Luis Fernández-Galiano   New York remains the capital of the planet. The decline of the dollar and the exodus of corporate headquarters in the wake of 9-11 have somehow debilitated its hold as financial center, threatened moreover as it is by Asia’s rise and the agility of L

Cynthia Davidson   A fruit of the demand – on the part of the elites of global capitalism – for luxury living, the latest crop of New York skyscrapers has changed the city’s skyline.

Christian de Portzamparc   United States   Playing with the colors of glass, the tower faces Central Park thanks to its L-shaped organization, claiming some breathtaking views of the entire length of New York’s lung.

Herzog & de Meuron   United States   This skyscraper soaring 250 meters above street level rises as a contradiction to the anonymity, uniformity, and repetition that reigns among the residential towers which have been going up in recent years, proposing instead a return to the individua

CedraRuddy   United States   The combination of a glass- and bronze-clad shaft and a series of cantilevered cubic volumes breaks the symmetry of the complex and gives it a lighter appearance.

BIG Bjarke Ingels Group   United States   With its facets opening to bring in light and search for views, the building makes the most of the advantages of the European courtyard block and the American skyscraper.

Perkins + Will Architects   United States   This tower rises as a new type of urban ecosystem, one with collective recreational spaces that have the effect of generating a social and interactive community within the city.

SHOP   United States   The setbacks and astonishing svelteness of the skyscraper are the result of an unconventional way of interpreting ordinances about letting daylight reach the streets of the Big Apple.

Justo Isasi   The Madrid exhibition on Alvar Aalto presents not only plans, photographs, and models, but also a carefully selected collection of chairs and domestic objects.

Ángela Baldellou   The ICO Museum in Madrid presents the career of the British architect David Chipperfield through artistic photographs and an extensive collection of models.

Julia Ramírez Blanco   The Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid hosts a major exhibition on New Babylon, Constant’s utopia based on emancipation, technology, and play.

Eduardo Prieto   J. M. Coetzee wonders with sarcasm what is so interesting about Passagenwerk (or The Arcades Project), a book about shopping in 19th-century Paris. The question is also posed by those who, fascinated by the post mortem luster that has formed around W

Fernando Vela Cossío   Earth has been the quintessential building material of farming people. Thanks to its being so extraordinarily available and cheap, combined with its bioclimatic performance and its capacity to blend into the environment, raw earth has been a constant

Boltshauser Architekten   Austria   The material and formal quality of this dwelling situated in the far western part of Austria addresses its location on a very pronounced inclination. Partly incrusted into the slope, the volume shows its entire height southward, and far from adopting

Luigi Rosselli   Australia   In the northwest of Australia, with its subtropical climate and desert landscape, herds of cattle are moved about, and the cowboys in charge of them have to settle for a while in the places where they stop for the animals to graze. They can now be ho

DUST   United States   In a corner of the Sonoran Desert (Arizona) is a house that wishes to go unnoticed, and manages to. First, it barely rises over three meters, so stands lower than the largest cactuses around. Second, it breaks up into three parts (living room, bedroo

When the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan were felled by fundamentalist fanaticism, many augured the end of high-rise construction. But the stubborn economy always contradicts predictions and soon came two new wave

During the crisis Madrid Rio has been criticized for economic reasons, but no one has questioned its success in returning life to a marginalized part of the city. This has now been acknowledged, too, by the jury of Harvard GSD’s prestigious Veronica

It would not be an exaggeration to classify the architectures of the world in accordance with the manner in which they relate with nature. Some dominate it, as does western architecture; others engage in dialogue with it, as does Asian architecture.

Back in the 13th century, Marco Polo described Hangzhou, situated on China’s eastern coast, as “the finest and most splendid city in the world.” Later it went into decline and remained down for centuries. Finally, recent years have seen there an upwa

If we take it literally, the straightforward title of the most mediatic exhibition currently on view at Madrid City Hall’s CentroCentro – ‘Kandinsky: A Retrospective’ – can be said to be adequate. It is in fact a journey through the Russian artist’s

The Bauhaus continues to be an inexhaustible treasure, a gold mine for museums to keep exploiting. A case in point is the Juan March Foundation in Madrid, which has already held several exhibitions on members of that German movement: three on Wassily

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Photography is an emotions factory. And when it comes to paying tribute to human work, few art mediums are as effective in portraying its greatness, poetry, and dignity. The second edition of the Foto/Industria biennial, promoted by the MAST Foundati