World Public Library

Towards an Old Architecture

Ms. Natalya Nikolaeva

2015

Abstract

About a year ago, the Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) in Chicago selected the Interlace, a luxury housing development in Singapore designed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), as the inaugural winner of its Urban Habitat Award. The development was cited by the jury for breaking down the preconception of stand-alone icons, for creating a ‘topographical phenomenon’ and was hailed for creatively realizing the model of a ‘tower as a park.’ The Interlace is undoubtedly an impressive structure, however this accomplishment clearly owes much to Constructivist architects whose work was achieved nearly a century earlier and was imbued with social and political philosophy which stands in sharp relief against the vapid commercialist structures aping the design vocabulary of Constructivist architecture.

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