January - February - March 1998 Beware! The links in past news articles are not maintained.
MVRDV Sportscape
March 3, 1998 The designs of Neil Denari (Los Angeles) are characterised by an almost mysterious technologic expression. This can also be found in his way of working, through notebook sketches translated directly to the computer. "I always liked to draw like a computer" he states. Although Neil Denari stresses that his rhetoric is not very original, his designs without doubt can be considered very original. Neil Denari visited The Berlage Institute for 2 days to discuss a co-operation between The BiA and SCI-Arch (South Californian Institute of Architecture), and to give his first lecture in Amsterdam.
February 25, 1998 In a recent issue of the architecture magazine Archis Aldo van Eyck again fires away at the architects and critics in the Netherlands. This time the cause is an article by Bernard Colenbrander on van Eyckís recently finished ëRekenkamerí (Audit office) in The Hague. As often van Eyck is essentialy in the right, but manages to ride off on so many side-issues that most less informed readers must lose track. However, the text is just as entertaining as it is instructive. It can now be read on the Archis webpages.
February 11, 1998 Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, a New York established architect duo, attempt to integrate architecture and visual arts in their projects, to change the vision of architecture. 'Architecture is to change what you expect from it'. They express this by means of installations, using the newest technologies in the field of media. They wonder how those newest technologies relate to architecture and how architecture is affected. Doing so they attempt to make the conditions, the anonymous values and norms of the society visible, readable, audible and tangible. Diller + Scofidio were more than emphatically present at the latest Rotterdam Film festival.
February 10, 1998 OMA has acquired the contract for the new ITT Campus centre in Chicago. In a true clash of the Titans Koolhaas and co. beat such stars as Eisenman, Hadid, and Jahn in a design contest for a provisions building on the historical campus designed by Mies van der Rohe. The order seemed right up Koolhaas' alley: 'to create an urban density with a relatively low density of population.'
January 22, 1998 If the plans of the Dutch railways (NS) proceed, the expansion of the Bijlmer station in Amsterdam-Southeast will be finished in 2005. This will make the station an important transport junction and will also be connected to the boulevard linking the ArenA with the 'Amsterdamse Poort' shopping centre. The combined architectural firms of Nicholas Grimshaw & partners and Arcadis Articon Architects recently presented the plans. The images are at ArchiNed.
January 14, 1998  Despite reports that
less and less people in the Netherlands visit a museum, the 'Van Abbemuseum'
(Eindhoven) and the 'Stedelijk Museum' (Amsterdam) presented their new construction
plans on Friday, January 9th. Both projects were characterised by fierce
discussions which erupted during the first planning phase.
January 13, 1998 The Rotterdam architect Erick van Egeraat won The Photographers' Gallery competition in London, beating many worthy competitors. This photo gallery is the most important gallery in Great Britain and is located in the Great Newport Street in the heart of the West End.
January 13, 1998  The new Central Library
of the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) has been opened to the
public since January. In the 'triangle of glass and grass' design by Mecanoo,
one of the largest technical book collections in the world has finally received
a worthy building. The most important renovations in the building are the
fact that the books can finally be seen and that the files can be studied
at 1000 study places, partly equipped by computer terminals.
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In the framework of the Fabrications demonstration ,
the MVRDV designed an intervention for the public space of the Museum of
Modern Art in Barcelona under the title Sportscape. Fabrications is an exhibition
project in which four museums work together : the MOMA's in New York and
San Francisco, the Wexner Centre in Columbus Ohio and the MACBA. For each
of the four museums four architects were asked to create a design that will
be 'performed' during the demonstration. MVRDV doesn't fill the space in
front of MACBA with all sorts of post-modern street furnishings, but transforms
the square into a sport recreation ground for the neighbourhood, an activity
field for the present day 'homo ludens'.
