A young woman wearing a short pleated skirt and a white bobble hat is posing for photos on a street corner in Shanghai, telling her friend to ensure that a red brick, colonial-era building features in the background. Nearby, a woman in stilettos and fur coat is being photographed in an arched doorway framed by classical mouldings, while another perches on a windowsill, coffee in hand next to a carved column. The alleyways behind are filled with similar scenes: people posing on steps, next to lampposts or in front of…
Tag: Architecture
12 African Artists Leading a Culture Renaissance Around the World
In one of his famed self-portraits, Omar Victor Diop, a Senegalese photographer and artist, wears a three-piece suit and an extravagant paisley bow tie, preparing to blow a yellow, plastic whistle. The elaborately staged photograph evokes the memory of Frederick Douglass, the one-time fugitive slave who in the 19th century rose to become a leading abolitionist, activist, writer and orator, as well as the first African American to be nominated for vice president of the United States. Diop is no stranger to portraying the aches and hopes of Black people…
What will life after globalisation look like? The Venice Biennale may hold the answer | Lorenzo Marsili
This year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, titled Laboratory for the Future, was inaugurated on the same day that the leaders of the G7 industrialised nations met in Hiroshima. As different as these events appeared, both signalled the end of globalisation. Both also displayed the promise and perils of a fragmenting world. Of all the arts, architecture is the most globally homogenising. Erecting tropical copycats of Paris and London was a staple of European colonial policy. Today, the same glass-and-steel tower blocks dot interchangeable financial capitals the world over. But the 2023…
How A.I. Is Helping Architects Change Workplace Design
“I’ve been a workplace designer for the last 24 years,” said the architect Arjun Kaicker. “I’ve seen more change in the last 24 months than in the whole of my career.” Mr. Kaicker co-runs Zaha Hadid Analytics + Insights, or ZHAI, a five-person team that uses data and artificial intelligence to design workplaces. The team is part of Zaha Hadid Architects, the firm founded by the influential architect Zaha Hadid in London in 1979. “The pandemic has really supercharged innovation in the workplace,” Mr. Kaicker said in a recent video…
Chinese glories, last rites revised and hypermodern tapestry – the week in art
Exhibition of the week China’s Hidden CenturyBlockbuster survey of China in the 19th century, when the imperial era was coming to an end. British Museum, London, 18 May to 8 October Also showing Gwen John: Art and Life in London and Paris Introspective portraits by the Welsh Vermeer. Pallant House, Chichester, 13 May to 8 October Patrick CaulfieldEarly work by one of the most ironic and haunting British modern painters and printmakers. Josh Lilley, London, 18 May to 20 June Melati Suryodarmo This acclaimed performance artist brings her vision to…
‘Vanity projects’: China to introduce tighter limits on skyscrapers
China has said it will restrict smaller cities from building “super skyscrapers”, as part of a broader crackdown on “vanity projects” and to reduce energy consumption. Skyscrapers taller than 150 metres (490ft) will be strictly limited, and those higher than 250 metres will be banned for cities with a population of fewer than 3 million. The authorities will also limit structures taller than 250 metres for cities with more than 3 million people. This is not the first time Chinese regulators have stepped in to limit the height of skyscrapers.…