Structures inspired by concrete

Vitra Fire Station / Zaha Hadid
One of the first realized projects in Zaha’s career, the Vitra Fire Station in Germany uses concrete planes that bend, tilt, and
break according to the conceptual, dynamic forces connecting landscape and architecture.
www.betonvecimento.com
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Cathedral of Brasilia / Oscar Niemeyer
The structure of this Brazilian cathedral, created by one of the great concrete masters, is made up of sixteen parabolic
concrete columns reaching up towards the sky. The columns integrate with the stained glass windows, which are different
shades of blue, white and brown.
3

Crematorium Baumschulenweg / Shultes
Frank Architeckten
A German crematorium comprised of
simple boxes and columns of concrete.
The building includes a slat-steered casing
of glass and allows light to filter into the
ceremonial halls from the concrete
column tops.
4

Bagsværd Church / Jørn Utzon
The unassuming exterior of this church in Denmark
merely hints at the stirring forms inside. It is clad in
white precast concrete panels and glazed white tiles
attached to a frame. Utzon positioned the reflective
glazed tiles to relate to the sinuous concrete curves
of the interior sanctuary.
5

Salk Institute / Louis Kahn
The Salk Institute in California is one of the great architectural masterpieces, both an “intellectual retreat” and
an inspiring environment for scientific research. The concrete was poured using a technique studied in Roman
architecture. In order to attain a warm glow in the concrete, Kahn allowed no finishing touches once the
concrete was set. www.betonvecimento.com
6

Tama Art University Library / Toyo Ito
The randomly placed concrete arches in this library, located in the suburbs of Tokyo, Japan, were designed to
allow individuals to easily flow through different spaces and have a variety of views.
7

Brufe Social Center / Imago
This Portuguese social center was designed as a building that is turned inside out. That concrete block form is
carved out by openings that illuminate the interior space and courtyard within.
8

Igualada Cemetery / Enric Miralles + Carme Pinos
A new type of cemetery found in Spain that was
designed as an earthwork blending into the
landscape. The gabion walls and the worn/aged
concrete evoke the hard and rough landscape of
the surrounding hills.
9

Grisons College of Education / Pablo Horváth
A concrete structure in combination with roughly-cut formwork make up this college in Switzerland. The
column-free space and smooth white surfaces allow light to reflect far into the interior.
10

Sunset Chapel / BNKR Arquitectura
Clients asked that this Mexican chapel take full advantage of spectacular views and that the sun set exactly
behind the altar cross. The team worked the concrete form to make the chapel look like “just another”
colossal boulder atop the mountain.
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Sancaklar Mosque / Emre Arolat
Sancaklar Mosque in Turkey is
selected as the Religious Building of
the year at Archdaily Building of the
year awards 2015.
12

Villa Saitan
A housing complex in Kyoto, Japan,
completed in 2006 by local firm
Eastern Design Office—is encased in
a concrete shell with undulating
cutouts that mimic the roots, trunk,
and leaves of a tree.
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This minimalist structure that looks like a single sheet of white concrete is actually a Bus Stop!I t’s designed by architect
Justo García Rubío and is located in Casar de Caceres-Spain!
14

Felipe Escudero’s trefoil-shaped reinforced-concrete Clover House, constructed in Ecuador in 2012, was conceived
specifically for the Andes Mountains. Each “leaf” of the structure contains a large window that frames a segment of the
landscape like a picture and lets in maximum sunlight.
15

Pritzker Prize–winning architect Richard Meier
designed Jubilee Church, just outside Rome, as part
of Pope John Paul II's 1993 initiative to reinvigorate
parish activity in the city. Three concrete sails,
modeled on the half circle, are supported by a
square spine. Windows nestled between each of
the slabs allow light to fill the volume at varying
degrees, depending on the hour.
16

Santiago Calatrava’s auditorium in
Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary
Islands cuts a striking figure against
the Atlantic Ocean. Inside the
structure, completed by the Spanish
architect in 2003, a performance
space is enclosed by curving
abstract concrete forms.
17

Shanghai’s Long Museum,
completed in 2014 by the city’s
Atelier Deshaus, was built around a
1950s bridge and a parking garage.
Its cantilevered form features giant
cast-in-place concrete curves
juxtaposed with transparent metal
walls.
18

For two buildings at Chile’s new
Diego Portales University campus,
Chilean architects Duque Motta &
AA and Rafael Hevia sought to
create a design that stood out from
the other glass-box structures in the
area. To that end, they incorporated
green space—parks, gardens, and
living walls—into fortified concrete
structures.
19

The Salk Institute, a monumental research center designed by Louis Kahn in 1965, is perched on a bluff
overlooking the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla, California, creating a symphony of geometry and shadow. For
the two identical six-story buildings that flank a courtyard of imported travertine, Kahn chose poured
concrete for its proven durability and low maintenance.
20

Gus Wüstemann’s Stone H apartment building in Zurich is made of an H-shaped concrete block. The
concrete for the exterior was cast using wooden molds for a rough-hewn, organic look, while the inside
floors and walls of the same material was rendered in a sleek and smooth finish.
21

Chandigarh, the utopian city designed by Le Corbusier with Pierre Jeanneret in 1947, in post-
independence India, was built largely out of concrete. In the Palais de l’Assemblée, situated on a
reflecting pool, the swooping sculptural form at the entrance contrasts with the building’s linear concrete
columns throughout.
22

From the top terrace of the Cidade das Artes in Rio de Janeiro, completed by Pritzker Prize–winning
French architect Christian de Portzamparc in 2013, you can see both the mountains and the sea. The
curvilinear concrete walls, an homage to Brazilian modernist architecture of the mid-20th century, create
an interplay between voluminous shape and empty space, visible from a distance.
23

The Stamp House by Charles Wright Architects is a surprisingly sprightly concrete home that hovers above
a lake. The house's concrete form and structure looks suspiciously like the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo's
trusty smuggling-turned-Rebellion-saving cruiser.
24

Church of the Light, Ibaraki, Japan, 1989, Tadao
Ando
"A cut cross meets the ceiling, floor and walls of
this small residential church with memorable
flair. Ando failed to persuade the client that no
glass was necessary in the cross itself. Twenty
years later he told a lecture hall 'one day I will
remove that glass … an architect must never,
never, never give up.'
25

Heyri Art Valley
Seoul, South Korea
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"One of the most highly regarded scientific research centres in the world, the Salk Institute sits on a cliff overlooking
the Pacific Ocean. Founder Jonas Salk aimed to create an environment that would entice the best researchers from
around the world. Kahn helped him to choose the site and created something approaching a secular monastery for
science."
27

"This billowing roof sits, in the words of the architect, 'floating above the site like slowly drifting clouds.' Its gentle,
calming undulations give the building a subtle presence, entirely appropriate to its role as a crematorium."
28

TWA Flight Center, New York, 1962, Eero Saarinen
"Briefed to 'capture the spirit of flight,' Saarinen created a building of such futuristic virtuosity that it still looks
modern 50 years on. … Reinforced concrete embeds a grid of steel rods. In a slab this is a bit like oversized chicken
wire and enables gentle rolling curves like those seen here."
29

German architects J. Mayer H. have completed the first two of 20 roadside service stations for a new highway
running from Azerbaijan to Turkey, through Georgia
30

Historic and ethnographic museum on Sulaiman-Too mountain in Osh, Kirghizia
The museum complex was built in 1978. Its structure represents a huge glassed concrete arch which in fact closes the
entry to the cave. Initially they planned to use it for a restaurant but it never happened.
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Structures inspired by concrete

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Structures inspired by concrete