Inspiring story about the 10-year long restoration of the Wadi Hanifah oasis outside Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, via Globeandmail.
“A Canadian planning and architecture firm has won an Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the sweeping transformation of a once-polluted Saudi waterway into a system of parks in the heart of the desert, using a system of bio-remediation.
This is the Mexico City house and studio of Luis Barragán, considered by many to be the foremost Mexican architect of the 20th century. Built in 1948, the house was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2004 and is now a museum. We weren’t allowed to take photographs, which is unfortunate because the photos provided by the museum’s website give an inadequate and even somewhat false impression of the house’s quite amazing interior.
These are all, as usual, from The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement, Greystone Press, 1970. I love the photo of the little garden house with the abstract geometric painting, above, and the book actually includes plans for it (click at bottom). One of the things that is so great about 1960s and 70s decor books is that many of the best ideas come with DIY instructions or are just simple to make, like the cedar privacy wall below.
I first saw these amazing buildings, almost all of which have now either had their facades removed or have actually been demolished, in the November 2007 issue of Wallpaper. The BEST Products Company of Richmond, Virginia commissioned architect James Wines’ SITE (Sculpture In The Environment) to build nine commercial buildings for them in the 1970s and early 80s.
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