KANVA, a Montreal-based firm renowned for meaningful projects extending beyond the boundaries of architectural shapes and forms, is proud to unveil TRACES, a multisensorial, thought-provoking exhibition on the grounds of the Canada Pavilion at World Expo 2020 Dubai. Commissioned by Global Affairs Canada and produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) to populate the Plaza grounds leading up to the pavilion Entry Hall, KANVA has taken a national, yet universal approach to designing a public installation that aligned with both Canada’s participation at the Expo and Expo 2020 Dubai’s themes of Opportunity, Mobility, and Sustainability.
Culture Architecture
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How did so many outstanding theaters, museums, and public libraries manage to get built-in Québec over the last two decades? The reason is simple. The Quebec government, which subsidizes the building of cultural institutions, large or small, requires that architecture competitions be held in order to release funding. The rule applies to communities of all sizes, not just to larger cities.
Alper Aytac’s design for the Golden Horn Library was selected as a 2021 Architizer A+ Awards Jury Winner in the Institutional - Unbuilt category. The Golden Horn Library will be located in Galata, a historic neighborhood at the crossroads of Istanbul, Turkey's cultural and visual memories.
XAPO (pronounced ‘Sapo’) provides online banking services for cryptocurrencies. The company’s director, Wences Casares, commissioned Lagranja studio to create their flagship headquarters; the first physical HQ for XAPO, and the first transformation of a historical building for Lagranja.
The new 40,000 square-foot Puller Gallery at the recently opened National Museum of Military Vehicles reimagines the traditional military museum by immersing visitors in the stories of Vietnam and Korean War service members through dynamic, interactive experiences created by leading design-build firm Roto.
Over the past 40 years, Shenzhen has developed from a tiny fishing village to one of the most innovative, modern cities in China. With a rapid population growth, from just a few thousand to nearly 17 million inhabitants today, it has evolved into a thriving megalopolis. More than 33% of its very young population - averaging just under 30 years old - lives in these densely populated metropolitan surroundings, hence urban parks, as well as spaces for leisure and recreation, are essential components of a green infrastructure that helps contribute to the well-being of local communities. With Shenzhen’s comfortable year-round climate, these outdoor recreational spaces can be utilized to their fullest potential.
Winner of an architectural competition, the new Pierrefonds Library embodies through its architecture the major changes underway in the world of library science.
At the onset of the design process, the architect hoped to find an intersection of Chinese and Western cultural differences: the overall layout concept of the site was taken from the "ruyi", used by China to gift foreign envoys since ancient times as a symbol of friendly relations and peace between the two countries. The east and west pavilions are connected by a cultural corridor, and it is surrounded by ponds and bamboo forests. The Chinese Cultural Hall and the Chinese-Italian Cultural Hall use Italian squares as their spatial prototypes. Through the creation of scenery, form, meaning, and emotion, they interpret the cultural philosophy of the harmony between man and nature in the Eastern world.
The history of the project goes back to 1990s, when a national competition was opened in 1992 for the design of presidential symphony orchestra concert hall on a vacant land between Ulus and Sıhhiye, the old and new quarters of Ankara.
The project’s primary design methodology began with an investigation of the architectural history of bazaars in Iran and the city of Mashhad. Since time immemorial, the unbreakable bond between the city bazaars and the foundations of the economy has led to bazaars taking on an important and consistent role in people’s daily lives.
On the waterfront site that was the port of arrival for nearly half of all enslaved Africans brought to North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a long-anticipated museum dedicated to telling their stories and celebrating the contributions of their descendants has at last broken ground. Proposed in 2000 by Charleston’s longtime mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., the International African American Museum (IAAM), designed by New York–based architectural firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, is now under way. Moody Nolan, the largest African-American-owned design firm in the United States, is architect of record.
The design for the new SOS Children’s Villages Illinois and Maestro Cares Community Center exemplifies a unification of SOS’s child-fostering mission, with the surrounding family “villages” of the Roosevelt Square community. The prominent corner site along the active Blue Island Avenue, just south and west of Chicago’s downtown area, welcomes engagement with adjacent residential neighborhoods, while presenting a positive and compelling outward image to the public.