DOM publishers 30:70. Architecture as a Balancing Act Tchoban Sergei

For many, the idea of Space Architecture as a discipline lies in the domain of science fiction, where everything is possible simply because it happens "very far in the future". Is Space Architecture a fiction or reality? This book explores if and how architectural principles and strategies need to be transformed when applied to the extreme conditions of outer space. It presents concepts developed by great minds in the fields of space exploration and science-fiction, ones which can inspire new ways into the future. The book also presents the philosophy of Space Architecture, arguing for example that the design of space habitats needs to be human-centred while defining ways for humans to co-exist in new environments. These views are complemented by examples of architectures from current and planned space missions, organised by private companies as well as government agencies

The ancient city of Asmara is the capital of Eritrea and it's largest settlement. Its beautiful architecture was rediscovered by outsiders in the early 1990s. In this book, the authors offer an original analysis of the colonial city, providing a history not only of the physical and visible urban reality, but also of a second, invisible city as it exists in the imagination. The colonial city becomes a fantastical set of cities where each one reflects the others as if in a kaleidoscope. This ambitious book breaks new ground, and moves us a little further along in the attempt to read Asmara into contemporary theory. This book brings together scholars from a multiplicity of disciplines who have shown the ways in which colonial and postcolonial criticism has served as a platform for new, diversified readings of Asmara, which compile cultural and social history, critical and political theory, anthropological fieldwork, visual culture studies, literary and cinematic analysis, gender studies, diaspora and urban studies

Organized chronologically, this volume analyzes the dynamics, convergences, and ideological clashes that have given life to the most significant movements of the twentieth century and today to the season of recent phantasmagoric buildings of the so-called Star System. Illuminating and insightful, the volume is a much needed guide for students, educators, or anyone interested in architecture. Written as if it were a novel, in clear and compelling way, The History of Architecture from 1900 until Today examines the main buildings that were designed in more than 120 years of history, those famous and appreciated unanimously by critics, and those that, although of great value, were neglected for ideological reasons. Read in it's contradictions, architecture becomes a fresco that tells us about our complicated history, our multiple tensions, our filled and unfulfilled desires

Widely known as the Italian one company town during the development of Fiat in the 20th century, Turin underwent a process of transformation roughly twenty years ago in it's search for a new urban identity. The city, situated at the foot of the Alps, has become a laboratory for the reconversion of the post-industrial heritage, also in part owing to the Winter Olympics Games that took place in 2006. The manifestations of change have left behind significant traces in it's urban fabric. Besides it's industrial history, Turin can also surprise with it's Baroque architecture - which has brought the city to the forefront of international popularity among architects - and with masterpieces of Italian modern architecture, such as works by Pier Luigi Nervi and Carlo Mollino

Contemporary Japanese architecture has, over half a century, achieved world-wide recognition not only for it's highly innovative, often futuristic qualities, but also for it's sensitive response to Japan's cultural and physical context in the challenging setting of it's increasingly urbanised environment • Today, it is admired perhaps as much as it's traditional counterpart, with which it often maintains a meaningful dialogue. Botond Bognar's Architectural Guide Japan introduces over 700 of the most prominent examples of this fertile architecture, while outlining it's development since the mid-nineteenth century until the present day in a concise historical essay. This updated, second edition of the book presents around 100 new buildings, reflecting the rapid pace of development in the country

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first man on the moon, this book for the first time ever looks at the artefacts left behind on the moon from the perspective of architecture • The book looks at every single mission - manned and unmanned - that has actually landed on the moon. It covers the time of the beginning of the Soviet and American space race with the landing of Luna 2 in 1959, to the present with China's Chang'e 3 moon rover. This architectural guide differentiates itself from other scientific and educational books through it's abstract approach to the topic of architecture on the moon. The content does not feature science fiction, but rather the question of what exists and what implications these bizarre structures hold for the future of architecture on other planets - as these topics are quite pertinent in today's world of the commercialisation of spaceflight, with SpaceX and NASA planning to take humans to Mars in the next 15 years

Berlin was shaped by the events of the twentieth century in a process of "automatic urbanism". More than any other metropolis, the city absorbed the forces of that epoch modernity, fascism, two world wars, Stalinism, socialism, the Cold War, revolt, capitalism and gave them form • This book shows how even today, opposed ideological, political, economic, and military forces continue to produce unplanned structures and activities and urban phenomena beyond the categories of urban design and architecture that conceal rich potential. Berlin reveals particularly clearly phenomena that have shaped urban development in the twentieth century in other places as well: conglomeration, collision of borders, destruction, void, mass, metabolism, and simulation

During the Covid-19 pandemic we have been forced to retreat into private shelters and to question the limits of residential typologies. The villa is an obvious example of such a shelter. It has reemerged as an object of desire, because of the urge to escape the boundaries of our own four walls. Throughout history this typology has been rethought and reinvented by architectural greats who sought to break radically with the tradition of their times. But what does it mean to us to design a villa during a period of isolation and lockdown? • The answer is not clear. The villa has always been both a dream home for clients and a means of expression for architects. It combines architecture's most primitive function - to create a liveable shelter - with an architect's endeavour to manifest their ideology in a single building

After its golden age in the last decades of the 20th century, diagramming is still an experimental practice today, but it focuses on the synthesis of complexity and on new disciplinary territories on the edge between humanities, art, architecture, urban planning and landscape. This manual presents experimental diagrams through sensing, analysing and transforming space. The contributions critically delineate diagrammatic behaviours in architectural history, present the design practices of offices such as AZPML and MVRDV, take the medium to its extreme consequences, and outline future trajectories

Tbilisi, capital of the Republic of Georgia, has attracted ­increasing international attention in recent years: Buildings play no small part in its reputation, as ­evidenced by the urban mega­projects enacted by successive administrations, countless real estate adverts shilling surrealist investment properties, and the recent establishment of the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial • Architecture offers perhaps the best guide to the myriad contradictions of the city‘s history: Tbilisi is a Silk Road outpost with caravanserais newer than brownstone Brooklyn. The Orientalist landmarks that prompted many a traveller to invoke the Thousand and One Night were, in fact, usually built by members of a German minority emulating European trends. Today, touts may peddle tours of Brutalist Soviet ruins, but one would be hard-pressed to find clear examples of the style within city limits

Professor Pekka Pitkanen (1927-2018) was one of the most significant Finnish architects of the post-war period. He is known as a master of concrete buildings and as a staunch supporter of modernist approach to architecture. He won numerous commissions by architectural competitions. The Chapel of the Holy Cross (1963-1967) in Turku is usually considered as Pitkanen's main work. From 1950's to 1980's Pitkanen built in Turku numerous residential and commercial buildings, often in co-operation with the building company Urakoitsijat Oy. Together with Ola Laiho and Ilpo Raunio, Pitkanen planned the extension of the Finnish Parliament (1972-1978). Late in his career Pitkanen focused on public buildings, the finish of the career was the Turku court building, completed in 1997

In the times when the Ukrainian art sphere was regulated by the Soviet institutions, local monumental and decorative arts existed at the frontier of the Party's propaganda and the artistic thirst to experiments. Nowadays, Ukrainian mosaics are wrested out of the architectural context of the country in both literal and metaphorical ways. The artworks are liquidated from the buildings they were specifically created for and indiscriminately despised as ideological pieces of no value. Furthermore, in legal terms mosaics are not defined as objects of art that makes them unguarded in the face of the decommunization process. Initially incepted as a guide, this book is an equally beneficial companion for the journey through space (in the context of the geographical area of modern Ukraine) and hitchhiking through time (in terms of Ukrainian cultural history)