Tag Archives: architecture

RIP Gaetano Pesce (1939 – 2024)

Gaetano Pesce stierf. Hij was 84. Een deel van ons kerkhof werd door hem vormgegeven in 2004. Gaetano had daar zelf om gevraagd nadat hij te weten was gekomen dat Ettore Sottsass enkele mausolea had ontworpen.

Pesce was architect en designer en had een even unieke als herkenbare vorm- en beeldtaal. Zo werkte hij vaak met harsen.

Bekend werk van hem is de ligstoel La Mamma (1969), de sofa Tramonto a New York (1980), het Organic Building (1993) in Japan, de Mourmans Gallery (1994) in Knokke en het kleine promo-vaasje Goto (1995).

Pesce krijgt zijn plaats naast het graf van Ettore Sottsass (1917 – 2007) en in de dichte nabijheid van Andrea Branzi (1938 – 2023), Paolo Portoghesi (1931 – 2023) en Piero Gilardi (1942 – 2023). Elk van deze design-baronnen ontwierp zijn eigen mausoleum. De bezoekers, dat is ons opgevallen, zien er bijzonder stylish uit.

RIP Vlado Milunić (1941 – 2022)

Het ‘dansende’ huis in kwestie.

Vlado Milunić was een Tsjechisch architect bekend omwille van het gebouw Dancing House (1996) in Praag.

Hij ontwierp die getorste structuur samen met de Amerikaan Frank Gehry.

Het gebouw wordt tot de klassiekers der postmoderne architectuur gerekend.

Ook de haast betekenisloze term deconstructivisme wordt er graag op geplakt.

RIP Ricardo Bofill (1939 – 2022)

Ricardo Bofill was a Spanish architect who built Xanadu (1971), La Muralla Roja (1973) and Walden 7 (1975).

promotional video to ‘Visions of Architecture’ (2019), a work on Ricardo Bofill

His work references Gaudí, Palladio and Archigram.

Bofill’s opus is of major significance in European postmodern architecture.

RIP Gottfried Böhm (1920 – 2021)

Maria, Königin des Friedens (detail)

Gottfried Böhm was a German architect and sculptor. His reputation is based on creating highly sculptural buildings made of concrete, steel, and glass.

He is best-known for the brutalist church Maria, Königin des Friedens.

Other brutalist churches include Wotruba Church.

RIP John Margolies (1940 – 2016)

This will have happened five years in two days, but I only found out today.

The End of the Road: Vanishing Highway Architecture in America (1981)

John Margolies was an American architectural critic and photographer.

I just spent (while researching the fantastic Jacques Moeschal) two hours intermittently trying to find the title of the book on roadside architecture I sold five years ago and then I found out that it is the one above: The End of the Road: Vanishing Highway Architecture in America (1981).

The link with Moeschal being that with lots of irreverence (I love the word, as well as the practice of irreverence) you can call the ‘signs’ of Moeschal ‘roadside attractions’.

RIP Michael Sorkin (1948 – 2020)

This happened in March but I only found out today.

How?

By reading Pandemic! by Slavoj Žižek which has a commemoration for Sorkin as epigraph.

Michael Sorkin was an American architect, architectural critic and activist.

Against the Wall (2005)

An outdated version of Wikipedia says Sorkin was an outspoken supporter of politically leftist causes.

In 2005, he edited Against the Wall, which compares Israel to Apartheid South Africa.

This book caught my attention, as the geopolitical situation of the Middle East is becoming more and more of interest of me.

Not so long ago, it dawned on me that the Middle East was becoming my WWII. Allow me to explain. When I was younger I regularly came into contact with older gentlemen who were fascinated by everything which had to do with World War II.

World War II has never interested me much, except for the Holocaust.

As I grow older, I become fascinated with everything Middle East, with geopolitics and with clashes of civilization.