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Words by Francesca Perry
Latvian architecture practice Substance has completed the Dzirciema Pharmacy, a new project in western Riga. The 170 sq m, two-storey freestanding building sits in a green square next to a crossroads, opposite the University of Latvia Botanical Garden. With a facade that articulates its function, Substance refers to the building as ‘conceptually assertive’.
The hexadecagonal structure is clad in glass and dark composite metal sheeting, over which lies an external aluminium frame defined by a repeated cross-shaped module symbolising the traditional pharmacy sign. These cross shapes – sometimes filled with perforated metal panelling, sometimes empty – project in rhythms contrasting with the building envelope to create a dynamic jagged facade.
Words by Francesca Perry
A major new contemporary art museum has opened in Cáceres, a historic city in western Spain’s Extremadura region. Designed by Tuñón Arquitectos, the Museum of Contemporary Art Helga de Alvear has been built to publicly exhibit artworks by more than 500 international artists – including Jenny Holzer and Anish Kapoor – which acclaimed gallerist Helga de Alvear has collected over 40 years.
De Alvear established a non-profit arts foundation in Cáceres in 2006, housed in Casa Grande, a palatial building from 1913. The new 5,000 sq m museum brings together this building, the restoration of which formed the first stage of the project, with a major new extension clad in white reinforced concrete, housing spacious exhibition halls.
Words by Francesca Perry
Rotterdam-based Casanova + Hernandez Architects has completed a large-scale public realm redevelopment project for the Albianian fishing village of Shiroka.
Located on Shkodra Lake, near the border with Montenegro, the village has a long history of small-scale fishing and handmade crafts such as carpet weaving. Due to unregulated post-communist privatisation of public space over the past few decades, the village’s waterfront had become crowded with haphazard private developments and parking areas.
The project from Casanova + Hernandez, named Albanian Carpet, restores an open and inclusive public space along the waterfront, united and enhanced by decorative paving in black and white granite with patterns that reference the local design heritage of Albanian carpet weaving.