• Pigeon Pylon
  

   

  This brutalist concrete dovecote, designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1961, is sited on the Praça dos Três Poderes (“Three Powers Plaza”) in Brazilia, where the National Congress, Supreme Federal Court and Presidential Palace are all located. It seems at first a strange structure to include at the centre of national power, but the tradition of building elaborate structures to keep pigeons and doves dates back to Ancient Egypt and Persia, where they were prized for their eggs, flesh, and fertilising dung. This tradition continued in Europe, where the possession of a dovecote became a status symbol: in Ancien Régime France only nobles were granted the privilege to keep doves.

   

  Since Noah, the dove has been associated with hope, peace and freedom of the spirit, appropriately symbolic for a democratic capital, but Niemeyer’s inclusion of a dovecote here may also have been a form of one-upmanship on Le Corbusier. For while the latter had designed a sculptural open-hand-as-dove motif at Chandigarh, here it is real doves that animate (and mark/splatter) the plaza with their presence, while physically the dovecote’s textured concrete form, like an inversion of a Brancusi endless column, punctuates the open expanse of the plaza like an exclamation mark. I (rgw)

  Photo: © Leonardo Finotti

• COVER

  COVER

  Cover

  Animal House
• Table of contents

  Table of contents
• EDITORIAL

  EDITORIAL

  Editorial

  Animal House
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  Jumbo Dome

  The new Kaeng Krachan Elephant Park, Zurich

  Text: Roderick Hönig
• FOUND

  FOUND

  "I will name him George..."

  Michelle Bours' pet portraits

  Text: Sophie Lovell
• INTERVIEW

  INTERVIEW

  The Logical Path

  Interview with the extraordinary Temple Grandin by Sophie Lovell

  Text: Sophie Lovell
• FOUND

  FOUND

  The Empty Cage

  Artist Wesley Meuris' melancholic zoo

  Text: Elvia Wilk
• PHOTO ESSAY

  PHOTO ESSAY

  Social Housing

  Bird communes in the Kalahari photographed by Dillon Marsh

  Text: Fiona Shipwright
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  Crabby Chic

  Artist Aki Inomata's real estate for hermit crabs

  Text: Elvia Wilk
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Tanks For All The Fish

  Shopping mall-as-aquarium in Bangkok

  Text: Fiona Shipwright
• ESSAY

  ESSAY

  Beastly Designs

  Ned Dodington's barrier-free survey of zoo architecture and design

  Text: Ned Dodington
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Fly Inn

  B&B's for bugs

  Text: Elvia Wilk
• ESSAY

  ESSAY

  Homes Without Hands

  Instinct or intelligent design? The nineteenth century debate on animal architecture

  Text: Irene Cheng
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  Kitty Kawaii

  Cat Island in Japan

  Text: Florian Heilmeyer
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Pigeon Pylon

  Oscar Niemeyer's dovecot

  Text: Rob Wilson
• FOCUS

  FOCUS

  Down On The Farm

  Good design for livestock

  Text: Elvia Wilk
• FOUND

  FOUND

  The Final Indignity

  Animal furniture

  Text: Fiona Shipwright
• NEXT

  NEXT

  Next

  Poland

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