Today, I would like to show you a pair of examples of how can impact an architectural structure on today's city image. Architect's role nowadays is not only designing lines and building houses, but must have into account several issues such as ecological impact or urban integration.
The first example is that of Libeskind's Royal Museum at Ontario. Finished and opened in 2007 as the new main entrance for the museum, has the typical Libeskind's deconstructivist triangular forms, similar to those of the London Metropolitan University Graduate Center.
Here anyway, we find this structure added to a neo-romanesque building, the ancient part of the museum, hosting the collections. The work was controversial for the modern canadian city inhabitants, mainly because of its invading triangular structures seeming to fall over the street. But honestly, we need to acknowledge that urban canadian landscape is so plenty of styles, such revivals, and also a great part of its architectures, being state-of-art designs with cement and glass as major components, so Libeskind's work is clearly a contrast against the added building, but not totally comparing it with the city of Ontario.
The situation is totally the contrary in Oviedo, Spain. Santiago Calatrava built one of his typical pharaonic white structures as congress hall and commercial centre on a residential area of the city. The construction is surrounded by several brick-made flat buildings, some of them, being even taller than Calatrava's one. This context makes Calatrava's work appear strange over the city's landscape. Too much big and too much white. Local people made fun of it, saying that the Buenavista Palace, as it was named, looks like a huge UFO landing. Moreover, taking a glance from neighbor hills, the white and tall building makes a great impact within the evergreen and mountainous asturian landscape.
We will devote a further post to Meier's Ara Pacis Museum at Rome, a very critical case.
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