Ecca collection

Heydar Aliyev Centre

When it opens its doors to the public later this year, the Heydar Aliyev Centre is expected to play an integral role in the intellectual life of Azerbaijan’s capital city Baku, and a pivotal one in a country eager to re-establish an independent cultural identity.

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Middelfart Savings Bank

Middelfart Savings Bank is an important and influential institution to the townspeople of Middelfart, a small sea port on the central Danish island of Funen. Perhaps not surprisingly then the organisation had ambitious aspirations for its new head office.

Images courtesy of Adam Mõrk

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China Pavilion - Shanghai Expo

One of the most striking pavilions at last year’s Shanghai Expo came, appropriately, from the home country. It was obvious immediately that it was Chinese, through both the inverted pyramid of its shape, with strong horizontals, and the bright red that is immediately reminiscent of monuments such as Beijing’s Forbidden City. The horizontals, with ends cantilevering a short distance beyond the supporting elements below, pay homage to one of the most typical forms in traditional Chinese architecture, interlocking ‘dougong’ brackets. These were always realised in timber but here, in this modern interpretation, are clad in aluminium.

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