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We tend to think of indigenous Sardinian construction as robust and direct although not particularly refined. This is due in large part to the widely published images of nuraghi, the stone towers that gave name to the Nuragic Era which spanned from

about 1800 to 535 BCE. It is believed that at one time there were as many as 20,000 of these constructions of massive, roughly hewn volcanic stone. Their simple geometric forms are iconic in the natural landscape. Of the approximately 7,000 that have survived, many are sufficiently intact to be experienced as buildings.

There is, however, another archetypal

form of masonry from the Nuragic Era. This is the precisely cut stonework of the pozzi saccri (sacred wells).Examples include the limestone remains at Perfugas and the reassembled pozzo at the Santa Cristina archeological site, about 115 kilometers from Cagliari. Here, the carefully finished blocks of stone, many non-orthogonal, generate complex geometry both in volume and surface. Built around 1000 BCE, the well itself and the walls that establish its precinct define a construction vocabulary that can be seen in Sardinian architecture for the following 2,000 years; that is emphasizing symbolic building elements by contrasting their high level of finish against a rough background. This may be seen not only in the ceremonial buildings such as churches and tombs, but also in the details of vernacular building. While this device is not unique to Sardinian architecture, there are few other places where a 3,000 year continuum is so clearly seen.

Images 1, 2 Nuraghe, Santa Sarbana
Images 3-5 Nuraghe, Santu Antine
Image 6 Sacred well, Perfugas
Images 7-15 Sacred well, Santa Cristina (Image 14, Aperture at top of tholos – well chamber)
Images 16, 17 Necropolis (cave tombs), Sant Andrea Priu
Image 18 Santa Sarbana
Images 19, 20 Ss Trinita di Saccargia
Image 21 Santa Maria Regno in Andara
Image 22 Duomo di San Nicolo, Sassari
Image 23 Santa Catarina, Sassari
Image 24 Decorated entry, Perfugas

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Following up on our previous post: On October 1st, the Bohemian National Hall , at 321 East 73rd Street will host an afternoon and evening devoted to Mies van der Rohe’s recently restored Villa Tugendhat. For those

who have not had the chance to visit Brno in the past eight months, here is an

opportunity to get some sense of this remarkable work of architecture. Iveta Cerana, Director of the Villa Tugendhat, offers unique historical and cultural perspectives on this Modern monument.

The work of Mies van der Rohe is often viewed as being exercises in purist geometry, dry and mathematical. A May 2012 visit to newly restored Villa Tugendhat in Brno,

Czech Republic, most easily recognized from its west façade (image 1) with its precise and controlled layering, as seen in Mondrian paintings (image 2), Mies’ European work is also deeply involved with the transparency, reflectivity and ambiguity of Moholy-Nagy. (image 3, 4, 5, 6,7)

The above is in addition to the unmistakable concern with the architecture of material and construction (Materiality) (image 8) which has been discussed with clarity and detail by Professor Ivo Hammer in several articles; or the effect of the understated entry (image 9) that begins the experiential drama resolving in the remarkable public spaces.
Since the 1970’s and before, there have been efforts in architectural and social criticism to discredit Modernism as simplistic and bland, cold and antihuman. Experiencing Villa Tugendhat, as well as Modern icons such as Villa Savoye (image 10)

and the Barcelona Pavilion (image 11) totally contradicts these claims.

Elemental is proud to announce that it’s award-winning historic reconstruction of Shepard Hall at The City College of New York is included in the current exhibition on view at the Center for Architecture in New York City as part of the month-long celebration Archtober.  The exhibition explores how critical choices and consumption patterns of professionals and building occupants can make positive energy changes in our cities.  Shepard Hall was selected as an exemplar of sustainability in historic reconstruction.  his is particularly

evident in considering the use of Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete (GFRC) as the primary reconstruction material, in lieu of other materials.

The project’s 72,000 units of replicated terra cotta – the largest terra cotta replacement project in the world – yields an embodied energy savings by using GFRC of approximately 29,880,000,000 Btu or the equivalent of about 207,000 gallons or about 4,900 barrels of #6 oil when compared with cast stone and approximately 57,600,000,000 Btu – the equivalent of about 400,000 gallons or about 9,500 barrels of #6 oil – when compared with terra cotta.

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Elemental Architecture, a firm recognized for its pioneering work in sustainable architecture, design and advocacy is pleased to announce

that founding principal Carl Stein, FAIA will be delivering a keynote address at the 16th

International Congress on GRC in Istanbul, Turkey on September 6, 2011

The four-day conference brings representatives from twenty nations to share knowledge and advancements in glass fiber concrete technology. Keynote presentations by Elemental Architecture, New York and Foster and Partners, London

Elemental Architecture’s

award winning process for restoring City College’s Shepard Hall, discussed in an in-depth interview with Carl Stein on PROSOCO’s buy cialis blog, “Green Journey” Shepard Hall Restoration

Robert Bryce’s June 7, 2011 Op-ed in the New York Times “The Gas is Greener” zeros in on a fundamental fault in the logic of depending on solar, wind and other renewables as primary sources of energy.  As Bryce correctly points out, generating large quantities of electricity from renewable sources requires vast amounts of natural resources — most notably, land, not to mention the energy and resources expended to collect and distribute that power that could be generated.

These realizations aren’t new. Interestingly, in 1993 Carl Stein notes in “Energy Conscious Architecture” for the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) that a report from the Energy Policy Project determined:

“From 1965 to 1973, U.S. energy consumption grew at the annual rate of 4.5 percent. This is doubling roughly every 15 years. If we could, miraculously, switch to total solar power in 1995, and if this switch created a return to the “cheap energy” attitudes of the 1960s with the

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associated exponential growth, by 2010, we would have to devote one percent of our land area to solar collection; by 2025, 2 percent; by 2070…10 percent of the United States would be taken up by collection systems; and before 2110…solar collectors would completely cover the

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United States.”

Clearly, there is no “silver bullet” to meet our demand for energy consumption and when considering the environmental impact of creating such systems the attitude that renewable energy is the answer is, in fact, directly contradictory to an environmentally responsible point of view. As Carl further points out, “…we must never fall in the trap of thinking of [renewable energy] as easy, cheap or environmentally neutral.” Simply put, there is no free lunch.

The best and most immediate solutions to address the demand for energy are by decreasing the rate of consumption through conservation, resourceful planning and energy conscious design.