There is not enough fantastical architecture out there

Claude Parent passed away yesterday at the age of 93, the world lost a great architect.

We just went to see an exhibition at Galerie Azzedine Alaïa in Paris with three museum projects of his presented the other week.
I am so impressed by the world of Claude Parent, he worked right up until his death, only the the hand-drawn lines were shakier.

There is not enough fantastical architecture out there, I wish that many more of his project were built!

His work is really one of a kind, between utopia and reality, the French pavillon for the Venice Biennale in 1970 for example reminds me, in some ways of one of my favorites, 'Lustiga huset' at the amusement park Gröna Lund in Stockholm. A house which proportions and features takes you through a mind-game where the stairs move, you walk on something that you don't know if it is a wall or a floor. This house will always stay in my memory since childhood in the same way Claude Parent's work always makes you want to explore the world of his oblique architecture.

Vive l'architecture oblique! His work will live on forever.

Project presented by Claude Parent at the 1970 architecture biennale

Project presented by Claude Parent at the 1970 architecture biennale

Project by Claude Parent at the 1970 architecture biennale

Drawing by Claude Parent

Daniel Libeskind's home. A film by Matthew Donaldson

American Bar by Adolf Loos

I went to Vienna last year and got a chance to re-visit Adolf Loos American Bar.
The first time I was there was in 2006 when I just started studying architecture.
This time I traveled alone and I decided to go back in the middle of the day.

This place definitely deserves a blog post of it's own, Loos created something so unique in my opinion.
When you come in, it's like entering into another world, where you feel jet lagged or something reminiscent of it, time stands still.
It always has the same light and atmosphere that lingers, no matter what time of day. The noble marble and the glass above the door gives of this jewel-like glow, like jasper stone or amber carnelian. The space is in fact small, but the use of mirrors creates an illusion that it goes on for ever.
I can just imagine cigar smoke and early 20th century cocktails, but as time stands still it works just as well now.

Dignity, but not of an intimidating kind, more like you just want to be there, stay around in a very comforting way and pass your time there. I just love it, the warm wood, down to the leather, illuminated tables and brass handles.

Nesting

Photo credits Niclas Rosander / http://niclasrosander.se

I was just listening to a seminar by Sou Fujimoto.
He brings up many things that I walk around with on my mind.
His manifesto back to primitive architecture, something called 'Primitive future', is about the relationship between the space and the body. He talks about, how in the beginning when humans lived in caves it was us who adjusted to the spaces we inhabited, found our way to use them and claimed certain spaces for specific functions.
It is this thought of the cave vs. the nest (where the nest has been prepared for human habitation, and a cave is the opposite) the cave requires a creative act on behalf of a human.
The cave alters the behavior of its occupant by offering no indication of how to use the space. Although to some degree this ambiguity is inherent in all spaces, the cave is completely undefined. He calls these creative acts of appropriation the beginning of architecture.

And so by nature humans start to nest - to appropriate and claim space, to give it a smaller - human scale.
It is this human scale, or the variety of scales found in nature (example: trunk/branch/twig/leaf/vein) that makes us somehow feel at ease, in our element.
Fujimoto suggests that is is this duality and coexistence of opposite things that creates the richness and makes us feel safe.
So that in going back to the primitive, and finding its order (or non-exisitng order) and the diversity of scales, accompanied by the duality of openness - closeness (protectetness) is the recipe for the future - primitive future.

Fujimoto is so inspiring and his simple almost childish way of boiling things down to their essence and never ceasing to ask questions about how we use and define space creates something so rich...
It just proves how the process is the most valuable part of a project, how important it is to give thoughts time and room to grow into maturity.
Fujimotos ongoing exploration of this primitive architecture constantly gives birth to new projects and takes him further in his thought process.
It is this process of nourishing an idea, understanding it and being able sort out it's architectural abstraction (which then would have the inherit richness of the original idea) that I am after.