Hannes Aava shares some subjective tidbits about the last 30 years of spatial design in the Baltics.
Francisco Martínez's and Joosep Kivimäe's inventory of spatial objects in Narva, a city on the Estonian border with Russia.
Simply removing the ‘foreign’ symbols offers no more than an ostensible solution, for dissonant heritage—a complex and controversial past, conflicting historical interpretations, etc.—need to be dealt with in a much more in-depth manner.
Hans Alla writes about the interesting nuances of the interior of the Knighthood House.
Architect Toms Kokins investigates the impacts of transnational forestry industry on the Baltic cultural landscapes.
The new song festival ground in Latvia is a symbolic update—an architectural interpretation of contemporary song festival culture as well as a nation’s independence in the very centre of the Baltics.
Balticness as a fragment of identity is a bit like a curiosity forgotten in the back pocket, only to be rediscovered from time to time. We asked a number of Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian archi- tects, architectural offices, and other spatial practitioners for their favourite spaces, spatial situations, or features that appear unique to the Baltic coun- tries (or one of them).
Andrius Ropolas writes about the Contemporary Art Center Vilnius.
Balti riikide ja Venemaa (nagu ka selle lahutamatu liitlase Valgevene) vahelise piiri kindlustamisel on piirialade maastikule suur mõju.
What is an architect’s work, and what is its result? Is it a finished building, street, auditorium? Or is it an abstraction of these things—a design, i.e., project documentation that will be translated into a building by someone else? We asked several architecture collectives for their opinion.
The cultural shift towards using materials and energy that are contained within planetary boundaries requires a reconsideration of the most fundamental assumptions about how buildings interact with the world.
Designing with a territory values connection over extraction. Clara Kernreuter from Atelier LUMA and Maria Helena Luiga from kuidas.works discuss bioregional design.
Editors' choice
What kind of relationship between a space and its surroundings would help to avoid the objectification of space—i.e., treating buildings or areas as sculptures or fully controllable objects?
Paide State Secondary School is an excellent example of the mutually complementary dialogue between a historical space and contemporary architecture.
Little was built following the re-establishment of Estonian independence in the early 1990s, however, the debates held and practices established largely came to set the foundations for the dominant issues in the architectural field in the past decades.
What kind of relationship between a space and its surroundings would help to avoid the objectification of space—i.e., treating buildings or areas as sculptures or fully controllable objects?
Most read
Urmo Mets’ Conceivable Houses can be read in either a conceptual or realist way. A realist reading is the opposite of a conceptual reading in the sense that the goal is not to take in a particular idea, but, on the contrary, to find oneself transported through the text into an imaginary environment where no normal or habitual processes can be expected to work.
Stubborn spaces also have their charm. Alone or better yet collectively, the given disruptions in the harmony yield fascinating results for people interested in the urban space.
Indrek Allmann discusses landward- and seaward-facing small harbours.
Nobody in the architectural domain still regards Contextualism still in terms of mimicry or imitation. A good building is not designed by doing like the neighbors do, by keeping up with the Joneses. There is no such thing as contextual authenticity. On the other hand there is little believe anymore in the power of the iconic building. The contextual designer seems to be caught in the paradox of the personal creation of something that is recognized as local and impersonal.I will not try to rewrite the critique of contextualism in architecture. Rather, what I will try to do is say something about working methods. I will speculate on a ‘knowhow’ of contextualism, much rather than a ‘knowwhy’.
The greatest challenge for Estonian towns and rural municipalities is to move from governing to enabling. An enabling locality facilitates its residents’ initiative and cooperation between local actors .
Distinctive places such as a modest park in Kreenholm district can connect the community by approaching citizens in their own way and encouraging the search for a common ground.
Peatoimetaja Katrin Koov.
Most people are more or less consciously preparing for old age, the most ordinary and nationally approved preparation consisting in accumulating money into pension funds. Are we opening Pandora’s box when we ask how and if these most common investment funds affect environmental and social developments now and in the near future?
How can we explore the authenticity of interior space? Semele Kari moves to a barrack at Tondi and describes a pop-up interior architecture office inhabiting the desolate spaces as a methodology with the aim of finding the most suitable upgrade for them.
Urmo Mets’ Conceivable Houses can be read in either a conceptual or realist way. A realist reading is the opposite of a conceptual reading in the sense that the goal is not to take in a particular idea, but, on the contrary, to find oneself transported through the text into an imaginary environment where no normal or habitual processes can be expected to work.