In Dialogue with Urban Fabric

Ensuring the continuity and consistency between the

architecture and its urban environment has always been important
in architectural design. Innovated architecture which embraces with
the existing urban environment could finally create a livable and
sustainable space for its citizens. The Guggenheim Museum
(Bilbao), by Frank Gehry, and Natural Gas Building (Barcelona) by
EMBT are two projects demonstrate as successful precedents. Both
projects present strong urban force in every aspect of their design,
at the urban scale and architectural scale. In addition, both projects
contribute to the social structure in the city, and finally encourage
the revitalization of the area.
Urban Ambitions
Both of the Guggenheim Museum and the Natural Gas Building
are living creatures to react external impulse. They address different
conditions of its complex industrial urban environment by their
complex forms and captivating materiality.
The Guggenheim Museum is set along the Nervin River in
Bilbao to the North, with Railway to the South, and concrete
structure of Salve Bridge to the East. The site is a newly developed
area in the old industrial heart of the city. The building makes a bold
statement in the industrial city and landscape by its interconnected
forms. The shell form of the building alludes the organic
characteristics of its landscape. The shell form which looks like a
boat, the undulating promenade, and the water features are in
response to the Nervin River, which together evokes the industrial
past of the Bilbao as a port-city. The Salve bridge serves as a
connector to the museum and the city. The building circulates and
extrudes around Salve Bridge and creates a curved promenade
leading people to circulate around the river and the museum. The
museum plaza and its main entrance face toward a main street
diagonally across the city, linking the city center with the museums
entrance. In addition, in order not to interrupt the skyline of its
neighborhood, a broad stairway going down from the plaza to the
museums door is created. This way, the building could be below the
benchmark of the city without surpassing the height of its
neighborhood.
The Natural Gas Building also has a clear strategy to be
compatible with its urban environment. The building is located on a
site next to the costal line in the district od Barceloneta. It is a
unique neighborhood, where once was very poor sectors of the city
but now has transformed it to a popular place for tourists and
entertainment after the 1992 Olympic Games. The main concept for
the project is to create a symbolic landmark for the city, which also
has high quality public space, and integrate to the whole urban
networks. The building subtly integrated into its urban fabric with
fragmentation of the volume, which responds to different scales.

The asymmetric form is based on three volumes of different scales

that are intersected together: the first volume in the shape of a
cascade with 4 stories refers to the line and pattern of the urban
layout. The second volume is a 20 stories office building with a total
height of eighty-six meters. This part becomes the focal point of the
project. The first and second volume are connected at the eighth to
the twelfth floors, which results a single giant volume. Finally, a
horizontally slanting volume intersect into the other two, which
giving a panoramic view to the city. It has five level, about eightymeter long and fifteen-meter wide at the widest point. Large public
space is created by the large overhang connecting the volumes in
the middle. The ground level actually is designed as a park allowing
the opening of the district, with a pedestrian path across the
buildings and directly connect the residential area and the costal
areas.
Tectonic and Materials
The strategies in designing the tectonics and materials reflect
architects understanding and constructive proposal to the urban
fabrics. The idea of the materials used on the faade, or the formal
organization of volumes, somehow inspired by specific site
conditions, such as lighting, scales, and the materiality or function
of adjacent buildings. Both of the Guggenheim Museum and the
Natural Gas Building proposed a challenging and bold structure and
form, but they utilize advanced technique and materials on the
building to address their original strategies to the urban context.
The Guggenheim museum consists a series of interconnected
volume, which are differentiates by three contrasting materials:
Titanium, glass, and lime stone.
The limestone is chosen to refer to the historical atmosphere of its
neighborhood, with a sense of austere and reminiscent. The
Titanium faade, which contains about 33,000 pieces of titanium
with only half millimeter thick. The Titanium pieces are extremely
thin, which could be a perfect material to fit to the curved form
during the construction process. Each titanium piece, as well as the
load-bearing walls inside with internal structure of metal rods that
form grids with triangles, are all designed and calculated by 3dimensions design software called Catia. This technique had not
been possible years earlier. The finish of this faade creates rough
and organic effect, in addition with the change in materials color
based on different light and weather conditions. Glass faade with
black steel frames serves as a transitional material between the
titanium and limestone. It intersects between the volumes of two
materials, and creates a break for the rhythm. The change of
materiality is based on the different types of program inside. There
are nineteen galleries of 11,000 square meters (Archdaily). Ten
galleries that designed in a classic square plan could be identified
from its faade with lime-stone finish. The rest of the galleries space
are in swirling organic form with faade cladded in titanium. The

volume defined by the glass volume provides views towards the city
and the movement inside, at where the interaction with urban and
museums circulation are addressed. Constructed in an advanced
technology, the Guggenheim museum presents as a delicate mix
between the traditional materials with high tech material in its
intersecting tectonics. As a result, these concepts further address
the projects statement of being a strong contemporary intervention
into a historical urban landscape.
Similar to the Guggenheim Museum, the Natural Gas Building
also has a complex asymmetric form integrating together. The
Natural Gas Building does not play with the mixture of materials like
the Guggenheim museum does, but it achieves the sense of unity
with its urban environment through its glass curtain walls. The
faade of this project could be one of the most important elements
to convey the buildings urban strategies. It sets up a dialogue with
its urban context by reflection. The faade is constructed in a
common curtain wall system, but with different glass panels placed
in an irregular pattern. The glass panels are chosen with high
reflective properties in order to reflect the distortion of the
landscape. The reflective characteristic helps the building to
camouflage in its environment, making all the complex volumes
looks unified and connected. Adjacent buildings, sky, garden, and
streets are all shown as reflection on the faade like a giant painting
hanging in the city. In addition, the reflected images on the glass
panels actually supplements the building with motion and
movement. We could see active movements of both pedestrians and
the traffics on the faade, which make the space more vivid and
energetic.
Social Impact
Both of the Guggenheim museum and the Natural Gas Building
are highly innovated architecture which could also make great
contribution to its communities.
Firstly, these projects now have become representative and
symbolic urban landmark. They have changed the skyline in their
city, and they have defined a new public squares or boundaries
within their city. The Guggenheim museum now is the most popular
tourist attraction in the city, drawing visitors from all over the world.
The museum also defines a new relationship between artwork and
architecture: Not only have spaces of interior exhibitions, the
museum also provides large interior and exterior space for
contemporary installation, responding the museums space. It is
more than housing an artwork, but more about inspiring artists to
create artwork within the space. As for the Natural Gas Building, it
now could be the highest building in its areas, which become part of
the new skyline. As a new headquarter, it provides ideal work
environment with bright, airy office. People who work in the office
are able to enjoy the view of the city from above. The building also
serves a gateway toward the costal area. The garden on the ground

level is traverse to gain access to the Parc de la Barceloneta, from a

street parallel to the Ronda del Litoral, which makes the building
starts to define a new boundary within the city.
Secondly, both projects lead the economic and social
revitalization for their cities successfully. In these two cases, it is
really interesting to see how architecture and their insight could
have changed things so dramatically. Bilbao fell into economic
depression around the 1980s with the emigration of many industries
and business. The government urged to regenerate the city with a
new art museum. The opening of the Guggenheim museum
immediately helped generated a large amount of revenue because
of the touristic visit and brought the city with prosperity. The
phenomenon later was called The Bilbao effect, which means a city
transformation and economic boost after the completion of a
significant piece of architecture. Although the Natural Gas Building
does not lead to such a dramatic effect as the Guggenheim
Museum, it still an icon of citys transformation and revitalization.
The city of Barcelona currently is at the time of seeking new
development and industries in the costal area, and the Natural Gas
Building could provide an incentive for future construction in this
new area.
The city is a living organism with a unique culture and its own
history. Each urban space has its own specific characteristics and
urban conditions. Like the Guggenheim Museum and the Natural
Gas Building, many innovated architecture always create a surprise
to their citizens and the community when we look back to the
history, like Pyramide du Louvre in Paris, or the Metropol Parasol in
Sevilla. Architectures like these precedents present a powerful
intervention to its existing context, with strong contrasting form
from their neighbourhood for most of the time. Sometimes they
even receive criticism because they are too weird. However, these
architectures indicate the trend and future of our cities. They
present and teach people the newest elements in our society: the
most advanced technologies and materials, the newest architectural
style and organization, and most importantly, they promote a new
way of using space and life styles. The role of an architect is to work
on many scales, thoughtfully deal with the unique local character
and the qualities of the forms inherent in a specific geographic
region. However, it is more essential to think about what an iconic
building could contribute to the existing urban space and society,
and how the buildings stimulate a further development in the future.