In Business” programme on BBC Radio 4, entitled “Tall Storeys” where Peter Day interviews David Chipperfield about the project, whilst conducting a survey of the state of the architectural profession.

Incidently, “In Business” can now be enjoyed in mp3 format delivered to the ‘podcasting’ software of your choice, thanks to the fine work of BBC R&Mi.