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Almost ten years ago, Canary architectural practice AmP with its founders Felipe Artengo Rufino and José Pastrana (and their former partner Fernando Menis / Today: Menis Arquitectos) received acclaim far beyond their own country of Spain with their government building for the Canary Islands. A decisive factor for the international success of the team, which can be(...)
Amp - the mark of the volcano : artengo + pastrana
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Almost ten years ago, Canary architectural practice AmP with its founders Felipe Artengo Rufino and José Pastrana (and their former partner Fernando Menis / Today: Menis Arquitectos) received acclaim far beyond their own country of Spain with their government building for the Canary Islands. A decisive factor for the international success of the team, which can be considered neither minimalist nor traditionalist, was the congenial mixture of four elements: their expressionist creative impulse, their deep roots in their home environment, the Canary Islands, their sculptural approach to architecture and the creative use of concrete as design element in combination with local materials. These vital aspects of their architecture also characterize the latest works of AmP, which are always the result of exact observations of space and locality. The Aedes exhibition’s focus is on the athletics stadium in Tenerife which was completed this year. Fitted like a giant earth and stone embankment into the suburban context, it represents at the same time a master piece of modern high-tech architecture. The two residential towers in Añaza, 2007, which have already gained landmark character and are an example of an offbeat approach to council housing in Spain, appear like giant concrete sculptures with their slightly bent shape and their odd-sized windows irregularly dispersed throughout the façade. Other projects are the court house in Santa Cruz, 2007 (competition entry), the extension building Cabildo, 2007 and a school in Orotawa, 2005. The competition entry for the harbour area in Los Cristianos, 2007, illustrates the sensitive approach of Felipe Artengo Rufino und José Pastrana within the urban context, achieving a user- friendly transformation of this area where the city meets the sea, for residents as well as for tourist. A fundamental principle of AmP would be to understand a place as a sediment of geological and climatic forces, of industrial, agrarian and urban residue, permeated by sociological and cultural components. Closeness to their environment and the means at their disposal enable Felipe Artengo Rufino and José Pastrana to do research in situ and thus create a clearly defined architecture. The scenic variety of the islands, in which light plays an essential role, has a strong influence on their design process. The effects of time on their work are vital to AmP. The aging process of their favourite materials concrete, stone and timber fosters a continuous natural change which accentuates the power of architecture and makes the formal and structural aspects become even more evident in the course of time.
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A ‘Pacific’ century, an Asian century or a Chinese century? On the threshold between the 20th and the 21st century, the transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific is forecasted by all; the move from America to Asia is noticed by many; and the replacement of the United States by China is feared by some: the awakening of the dragon provokes both wonder and distrust. After the(...)
AV Monografias / Monographs 109-110 (2004) : China boom, growth unlimited
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A ‘Pacific’ century, an Asian century or a Chinese century? On the threshold between the 20th and the 21st century, the transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific is forecasted by all; the move from America to Asia is noticed by many; and the replacement of the United States by China is feared by some: the awakening of the dragon provokes both wonder and distrust. After the reforms of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, in the last 25 years China has grown at a rate of 9 percent; in this period, its GNP has tripled, and the percentage of population living in cities has doubled, exceeding 40%. Fueled by exports, and backed by the postotalitarian protectionism of a single-party government, the stunning growth of China has not yet created global companies – the Sony or Hyundai that led the Japanese or Korean booms – but its large oil firms (PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC) try to find in several continents the energy needed by the world’s second importer; its technological companies (from Lenovo, that has purchased a division of IBM, to Huawei, that has created in Shenzhen a Silicon Valley-style campus, Doric Disney designs included) make up for scarce innovation with low labor costs; and its new breed of fancy millionaires, who build chateaux or buy French cosmetic brands, spearhead a large consumerist middle class, supplying a strong domestic demand that adds to the thrust of foreign markets. China’s unequal growth does not appear to be a large risk: the differences in income are similar to those of the US, and the contrast between the wealthy coast and the rural inland – where most upheavals have started, from Boxers to communists – is blurred as the development of Shanghai extends upriver along the Yangtze corridor, and as Hong Kong’s dynamism expands in concentric waves over the superregion of Guangdong, from that Pearl River Delta known as ‘the factory of the world’. More dangerous seem to be the weakness of the financial system, the persistence of administrative corruption and the scarcity of energy resources, the supply of which is being secured by heavy investments on the military, something that upsets its neighbors – Japan and Taiwan most of all, but also Korea and another awakening giant, India –, its competitors, and even the US, that urges its European allies to maintain the arms ban on China. On top of all this, in a country that has reached 1,300 million inhabitants in 2005, is the demographic scenario created by the single child policy and the accelerated ageing of the population, with an increasing number of 4+2+1 families, where now there are four grandparents and two parents satisfying the needs of a little emperor, but where in just 30 years a single adult will have to take care of six retirees. This huge economic and social transformation has expressed itself via an unprecedented urban explosion, shaped by titanic public works – large dams and suspended bridges, elevated highways and submarine tunnels – and with the foreseeable devastating impact on the environment and cultural heritage. The building frenzy that has attracted so many foreign architects to China – initially for technically complex or symbolically significant works, like some of the skyscrapers of Shanghai or the olympic projects in Beijing, but now more often for urban plans or conventional commercial developments – receives, according to The Economist, the added boost of a real-estate bubble that feeds on hot money placing its bets on the yuan’s revaluation. This process has turned some districts of Shanghai such as Pudong or Puxi into the most sought-after office areas in the world, and has caused in cities like Beijing an increasing decay of its architectural legacy, which barely respects World Heritage sites (The Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Ming Imperial Tombs and the Temple of Heaven), besieged already by a unanimous tide of trivial constructions.
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