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MICHAEL SPENS PAYS TRIBUTE TO COLIN ROWE, ONE OF ARCHITECTURE'S MOST INCISIVE AND CREATIVE THEORISTS WHO DIED RECENTLY. WE ALSO SURVEY THE RESULTS OF THE GRAPHISOFT PRIZE, I.M. PEI'S EXTENSION TO THE ISRAEL MUSEUM, ENVIRONMENTAL ART IN PHOENIX, AND GAVIN STAMP PRESENTS A BRACING VIEW FROM GLASGOW.

CITY SITES

Drawing on the work of a diversity of artists, a forthcoming exhibition of environmental art aims to make and celebrate connections between the built and the organic.

Sites Around the City: Art and Environment is a new city-wide exhibition of environmental art in Phoenix, Arizona, planned for early next year. Spread across more than 20 contemporary art organizations, the project presents works by artists who use visual and material media to explore cultural, perceptual and phenomenological connections between art and landscape.

Combining a heady mix of city and desert, Phoenix has a long history of environmental art, beginning with Native Americans and continuing through to modern earthworks artists of the 1960s and '70s. Among those involved in this current project is Roxy Paine, who meticulously recreates natural elements such as this extraordinary field of mushrooms made from lacquered plastics, conceived as a metaphor for the expanding new cities of the American South-West, and Todd Hido whose bleak, sinister photographs capture slices of night-time suburbia.

ADVENTURES IN CYBERSPACE

The 1999 Graphisoft Prize culminated with a jury session in Paris at the end of October. Attracting entries from around the world, the competition was the sixth to be sponsored by software development company Graphisoft and followed the now established format of visualizing and interpreting buildings that do not physically exist, yet live in our collective culture and imagination.

The challenge is to envisage the architectural dimension of myths, legends, literary works and even musical pieces, while exploring the impact of technology on design. Each year a number of themes are drawn from culture, art and literature as a starting point for inspiration, This year's sources included Franz Kafka's novel The Castle, Chaucer's narrative poem The House of Fame, Edward Hopper's Nighthawks painting, Antoine de Saint Exupery's Le Petit Prince, Pharaoh's Palace from Thomas Mann's novel Joseph and His Brothers, and the film Stalker, by Andrei Tarkovsky.

The competition requires participants to use virtual reality technology to present their entries, along with computer animation and still renderings. Projects were judged by Jean-Pierre Cousin, the editor of L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui; Sarah Amelar, senior editor at Architectural Record; Christian Schittich, editor-in-chief of Detail; Ken Aoki, deputy editor of Nikkei Architecture; and Catherine Slessor, managing editor of The Architectural Review. French architect Francis Soler was jury chairman. More than $30 000 of prizes were awarded, including travelling fellowships and various hardware and software packages.

First prize in the student category was awarded to Erin Colgrave and Alex Phegan of the University of Tasmania for a powerful and moving realization of the Blue Sky Mine from the song of the same title by Australian rock band Midnight Oil. Second prize went to Adriana Stepanov for her bewitching visualization of the Planet of the Businessman, from Antoine De Saint Exupery's novel Le Petit Prince. Yun Hun Ng's interpretation of the Cheap Hotel from William Gibson's cult science fiction novel Neuromancer (one of the more popular themes) received third prize and there were honourable mentions for Jaimin Atkins (Neuromancer) and Dorottya Mathe who submitted the sumptuously polychromatic Pharaoh's Palace inspired by Thomas Mann novel Joseph and his Brothers.

In the professional category, first prize was awarded to Peter Bach and Peter Hadadi for the highly sophisticated rendition of the Cheap Hotel (Neuromancer) which explored a nightmarish city of the distant future. Second prize went to Istvan Polos and Marianna Ilyes for their beautifully and painstakingly conceived Pharaoh's Palace (Joseph and his Brothers). Honourable mentions were awarded to Toshio Matsuzawa for a brooding interpretation of the Zone from Tarkovsky's Stalker and Martin Danak, Peter Osuski and Branislav Loskot for their Cheap Hotel (Neuromancer).

Displaying a great richness of imagination and technical skill, the standard of submissions was very impressive. Speaking for the jury, Francis Soler noted 'The first two student winners this year marked a turning point in the way that we perceive space. Their work merges with the machine, without losing anything of their dreams or their spirit.' Winning entries can be surveyed on the Graphisoft web site at www.gsprize.com. The jury and announcement of prizes coincided with the opening of The Quill and the Mouse, a major exhibition of the work of distinguished French artist Patrice Serres. Coordinated by Graphisoft and Abvent, the company's Paris-based distributor, the exhibition explored the relationship between traditional hand drawing and new electronic media.

CATHERINE SLESSOR

Colin Rowe, who has died in Washington DC after a short illness, was with John Summerson and Niklaus Pevsner, the third postwar historian and critic to receive the RIBA Royal Gold Medal. He had earlier received in the United States, the American Institute of Architects' Topaz Medallion. Rowe's career as an exceptional teacher in the first instance remained unpremeditated. During war service his spine was badly injured in a parachute landing, leaving him unable comfortably to work at the drawing board. He graduated after such interruptions, from Liverpool University School of Architecture in 1945, and took up a junior fellowship at the Warburg Institute under Rudolf Wittkower. He produced there a definitive thesis on the Theoretical Drawings of Inigo Jones. In March 1947, his seminal article, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa (AR March 1947), comparing Palladio's Villa Malcontenta with the Villa Stein of Le Corbusier, in a single sweep realigned postwar architectural critique, and he soon achieved a cult foll owing within the profession.

Rowe now moved to Yale to study under Henry-Russell Hitchcock before joining the School of Architecture, University of Texas, Austin. Here he was instrumental in revolutionizing the curriculum (1954-56) before teaching at Cambridge University School of Architecture. In 1962 he took up a permanent professorship at Cornell University, as Andrew Dickson White Professor of Architecture. His Graduate Urban Design Studio there pioneered a new theory of the physical form of the contemporary city, and he remained at Cornell University until retirement, taking up American citizenship in 1987, and moving to Washington DC.

A continuing range of published papers and articles ensured that Rowe's unique visual critique of architecture remained at the forefront of architectural discourse. 'Chicago Frame' published in AR in November 1956, and a revisionary critique of Le Corbusier's La Tourette (AR June 1961) were essential markers in Britain.

The book Collage City (with Fred Koetter, 1978) prefigured post-modern revisions in urban design theory, introducing the concept of 'contextualism', or 'contextualization' as Rowe had originally proposed. Three volumes of collected essays and memoirs As I was Saying (edited by Alex Caragonne) were followed by Architecture of Good Intentions, in which Rowe issued a valedictory, cautionary critique of current discourse. Rowe continued well into his seventies, lecturing and visiting his beloved Italy. His observations were incisive, ironical, witty, sometimes acerbic, yet based upon a deep-seated awareness of the broader context of architecture in an increasingly politicized world, always illustrated by dramatic access to a constantly developing reservoir of architectural objects, ideas and desires. Colin Rowe's first commitment was to his students and vastly successful ex-student body, many of whom remained lifetime friends. He was an influential academic admired by the professional community across half the g lobe.

obituary

COLIN ROWE 1920-1999

One of the most influential academics, theorists and critics of his generation, Colin Rowe's writings and observations on the nature of architecture and its often vexed relationship with the wider world were a rich and compelling synthesis of intellect and imagination. His contributions to the AR shaped architectural discourse for over half a century and leave a lasting legacy.