Save it! Archives - Docomomo Portugal

Sign the petition! Kagawa Prefectural Gymnasium

Docomomo International became recently aware by the World Monument Fund that Kenzo Tange’s Kagawa Prefectural Gymnasium in Takamatsu, Japan, at risk of demolition despite its significance as a masterpiece of modern architecture. “A beloved landmark, the Kagawa Prefectural Gymnasium hosted local sports events for 50 years until a leak in the building’s roof led the facility to close in 2014. The gymnasium was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tange Kenzo (1913–2005), whose designs combining traditional Japanese and modernist forms had a profound influence on architecture in Japan and abroad. For the Kagawa Prefectural Gymnasium, Tange used modern materials to evoke…

Save it! Wentworth Memorial Church

Docomomo International became aware by Docomomo Australia that the former Wentworth Memorial Church, designed by Donald Gazzard of Clarke Gazzard and Partners in 1965, and located in Vaucluse, NSW, Australia, is at risk due to recent plans that intend its conversion into a private luxury residence and hereby the lost of its State significance as one of the most significant ecclesiastical examples of the Sydney School style of architecture. As an opposition to these recent plans, the Friends of Wentworth Memorial Church have launched a public petition “Designed by the late Don Gazzard, the former Wentworth Memorial Church is an iconic, though…

Save it: La Cupola

Docomomo International wishes to raise attention on the risk that Michelangelo Antonioni’s dome La Cupola, designed by Dant Bini in the 1970s, in Costa Paradiso, Sardinia, Italy, is facing due to its abandonment and neglection and consequent advanced state of damage, which will lead in a near future to its irreversible loss if not restored. Designed by Dante Bini for director Michelangelo Antonioni and actress Monica Vitti, this futuristic residence was built in Costa Paradiso during the 1970s. The building represents a place of great artistic and architectural value, it is a structure defined by Rem Koolhaas, curator of the…

The Destruction of Memory: Against the Privatisation of a Key Historical and Civic Monument

Docomomo International would like to share with you the support letter to save Capanema Palace from William J. R. Curtis to Docomomo. “THE DESTRUCTION OF MEMORY: AGAINST THE PRIVATISATION OF A KEY HISTORICAL AND CIVIC MONUMENT The Ministry of Education and Health (named the Gustavo Capanema Palace after the Minister of the time), designed in 1936 and completed in 1945 by Lucio Costa and a team including Oscar Niemeyer and several others (with Le Corbusier as consultant), must be counted as a masterpiece of the Brazilian modern movement in architectural terms: a seminal work expressing the aspirations towards a more…

Capanema Palace at risk

Docomomo International wishes to draw your attention for the ongoing fight to save the Capanema Palace, originally Ministry of Education and Health, later Ministry of Education and Culture, in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 1936-1945. The alarming situation of the Capanema Palace is already a worldwide discussion. Kenneth Frampton, Emeritus Ware Professor of Architecture, by the Graduate School of Planning, Preservation & Architecture, Columbia University, wrote the following letter addressed to Docomomo International and Docomomo Brazil: “Dear Ana Tostões, Docomomo lnternational Chair, and Renato Gama-Rosa Costa, Docomomo Brazil Chair, It is hard to conceive of any Neoliberal event more barbaric than…

Sign the petition: Save Palácio Capanema!

Docomomo International became aware by Docomomo Brazil, about the alarming situation of the Palácio Capanema, which can enter the list of properties that will be sold by the federal government on August 27th. The building is a landmark of modern Brazilian architecture and has the signature of the most important Brazilian architects of all times. The President of Docomomo Brazil, Renato da Gama-Rosa Costa, shared a petition to save the Palácio Capanema, which states: “Via the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, the Bolsonaro Government wants to privatize a group of properties belonging to the Union….

Save Hospital Octávio Mangabeira!

Docomomo International became aware by Docomomo Brazil that Hospital Octávio Mangabeira (HEOM) is in high danger of being lost, due to the remodeling project proposed by the Secretaria de Saúde do Estado da Bahia [Bahia State Secretary of Health, SESAB]), that leads to irreversibly damage of cultural value elements of this health heritage site developed in Bahia at the beginning of the 1940s: the former Santa Terezinha Hospital Sanatorium, an icon of the Bahian antituberculosis architecture, and one of the major projects responsible for the consolidation of Modern Architecture in the State. “The former Santa Terezinha Hospital, now HEOM, began construction…

Update: Sign the petition! – Protect Modern Varosha

Docomomo International would like to share the updates regarding the interventions in the Varosha area. Docomomo Cyprus and Docomomo International are strongly fighting to raise awareness of its importance as modern heritage and its current threats. “Varosha is a region at the southernmost edge of the city of Famagusta, with a beachfront filled with modernist hotels, resorts, and apartment buildings, which during the late 1960s, had established it as an international hub of tourism. Meanwhile, a significant number of other public buildings, housing and, even private villas increasingly advanced modernism into everyday life and transformed Varosha from the small town it…

North Sydney MLC building added to state heritage register

Docomomo International is pleased to announce that the MLC Building is now listed on the State Heritage Register. The Independent Planning Commission supported the Heritage Council’s recommendation to list the building and the Minister has concurred. However, as Scott Robertson, President of Docomomo Australia states, “whilst this battle has been won we now have to be vigilant when plans for the building’s refurbishment are submitted as the IPC report stated that substantial work could occur to the facades (even removal of fabric) and that the rear wing could be demolished if necessary.” To ensure that the heritage values of the…

List of 7 Most Endangered monuments and heritage sites in Europe for 2021

Europa Nostra – the European voice of civil society committed to cultural and natural heritage – together with its partner, the European Investment Bank Institute, announced on 8th April 2021 the List of 7 Most Endangered monuments and heritage sites in Europe for 2021: Achensee Steam Cog Railway, Tyrol, AUSTRIA Historic Cemetery Complex of Mirogoj, Zagreb, CROATIA Five Southern Aegean Islands, GREECE The Giusti Garden, Verona, ITALY Dečani Monastery, KOSOVO * Central Post Office in Skopje, NORTH MACEDONIA San Juan de Socueva Chapel and Hermitage, Cantabria, SPAIN “The announcement of the 7 Most Endangered sites 2021 was made at an online event co-hosted…