Apt's Blog

The Elbphilharmonie is as you can tell by it's name a philharmonie. In fact one of the largest and most acoustically advanced philharmonies in the world. It is located in Hamburg, Germany. Created by famous german architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron and opened in January 2017. The first thing that catches your eye is the elevation of the building. It is mostly made of glass with many knobs on the glass panels. Whole construction stands on the old warehouse to preserve historic building and blend old design with something fresh.  You have to admit they  succeeded with doing that. Outside look isn't the only thing that is special about this creation. The interior is in fact so futuristic that you probably feel like you're in some sort of alien base when you walk in. From the acoustic point of view it is even more amazing. Designers made a huge effort to make it a top-notch concert hall. Here you can see how weird the main room looks like. It isn't just for...

Today I will talk about another villa. In fact maybe as interesting as the last one. It's called Fallingwater and it was designed by one of the history's greatest architect Frank Lloyd Wright. I was built in Pennsylvania, USA in 1939. The house was built to blend in the forest and to be a perfect place to relax. It was incredibly modern for it's time and you had to be a genius to make create something like this. It surely had made a really big impression on everyone who saw this building when it was finished. Because the family which Wright was designing house for liked waterfalls decided to build their house on top of one. It was never done before and not may times after. It's mainly made of steel-reiforced concrete and stone so it pefectly expresses Frank's concept of "organic architecture". There were some serious structural problems due to very hard conditions and not enough support material designed what caused the house to start collapsing and wi...

Want to live in a super modern villa but you are also very concerned about the safety of your family? Most people think you can't really have both of them at the same time but that you have to sacrifice either safety or comfort. They are all wrong...Maybe not all of them because the house which is super safe and modern can be very costly but it is by all means possible.  One on them is located on the outskirts of Warsaw, Poland. It was designed by an excellent polish architect Robert Konieczny who was  awarded many times in prestige competitions like Wallpaper Design Award 2017 which he won with his own house. This house tho is different as it is supposed to serve two functions to people living in it. The first one is being comfortable and good looking. It has got everything you can think of when you imagine a villa. It has got a huge windows so the interior is very light and you almost don't need any artificial light sources during the day. During th...

“ The skyline of London has been redrawn by this building. It has awoken the enthusiasm for European architectural innovation.” -  Nengjun Luo, CTBUH 2013 Awards Juror, CITIC Heye Investment  This week I want to take you far from american buildings I wrote about in past two weeks. Actually around 7 hours by plane and 5900 km from the white house. I am talking of course about the incredible and beautiful Shard, the skyscraper standing in London. It is as high as 306 metres and it is in fact the tallest building in the UK, 4th in the Europe and 96th in the entire world. Even though it isn't the tallest or the biggest it is very unique with its design. Unlike no other building it's made to look like a shard of glass what makes it very futuristic and impressive. It owns this to a man named Renzo Piano who was the design architect working to create its unusual form and shape. It is located in the super modern part of London. The construction ended in July 2012 but It w...

The White House is for sure one of the most recognized symbols of the United States of America. It is the home of every president of the USA since 1800 when John Adams and his wife moved into the unfinished house. From the beginning, the White House was meant to be a flexible structure. With America not yet a quarter of a century old it was impossible to foresee how and when the needs of the chief executive would call for expansion, renovation, or redesign. It survived the war in 1812 and a major expansion in 1902 under president Theodore Roosevelt. His successor William Taft was the one who had the Oval Office constructed. A final major overhaul took place after Harry Truman entered office in 1945 because of the structural problems that came from many independent changes that were made to the core of the building. Almost everything except the outer was redesigned and rebuild so the buildings structure was finally consistent but the style designed by George Washington was preserv...

On 1st of May 1931 President Herbert Hoover officially opened The Empire State Building in New York by pressing the button in the white house which was the symbol of lighting the buildings lights for the first time. One of the most iconic buildings in america and in the whole world. When built, it was given a title of the highest building ever made. It proudly held that title until late 1970 when one of the World Trade Center towers. The building was designed by William F. Lamb and Its said that project was born in the race between Empire State Building, 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler building to create tallest building in the history. It was planned in Art-Deco style and it's look was based on the look of a pencil. At the time of completion it was 1,250ft. Time of the construction was also a record. It took just 20 months to build the building that for around 40 years was the tallest one. The cost was as high as $645 million in 2016 dollars. Because of the market crash few y...