ARHITEKTUUR
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.
Andrius Ropolas writes about the Contemporary Art Center Vilnius.
The aging population requires nothing less than a radical retooling of the territory, with architects and urban planners at the forefront of this transformation.
What is the image conjured up by the phrase ‘the industrial heritage of Tallinn’? Is it the Creative Hub (Kultuurikatel), Rotermann Quarter or perhaps Noblessner Foundry (Valukoda)? Henry Kuningas resorts to outstanding examples to describe the main features implemented in the reconstruction of the industrial heritage in the past two decades.
The bank building standing on an old industrial frame on Narva Road proves its ability to also serve as a public library. The obligation to survive various eras and situations is common to both buildings and people, Madli Kaljuste ponders.
After the slow-burning and partly contestable success stories of Rotermann Quarter and Telliskivi Creative City, the eyes of Tallinners interested in urban design or just longing for a better urban space turned to Noblessner—the privately developed waterfront set to become one of the first chapters on the road to open the coastal areas of Tallinn to its citizens. Though far from complete, the lively quarter already offers a chance for a status report and an insight into the entrenchment of certain spatio-social tendencies in the Estonian real estate landscape.
We are discussing landscape architecture with Helēna Gūtmane, Mark Geldof and Ilze Rukšāne online although I initially planned to go there and visit their works together with the authors. In addition to Helēna, Ilze and Mark, also the senior landscape architects Indra Ozoliņa, Mētra Augškāpa and landscape architect Sendija Adītāja joined our discussion around the table (and behind the screen).
The buildings of Barge Yard wish not to reduce to inconspicuousness or to gently stroke the viewer’s gaze; they have a much broader agenda—to stand behind creative values even after solving the maze of practical questions.
Rather than exhibiting objects and asking questions, the contemporary museum has become a place for experiences requiring submission to the logic of storytelling. Triin Ojari considers how the reconstructed Narva Castle relates to history and providing experiences.
What would an architectural journal be without photos to explicate architectural space? Can a photo be more revealing and polyvalent than the architecture it conveys?
