Back in London!

So we started with all the usual tourist spots

Here's a few photos:
the tower bridge (invariably in the minds of tourists who arrive here this is famous London bridge that fell down!)
the london eye
the river Thames as seen from the eye
the British Museum
my favorite section in here is the Persian empire - it's amazing the amount of stuff they bought here from all around the world!
My favourite museum in London is the Natural History Museum.. It's an awesome building with a great collection!
View from Parliament Hill in Hampstead Heath
The forecourt of architect Denys Lasdun's masterpiece - the National Theatre - at the Southbank
And Richard Seifert's exquisite - Centre Point on Oxford Street

The rest of this posting will focus on a few of projects that I've long wanted to see but never managed to get to while I lived here.

First is a small and extremely bizarre building in Woking (techinically this is beyond the limits of London but it's close) - the Woking Mosque, officially called the Shah Jahan Mosque. This was the first purpose built mosque in UK, besides the obvious surprise of finding a piece of exotic architecture in a typical English suburban setting
there is a fascinating story to it's conception - it was built by orientalist Dr. Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, a Christian who served in the British army in India. On his return he decided to built a Mosque and a Hindu temple in memory of his days in India and constructed this building in 1889 with money he had collected from some Muslim donors. Sadly he never managed to get enough funds for the temple.

Next is a housing estate that I've long wanted to see - designed by Berthold Lubetkin. And actually it was by pure luck that I happened to pass by this project
the Sivill House is a 76-flat council housing block on Columbia Road in Bethnal Green - on my way to see Columbia Road Flower Market with some friends.
The next set of buildings are all inside the fabulous Kew Gardens - the Royal Botanical Gardens as it is officially known is undoubtedly the world best botanical garden not only for its extensive collection of plants but also because its great collection of architecture. And since 2003 UNESCO has declared it a World Heritage Site.

The most impressive building in the entire garden is the Palm House.
Built in 1844-48 by Richard Turner to Decimus Burton's designs,
it is Kew's most recognisable building,
having gained iconic status as the world's most important surviving Victorian glass and iron structure.

Next to the Palm House is the Princess of Wales Conservatory
(opened by Diana in 1987)
it houses 10 climate zones.

And right behind that is latest plant house in the garden - the Davies Alpine House designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects.
The arched shape of this greenhouse is both a new landmark and a welcoming gesture towards visitors to Kew.
In the tradition of the innovative, high-tech glasshouses of Kew, this design provides a balanced, energy-efficient growing climate for Kew's collection of Alpine plants.

A good half an hour walk from the Alpine House is the award-winning Sackler Crossing, by British architect John Pawson.
This has to one of the most beautiful bridges ever built!
Made of granite and bronze it opened in May 2006.
The Sackler Crossing beautifully combines with the tranquil rhythm of the gently rounded contours of the land, the smooth water surface and the powerful verticals of the trees - it's really great!

And lastly is the latest addition to Kew's architecture collection - the Xstrata Treetop Walkway.
It's 18 metres high and allows visitors to stroll through the canopy of the Capability Brown’s woodland in Kew’s deciduous arboretum.
It was designed by Marks Barfield Architects, the architects of the London Eye.
At 200 metres long the Walkway provides an opportunity to experience trees and wildlife at height, as well as offering a bird’s eye view of Kew’s 300 acre site and the London skyline beyond.

Europe - here I come..

Back on the road from tomorrow and once again in Europe, only difference is that this time - with my sister and little cousins - less of contemporary architecture/museums and more of popular tourist sights. The trip starts in London then moves to Amsterdam, a quick look at Brussels, a few cities in Switzerland, a couple of days in Paris, a short road trip in the Scottish highlands and ending back in London. As usual I will dedicate one blog entry to each city and probably a couple specific to Buildings/Architects.

Dubai's edifice complex

Rising in the distance in the above photo beyond the historic centre of Dubai (along the creek) is the infamous Sheikh Zayed Road.
In recent years this road has come to symbolize Dubai and it's insane growth more than any other part of the city.
The genesis of what is today the site for some of the tallest structures in the world including the under construction
- Burj Dubai - above photo - (already the tallest building in the world)
was laid way back in 1978 when Sheikh Rashid decided to place the Dubai world trade centre - above photo - on what was at the time a small but important road through the desert connecting Dubai to Abu Dhabi.
This bold building - WTC Dubai - (the tallest in the Middle East at the time of it's opening) preempted Dubai's - and particularly this street's - obsession of conquering the sky.

Here's a few photos of this crazy road:
And here's some focusing on some of the insanely high buildings on this stretch: And a couple more of the tallest of them all :

Critics of Dubai use the Potemkin nature of Sheikh Zayed road as a metaphor of the bizarre development of the city itself.
The above photo shows Sheikh Zayed road as seen from the open beach at Jumeirah.

9th Sharjah Biennial

Went to see the main galleries of the 9th Art Biennial in Sharjah.

Here's a few of the art works I found interesting:

Football Field, 2007-2009 Site-specific intervention

by Maider López (1975 San Sebastián, Spain; lives there)

Water Fountain , 2009 Site-specific intervention
also by Maider López
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Spells on Our Youth, 2009 Sculpture
by Diana Al Hadid (1981 Aleppo, Syria. Lives in Brooklyn, USA)
Her sculptures take 'towers' as their central theme, drawing together a wide variety of associations: power, wealth, technological and urban development, ideas of progress and globalism. They are also symbols of the problems of cultural difference and conflict. The design on display here takes form of an inverted Tower of Babel.
(check some of her work - HERE)
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Some place, 2005 Plumbing pipes, radio monologue
by Sheela Gowda (1957 Bhadravati, India. Lives in Bangalore, India)
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Halcyon Tarp, 2009 Installation using the Royal Bengal tiger as a motif to explore aspects of Bangladeshi history, society and politics.
by Firoz Mahmud (1974 Khulna, Bangladesh. Lives in Tokyo, Japan)
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Noor (Light), 2009Light, car sun protection film, plexiglas
by Giuseppe Moscatello (1979 Botrugno, Italy. Lives in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates)

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3D bodyscans of German women's football team FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling), Rapid Prototyping, Airbrush
by Karin Sander (1957 Bensberg, Germany. Lives in Berlin, Germany.)
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Under Standing Over Views, 2009 Installation composed of fallen paint fragments collected from the walls of different cities.
by Nadia Kaabi Linke (1978 Tunis, Tunisia. Lives in Berlin, Germany)
Below is another close-up image of the same

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KA, 2009 Installation 2 JCB 1CX hoe arms, buckets, hydraulics system
by Nida Sinnokrot (1971 Pennsylvania, USA. Grown up in Zeralda, Algeria. Lives in Madrid)

KA transposes the raised-arms symbol of an ancient Egyptian belief system into a contemporary 'sculpture' of mechanical bulldozer arms, creating both a physical and methaphysical allegory of power.

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Forced Labor (Red Sand), 2008Wooden shelf, red sand, figurine
by Liliana Liliana Porter (1941 Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lives in New York, USA)

Below is another close-up image of the same

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And my favourite work of the Biennial was

Inshallah, 2005 Neon

by Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen (1971 Aalborg, Denmark. Lives in Paris and London)

Insha Allah is an Arabic term evoked to indicate hope for an aforementioned event to occur in the future. The phrase translates into English as "God willing" or "If it is God's will". In Arabic speaking countries including UAE the term is used by members of all religions; meaning the term in and of itself does not denote a religion, but simply means "God willing."