The Spanish coastal area has become a tremendous economic success. In 50 years it has turned into the densest 'city' in Europe due to a series of attractions that are lacking elsewhere: sun, sea, food, freedom, cheapness. But despite these huge advantages, it is condemned for its monocular behaviour, for its lack of history, taste and culture, its total ignorance of ecological responsibility. This controversy freezes its potential rather than activates it. What should be done with this paradoxical phenomenon that balances between disgust and charm, between attraction and repulsion?

Costa Iberica: Upbeat to the Leisure City

Arts & Photography

Maas, Winy

van Rijs Jacob

Architecture

EDITORIAL ACTAR

In an old printing shop in Rotterdam, MVRDV produces designs and studies in the fields of architecture, urbanism, and landscape design. Founded in Rotterdam in 1991 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, and Nathalie de Vries, MVRDV has become a household name in the Netherlands and beyond. With experimental research projects and mind-bending architecture, MVRDV has carved itself a niche in the international scene over the past 10 years. Classic projects include the gravity-defying WoZoCo old age home in Amsterdam, the headquarters for public broadcasting company VPRO in Hilversum, the Dutch pavilion for World Expo 2000 in Hanover, and the recently completed Housing Silo in Amsterdam. The firm's experimental research projects on density, using a method of shaping space through complex amounts of data, have resulted in the publication FARMAX, the traveling exhibition Metacity/Datatown, and Pig City and Costa Iberica. This publication examines the context of MVRDV's research-based thinking and radical design strategies. Texts by a number of international critics, philosophers, and architects probe into the whys and wherefores of MVRDV's architecture, the potential of the data-scapes, and the secret of the firm's success. Contributors compare MVRDV with other generations of architects and describe how new concepts are born.

MVRDV: Reads

BETSKY, AARON

Steele, Brett

Kwinter, Sanford

Lootsma, Bart

Attali, Jean

De Carter, Lieven

Guimenx, Alain

Ruby, Andreas

NAi Publishers

The archive has of late proven to be a powerful metaphor: history is viewed as an archive of facts from which one can draw at will; our bodies have become a genetic archive since being digitally opened up in the human genome project; our language is an archive of meanings that can be unlocked using philological tools; and the unconscious is an archive of the traumatic experiences that mold our identity. More and more artists and architects are developing software systems in which data is automatically organized into complex knowledge systems, a process in which the user is only one of the determining factors. Databases, software and archives increasingly form the inspiration for artistic interventions. Information Is Alive considers the artistic potential of these couplings via a selection of essays, interviews and projects by anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, philosopher Brian Massumi, writer Sadie Plant, paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, artists Margarete Jahrmann, Lev Manovich, Michael Saup, Jeffrey Shaw, Stahl Stenslie and others. Published on the occasion of the third Dutch Electronic Art Festival (DEAF03).

Information Is Alive: Art And Theory On Archiving And Retrieving Data

Appadurai, Arjun

Conway-Morris, Simon

Brouwer, Joke

History & Criticism

Green Dream investigates what "green" means in practical terms for design, architecture and urbanism. Led by The Why Factory, the global urbanist thinktank headed by Winy Maas, experts in the field debate what is currently considered green and how the term ought to be defined going forward, challenging architectural conventions and looking into the potential of new green architecture. Recognizing that green buildings alone do not make a green city, Green Dream also looks at broader green solutions for cities and how they might be implemented. Most importantly of all, the book dares to ask "Is a green city actually feasible?" and attempts to answer this question through the help of case studies. Drawing on 36 illustrated green projects, and with essays by John Thackara and Winy Maas, this volume outlines future goals for architectural and urban projects, and draws on research by The Why Factory, MVRDV and Delft University of Technology.

Green Dream: How Future Cities Can Outsmart Nature

Thackara, John

MVRDV's Book Mountain is a building with a mission: to encourage a town populated by the least enthusiastic readers in the Netherlands--Spijkenisse, in South Holland--to switch off their televisions and start reading books again. Former Volkskrant newspaper editor Nicoline Baartman's "biography" of Book Mountain, from conception to construction, paints a picture of the town of Spijkenisse and the political and social contexts in which such buildings are realized. Book Mountain Spijkenisse is the story of an architect with a vision, a revolutionary counselor, the widow of a veterinarian, an art-oriented library director and a visionary hero from India who saves the town. The motives of the protagonists and the context are described in an accessible, straightforward style. Baartman's book offers a fascinating portrayal of life and customs in a new polder town. The story is illustrated with photographs by Marcel Veldman and informative graphics by MVRDV.

MVRDV: Book Mountain Spijkenisse: Biography of a Building

Baartman, Nicoline

nai010 publishers

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