Until now, that is, since Ai Weiwei and Dutch master architects Herzog & de Meuron have just unveiled their plans for this year’s venerated Serpentine Pavilion, which marks their first collaboration since the famous bird’s nest for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and yes indeed, it’s 2012, and it’s Olympics time, and it’s in London, indeed. And that looks like a serious amount of food to me there. Oh, and by the way, did we mention…

The Summer Pavilion is open from 01 June – 14 October 2012

Archizines
26 April – 26 May 2012

Archizines Live
Saturday 28 April 2012 / 17h
Panel Discussion  with Martin Pohl and Jonas Malzahn / Horizonte, Katja Gretzinger / Candide, Kai von Rabenau / mono.kultur and Robert Wilson / Block, moderated by Carson Chan and Elias Redstone

Reading Room
Potsdamer Strasse 98
10785 Berlin

Melting, skeletal sculptures; order in disorder. Are the sculptures of Syrian artist Diana Al Hadid from a dystopian world?

Mathieu Wellner, our friend and interviewer of mono.kultur #22, will give an introduction to  Ai Weiwei’s work as an architect in Graz tonight. Don’t miss it!

Although Ai Weiwei had already successfully realized more than 60 different building projects, three years ago, he and his team Fake Design decided to take on no further commissions. They had come to find the process of official authorization and the waste of creative energy invested in unrealized projects to be too frustrating and disappointing. They have sometimes made an exception, but then they decided to accompany the undertaking in a different way – to curate it.
And indeed: As a showcase for democracy and diversity, architecture can also encourage debate. Especially in China.

6pm: commented walk through the exhibition Ai Weiwei with Mathieu Wellner, Kunsthaus Graz, meeting point in the lobby. The exhibition is open from 5-7pm with free admission.
7pm: lecture, Haus der Architektur Graz

Archizines in  Milan
27 January – 23 February 2012

SpazioFMG
Via Bergognone 27
Milan

Aeroflot throws its iconic Berlin signage out with the trash

One of the last hammer and sickle emblems in Berlin has disappeared from its prominent place in the centre of the city.

The hammer and sickle – the symbol of communism and the Soviet Union – was removed from most public buildings across the former East Berlin after the fall of the Wall. Yet it remained on display in one very visible location – above the Berlin ticket office of the Russian airline Aeroflot on the busy central boulevard Unter den Linden.

Aeroflot’s logo still contains the hammer and sickle, a remainder from its time as the state airline of the USSR. The carrier continues to run regular services between Berlin and Moscow, and it kept a ticket office open in the heart of the city in a building that is part of the Russian Embassy complex.

It was here that the logo was proudly displayed at street level, just one block from the iconic Brandenburg Gate, which draws hundreds of thousands of tourists each year.

Several weeks ago Aeroflot closed its Unter den Linden office. The signage – illuminated blue plastic and metal lettering – was dismantled. Today all that remains are the ghosted outlines of the removed signage, and a note on the door informing visitors that the office has ceased operations. Aeroflot’s German office said the old sign and lettering had been thrown away as rubbish.

The hammer and sickle hasn’t made a full retreat, however. It can still be seen in the stonework of the façade of the main building of the Russian Embassy, next door to the old Aeroflot office.

That example of the symbol isn’t as prominent as the former Aeroflot sign. Its removal marks another erasure of the visual memory of Berlin’s divided era.   - Joel Alas

Archizines
05 November 2011 – 14 December 2011

Architectural Association School of Architecture
36 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3ES
UK