今年1月15日に71歳で亡くなった建築家、Jan Kaplický（ヤン・カプリツキー）の追悼展「Remembering Jan Kaplický – Architect of the Future」（デザイン・ミュージアム）が、昨日のエントリーの「Mariscal: Drawing Life」とともに、今週末11月1日で終わる。プラハ生まれのカプリツキー氏は、、1968年のプラハの春（旧ソ連のチェコスロヴァキアへの軍事介入）後、祖国を脱出し、イギリスに亡命。パリのポンピドゥー・センター（Centre Georges Pompidou）を共に手がけた、レンゾ・ピアノ（Renzo Piano）とリチャード・ロジャース卿（Richard Rogers）の建築事務所、ノーマン・フォスター卿のFoster and Partnersを経て、建築シンクタンクFuture Systems（フューチャー・システムズ）を主宰。生物的なフォルムと未来派ハイテクを組み合わせた、常識を覆すユニークな建築物で世界的に有名になった。代表作には、数々の賞を受賞し、バーミンガムのシンボルにもなったSelfridges（セルフリッジズ）や、宇宙船を彷彿させるロンドンのLord’s Cricket Ground（ローズ・クリケット場）のメディアセンター等がある。亡くなる前は、チェコ共和国での仕事に力を入れていた。彼の母国での最初の重要な建築物となるはずだった、国立図書館の新しい建物の国際コンペに通ったが、「Octopus（たこ）」とあだ名された、紫と緑のしみにも見える奇抜なデザインに反対意見が相次ぎ、残念ながらプロジェクトはキャンセルされた。カプリツキーは、彼がデザインした、České Budějovice（チェスケー・ブディヨヴィツェ）に建築予定だった議会とコンサートホールの完成を見届けることなく、故郷のプラハで、娘の誕生を見届けた直後、急性心不全で亡くなった。

追悼展では代表作の他にも、世に出なかった作品、彼の太陽発電の乗り物、電気自動車、ジュエリー、2階建てバス、果てはビキニデザインまで、カプリツキーの想像力と才能を余すことなく展示。SF映画に出てきそうな、彼のユニークで未来的なデザインは、模型を見ているだけでも楽しい。下の階で開催中の、建築家の「David Chipperfield: Form Matters」に比べると規模が小さいのが残念だ。

“Remembering Jan Kaplický – Architect of the Future” at Design Museum will end at the end of this week on November 1, as well as yesterday’s entry “Mariscal: Drawing Life.”

World-renowned Czech-born architect Jan Kaplický, who died on January 15 this year, escaped to London in September 1968 in the wake of the Prague Spring, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. He worked at the office of Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, with whom he developed the design for the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and then joined Foster Associates, now Foster and Partners. In 1979 Kaplický set up his own architectural think tank Future Systems with David Nixon, and had created innovative and unusual architectures style that combined organic forms with high tech futurism. His major works include awards-winning Selfridges Building which became an icon of Birmingham, and spaceship look-like media center at Lord’s Cricket Ground. Kaplický began to spend more time in the Czech Republic toward the end of his life. He won the international architectural competition for the new Czech National Library building, which was to have been his first major building in his home country, but his design plan resembling a green and purple blob and nicknamed “the Octopus,” was cancelled due to the strong objections as it would “ruin Prague’s panorama.” Kaplický died with heart failure in his native Prague, just after observing his daughter’s birth, without seeing the completion of another of his project, the Congress and Concert Hall Centre in České Budějovice (Budweis), with his own eyes.

In this exhibition, you can see gifted architect and designer Kaplický’s major works as well as his stream of ideas for solar powered vehicles, electric cars, jewellery, bikinis and double-decker buses. His futuristic design, perfect for Science Fiction movies, is fun and exciting. It is a shame that the space is much smaller than another architect’s less entertaining exhibition “David Chipperfield: Form Matters” downstairs.

妹の誕生日プレゼントに買った、ティータオル（洗った食器類を拭く布巾）。オックスフォード・ストリートにあるデパート・Selfridgesの地下の台所用品売り場に設置された、国旗をデザインしたマグカップやティーポット、クッションカバー、ジャム等イギリス産の品物を集めたコーナーで見つけた。王冠のロゴに50年代風のデザインが可愛い。製造元のPintuckによると、デザイン、プリント、縫製まで全工程をすべてイングランドで行っているそうだ。イギリス土産にぴったりだ。

Selfridges（セルフリッジズ）オックスフォード・ストリート店は、ハロッズに次ぐイギリスで2番目に大きい高級デパートで、オックスフォード・ストリートで最大の店舗。アメリカ人実業家・ハリー・ゴードン・セルフリッジズによって1909年に創業、今年100周年を迎えた。買い物を単なる用事としてではなく、「fun adventure（楽しい冒険）」にしたいと考えた創業者の理念は今でも生きており、Selfridgesのユニークで遊び心のあるウィンドー・ディスプレイは、いつも話題をさらう。ちなみに、ショーウィンドウの導入や、店内にレストランとトイレを設けたのも、Selfridgesが最初なんだそうだ。Selfridgesの、流行を取り入れた品揃えやそのセンスの良さには定評があり、流行に敏感な若者にも人気。また中近東の金持ち御用達のデパートとしても有名で、外には何台もの運転手付き高級車が、Selfridgesの黄色い紙バッグをたくさん抱えて戻ってくる主を待っている。Selfridgesの店舗建築もまた優れており、オックスフォード・ストリート店はクラシックな外観だが、Future Systemsがデザインしたモダンなバーミンガム店は、市の新しいシンボルとなっている。

I bought this tea towel (dish towel, a cloth which is used to dry dishes and cutlery etc) for my sister’s birthday. I found it at the corner displaying “British products” such as jam, mugs and cushion covers with British national flags, in the kitchen and household department on the lower ground floor of the Selfridges Oxford street store. Its 50’s style design with crowns is very cute. As printed in the large letters, the towel is designed, printed, and sewn in England, according to the producer Pintuck – a perfect English souvenir.

Selfridges Oxford street store is the second largest store after Harrods in the UK, and the largest on Oxford Street. Founded in 1909 by American businessman Harry Gordon Selfridge, this up-market department store celebrates their 100-year anniversary this year. Selfridges was the pioneer of a modern department store, and was the first store to introduce show windows and set up restaurants and customers toilets. The founder’s idea to make shopping a “fun adventure” instead of a chore is still alive, and their unique and fun window displays always come up on peoples’ attention. Selfridges is a favorite department store of young and hip Londoners for its fashionable sense and selection of the trendy products. It is also known as a best-loved shop by rich Middle Easterners, and the expensive cars with chauffeurs are always parked outside, waiting for their ‘masters’ with handful of yellow shopping bags. Selfridge stores are known for architectural excellence. The exterior of Oxford street store is rather classic style, but the Future Systems-designed modern Birmingham store became a new symbol of the city.

(imagen: Richard Davies)

Nos guste o no la forma (blob), el Lords Media Centre es una estructura poco conocida pero que representó en su momento una innovación tremenda en la arquitectura.

Esta caseta de periodistas fue inagurada tras un concurso lanzado por el Lords Cricket Ground (Londres) para celebrar el campeonato mundial de cricket a celebrarse en el año 1999 (hace ya 10 años).  Segun The Architects Journal, es el campo de cricket mas interesante del mundo, ya que al ser la cancha tan grande, cada edificio que rodea el campo ha representado un momento arquitectonico determinado.

La estructura fue diseñada en 1994 por Future Systems y construida en 1999, previa a toda la parafernalia del star system  y con ayuda de ARUP e ingenieros navales lograron resolver y dar la forma curva perfecta.

Esta obra le valió a FutureSystems llevarse el Stirling Prize de la RIBA,  ( la obra del año , en  1999)

fotos interiores (Matthew Piper flickr)

Lords media centre, My Modern Architecture

Riba Stirling Pirze, 1999

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blobitecture

Not-dance gem:  Future Systems founding partner Jan Kaplicky passed away last week at the age of 71, but it looks as though his final project will see the light of day.  A concert hall planned for Ãeské Budejovice, Czech Republic, its two headlining features are a slippery, proportionally-low profile that recalls a ray and a large, deeply-set oval window that fills the rear of the stage.  It calls to mind some designs I saw of Hernán Díaz Alonso’s at the Art Institute’s Xefirotarch exhibition last summer.  At the very least, a quick browse of the renderings is a must.

I don’t remember where I saw this proposal before but I’m happy to hear it’s moving ahead, especially what with all the terrible news about architecture these days.

In related not-dance-related news, Herzog & de Meuron’s in-process concert hall for Hamburg, which in my opinion is one of the most exciting pieces of contemporary building in the world, just launched a terrifically sexy, multilingual progress site for the project, and it’s tons of clicky, Flashy fun.

(via The Architect’s Journal)

You might not know anything of this radical Czech-born architect, but chances are if you are a cricket fan then you would have seen his work at Lord’s – the striking space-pod media centre has been the backdrop for many matches I’ve watched on TV. Kaplický collapsed on a Czech street Wednesday night,  just hours after his daughter Johanka was born to wife Eliska Kaplický Fuchsova, a Czech TV producer. Prior to relocating back to Prague, he’d spent 40 years in London. In 1998 he’d established an architectural practice with former wife Amanda Levete called Future Systems.  Levete and Kaplický have a 13 year old son, Josef.

Architect Jan Kaplický (1937-2009)

His design (below) for the new national library in Prague – a cross between an amoeba and an octopus – won an international competition but failed to impress Czech politicians and influential members of the architectural community. His inability to win them over and gain acceptance for the design upset him greatly. Some friends of the architect have attributed his too-early death to the resultant stress.

Future Systems are also renowned for their design of the Birmingham Selfridges.  The curvaceous store is covered by a dramatic skin made up of 15,000 spun aluminium disks. It described as a “sexy big giant” by former Selfridge’s chief executive Vittorio Radice.

Ευχάριστα παλιομοδίτικη αρχιτεκτονική παρέμβαση της ομάδας Future Systems στην μη εμπορική άκρη της Oxford Street στο Λονδίνο. Οι άνθρωποι έχουν φάει πολύ κράξιμο, αλλά προσωπικά θα διαφωνήσω. Μέσα στη μόδα της εποχής με καμπύλες και άλλους πειραματισμούς λίγη νοσταλγία για τον φουτουρισμό των παππούδων μας δεν κάνει κακό.

A tale of two cities: First up, Naples. Anish Kapoor and architects Future Systems have been commissioned to create a fully-functioning tube station (left) that is “a synthesis of purpose and beauty.”

London: Kapoor has been shortlisted for the vacant fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. The newly elected London Mayor Boris Johnson has waded in, saying that the plinth be used for a permanent statue of World War II RAF commander Sir Keith Park. Kapoor recently told the Art Newspaper: “He [Johnson] is a a fool. He hasn’t the faintest idea and he ought to keep his mouth shut.” Now, that won’t get your sculpture built Mr Kapoor. But the contrast between the two developments shows the different directions the two cities are heading, perhaps?

La primera imatge d’aquest article no correspon a un OVNI abandonat pels seus pilots extraterrestres en el jardí d’alguna casa, es tracta d’una escola dissenyada per l’equip d’arquitectes de Future Systems. La segona, correspon a l’interior d’una altra de les escoles dissenyades per aquest innovador equip d’arquitectes. Mentre que la tercera, pertany a una llar d’infants, al Japó.  No estic parlant d’una arquitectura futurista, sinó de la creació d’espais per a l’educació dels nostres fills en el present, atenent a les necessitats que comporta i (crec) necessita, almenys des d’un nivell arquitectònic, l’escola del segle XXI.  

Totes aquestes imatges han caigut a les meves mans gràcies al suplement del diumenge del diari El País on, sota el títol “Un mundo a su medida”, es repassen les últimes tendències arquitectòniques per a escoles, biblioteques i espais dedicats al creixement personal i intel·lectual dels infants.  D’entre els noms que apareixen en el citat article, em sembla d’allò més interessant esmentar a Prakash Fair, un arquitecte d’origen indi considerat com una autoritat en el disseny d’escoles. D’ell, he decidit extreure un parell de cites que crec hauríem de tenir molt en compte:  

-“Ens hem pres tan de debò el tema de la seguretat, que avui hi ha massa col·legis dissenyats com magatzems. Això fa que als nens se’ls tracti com mercaderia.”  

-“La mercaderia es protegeix perquè no es trenqui. Però no s’alimenta perquè tingui veu pròpia.” 

 A continuació, us deixo amb alguns enllaços, per si us ha estat d’interès el tema de la creació d’espais en el món de l’educació: 

- Web de Future Systems, empresa encarregada de la creació d’alguns dels espais anteriorment citats. Aquí 

- Web oficial de Fielding Fair, consultora de centres educatius, creada per Prakash Nair. Aquí 

 -“The Language of School Design: Design Patterns for 21st Century Schools”, llibre escrit per Prakash Nair, sobre el disseny arquitectònic d’escoles per al segle XXI. Aquí