Home    Advanced Search   Contact Us     Subscribe

Celebratory Meditations on SANAA Winning the Pritzker Prize

http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature327.htm - March 29, 2010

Who What When - 9/30/02: deadlines, of interest, on the boards, and people on the move

http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature73.htm - September 30, 2002

Today’s News - Wednesday, December 23, 2009

•   If not a city, what is CityCenter? A "handsome, varied, occasionally ingenious, occasionally even beautiful piece of very expensive, very dense urban planning" - and a lesson in "the value of fine art, decoration and architecture, careful planning, and sustainable design."
•   Cleveland hopes to learn a lesson from the High Line (one of its designers included).
•   Campbell is cautiously optimistic about plans to expand Boston's convention center: it better be more than be a bigger, "deadly, single-purpose monolith."
•   More details on Gehry's theatrical Times Square debut (alas, no images until next year).
•   Moore on the "Great Tower Craze of the Noughties": the strangest part is that almost no towers were actually built, meaning "skyscrapers played little part in London's great boom and bust."
•   Olcayto considers the decade in Scottish architecture: the best buildings "revive a weird and wonderful tradition," but also raise issues in the broader picture.
•   A bevy of British notables talk about the top news stories in a "turbulent year in the world of architecture."
•   Anderton sits down with a merry band of mavens to revisit "design in the Oughts (or the Noughties)."
•   Martin Filler muses on fame as a "fickle mistress" that can "morph into a fearsome burden, the 'how-do-I-top-myself?' syndrome that frequently shadows exceptional success."
•   Pearman ponders the same, reviewing an "utterly fascinating" new book explores the pre-fame projects of some of today's starchitects.
•   A website puts the spotlight in pioneering women in North Carolina architecture and design who "braved prejudice and often ridicule to pursue their careers."
•   With wrecking balls heading its way (to just reduce its size), there's a growing call to save a Basil Spence-designed nuclear power plant in Wales that is a "triumph of modernist architecture - we should be celebrating it, not bringing in the bulldozers."
•   FLW's Beth Sholom synagogue's new visitor center offers an intriguing look at the "extraordinary collaboration" between the architect and the rabbi, and "eloquently unearths the human underpinnings of one of Wright's greatest architectural achievements."
•   Wanted (and long over-due): a consultant to document California's portion of the Route 66, "a step toward preservation of the cultural touchstone."
•   'Tis the season of good will: celebrating its 5th anniversary, the AIAS Freedom by Design program reaches out to "people that architects weren't serving but for whom modest design improvements could make huge differences in everyday life"; and the recently-launched DesigNYC matches designers with non-profits in need - with hopes to create an open platform "so other cities can do it on their own."
•   Weekend diversions:
•   Ouroussoff says Yale's "What We Learned: The Yale Las Vegas Studio and the Work of Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates" is a "must-see" for those who want to "recapture the euphoric sense of discovery that came out of those early trips, as well as get a refresher course on their conclusions, which still have things to teach us."
•   Denver Art Museum's "Embrace!" presents "an inventive mixture of artists" that contends with "Libeskind's frequently unwieldy spaces" (but might leave some viewers thinking the money would have been better spent on tweaking the space itself).
•   A Dutch exhibition of photography from China and the Netherlands examines the dark side of development.
•   At MIT, and architect and an artist put on "a thoughtful show" that invites interaction and play; "instead, we can only look and ponder."
•   'Tis the season, take 2: Wigglesworth's "Tree-Cycle" in London crosses Christmas with a bicycle: it's sustainable, amusing - and for a good cause.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_12_23.htm - Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Today’s News - Monday, September 21, 2009

•   ArcSpace brings us Gehry's first building in Scandinavia, a "house without doors" named for the Nordic god of sunlight; and a new urban vision for a long-stalled project in Kuala Lumpur.
•   We lose a champion of modernism, but the invaluable Pidgeon Digital Archive lives on.
•   Swett on climate change: we've "spent too much time describing the problem and debating its causes. Too little time has been spent on distributing solutions" - and he has some.
•   A new report on lessons that can be learned from Europe and Australia about energy-efficient building performance.
•   Kamin x 2: USGBC ranks U.S. cities leading in LEED buildings (Chicago is #1); and Gang's Aqua rates a PETA award for its bird-friendly design.
•   Glancey cheers Chicago practices "learning to think small" not only because "the recession has bitten hard, but because there has been something of a change of heart."
•   An EPA certification for water-efficient homes would take national a host of local programs.
•   Pearman likes Britain's new Supreme Court "in a funny old building": "a bit of a Gilbert and Sullivan stage set. Only sets of antlers are missing."
•   Saffron gives (mostly) thumbs-up to Philadelphia Museum of Art's new underground garage with a design that uses "artful camouflage."
•   Rochon gives two-thumbs-up's to Toronto's newest tower, "infused with the best of 21st-century thinking" that sets "a new standard has been set for building tall" in the city.
•   Kansas City Ballet starts renovating Union Station Power House, "transforming the dilapidated historic structure into an airy work and performance space."
•   Design selected for Columbus, Ohio's very own Center for Architecture.
•   Gould gives three cheers for restoration of the "lovely artifact" that is the Edgewater Hotel, but finds other elements "problematic."
•   It's been awhile since we've heard anything about University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences lakefront project - now there's lots re: power struggles and UWM pulling out; Schumacher found the proposed design "drippy," and offers an eyeful of what some other local talent would do.
•   Rogers quits London mayor's design advisory and Great Spaces panels.
•   We couldn't resist: Foster + Partners joins European consortium to investigate building settlements on the moon.
•   Happy first day of Autumn!

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_09_21.htm - Monday, September 21, 2009

Today’s News - Tuesday, September 22, 2009

•   Heathcote on controversial U.S Embassy plans in London: can "overbearing security" and "an architecture of isolation and paranoia" really boost regeneration in a neighborhood "already blighted by gated development"?
•   Controversial Gazprom tower in St. Petersburg wins final approval despite protests.
•   The Cleveland Museum of Art chooses a "highly unorthodox way out" of a "perfect storm" to move ahead with expansion plans.
•   Spain disqualifies an Israeli university from this year's Solar Decathlon because the team is located in "occupied territory."
•   Staten Island naval base transformation to be NYC's first LEED ND (it's only taken more than a decade).
•   Lacayo visits new Dallas Cowboys stadium and finds it "an adroitly glamorous exercise in how to balance muscle and lightness," with not so much groundbreaking architectural features as "smart adaptations, well deployed."
•   Maya Lin's Museum of Chinese in America opens today in NYC: though "a warm and inviting new space...it also harbors a tension that reveals some of the problems with the identity archetype."
•   An impressive design team selected for U.S. Courthouse in San Antonio.
•   Rochon finds architectural ecstasy in Rome, and ruminates on "moments of ecstasy within the architecture of Canada."
•   Fred Kent moves beyond his "smackdown" with Gehry.
•   Hawthorne's touching report on Shulman memorial: more than the photographer "was being eulogized and laid symbolically to rest."
•   A roundup of reports on some of the illuminating speakers at ASLA's annual meeting discussing how to regenerate cities and communities.
•   An amusing (and illustrated) report on riding the new Dubai Metro Rail System on its first day running: "crowds were downright civil, even jovial...It will be interesting to see if that mood lasts."
•   A long list of 2009 MIPIM Asia Awards nominees announced today.
•   AJ rounds up the best in design from the 7th London Design Festival.
•   Call for votes: Greensburg, Kansas/FreeGreen Chain of Eco-Homes Competition.
•   Call for entries: 2010 Rieger Graham Prize for Classical Design Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (U.S. only).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_09_22.htm - Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Today’s News - Wednesday, September 23, 2009

•   Hess pays tribute to Morris, a "little-known California modernist who leaves a big impact."
•   Heathcote looks at lost opportunities for good design in social housing by leaving it up to "grudging developers" (a history lesson here).
•   A battle between "old school" and "new school" at Cornell: "Pick now or forever hold your peace: Are you going to draw by hand or on the computer?" (isn't there a third way?)
•   An eyeful of Venturi, Scott Brown's decorated shed for the Lincoln Highway Experience in Pennsylvania.
•   An Italian architect (not Piano) has a different vision for rebuilding the Royal Opera House in Valletta, Malta.
•   Once-threatened French-colonial villas in Vietnam to be protected - and restored.
•   Now that the lost stones from London's Euston Arch are being recovered from River Lea, the lost landmark might just get rebuilt (nightclub included).
•   Arieff cheers cities' innovative efforts to turn empty urban spaces into "public spaces, created on the cheap, and full of heart" (great pix, links).
•   Howeler & Yoon offer up their own solution for empty construction sites in Boston.
•   Rael San Fratello's Bay Line proposal for a disused part of Bay Bridge could be San Francisco's answer to NYC's High Line.
•   The recent New Amsterdam Bike Slam was "part infrastructure symposium and part reality television show competition" (and definitely sounded like fun; spoiler: Team Amsterdam won).
•   NJIT team proposal for a network of floating docks with river turbines that would harness clean energy and create new public spaces draws interest from all over.
•   Newark visitors center competition plagued by some "unfortunate blunders" (but no one has been disqualified or dropped out).
•   The KPF "breakaway five" unveil new practice name (an alphabet soup...what else?).
•   A great presentation of Fast Company's pick for Masters of Design 2009.
•   We couldn't resist: Greer and Bayley go at it over his new book, "Woman as Design"; and Calatrava's new digs in Connecticut: a mere $5.5 million (pix included - we bet the furniture goes).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_09_23.htm - Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Today’s News - Wednesday, July 22, 2009

•   Weinstein finds "a Texas flood of architectural ideas that unsettles pat assumptions" in "Everything Must Move: 15 Years at Rice School of Architecture 1994-2009."
•   Webb on the paucity of good design incubators in Los Angeles.
•   Could (long mothballed) plans for WTC Performing Arts Center get back on track (and will Gehry design it)?
•   An in-depth look at life after Sambo at the Rural Studio; under Freear, it has "morphed into a hothouse of practical and pragmatic design" (great pix!).
•   Good news/bad news on the climate change news front that implicates architecture, and a call for architects to "mobilize and take action."
•   Kamin gives thumbs-up to Chicago's first net-zero home; it may not be a model for mass production, but it makes the right statement: "A well-designed net zero house should be about more than slapping a huge array of photovoltaic panels on a roof" (good slide show).
•   An eyeful of "arbo-architecture" with a new specialty: "building botany" uses living trees as part of the structure.
•   Thompson wonders what it will take to move beyond green-roof "starchitecture" to get multi-acre green roofs on whole city blocks and big-box stores.
•   Green Roofs for Healthy Cities launches a professional accreditation exam: now you can add GRP (green roof professional) after your LEED AP.
•   Szenasy ponders "ghost architecture" as Rudolph's high school awaits the wrecking ball.
•   AIA's June Architecture Billings Index suggests "the sector's downturn has yet to hit bottom" (will it ever end?).
•   A good reason to be in D.C. on Friday: a very impressive line-up for a series of free public programs celebrating Cooper-Hewitt's 2009 National Design Awards.
•   Call for entries: Arch Record's 2009 Design Vanguard; and Log Postcard Competition for a cover story and image ("wit and surprise are encouraged").
•   Winners all: Australian Institute of Architects Queensland Awards; U.K.'s 2009 Housing Design Awards; and WRAP/RIBA Designing out Waste competition winners.
•   We couldn't resist: architects re-imagine London landmarks.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_07_22.htm - Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Today’s News - Tuesday, January 6, 2009

•   We lose two masters: one who left his mark on Denver and the nation (and gone much too soon); the other shaped the U.N. logo.
•   Walljasper on how solutions to our global ills can be found in our own neighborhoods.
•   Green for All aims to find a remedy for both global warming and poverty.
•   Scientists dabble in urban design to find out how cities hurt our brains: mainly, a "stark lack of nature" to "provide a mental break from the urban roil."
•   The U.K. bulldozes rural housing curbs: protecting the environment should no longer be the overriding consideration in allowing development of affordable homes (a new definition of "sensitive development"?).
•   Despite criticism, American-style suburbs are sprouting up overseas.
•   Kaplan doth protest Palazzo Westwood Village: rather than "accessible urbanity," it's an "economically isolating banality...more boorish than Moorish."
•   How the recession is changing our tastes in housing: will McMansions turn into multi-family homes? "It will be fascinating to see how our new neighborhoods change as a result."
•   High hopes that modular weeHouses catch on.
•   Massie's America House 08: art object or machine for living in (depends on if it actually finds a buyer).
•   Prefab pioneer closes its doors - with hopes it will revive.
•   Dickinson on starchitecture vs. street cred, and a checklist of what the profession can do to have more relevance.
•   King on why three projects "still turn my head, years after they were built."
•   Cheek on four new high-rises that "stroke civic egos, with style" (well, for the most part).
•   Campbell on Thayer Academy's new arts building: it "will please the traditionalists without alienating the modernists."
•   Hess on a new building for low-income housing and homeless services that proves "good architecture isn't reserved for luxury condos anymore."
•   Fayetteville in the throes of museum debate doesn't bode well for Norten's "tall, beautiful and stark vision," but he "could certainly come back and take another go at it."
•   Shortlist announced for U.S. Marshals Museum in Arkansas.
•   Boggs & Partners gets the nod to design National Sailing Hall of Fame & Sailing Center in Annapolis.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_01_06.htm - Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Today’s News - Tuesday, December 9, 2008

•   Kamin looks at how Obama's plans can "raise infrastructure - and the American landscape - to a new level": will they live up to "the standards set in the 1930s and set new ones?"
•   Zandberg's interesting Q&A with Brit Bishop re: intelligent design: London is not "a model for any Israeli city," but "cities can learn from each other" by taking "ideas, not solutions."
•   A look at 30-year history of Beijing architecture "opening up" to the outer world.
•   Jones questions critics who say Gaudí's Sagrada Familia is being "banalized in the name of tourism" (actually, he loves "the emerging result, kitsch and all").
•   Campbell on a historic factory under pressure from the present.
•   Baillieu on the U.K.'s shortsightedness in shelving heritage protection bill.
•   Modernist cottages on Cape Cod saved from the wrecking ball (now all that's needed is the $$$ for preservation).
•   A Hawaiian Island development plans put on hold - to cheers of many.
•   Saffron doesn't mind tall tower plan for Philadelphia - in the right place (and as long as it's not "a fat, hulking copycat").
•   Shortlist for Stonehenge visitors center just got longer.
•   King finds "homegrown architectural innovation" as "architects run wild with Presidio museum ideas."
•   SMC regroups as Archial, and the company's crown renamed Alsop.
•   Whitechapel gallery renovates and expands with hopes of revitalizing a London neighborhood.
•   MVRDV's winning design for a new town near Seoul: a "series of overgrown hill-shaped buildings" (we kid you not).
•   FAT's community building on the outskirts of Rotterdam "distills the essence of suburban dreams."
•   A look at Gehry's new offices.
•   Blum is bemused by architects now consulting with their former adversaries (a.k.a. "marauding skaters") for "a lesson in flow."
•   Gragg has a long conversation about Portland's "fork in the road" in choosing a bridge design: artful or out-of-the-box, the "choice will have huge consequences."
•   Saffron is now hopeful that Philly's South Street Bridge has a shot of being better than originally planned.
•   Jacobs offers an eyeful of must-see green American landmarks.
•   It's an international line-up for IIA convention in Bangalore.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2008_12_09.htm - Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Today's News - Thursday, July 31, 2008

-- Litt lauds Cleveland developers who see the value of good design as an encouraging sign for the struggling city. -- Are Thames Gateway plans "a curate's egg or as a series of eggs in a poorly constructed basket"? -- Turning San Francisco's Market Street into a pedestrian mall is not a bad idea (unless it's 2 miles long). -- Wondering where to Winnipeg's new stadium (downtown not such a good idea). -- London's 100 Public Spaces program axed. -- Toronto's waterfront is a game of checkers - and the city just might win. -- The re-do of "a frequent flyer on lists of the NYC's worst skyscrapers" will be more than skin-deep. -- Six shortlisted for Macau's Old Lisboa offer plans just as 'mammoth' as Grand Lisboa.-- Debate brews over plans for a Jewish Museum in Cologne - now that winning design selected. -- Urban Splash belly-flops with plans to demolish restored Midland Hotel's Art Deco wall. -- A 1970s Connecticut library saved from the wrecker's ball (but for the right reasons?).-- A new museum near the German-Dutch border immerses visitors in the in the architecture, sounds, and smells of a Roman settlement. -- A movement to revive Vienna's flak towers as cultural centers.
http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2008_07_31.htm - Thursday, July 31, 2008