The astonishing renovation of the lower level of a centuries-old palazzo seduced a whole generation of architects and helped Carlo Scarpa to acquire a cult status that haunts Venetian architects today.
Ian Volner revisits Gunnar Asplund's eccentric Stockholm library, which showcases the competing impulses of an architect who embraced Premodernism, Modernism and even Postmodernism – decades before the term came into popular use.
Designed for a street plan that was never realised and an occupant that ceased to exist, Centrosoyuz is a symbol of a dysfunctional state and Le Corbusier’s thwarted ambitions to become the standard-bearer for modernism in the USSR, writes Ian Volner.
Confident and serene, Michael Graves' Denver Library stands as a riposte to the notion of postmodernism as a mish-mash of populism and pizazz. Ian Volner assesses the enduring appeal of a building that has survived a quarter of a century with dignity and grace.
Is the Lloyd’s building a monument to reason or just a wilful mess? Contributing editor Ian Volner hazards an irreverent guess as to the motives behind Richard Rogers’ inscrutable design.
In the first of a series of revisits, Architecture Today’s new contributing editor Ian Volner assesses the significance of an instant icon that has stood the test of time, beginning with Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building.
