Habitables
Irwin Weiner ASID - Contemporary architecture is often used by a city or town as a drawing card for tourists and a lightning rod for other urban design projects, e.g. a corridor of art galleries and museums. Bilbao is probably the most famous example, with Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum Bilbao kickstarting that municipality's reputation, all of a sudden plunking down a modern, spaceship-like building in the midst of traditional architecture.
I like the way Nottingham Contemporary, the art museum in the England (see photo above), shot a promotional video and used young filmmakers and a series of interviews on a striped sofa and a bit of street circus to get the community talking about the new gold metallic building in town - both the good and the bad - and what's going on inside. Masterful public relations, and as you'll see in this video, a jolly-good interactive way to explore contemporary art and design.
DESIGN2SHARE BONUS: See a photo show of contemporary residential architecture - what happens when ultra-modern hits the home front?
