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
“Coffee Morphoses” is a set of natural materials generated in the course of a practical study. By analysing the local organic resource, I came to ask if the waste of imported goods could become the new local raw material.
A research project at the Estonian Academy of Arts brings together local timber house manufacturers, digitally skilled architects and engineers to collaborate for more efficient and structurally intelligent architecture.
In 2007, the city council again approved the concept “Opening Tallinn to the Sea” with one of its aims including a populated urban space. The simultaneous activities – seaside arterial roads and the wire fences obstructing the sea views and the use of the coast, however, were entirely contrary
‘We had completed our design submission for an architectural design competition. The detailed plan determined the building’s shape, roof pitch, roof height, eave height, the choice of building materials, entrance to the lot, the parking space of its residents and the client also provided us with a specific layout for rooms. We thought we had quite a decent building. Then an architecture student appeared and asked: ‘Well, what is the concept of this building...?’’
Gothenburg's Jubileumsparken is being designed with an open mind and all changes are welcomed with open arms: it is still unclear what kind of spatial disruptions will be implemented and where these manipulations will come into play. This depends on the parties involved and their reactions to the process.
Planning in Norway is strongly guided by strategic approaches and broad state-set goals directing the local level. This is also reflected in the management and development of local cultural heritage. Vignir Freyr Helgason, senior advisor at the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage (Riksantikvaren) gives an overview of how strategies are developed and implemented in collaboration between the state, municipalities and communities.
Happiness—a word frequently used to describe the sensation emanating, exuding and radiating from the newly completed large concert hall of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. How is happiness built?
Here in front of us is according to the plan “a simple and practical” factory building1 and we are chatting with the designer: “The architect has nothing much to do in designing a rapeseed dryer and storage depot. The engineers prepare the main drawings. For the rapeseed processing factory building, the architect only had to conceive the walls around it. The entire complex can be controlled also from a mobile phone.”