"Middle East", by Josep Lluis Mateo

We have just received Josep Lluís Mateos' last publication, "Middle East". This part of the world is presented in the book as a paradoxical environment, with an architecture that is torn between the place's cultural and historical relevance, and the great activity and growth it has experienced in the last years. Highly recommendable!

Yannic Schaub, ETH student, Spring semester 2012. Beirut. "Middle East". Josep Lluis Mateo.

Josep Lluís Mateo has published "Middle East Landscape – City – Architecture" with his Chair at the department of architecture at ATH Zürich, as part of the series "Architectural Papers". Established in 2005, the series covers a wide range of topics related to teaching architecture and architectural culture in general.

Memory

This issue of Architectural Papers brings together material about the contemporary practice of architecture in the Middle East.

The Middle East, a central place due to its history and geographical position, formalizes some of today’s tensions. Here, the DESTRUCTION-CONSTRUCTION dialectic appears without metaphors alongside the tensions between IDENTITY AND COSMOPOLITANISM that have always accompanied modernism and which, in times of globalization, must be regarded in a new light.

In our globalized world, any claim to exoticism becomes meaningless, so looking at and understanding the “Other” is simply a means of finding out more about ourselves. THE OTHER MERGES WITH US. Our role here, to a large extent, is to find interlocutors and scenarios that allow our arguments to expand and transform.

Our viewpoint is at once distant and close. DISTANT, because sometimes architecture disappears into the landscape, or behind words; but also CLOSE, where detail, material, texture, shadow, and light affect us. And where the singular experience, sometimes, comes to the fore.

Text.- Josep Lluís Mateo

CREDITS.-

Architectural Papers Monograph II: Middle East. Landscape – City – Architecture.
1st edition, 2013.
Editor.- The Chair of Prof. Dr. Josep Lluís Mateo ETH Zürich and Krunoslav Ivanišin.
Editorial team.- Krunoslav Ivanišin, Cecília Obiol.
Size.- 16.5 x 22 cm
Number of pages.- 180 p.
Hardcover.
ISBN.- 978-3-906027-16-6
Published by Park Books, Zurich 2013.

Read less

Doha then (1947) and now (2013). After A. Salama, F. Wiedmann, A. Thierstein. "Middle East". Josep Lluis Mateo.

Doha in 1946. "Middle East". Josep Lluis Mateo.

Republic of Turkey mission buildings. Gürden Gür. "Middle East". Josep Lluis Mateo.

Section. Republic of Turkey mission buildings. Gürden Gür. "Middle East". Josep Lluis Mateo.

View more images

Metalocus recommends

Almazara Acesur by Mollinedo Arquitectura. Photograph by Jesús Granada

An integrated and humanized landscape. Almazara Acesur by Mollinedo Arquitectura

Gimnasio de escalada Spluga por Enrico Scaramellini. Fotografía por Marcello Mariana

Prepare to climb. Spluga climbing gym by Enrico Scaramellini

KOI Building by Ortiz Leon Arquitectos. Photograph by David Frutos

A wavy glass skin. KOI Building by Ortiz Leon Arquitectos

More information

JOSEP LLUÍS MATEO

Josep Lluís Mateo was born in Barcelona (1949) and graduated in Architecture in 1974 from the ETSAB and gained his doctorate (cum laude) at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 1994.

Mateo’s practice is based in Barcelona, and he is currently involved in a number of local and international projects such as the new Film Theatre of Catalonia in Barcelona, the new headquarters for PGGM Pension Fund Company in Zeist, Holland and the office building on the former site of Renault factories in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, among others.

With each of his projects, Mateo seeks to connect the practice of construction with research and development in both intellectual and programmatic terms. He works in the area between the sphere of ideas and the physical world of reality.

Academic collaborations and teaching:
Josep Lluís Mateo has been Professor of the Architecture Department at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich (ETH-Z) since 2002. He has also taught and lectured at numerous institutions around the world, including Princeton, Columbia University in New York, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, ABK Stuttgart, UP8 Paris, OAF Oslo and ITESM Mexico. He was Visiting Scholar at the Jean P. Getty Center in Los Angeles from 1991 to 1992. Josep Lluís Mateo is President since 2009 of the Board of Directors of the Barcelona Institute of Architecture. He has been a member of a number of juries and expert committees, including the Quality Committee of Barcelona City Council (2000-2008), and for prizes such as the European Landscape Award and the Thyssen Award.

Recent exhibitions and prizes:
The practice’s work has been exhibited on numerous occasions thanks to its international influence. New York’s MoMA devoted a space in the exhibition “Spain: On Site” (2006) to its apartment building in Valencia for the Sociopolis Project. Individual exhibitions include those at Ras Gallery (Barcelona, 2009), Architekturgalerie Aedes (Berlin, 2004), Architekturzentrum Wien (Vienna, 1998), Col•legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (Barcelona, 1998),Galerie Fragner (Prague, 1998), Galerie Aedes (Berlin, 1994), Architekturgalerie Luzern (Luzern, 1992) and Architekturgalerie Munich (Munich, 1991).

The work of Josep Lluís Mateo has been awarded many prizes, including:
- Top International Purpose-Built Venue 2008, First Prize. Best International Convention Centre category.
Organized by C&IT magazine, London. Project: CCIB-Barcelona International Convention Centre
- 2008 Archizinc Award, First Prize. Collective Housing category. Project: Sant Jordi Students’ Hall of Residence, Barcelona
- European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture - Mies van der Rohe Award 2005, Runner-up. Project: CCIB- Barcelona International Convention Centre
- 15th Award of Grupo Dragados de Arquitectura.