WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS Blog » Architecture

Marcel Broodthaers | The Marcel Broodthaers cabinet

W&V — Fri, 20 May 2011 11:30:16 +0000

MARCEL | The Marcel Broodthaers cabinet is a proposal to present the oeuvre of artist Marcel Broodthaers in the S.M.A.K. museum. The increasing significance of Broodthaers’ work as part of the collection gradually led to the idea of giving this oeuvre a permanent place in the museum. A place where the Broodthaers collection would not only be displayed, but also documented and set in a specific framework. Not as a monument or mausoleum in which the work is enclosed, but more like an intimate setting where encounters can take place and where Broodthaers’ work can be studied. To achieve this, in 2006 the museum held a competition in which three architects were asked to come up with a design for the project. The proposal ultimately selected was by architecten de vylder vinck taillieu. Their design devotes plenty of attention to Broodthaers’ work, but it combines it with the ease and practicality of a study centre. In terms of its form, the design clearly refers to the display cabinet, which Broodthaers used a great deal. This gallery is located on the boundary between the museum and the Floralia Hall behind it. This is also where the exhibition entitled MARCEL/Het Broodthaerskabinet will be held.
The exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent Belgium will run until the 5Th of June 2011.

Photos by: S.M.A.K. – Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst | Marcel Broodthaers |

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Felice Varini | Point of view

W&V — Thu, 05 May 2011 11:30:55 +0000

Felice Varini was born in 1952 in Locarno, Switzerland. and currently lives in Paris. He creates fascinating optical art.
His field of action is architectural and urban space and everything that constitutes such spaces. These spaces are and remain the original media for his painting. He works “on site”, each time in a different space and his work develops itself in relation to the spaces he encounters. The paintings are characterized by geometric shapes and by a single vantage point from which the viewer can see the complete painting, while various ‘broken’ fragmented shapes are seen from various other view points.

Felice Varini about his work:

“I generally roam through the space noting its architecture, materials, history and function. From these spatial data and in reference to the last piece I produced, I designate a specific vantage point for viewing from which my intervention takes shape.

The vantage point is carefully chosen: it is generally situated at my eye level and located preferably along an inevitable route, for instance an aperture between one room and another, a landing… I do not, however, make a rule out of this, for all spaces do not systematically possess an evident line. It is often an arbitrary choice. The vantage point will function as a reading point, that is to say, as a potential starting point to approaching painting and space.

The painted form achieves its coherence when the viewer stands at the vantage point.When he* moves out of it, the work meets with space generating infinite vantage points on the form. It is not therefore through this original vantage point that I see the work achieved; it takes place in the set of vantage points the viewer can have on it.

If I establish a particular relation to architectural features that influence the installation shape, my work still preserves its independence whatever architectural spaces I encounter. I start from an actual situation to construct my painting. Reality is never altered, erased or modified, it interests and seduces me in all its complexity. I work “here and now”.”

Photos by: Felice Varini | Video by: Christophe Loizillon | Felice Varini website

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Alex Roman | The Third & The Seventh

W&V — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:39:01 +0000

The Third & The Seventh is a fascinating short film by Alex Roman. In this movie he tries to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view. The main subjects in this film are already-built spaces. Sometimes they are portrayed in an abstract way and sometimes in surreal manner. We suggest that you switch the video to full screen view to fully enjoy this short film Gem.

Photos and Video by Alex Roman | Music by Alex Roman based on the original scores by Michael Laurence Edward Nyman and Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns

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Football Meets Fashion and lifestyle

W&V — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:04:56 +0000

Sepp Magazine is an exercise by FIFA in combining fashion and lifestyle with football. It Takes its name from outgoing FIFA President Sepp Blatter. The Magazine explores the issues surrounding football, fashion, life and the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. This is done in a surprisingly insightful way by some of the best photographers and art directors. Sepp Magazine is edited by Markus Ebner and fashion journalist Godfrey Deeny. It is art directed by the talented Mirko Borsche.

For the current installment of Sepp, which hit newsstands this week, Ebner marshaled several fashion luminaries. Ellen von Unwerth contributes photographs of Germany’s rising soccer stars. Karl Lagerfeld dreams—and draws—himself into the game in a series of idiosyncratic watercolors where he drew some of his favorite stars, like Ribery, Kaka and Wayne Rooney, Argentine icon Maradona is rendered by Anna Sui and Clinique collaborator Hiroshi Tanabe. Henrique Gendre portraits models from Brazil posing in the country’s playing colors, as well as architectural photographs of host nation South Africa’s new stadiums and some of the world’s greatest fashion designers created their very own football uniforms. It seems that among them there is also a mini dress football outfit for the national football team of The Netherlands (Oranje). These designer football outfits where shot by Rene Habermacher for this issue.

On paper, high fashion and football are unlikely companions but the team behind Sepp Magazine have turned this project into a fascinating and engaging ultra-glossy biennial.

Photos: Sepp Magazine and Nowness | Verlag Neunundsechzig | FIFA World Cup in South Africa

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Baptiste Debombourg: Turbo

W&V — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:05:42 +0000

The turbo wave of the 80′s left its mark on the industry and on the whole cultural situation in Western Europe. The sound effect gives sensation of real physical power. This music genre, which originated in the Balkans, and its impact are the inspiration for the work of Serbian artist Baptiste Debombourg. The music becomes a conceptual model of behaviour and is translated into wall deformed by the power of a musical wave. This installation is melted with the architecture of the surrounding space and so becomes part of it.

Photos: Baptiste Debombourg | Patricia Dorfmann Gallery Paris | Galerie HO Marseilles | Galerija10m2 Sarajevo

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Sanaa wins Pritzker Architecture prize

W&V — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:30:31 +0000

Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima Photo by Takashi Okamoto, Courtesy of Sanaa.

The Rolex Learning Center, Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne, Switzerland. Photos by Hisao Suzuki, Courtesy of Sanaa

Floor Plan Rolex Learning Center, Courtesy of Sanaa

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners in the architectural firm, Sanaa, have been chosen as the 2010 Laureates of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The formal ceremony for what has come to be known throughout the world as architecture’s highest honor will be held on May 17 on historic Ellis Island in New York.

The purpose of the Pritzker Architecture Prize is to honor annually a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.

New Museum of Contemporary Art New York City, New York Photos by Hisao Suzuki, Courtesy of Sanaa

“They explore like few others the phenomenal properties of continuous space, lightness, transparency and materiality to create a subtle synthesis,” the jury citation said. “Sejima and Nishizawa’s architecture stands in direct contrast with the bombastic and rhetorical. Instead, they seek the essential qualities of architecture that result in a much appreciated straightforwardness, economy of means and restraint in their work.”

“All in all a building is the equivalent of a diagram in space used to describe in abstract form the daily activities that take place within it” is one of the avantgarde concept from Studio Sanaa.

Some of their most notable works are the The Rolex Learning Center Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne in Switzerland, the New Museum of Contemporary Art New York City in New York, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa in Ishikawa Japan and the Dior Building in Tokyo’s Omotesando district.

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan Photo by Sanaa

Christian Dior Building Omotesando Tokyo, Japan Photos by Hisao Suzuki

Photos: Sanaa,Takashi Okamoto,Hisao Suzuki, | Pritzker Architecture Prize

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Frederic Geurts architectural, monumental, dialogue and balance

W&V — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:01:37 +0000

The work of the Belgian artist Frederic Geurts consists of monumental, but very fragile architectural structures, in which the artist goes to the extreme in exploring the boundaries of the force of gravity and the materiality of the structures.

Frederic Geurts: “I cannot act in a vacuum. I need context. I would like to play and interact with the environment. Both the spatial architectural aspects as well as the meaning of a place are important. In that sense, I am more a designer. Like for example an architect who starts creating after he has received a package of demands given by his client. I create such a demands program for myself.”

In the below, Dutch spoken, video Frederic Geurts gives a few days before the opening of his most recent exhibition called (un)balanced a tour to Jan Boelen the artistic director of the Z33 art centre.

Photos: Frederic Geurts (un)balanced |

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Maxim Zhestkov: Architectural video worlds

W&V — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:22:00 +0000

Maxim Zhestkov, a motion-, graphics designer and video artist, is inspired by many different fields like for example: science, fashion, architecture and/or space. He creates architectural worlds where sounds blend with space and shape.

Zhestkov: “I have tried to reflect the concept of the universe between the infinite and border as a pulsating place of energy and magnetism.”

Modul By Maxim Zhestkov

Zhestkov: “Any composition needs to begin with one or two main elements. The smaller the elements, the greater number of them there should be. You need to start with one or two main ideas and gradually build up the smaller elements until the space becomes rich with life.”

Nokia By Maxim Zhestkov

Photos and video : Maxim Zhestkov | Vimeo

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Light, Architectural Projection Mapping

W&V — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:40:47 +0000

In a live visual event during the Branchage Film festival, Seeper and Flat-e have digitally attack Mont Orgueil Castle.

Using cutting edge 3D Projection mapping techniques the Castle was showered in light. The projections of light are morphing over time as the entire architectural form of the castle distorts and morphs. Objects pour out the windows, the walls unravel.

The below video gives an impression of the performance titeled the Battle of Branchage .

Photos and video: Seeper | Flat-e | Youtube

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Zaha Hadid super contemporary architecture

W&V — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:02:22 +0000

Zaha Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. She received a degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut before moving to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.

Nowadays she is working on projects that range from master-plans in Singapore and Istanbul, to an opera house in China, a museum in Rome, and a skyscraper in Dubai. In 2007 Hadid opened two substantial buildings in Germany: a car factory for BMW and the Phaeno Science Centre, for which she was shortlisted for the 2006 RIBA Stirling Prize. Both demonstrated her ability to translate the essence of her virtuoso spatial invention in solid form.

The Johann Sebastian Bach Pavilion which she designed for the Manchester Hall project in 2009 is one of the remarkable examples of her work and vision.The “Floating band” is wrapped around a space and the spectators and shows once again the essence of architecture as the third skin and the shaping of space, light and sound. It is a metaphor of music and its effect on the environment.

Zaha Hadid was part of the recently ended exhibition Super Contemporary at the Design Museum. The exhibition showcased 15 new commissions from London’s most dynamic creatives, who had been asked what they would give back to London.

Photos by Zaha Hadid | Johann Sebastian Bach Pavilion

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