This year—the Serpentine’s 40th Anniversary—the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is designed by world-renowned French architect Jean Nouvel. This 2010 Pavilion is the 10th commission in the Gallery’s annual series. The design for the 2010 Pavilion is a contrast of lightweight materials and dramatic metal cantilevered structures. The entire design is rendered in a vivid red that, in a play of opposites, contrasts with the green of its park setting. In London, the colour reflects the iconic British images of traditional telephone boxes, post boxes and London buses.
The building consists of bold geometric forms, large retractable awnings and a sloped freestanding wall that stands 12m above the lawn.

Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary celebrates Istanbul’s art program in the framework of European Capital of Culture 2010 with the sonic pavilion The Morning Line by Matthew Ritchie with Aranda\Lasch and Arup AGU in an amazing location:  at famous Eminönü Square just in front of the Spice Bazar…
The Morning Line – an impressive 8 meter high and 20 meter long pavilion, built of 17 tons of black coated aluminum – explores the disciplinary interplays between art, architecture, music, mathematics, cosmology, and science.

Vitra Haus designed byJacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron is the new home of Vitra’s Home Collection. The  five-storey structure is built of 12 ‘houses’ – five houses are at the base and seven other houses are stacked upon one another.

MAXXI is the first National Museum of XXI Century Arts  devoted to the contemporary creativity. The Museum designed by Zaha Hadid Architects.The MAXXI design goes beyond the concept of the building-museum. The complexity of the volumes, the curving walls, the variations and intersections of the levels determine a very rich spatial and functional configuration that visitors may pass through via ever different and unexpected routes. Multiple environments coexist in a sequence of galleries illuminated with natural light filtered via a special roof system.

In the heart of Paris’s museum land,  the Musée du quai Branly has an exceptional location on the banks of the River Seine, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. The arts of Africa, Oceania, Asia, and the Americas now form part of the historical and artistic grand tour of the capital. The Musée du quai Branly is an innovative cultural institution – museum, educational and research center, and public living space all in one. Built on one of the last available sites in the heart of Paris, the architectural design of this original project is the work of Jean Nouvel.

If the weather is good, do not miss cafe Branly, located in the museums beautiful garden, with a view of the Moai head.

Designed by architect Frank Gehry, Walt Disney Concert Hall, new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is designed to be one of the most acoustically sophisticated concert halls in the world, providing both visual and aural intimacy for an unparalleled musical experience.

Through the vision and generosity of Lillian Disney, the Disney family, and many other individual and corporate donors, the city will enjoy one of the finest concert halls in the world, as well as an internationally recognized architectural landmark. From the stainless steel curves of its striking exterior to the state-of-the-art acoustics of the hardwood-paneled main auditorium, the 3.6-acre complex embodies the unique energy and creative spirit of the city of Los Angeles and its orchestra.

High Line is the new public park of Manhattan, opened in June 2009 to the public. It runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 34th Street, between 10th & 11th Avenues. Section 1 of the High Line runs from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street.

The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan’s largest industrial district. No trains have run on the High Line since 1980. Friends of the High Line, a community-based non-profit group, formed in 1999 when the historic structure was under threat of demolition. Friends of the High Line works in partnership with the City of New York to preserve and maintain the structure as an elevated public park.

When all sections are complete, the High Line will be a mile-and-a-half-long elevated park, running through the West Side neighborhoods of the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea and Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen. It features an integrated landscape, designed by landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, combining meandering concrete pathways with naturalistic plantings. Fixed and movable seating, lighting, and special features are also included in the park.

photos by Ozlem Avcioglu

Borusan Music and Art Center designed by Gokhan Avcioglu and GAD is in the historic neighborhood Beyoglu, Istanbul. The building is a multi-purpose space for exhibitions, events, rehearsals and various other cultural training programs. This new culture center symbolizes the cultural and arts renaissance presently occurring throughout the city while also preserving the architectural legacy of Istanbul.

GAD’s design preserves and restores the historic shell of the existing building; the shell is typical of the facades along the famous Istiklal Caddesi. The building core is completely removed to express an empty void. In a clever move, GAD inserts a contrasting contemporary ‘box’ within the core.  The inserted ‘box’ seems to almost defy gravity as it plays off and is framed by the historic masonry shell. The architectural symbiosis of the two contrasting construction methods and materials activates a playful tension between past and present

www.borusansanat.com

photos by Ahmet Ertug and Ozlem Avcioglu

Dominus winery was designed by the Swiss architects, Herzog and de Meuron. Known for their innovative architectural design, their approach was to integrate the winery into the landscape, echoing our belief that the vineyard is of utmost importance. Indeed, from a distance, the gabion structure dissolves into the landscape and it has been dubbed by the locals “the stealth winery.”

Filled with basalt rocks from the nearby American Canyon, the stainless steel baskets are both an aesthetic and technical choice. Generally used to retain dirt along highways, here the gabions are used to moderate the extreme temperatures of the Napa Valley.Dominus’ glass offices provide panoramic views, allowing us to follow at all times the activity in the vineyard, key to producing a great wine Dominus is the property red wine, produced in the heart of Napa Valley by Christian Moueix and his team. Since 1983, our goal has been to express the unique terroir found at the historic Napanook Vineyard.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in the centre of Berlin is Germany’s central Holocaust memorial site, a place for remembrance and commemoration of six million victims.
The Memorial consists of the Field of Stelae designed by architect Peter Eisenman and the underground Information Centre and is maintained by a Federal Foundation. It consists of a 19,000 square meter site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or “stelae”, arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The stelae are 2.38m  long, 0.95m wide and vary in height from 0.2 m to 4.8m. According to Eisenman the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.

Esma Sultan Palace was built approximately 200 years ago for Esma Sultan, an Ottoman Sultan’s wife as a summer palace. Destroyed by fire over a century ago, the exterior brick walls are all that remain of the building.

Commissioned to renovate and redesign the space, Gokhan Avcioglu and GAD designed a thin but strong stainless steel and glass box that is suspended within the brick structure. Esma sultan is now a multi-purpose event space in Ortakoy, Istanbul, in the center of the city in a busy entertainment district on the banks of the Bosphorus.
Planting a glass and steel box inside the ruins of a palace to create a covered venue that constantly reminds us of the multiple histories innate in the new design.
 

Photos: courtesy of GAD

Pekin olimpiyatları için tasarlanıp, Herzog & de Meuron firmasının kurucusu mimarlar Jacques Herzog ve Pierre de Meuron ile, Çinli sanatçı Ai Weiwei’nin ortak girişimi olarak inşa edilen Beijing Ulusal Stadyumu, dünyanın en büyük çelik yapısıdır. Özel tasarımı nedeniyle, “kuş yuvası” olarak da isimlendirilmektedir.

2008 Yaz Olimpiyatlarının açılış ve kapanış seremonilerinin yanı sıra, atletizm yarışmalarına ve futbol finaline ev sahipliği yapan stadyum, ne yazık ki bugün atıl duruma düşmüş ve kullanılmıyor.

photos by Ozlem Avcioglu

Casa Malaparte is one of the most beautiful houses in the world and is on Punta Massullo, on the eastern side of the Capri Island, Italy.

The house was designed around 1937 by Italian Rationalist architect Adalberto Libera for Curzio Malaparte. Malaparte actually rejected Libera’s design and built the home himself with the help of Ciro Amitrano, a local stone mason.

Casa Malaparte is a red masonry box with reverse pyramidal stairs leading to the roof patio. On the roof is a freestanding curving white wall of increasing height. It sits on a dangerous cliff 32 meters above the sea overlooking the Gulf of Salerno. Access to this private property is either by foot from the Town of Capri or by boat and a staircase cut into the cliff.

Casa Malaparte was abandoned and neglected after the death of Curzio Malaparte in 1957. It suffered both from vandalism and natural elements for many years and was seriously damaged, including the desecration of a beautiful tiled stove, before the first serious renovation started in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Kuum is an innovative concept for boutique lifestyle and hotels and designed by Gokhan Avcioglu and GAD.  The architecture for KUUM was inspired by the regional beauty, resources and historical legacy of southwestern Turkey and the Aegean Sea.  GAD’s aim was to design the units in harmony with their natural setting so they blend in and do not harm the environment or call for any trees to be destroyed. Each unit of the hotel is modeled and designed with the flexibility to have the beautiful view of the bay..The rooms are designed as S, M, L and XL and even the Small room is 30 square meter and each room has either a terrace or private garden.

Photos by Leo Fabrizio

The IAC building is Frank Gehry’s first office building in New York City on the West side Highway. The building is designed for ICA,  Barry Diller’s media and internet empire.
The building constantly changes character with the light and time of the day.

photos by Ozlem Avcioglu