Articles by Rory Stott

Through their pioneering theory and provocative built work, husband and wife duo Robert Venturi (born June 25, 1925) and Denise Scott Brown (born October 3, 1931) were at the forefront of the postmodern movement, leading the charge in one of the most significant shifts in architecture of the 20th century by publishing seminal books such as Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (authored by Robert Venturi alone) and Learning from Las Vegas (co-authored by Venturi, Scott Brown and Steven Izenour).

One of the most highly regarded architects of his generation, Portugese architect Álvaro Siza (born 25 June 1933) is known for his sculptural works that have been described as “poetic modernism.” When he was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1992, Siza was credited as being a successor of early modernists: the jury citation describes how “his shapes, molded by light, have a deceptive simplicity about them; they are honest.”

When Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926) graduated from the Barcelona Architecture School in 1878, the director of the school Elies Rogent reportedly declared: “Gentlemen, we are here today either in the presence of a genius or a madman!” [1] Well over a century later, this tension is still evident in Gaudí’s work; though he is widely regarded as a genius architect, his distinctive style stands as a singularity in architectural history—simultaneously awe-inspiring and bizarre, never fitting into any stylistic movement, and never adapted or emulated, except by those still working to complete his magnum opus, Barcelona’s famous Sagrada Família.

Benedetta Tagliabue (born 24 June 1963) is an Italian architect known for designs which are sensitive to their context and yet still experimental in their approach to forms and materials. Her diverse and complex works have marked her Barcelona-based firm EMBT as one of the most respected Spanish practices of the 21st century.

The 2018 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, designed by Frida Escobedo, was unveiled today in London’s Hyde Park. Escobedo’s design, which fuses elements typical to Mexican architecture with local London references, features a courtyard enclosed by two rectangular volumes constructed from cement roof tiles. These tiles are stacked to form a celosia, a type of wall common to Mexican architecture which is permeable, allowing ventilation and views to the other side.

In 1991, the American Institute of Architects called him, quite simply, “the greatest American architect of all time.” Over his lifetime, Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) completed more than 500 architectural works; many of them are considered masterpieces. Thanks to the wide dissemination of his designs and his many years spent teaching at the school he founded, few architects in history can claim to have inspired more young people into joining the architecture profession.

A month after Kanye West announced his intention to open an architecture venture, at the time named Yeezy Home, off the back of his fashion brand, it seems we may have the first glimpse of the type of buildings the rapper is hoping to create. Yesterday Jalil Peraza, a previous collaborator with West’s design company DONDA and designer of the “Face Modules” pop-up retail concept, posted two images to his Instagram showing a building render alongside the caption “Low income housing scheme, made of prefabricated concrete in collaboration with Petra Kustrin, Jalil Peraza, Kanye West, Nejc Skufca.”

One of the most enigmatic and underappreciated architects of the 20th century, Carlo Scarpa (June 2, 1906 – November 28, 1978) is best known for his instinctive approach to materials, combining time-honored crafts with modern manufacturing processes. In a 1996 documentary directed by Murray Grigor, Egle Trincanato, the President of the Fondazione Querini Stampalia for whom Scarpa renovated a Venetian palace in 1963, described how “above all, he was exceptionally skillful in knowing how to combine a base material with a precious one.”

A new Serpentine Pavilion has opened in Beijing, China, marking the first time the prestigious program has been implemented away from its usual home at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park, London. Designed by JIAKUN Architects, the pavilion was commissioned by The Serpentine Galleries working in partnership with WF CENTRAL, and is located just 600 meters away from Beijing’s Forbidden City.

Arguably the leading name of a generation of internationally high-profile British architects, Norman Foster (born 1 June 1935)—or to give him his full title Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank of Reddish, OM, HonFREng—gained recognition as early as the 1970s as a key architect in the high-tech movement, which continues to have a profound impact on architecture as we know it today.