A newly released short film, ‘To think conventionally at La Fábrica would be impossible,’ offers a look inside La Fábrica, presenting the former cement factory as the active working studio of Spanish practice Bofill Taller de Arquitectura it is today. Directed by Albert Moya, a filmmaker known for a series of architectural video portraits, the film moves between archival material and contemporary footage, situating the building within architects’ daily rhythms.

Early sequences draw from original photographs taken before renovation, showing the abandoned industrial structure in a state of decay. Concrete silos, conveyors, and load-bearing walls appear weathered and partially overtaken by dense vegetation, with trees and large plants emerging through openings in the structure and settling into its cavities.

all images via ‘To think conventionally at La Fábrica would be impossible’ by Albert Moya

Archival Drawings Trace the Cement Factory’s Transformation

Intercut with these photographs in the film are original hand-drafted architectural drawings of La Fábrica from the archive of Bofill Taller de Arquitectura. Elevations, axonometric views, and construction documents appear briefly on screen, their graphite lines and annotations conveying the precision of the initial transformation. The drawings register the building as a working document, with structure, circulation, and sectional depth rendered through measured linework.

These archival materials sit alongside footage by Albert Moya of the building as it stands today. The camera moves through tall interior volumes and exterior courtyards where concrete walls, staircases, and voids remain dominant. Light enters through large openings and irregular apertures, revealing the thickness of walls and the layered construction of the former factory.

archival photographs show the cement factory before renovation

bofill taller’s Contemporary Practice in a Historic Frame

The present-day sequences focus on the daily work of the studio’s architects. Teams gather around large tables, review drawings pinned to walls, and work at computer stations set against monumental concrete backdrops. Screens show three-dimensional models and augmented reality tools in use, while nearby, physical scale models are assembled by hand.

Throughout the video, the building remains an active workspace rather than a static backdrop. The long tables, shelves, and model-making areas sit directly within the former industrial volumes, their proportions shaped by the original factory layout. The coexistence of archival imagery, hand drawings, and contemporary digital tools situates La Fábrica as a site where past construction and present practice occupy the same physical ground, observed through its materials, spaces, and ongoing use.

concrete silos, walls, and voids define the character of the former industrial complex

the architects are shown working within La Fábrica’s monumental interiors

hand drawing remains part of the daily workflow inside the studio

digital modeling and augmented reality tools appear alongside physical models

daylight enters through large openings to reveal the thickness of the structure

historic architecture and contemporary practice occupy the same spaces

project info:

name: To think conventionally at La Fábrica would be impossible

architects: Bofill Taller de Arquitectura | @bofillarquitectura

location: Sant Just Desvern, Spain

filmmaker: Albert Moya | @albert__moya

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Just southwest of Paris, at the intersection of Andrea Palladio and Frank Lloyd Wright streets in the suburb of Guyancourt, 18 colossal female figures stand together to support one of the most surreal manifestations of postmodernist architecture.

Together, the monumental replicas of the Venus de Milo compose Les Caryatides, two identical apartment blocks standing across from each other, performing their own kind of concrete theater in full view of the public. The project was designed in 1992 by architect Manuel Núñez Yanowsky, who was one of the original team members of Ricardo Bofill’s Taller de Arquitectura in early 1960s Barcelona, and went on to develop several important works, including the iconic Arènes de Picasso in Noisy-le-Grand on the outskirts of Paris. More than three decades after its construction, Les Caryatides de Guyancourt remains legendary to some, absurd to others, but undeniably unforgettable. For its admirers, the project rethinks classical forms and motifs. For its critics, it’s kitsch masquerading as grandeur, a surreal eyesore amid the suburban landscape. As with much of Yanowsky’s work, this project demands attention.

The architect himself calls the building Venus 18, a title that deepens the intrigue. In an Instagram post, he plays with mystery, asking, ‘Is it because she’s 18 years old? Because she’s 2 meters and 18 centimeters tall? Or because she has 17 friends just like her?’ As big fans of the work, designboom paid a visit to Les Caryatides in Guyancourt to explore the building in person and unveil its beauty and peculiarities in the following photographic essay.

all images © designboom

venus de milo as structural element

Spanish-born architect Manuel Núñez Yanowsky’s apartment dwellings are instantly recognizable for their oversized take on classical sculpture. Equal parts theatrical and ironic, the structures critique the enduring performative power of architecture.

The rigid, modular facades of the buildings, punctuated by square windows and recessed panels, rest atop colonnades of towering sculptures, monumental replicas of the Venus de Milo, that icon of broken-limbed antiquity. Each Venus is rendered at an exaggerated scale, perched atop oversized plinths that elevate them from art object to architectural load-bearer. They hold the residential superstructures like postmodern Atlases, serene, idealized, and surreal in context. The figures face outward, indifferent to the weight above or the traffic below, wrapped in flowing drapery that echoes their classical origins. Their missing arms, a signature of the original sculpture, are left uncorrected, heightening the sense of theatrical irony.

18 massive female figures stand together

France’s grands ensembles and villes nouvelles

Set within the Villaroy district of Guyancourt, Venus 18 occupies a unique place in the timeline of French urbanism. The project forms part of the new town of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, one of the post-war initiative ‘villes nouvelles’ developed around Paris from the 1970s onward. These satellite cities were conceived to decentralize the capital, manage population growth, and correct the failings of the earlier ‘grands ensembles’ housing boom.

While Les Caryatides emerge from the same lineage, they mark a definitive stylistic and conceptual departure. Unlike the austere, repetitive blocks typical of the grands ensembles era, Yanowsky’s design embraces ornament, irony, and historical reference, reimagining the caryatid, borrowed from ancient Greek architecture, as a postmodern load-bearing icon.

With just 110 apartments, the scale of Les Caryatides is more intimate than its mid-century predecessors, yet its ambition is no less radical. The project reflects the goals of the villes nouvelles: to humanize suburban life, inject architectural diversity, and create urban environments rich in meaning and memory. Set within this context, Les Caryatides questions the assumptions underlying post-war housing. These were never meant to be faceless dormitory suburbs; they were envisioned as vibrant urban futures. Yanowsky’s intervention revives that ambition. Why shouldn’t social housing be monumental? Why can’t everyday architecture embrace theatricality? These provocations are etched into the very fabric of the building.

Venus 18 was designed by Manuel Núñez Yanowsky in 1992

monumental housing before les caryatides

Les Caryatides isn’t Yanowsky’s only foray into urban mythology. Just a few years earlier, he completed another monumental housing complex outside Paris: Les Arènes de Picasso in Noisy-le-Grand (1980–1984). Nicknamed le Camembert by locals, supposedly because Yanowsky showed Jean Nouvel a round of the famous cheese during a site visit,  the building is made up of 540 social housing units clad in boldly patterned, precast concrete. The elevation panels were designed to override the regular grid with a strong visual identity, a tactic Yanowsky used to mask repetition with theatricality. The structure’s circular form and sculptural flourishes seem almost extraterrestrial. In a tongue-in-cheek anecdote relayed by critic Philip Jodidio, Yanowsky joked that the rotating disc of the central structure tilts 15° every morning at 7:00 a.m., launching residents from their beds to the toilet, then to the kitchen, and finally into their cars on the way to work. It’s a myth, of course, but like much of his architecture, it blurs the line between satire and speculation.

each sculpture is rendered at an exaggerated scale

irony becomes infrastructure

Postmodernism looms large over Les Caryatides, bringing with it the era’s embrace of irony, ornament, and symbolic form. But while many postmodern facades stop at surface-level play, Manuel Núñez Yanowsky embeds his classical references deep into the structure.

The project sits squarely within the wave of French postmodernism that crested in the early 1990s. Architects like Ricardo Bofill and Christian de Portzamparc were reintroducing historical motifs, geometric symbolism, and theatrical scale into a landscape dominated by functionalism. Yanowsky aligns with this ethos but pushes it further with a literal, more surreal, and deliberately more provocative approach.

At first glance, the sculptural colonnade may seem like a whimsical gesture. But these stylized Venus de Milo figures serve a structural purpose, bearing the weight of the apartments above. Echoing ancient Greek caryatids, they are reimagined through the lens of late-20th-century monumentalism, transformed into hyperbolic load-bearers that are both expressive and functional.

a project that refuses to go unnoticed

Cult classic or suburban spectacle?

More than 30 years on, Les Caryatides endures as a landmark dressed in enigma. Tourists stumble across it with disbelief. Locals pass it by without fanfare. Architecture students dissect it as an example of how far and how oddly public architecture can go. Whether loved or dismissed, the building continues to perform.

Public response has always been mixed. For some, it’s a refreshing break from the sterile rationalism of post-war planning. For others, its scale and visual language feel jarring, even alien, within the suburban fabric. But this friction is exactly what gives the project its vitality. Yanowsky refuses the notion that public housing must be modest or invisible, arguing for grandeur in the everyday. 

Today, Les Caryatides has achieved a kind of cult status among architecture fans and urban explorers. Its arresting imagery circulates widely on social media, often labeled one of France’s most unexpected buildings. Yet beneath the spectacle lies a serious architectural proposition: that form can provoke thought, that symbolism can enrich lived experience, and that history, handled with both rigor and irreverence, still has the power to shape the city.

monumental replicas of the Venus de Milo

Les Caryatides has aged into a landmark that provokes memory and debate

the project rethinks classical forms and motifs

with their supporting role, the female forms evoke ancient Greek caryatids

circular openings punctuate the building

a building that refuses to go unnoticed

oversized plinths elevate them from art object to architectural load-bearer

the figures face outward, indifferent to the weight above or the traffic below

project info:

name: Les Caryatides / Venus 18

architect: Manuel Núñez Yanowsky | @manolonunezyanowsky

location: Guyancourt, Île-de-France, France

year: 1992

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Hamburg-based photographer David Altrath presents his latest project documenting the historic monastery at Leça do Balio in Porto, Portugal, alongside Álvaro Siza Vieira’s white-concrete extension. The monastery, with roots in Roman-era foundations and medieval pilgrim routes, has been revitalized by the Foundation Livraria Lello as a cultural headquarters and public space. Within this renewed context, Siza’s contemporary addition forms a quiet yet striking architectural intervention that engages with light, shadow, and the existing stone walls.

all images by David Altrath

Álvaro Siza Vieira’s Minimalist Vision in Leça do Balio

Álvaro Siza Vieira’s extension is defined by two vertical volumes framing an open courtyard paved in stabilized gravel, creating a moment of stillness between old and new. The design is pared back to essentials: smooth concrete surfaces, carefully considered textures, and a meticulous play of light and shadow foster a contemplative atmosphere. Every junction, line, and opening is purposefully composed, reflecting the Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s signature clarity and precision. At the heart of the courtyard, the freestanding sculpture Wayfarer anchors the space, evoking themes of passage, reflection, and introspection. Landscape architect Sidónio Pardal extends this dialogue into the surrounding terrain with a subtle arrangement of paths and planted areas, embedding the structure harmoniously within its historic setting.

The project is documented through the lens of David Altrath, whose images capture the dialogue between centuries-old walls and contemporary intervention. The Hamburg-based photographer highlights how Siza’s architecture respects and amplifies the monastery’s historical resonance. The extension exemplifies a balance of presence and restraint, demonstrating how contemporary design can complement heritage sites without overshadowing their past.

Álvaro Siza Vieira’s striking white-concrete extension to the historic monastery

the extension is defined by white-concrete volumes

the freestanding sculpture Wayfarer anchors the space

every junction, line, and opening is purposefully composed

vertical forms frame an open courtyard paved in stabilized gravel

the design evokes reflection and introspection

Altrath’s photography highlights the Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s signature clarity and precision

the architectural intervention engages in a delicate dialogue with light and shadow

smooth surfaces, carefully considered textures, and a meticulous play of light and shadow complete the project

David Altrath captures the dialogue between centuries-old walls and contemporary intervention

Siza’s contemporary addition forms a quiet yet striking architectural intervention

the extension exemplifies a balance of presence and restraint

the design creates a moment of stillness between old and new

project info: 

name: Monastery of Leça do Balio and contemporary extension
architect: Álvaro Siza Vieira
location: Porto, Portugal 
photography: David Altrath | @davidaltrath

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Photographer David Altrath walks the Barbican Centre, tracing how elevated walkways, heavy concrete masses, and layered water landscapes shape one of Britain’s boldest experiments in high-density urban living. Designed by Chamberlin, Powell, and Bon and completed in 1982, the estate rises from post-war London. Altrath focuses on the constant shifts of light, weather, and movement that animate the megastructure of the Brutalist icon.

The scale of the estate is felt in the sweeping view of its terrace blocks rising over the central green. Narrow balconies wrap the long facades, filled with red flowers, potted plants, and the everyday objects of residents. Below, a lawn dotted with picnics and a small playground softens the geometry, revealing the original intention of the architects to merge high-density housing with generous public space. Behind the horizontal stack of apartments, the crisp verticality of newer office towers reminds viewers of the role of the estate as a cultural enclave carved into the commercial center of the city.

all images by David Altrath

elevated paths and water gardens shape the brutalist landmark

Moving into the complex, Hamburg-based photographer Altrath focuses on its elevated pedestrian routes, the system of brick-tiled walkways that binds the estate together. One corridor curves under a low concrete canopy, framed by slender black steel posts and lit by a soft glow that pushes the eye outward toward surrounding trees. Another walkway runs straight into a thicket of cylindrical columns, their rough-cast surfaces catching the daylight. A painted yellow line down the center subtly hints at the estate’s circulation logic, a city built for walkers above the traffic of the ground plane.

At the water gardens, layered terraces, fountains, and planted islands unfold in a slow gradient toward the lake. Altrath catches families perched on a circular brick island feeding ducks, reeds rustling in the wind, and sunlight flickering through the surface of the ponds. The rhythm of the fountains runs parallel to the long reflections of the residential towers, tying the vertical and horizontal scales of the Barbican into one continuous landscape.

David Altrath walks the Barbican Centre

london’s urban past through concrete, water, and film

From beneath the terrace blocks, the camera turns to the estate’s undercrofts, vast yet quiet spaces where columns descend straight into the water and the echoes of the city fade. Altrath frames these supports as sculptural elements, highlighting the surprising delicacy in their arrangement despite the weight they carry overhead.

Throughout the series, fragments of older London appear between concrete planes through church windows, pale stone facades, and medieval remnants peeking through the estate’s elevated pathways. These juxtapositions underline the Barbican’s layered history, a reconstruction of a bombed district, a proclamation of modernist ideals, and now a cultural landmark continuously reshaped by its users.

Shot on Kodak Vision3 250D and 500T, the photographs embrace the warmth, grain, and atmospheric softness of film. Altrath uses the medium to pull out the shift of color across aggregate surfaces, the texture of water meeting brick, and the way planted edges soften the monumental presence of the estate. 

elevated walkways, heavy concrete masses, and layered water landscapes shape the complex

one of Britain’s boldest experiments in high-density urban living

designed by Chamberlin, Powell, and Bon and completed in 1982

Altrath focuses on the constant shifts of light, weather, and movement that animate the megastructure

the scale of the estate is felt in the sweeping view of its terrace blocks rising over the central green

narrow balconies wrap the long facades

the camera turns to the estate’s undercrofts

brick-tiled walkways bind the estate together

moving into the complex, Altrath focuses on its elevated pedestrian routes

rough-cast surfaces

the photographs embrace the warmth, grain and atmospheric softness of film

Altrath uses the medium to pull out subtleties often overlooked in Brutalist structures

the cultural landmark is continuously reshaped by its users

a cultural enclave carved into the commercial center of the city

project info:

name: Barbican Centre

photographer: David Altrath | @davidaltrath

architects: Chamberlin, Powell and Bon

location: London, Great Britain

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Brutalist Berlin, published by Blue Crow Media, is an architectural guidebook devoted to the raw materiality and social ambition of Berlin’s postwar concrete structures. Written and photographed by architectural historian Dr. Felix Torkar, the volume documents more than fifty sites across the city — from housing estates and cultural institutions to infrastructural landmarks — and situates them within the political and cultural framework of Germany‘s Cold War reconstruction.

Torkar’s images present the city’s Brutalist landmarks as both familiar and estranged, structures that belong as much to the fabric of Berlin as they do to an era of ideological tension and material experimentation. His writing emphasizes how the optimism of the postwar decades translated into a new design language that’s at once pragmatic and expressive.

Brutalist Berlin explores the city’s postwar concrete architecture | images © Blue Crow Media

berlin’s architecture of resilience

Each building in Blue Crow Media’s Brutalist Berlin is examined through both a visual and spatial lens. The monumental Mäusebunker, with its cantilevered concrete fins and gridded facade, appears almost defensive in its precision. By contrast, the Pallasseum housing complex, an elevated slab of dwellings straddling remnants of the Berlin Wall, reads as a social experiment in vertical living. Together they embody the tension between endurance and adaptation that defines the city’s urban identity.

Torkar’s photographs approach concrete as a living surface that’s pitted, stained, and marked by time. The play of light on coarse formwork reveals an unexpected warmth, while his compositions often position the viewer at eye level with the architecture’s scale and texture. The rigorous visual study is attuned to both proportion and atmosphere.

the book features more than fifty buildings documented by Dr. Felix Torkar

blue crow media’s guide for exploration

Printed by Blue Crow Media on premium uncoated paper, Brutalist Berlin invites direct engagement. It functions as a guidebook for those tracing the city’s architectural evolution, but it also stands as a scholarly reference, connecting the work of figures like Werner Düttmann and Ulrich Müther to a broader conversation about European modernism and material honesty. The tactile quality of the publication mirrors its subject matter, translating concrete’s roughness into the grain of the page.

This new title marks the beginning of a series that will expand in 2026 with Brutalist London and Concrete New York. Together, the books will form an atlas of the twentieth century’s most uncompromising architecture, charting how civic ambition and material innovation shaped distinct urban identities.

Torkar situates Berlin’s Brutalism within the cultural and political landscape of the Cold War

Based in Berlin, Dr. Felix Torkar bridges photography and historical research. His academic work, including a 2023 dissertation at Freie Universität Berlin, examines what he calls ‘Neobrutalism,’ a contemporary resurgence of raw architecture that revisits the ethics and aesthetics of mid-century design. In Brutalist Berlin, that perspective manifests as both empathy and critique: a recognition of how concrete once embodied progress, and how its endurance continues to frame urban memory.

photographs reveal the material richness and texture of the city’s concrete structures

the Mäusebunker and Pallasseum illustrate the monumental and social ambitions of the era

project info:

name: Brutalist Berlin

publisher: Blue Crow Media

author: Dr. Felix Torkar

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Manuel Álvarez Diestro turns the geometry of football goals into a lens to explore urban growth and the boundaries of architecture. There is a fragile line of thought about whether football goals belong to architecture. Two posts and a crossbar that define no inhabitable space, yet minimally mark the goalkeeper’s territory. In Through the Goalpost, the photographer turns this humble yet powerful structure into a lens through which to contemplate the expansion of cities. Like a discreet observer, he enters empty fields, looks through fences, or watches from afar, tracing the dialogue between the geometric clarity of the goal and the cubic shapes of surrounding buildings.

residential neighborhood in Kyiv | all images by Manuel Alvarez Diestro

Manuel Álvarez Diestro captures architecture through absence

This photographic series of images taken across diverse territories, from deserts to inner cities, and under varied circumstances, challenges the boundaries of architectural photography. ‘To photograph a goal is to frame nothing, and yet, to see through it is to reveal the architecture of the world beyond,’ shares photographer Manuel Álvarez Diestro. Through this lens, the goal becomes a mysterious geometry: no players, no ball, no keeper, only the camera crossing the frame and scoring through the architectures of urban growth.

goalpost against residential towers in Songdo, South Korea

goalpost in Casablanca framed against residential buildings

goalpost against skyscrapers in Seoul

goalpost framing urban developments in the distance, London

goalpost seen from behind against new developments in Copenhagen

goalpost against residential buildings in Eibar, Spain

goalpost in Sharjah, UAE

goalpost against Hong Kong residential towers

goalposts in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

goalpost against Hong Kong residential towers

goalpost seen from behind against new developments in Copenhagen

after the rain, a football field in Sharjah turns into a mirror of the surrounding structures

goalpost and rock in Oman’s desert

project info:

name: Through the Goalpost

photographer: Manuel Alvarez Diestro | @m.a.diestro

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom

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Franck Bohbot’s photographic series, Architecture of Joy, explores the built environment of amusement, revealing the hidden structural beauty of Vienna’s historic Prater. Opened to the public in 1766 by Emperor Joseph II, the Prater has served as the city’s primary pleasure ground for over two centuries, hosting attractions that range from the iconic Riesenrad to contemporary funfair machinery. The French photographer approaches these ephemeral constructions as significant architectural subjects, documenting their texture and design with a disciplined, front-on gaze. The series transforms a lively amusement park into a gallery of sculptural forms, where the patina of time and the inventiveness of designers stand alongside the human pursuit of escapism and joy.

all images by Franck Bohbot

Architecture of Joy Explores Temporary Structures

Since 2010, Bohbot has been interested in how architecture shapes public spaces and shared experiences. His work combines the precise, repeated approach of German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher, who capture subjects from consistent angles, with the colorful, observational style of American photographers like William Eggleston and Stephen Shore. This duality, Bohbot explains, allows him to render ordinary structures monumental, creating images that feel cinematic yet remain rooted in the present reality.

In Architecture of Joy, Franck Bohbot focuses on the manège, the rides, and the machines of celebration. His photographs document the full spectrum of the Prater, including the gleaming, the garish, the worn, and the quietly intimate moments of workers maintaining the rides. He preserves the authenticity of available light and everyday life through centered compositions, strict frontality, and minimal post-production, inviting viewers to appreciate the structural and aesthetic ambition of these temporary architectures. 

Franck Bohbot’s Architecture of Joy explores the built environment of amusement

revealing the hidden structural beauty of Vienna’s historic Prater

the Prater has served as the city’s primary pleasure ground for over two centuries

the French photographer approaches these ephemeral constructions as serious architectural subjects

documenting the form, texture, and design of the structures

the photographer approaches the subject with a disciplined, front-on gaze

the series transforms a lively amusement park into a gallery of sculptural forms

the patina of time and the inventiveness of designers coexist with the human pursuit of escapism and joy

since 2010, Bohbot’s work has been guided by a fascination with how architecture shapes public spaces

rendering ordinary structures monumental

his work combines the approach of Bernd and Hilla Becher with the style of American photographers

creating images that feel cinematic yet remain rooted in the present reality

Franck Bohbot focuses on the manège, the rides, and the machines of celebration

documenting the full spectrum of the Prater

project info:

name: Architecture of Joy
photographer: Franck Bohbot | @franckbohbot
location: Prater, Vienna, Austria

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The Gare de Mons has opened in Belgium, marking the culmination of nearly two decades of design and construction led by Santiago Calatrava. Located near the French border, the multi-modal station connects local and international train lines while uniting the city’s historic center to the south with the residential area to the north. The project represents a major infrastructural and civic investment for Mons, creating a symbolic and physical bridge across previously divided districts.

From the street, the building’s sweeping white form commands attention through its precision and scale. A vast glass canopy extends outward in a continuous curve, shading the grand staircase and escalators that rise toward the main concourse. The structure’s rhythm of ribs and light evokes Calatrava’s consistent dialogue between architecture and engineering that’s rhythmic and expressive.

images © Danica O. Kus

Santiago Calatrava’s luminous station

Inside Santiago Calatrava’s Gare de Mons, the Galerie de la Reine serves as the station’s luminous core. The hall is framed by a sequence of branching supports in steel and concrete, and channels natural light across its polished floor and translucent ceiling panels. The architect‘s geometry produces a space that feels at once weightless and orderly, encouraging the steady flow of commuters while maintaining visual calm.

Architectural photographer Danica O. Kus captures the building’s tonal precision — the way daylight filters through the roof lattice, reflecting across the concourse and accentuating the structural pattern. Her images highlight the clarity of construction and the measured transitions between glass, steel, and timber accents along the interior frame.

Gare de Mons has opened in Belgium designed by architect Santiago Calatrava

an expressive structure for fluid movement

Beyond its sculptural form by Santiago Calatrava, Gare de Mons establishes a civic continuity that had long been missing in the city’s urban fabric. The raised gallery spans the tracks, linking the two sides of Mons with generous pedestrian access. To the south, at Place Léopold, Calatrava integrated a bus terminal and underground parking for approximately 500 vehicles. To the north, more technical facilities and parking spaces connect to the new urban plaza at Place des Congrès.

The design embraces infrastructure as an urban catalyst — an approach consistent with Calatrava’s broader body of work. The architect creates a sense of progression that is both spatial and social. For Mons, the station becomes an symbol of renewal, and serves as a gathering of people as much as for trains bound for Brussels, Paris, and beyond.

a sweeping glass canopy defines the building’s entrance and public presence

the new station connects the historic city center with the residential north of Mons

Calatrava’s rhythmic structural ribs frame movement and light throughout the concourse

the Galerie de la Reine interior creates a bright and continuous civic passage

glass, steel, and timber materials interact to create warmth within the monumental frame

photographer Danica O. Kus captures the precision of form and the clarity of daylight

the station integrates bus lines, parking, and pedestrian access on both sides of the tracks

Gare de Mons stands as a symbol of connection and renewal

project info:

name: Gare de Mons

architect: Santiago Calatrava | @calatravaofficial

location: Belgium

completion: 2025

photography: © Danica O. Kus | @danica_o_kus_photography

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Photographer Philip Butler turns his lens on a vanishing piece of Britain’s built landscape in his book 226 Garages and Service Stations. The publication catalogues the nation’s petrol age in 252 pages, capturing an architectural lineage that spans Mock-Tudor fantasies, streamlined moderne curves, and humble repair shops tucked into railway arches or converted chapels. Published in the spirit of Ed Ruscha’s Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963), Butler’s survey reveals how the evolution of motoring shaped the architectural vernacular of the 20th century.

Black Cat Garage, Bampton, Devon c.1930 | all images by Philip Butler

226 Garages and Service Stations highlights adaptive reuse

Worcestershire-based photographer Philip Butler also highlights adaptive reuse through 226 Garages and Service Stations. As demand for vehicle testing surged in the 1960s, disused cinemas, churches, fire stations, and even factories were pressed into service. St John’s Garage in Wigtownshire, once a Presbyterian church, and a former fire station at Hythe, illustrate the improvisational quality of British motoring infrastructure. Some abandoned sites found gentler afterlives: a decommissioned filling station in Withypool, Devon, now serves as a tearoom popular with bikers and classic car enthusiasts.

Certain landmarks, however, remain architectural showpieces. Michelin House in Chelsea, completed in 1911 by François Espinasse, fused British Art Nouveau with the French tire company’s branding, its stained glass, glazed terracotta tiles, and tire-shaped cupolas setting a benchmark for corporate architecture. In Leeds, Appleyard’s Neo-Georgian garage by Sir Reginald Blomfield (1932) married municipal formality with automotive convenience, complete with an octagonal hut and circular forecourt.

Manor Road Garage, East Preston, West Sussex, 1934

post-war futurism: concrete canopies and sci-fi silhouettes

As automobiles began to dominate British roads in the early 1900s, garages emerged to service, repair, and refuel these machines. What started as pragmatic structures soon mirrored broader design currents. In the 1920s, concerns over visual blight led to regulations that produced unexpected hybrids: rustic thatched filling stations, like The Garage Marsdon, where petrol pumps stood incongruously beneath combustible roofs. Elsewhere, Black Cat Garage in Devon followed the period’s obsession with faux-medieval beams, while at Brooklands motor circuit, oil companies erected rival pagoda-style kiosks to mark their territory at the racetrack.

By the 1930s, the aerodynamic glamour of the Modernist movement found expression in structures like Manor Road Garage in West Sussex, its rounded corners and flat roofs echoing ocean liners and aircraft. Yet for every statement building, there were understated workshops such as Central Garage Tegryn in Pembrokeshire, modestly disguising pitched roofs behind stepped façades. Post-war Britain brought reinforced concrete into play, as seen in Islington’s 1958 Athenaeum Service Station canopy, whose starship-like silhouette recalls the science fiction craze of the era.

Across these 226 sites, Butler documents the cultural footprint of the combustion engine. As Britain moves toward an electric future, the book preserves the memory of a century when garages and petrol stations were landmarks rooted in their communities.

Former Colyford Filling Station, Devon, 1927-28

8 BP, Red Hill, Leicestershire. Originally Mobil, based on a 1964 design, 1979

Former Athenaeum Service Station, Islington, Greater London c.1955

Former C B Attride Motor Engineers, Broadstairs, Kent c. 1920s

The Garage, Isle Brewers

Four Lanes Garage, Marston, Cheshire

Garage, Southbourne, Dorset

Michelin House, Chelsea, Greater London, 1911

The Clock Garage, Woodville, Derbyshire c.1935

Silver Street Garage, Kedington, Suffolk. Avery Hardoll Pump c.1960s

St John’s Garage 1947, Whithorn, Wigtownshire. Originally St John’s Church, 1892

the book catalogues the nation’s petrol age in 252 pages

project info:

name: 226 Garages and Service Stations

photographer & author: Philip Butler | @pbutlerphotography

publisher: FUEL | @fuelpublishing

The post philip butler captures britain’s petrol age through 226 garages and service stations appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

French photographer Romain Veillon unveils his series Secret Gardens, a body of work that turns its lens on abandoned greenhouses across the world. Once designed to shelter delicate plants from harsh climates and protect them from external threats, these structures now tell a different story. Veillon’s images reveal glasshouses overtaken by the very vegetation they were built to contain, their iron frameworks wrapped in vines and their stained glass surfaces veiled by layers of leaves. 

The greenhouses, often associated with luxury estates or public winter gardens, were built as carefully controlled environments, places where humans could cultivate life under glass. Today, stripped of caretakers, the once-captive plants have burst free, transforming sites of confinement into sprawling canvases of greenery. In Veillon’s lens, the combination of architecture and vegetation recalls impressionist paintings. The absence of people in these scenes does not erase their presence, reminding us of the impermanence of human intervention.

all images by Romain Veillon

secret gardens series exposes Humanity’s Fragile Legacy

What would happen if people suddenly disappeared? Romain Veillon’s photographs imagine this possible future while keeping us grounded in the present. They show that even abandoned, these places reflect centuries of industry, yet at the same time they reveal how quickly nature can return. 

The series suggests that human activity has often been more damaging than disaster itself. The images caution us against ignoring this truth while also showing nature’s resilience. They encourage us to think about how quickly the balance could shift and how uncertain humanity’s place on Earth really is.

Romain Veillon unveils his series Secret Gardens

capturing abandoned greenhouses across the world

these structures were once designed to shelter delicate plants from harsh climates

overtaken by the very vegetation they were built to contain

iron frameworks wrapped in vines

stained glass surfaces veiled by layers of leaves

often associated with luxury estates or public winter gardens

places where humans could cultivate life under glass

the once-captive plants have burst free

transforming sites of confinement into sprawling canvases of greenery

the combination of architecture and vegetation recalls impressionist paintings

the absence of people in these scenes does not erase their presence

project info:

name: Secret Gardens

photographer: Romain Veillon | @romain_veillon

The post once-captive plants burst free to transform abandoned greenhouses in romain veillon’s series appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.