Wednesday, 9 May 2012

Creating from destruction: top restoration/renovation architecture


You don’t always need to destroy to build, sometimes you can rebuild or add to. The following buildings are examples of where the designers, owners or keepers have decided that the heritage of the site is more deserving than a a stark, new modern structure.


ROM, Toronto, Canada

Known as ‘The Crystal’ or the ‘Lee Chin Crystal’ (after its lead donor Michael Lee Chin) is the new entrance to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum). Designed by Daniel Libeskind, completed in 2007. The aluminum and glass facade sits on a steel frame and wraps itself around the existing heritage structure of the ROM without actually touching it. A great example of deconstructivist architecture, and how careful consideration for what came before, plus an awareness for change can lead to a lovely symbiosis. [ROM]


Saustall Schaustall, Zurich, Switzerland

This is the kind of architecture that it’s easy to fall in love with! Architects of Stuttgart renovated with 18th Century pigsty, pulling it from the brink of crumbling into a fully habitable space. Superb work! Shortlisted for the 2005 AR Award for Emerging Architecture.


Bunker 599, Amsterdam, Holland

This is simply stunning. Not exactly what we would call comfortably habitable, but then it isn’t meant to be. Bunker 599 by Dutch practices Atelier de Lyon and Rietveld Landscape is an incision more than a renovation, destruction more than restoration. Used as a military defense from 1815 until 1940, has quite literally been sliced in 2 as part of a visitor attraction to the NDW (New Dutch Waterline). This is as stark as it is beautiful, and a great example of how change can be good, and how adaptation can breathe new life into old buildings! Via [DesignBoom].

Courtesy: habitables.wordpress.com






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