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Today’s News - Friday, June 25, 2010

•   Columbia University wins its battle to use eminent domain to claim the land it needs for $6 billion expansion.
•   Chelsea Barracks developer wins in court, too - it's also "a victory for Richard Rogers and other architects who have long complained that Prince Charles has too much influence on the democratic planning process."
•   Cities within cities: Indianapolis Airport unveils its aerotropolis plans + Edmonton International considers an aerotropolis of its own.
•   With 45,000 employees, AECOM is a giant in the field - but what is it?
•   Brussat visits Stern, "the only American starchitect doing classical" who "has managed, unlike any other starchitect in this land, to beautify our world" (that's why his modernist work causes the critic "distress").
•   Viñoly x 2: he is undaunted by the size and scale of the Battersea project ("I am a realist") + praise for New York for the speed of its decision-making which eases development, but the UK has a sophisticated approach to design that is entirely lacking in the States.
•   King enjoys a jaunt through San Francisco with Goldberger.
•   Bozikovic tours a project by two "gutsy" young Toronto architects and finds "there is beauty in doing things right."
•   Friedman on Saarinen: "Professional jealousies are only part of the story of his complex relationship with the modern movement" (this is long-form journalism at its best!).
•   Weekend diversions:
•   Several takes (and lots of pix) on "Our Cities, Ourselves" at NYC's Center for Architecture, presenting "full-blown ideas for integrating sustainable transport into the fabric of 10 different modern cities."
•   Kennicott on Michael Graves and "Revealing Culture" at the Smithsonian: "The surprising and thrilling thing is how much ADA-sensitive exhibition design rewards ordinary, fully able-bodied visitors...even in a room that is fundamentally charmless."
•   McGuirk finds surreal adventures at London's Barbican and the Hayward: "In a world where, increasingly, everything is designed, these two rich exhibitions remind us that not everything can be controlled."
•   In Stockholm, nine architects design full-scale buildings for 6- to 16-year-old clients to be climbed on and explored.
•   Kamin cheers "Looking After Louis Sullivan" at the Art Institute of Chicago, "a new, small gem of a show" of photographers who put Sullivan's genius in enduring focus."
•   The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston revisits Ishimoto Yasuhiro's photos, "giving the now 89-year-old artist a do-over on one of his crowning achievements."
•   In San Diego, artist-architect Enos works "to subvert what he sees as architecture that serves the economy rather then people."
•   Hollis on Sudjic's Foster biography: it's a tale told with "admirable lucidity," but "there's little sense...of the agony or the ecstasy that may or may not rage behind Foster's inscrutable smile."

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_06_25.htm - Friday, June 25, 2010

Today’s News - Thursday, May 20, 2010

•   Bernstein pays tribute to Arakawa who "explored ideas about mortality by creating buildings meant to stop aging and preclude death."
•   Big plans for a big slice of Baltimore's waterfront (and nary a NIMBY in sight).
•   Yesterday it was Russians coming to the aid of Caracas; today, Japan lends a hand in India's vision for an urban future
•  - "though urbanization is not without detractors."
•   Cheers for plans to revamp London's National Theatre so the best Thames views are no longer marred by garbage bins.
•   Bellamy bemoans parking lots leaving Winnipeg's downtown "resembling the toothless grin of hockey Hall of Famer" (never mind the historic buildings being demolished to make way).
•   Appelbaum takes on LEED: it's time "to make sure that a green building doesn't go gray after its grand opening."
•   Rapid response puts an end to plans to pink up Hejduk's Kreuzberg Tower in Berlin.
•   On a more sober note, NTHP issues its 2010 America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places annual list (great presentations).
•   Russell roams around remade Lincoln Center: DS+R "have done the impossible&hellipthe changes have transformed the tired bombast of the architectural ensemble" - it's "almost hip."
•   An impressive team behind NYC's Museum for African Art extends Manhattan's Museum Mile.
•   Bilbao opens its newest architectural landmark: "an imposing new cultural center" by Starck.
•   Hawthorne comments on the all the comments he's getting re: his review of Gehry's Ruvo Center.
•   Kennicott gives thumbs-up and down to architects' endeavors in stage design (great slide show).
•   Q&A with Gilabert and her plans for Storefront for Art and Architecture: "I want to introduce more characters into the contemporary discussion - for highly productive disagreements."
•   Chen offers a most amusing report from the Pritzker fete for SANAA on Ellis Island (who wasn't there - besides us?!!?).
•   Booth on 2010 RIBA architecture awards: "as a measure of the recession's impact, the major museums and airports that graced the list in recent years are few" (we really like the bus driver's loo).
•   Lisbon Architecture Triennale's competition names 30 finalists from around the world.
•   Call for entries: AILA's Seachange 2030+ International Urban Sea Level Rise Ideas Competition for Sydney Harbor.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_05_20.htm - Thursday, May 20, 2010

Today’s News - Tuesday, March 9, 2010

•   We lose two masters of the skyscraper: Kamin pays tribute to Graham, "the Burnham of his generation" (SOM office credo: "If you disagree with Graham, shut up"; and Williams, "not a doctrinaire modernist."
•   Australia's former prime minister minces no words in speaking to developers in Sydney: "ice-cube tray" high-rises and "gormless" apartment blocks display "an absence of civic conscientiousness."
•   Many California cities are adopting design guidelines that eliminate a lot of ugly buildings, but do they also eliminate creativity? "Manipulating the look and feel of a city is a weird science."
•   Rochon on Vancouver's "state of architectural transition": Vancouver Art Gallery should not even consider moving from its "slice of compressed urban magic"; the new roof for BC Place Stadium "is something to get excited about"; and housing atop Woodward's "feels exactly right."
•   Critics claim moving the VAG makes no sense from a city-building perspective: "We have a small number of people on an ego trip, wanting to do a Bilbao," says Bing Thom.
•   Lindsay on Detroit: can it "really shrink its way back to greatness (or at least stop the bleeding)?" Maybe, maybe not - it's "always had a weakness for urban renewal fads."
•   Meanwhile, the city debates the future of its "most iconic ruin," the grand Michigan Central Station (grand slide show, too).
•   While Detroit may ponder urban farms, Cleveland's Gardens Under Glass is an "urban eco village" in (drum roll, please) a mall.
•   King on the "sea of contention" facing proposals for San Francisco's Embarcadero, in "a fractious district where obstruction has been refined to an art."
•   Plans to "respectfully rehabilitate" the National Mall to make it more sustainable and accessible move forward (public comment period open until March 18).
•   Calatrava's Liège-Guillemins railway station: "Nothing about the lofty structure, which appears to change shape at every angle, is static" (terrific slide show).
•   Campbell coos over Emerson College's restoration of its Art Deco Paramount Center: "one of the triumphs of recent Boston architecture and urbanism" (topped by dorm rooms for 262 future students).
•   Maki muses on his new MIT Media Lab: it's "one of the best buildings we ever produced in my long career."
•   Cheek cheers a deal to save an old Seattle sanctuary, but the new church is "ultimately, just a big, tall box...while that's an altogether honest architectural expression for an urban site, it's not a space that seems likely to trigger a spiritual rush."
•   Fetell ponders what kind of architecture works best for places of worship (researchers studying awe have some answers).
•   Hess cheers a high school auditorium that's so much more than that: it's "an instant civic monument...one of the most joyous, rhythmic, lively and uplifting spaces added to our area in recent decades."
•   Q&A with Harrington of the Architects Council of Europe re: the role of women in architecture today; what it still means to be a European architect: "We don't fear for our architecture; we just need a bit more nourishment."
•   An 11th-hour rescue for Yamasaki archives (shredders were prepped).
•   Memphis launches the Paul R. Williams Project to put a spotlight on the "architect to the stars."
•   2010 ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition picks four finalists for $50,000 grand prize.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_03_09.htm - Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Today’s News - Thursday, March 25, 2010

•   In Maryland, an ambitious proposal reflects a national movement to re-engineer older neighborhoods built around America's love affair with the car (but some worry it still will bring too much traffic).
•   Hawthorne on NYC's Sadik-Khan sweep through L.A.: "we have entirely lost sight of the fact that a department of transportation can play a central role in improving a city's civic design and its quality of life."
•   Big plans floated for San Francisco's Pier 70 (RFQ coming in April).
•   CABE says new school buildings are better, but the design of school grounds is not; offers six case studies that get it right.
•   Nouvel x 3 (again): Rose calls him "one of the most imaginative, agenda-setting designers on the planet...destined to take over the world in a good way."
•   Rosenbaum gets him to talk about his MoMA/Hines tower: it's going to be "more like a skyscraper": it's too bad the "height and (along with it) the architectural interest" has been cut back.
•   Doha's "insanely ambitious plans" include his "desert rose."
•   Dyckhoff wants "the old Libeskind back."
•   Filler says Hadid gets "preposterously premature acclaim" while the designation of "world's foremost female architect...rightfully belongs to Denise Scott Brown, a truly towering figure in the modern history of the building art."
•   Calatrava's "Architecture of Dance" sets for NYC Ballet make a pointe.
•   How the power of architecture changed a Brooklyn community.
•   Kamin on rumors that Smith + Gill have beat out SOM to design kilometer-high tower in Saudi Arabia.
•   An eyeful of Hungary's 2010 Shanghai World Expo pavilion - it includes the world's first self-righting object.
•   An eyeful of an Anglo-German team's winning design for a graceful pedestrian bridge in the heart of Vienna.
•   Brussat at his most brutal re: a new school - a "Frank "O!" Gehry wannabe concoction of tinny slants and glassy slashes."
•   ASLA issues a call to engage in National Landscape Architecture Month in April.
•   The MIPIM Awards Winners 2010 (sadly, no images).
•   eVolo 2010 Skyscraper Competition finalists (images included - some pretty wild stuff).
•   Why do some of the world's best architects have websites that "suck" (something we've wondered about for a long time)?

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_03_25.htm - Thursday, March 25, 2010

Today’s News - Monday, March 29, 2010

•   SANAA snags the Pritzker! (details follow)
•   ArcSpace brings us an eyeful of Nouvel's "desert rose" in Qatar.
•   We're much saddened by the passing of Paul Devrouax, who "led the way for black firms" (saddened also for lack of coverage).
•   Back to the Pritzker: Weinstein offers "celebratory meditations" on SANAA winning the prize.
•   Russell praises their "brainy, boxy designs" - with a caveat: the jury's "narrow aesthetic" is "sending a message that architecture is mostly an aesthetic refuge. That's a disservice."
•   Hawthorne cheers the choice: it "may exorcise some old ghosts" and acknowledges "the often collaborative nature of architectural practice."
•   Kamin offers up a smorgasbord of coverage (including a brief but amusing Q&A via e-mail).
•   Still in star mode: Moore on H&deM's Miami Beach parking garage: "It is austerely playful, or deadpan theatrical... If Miami is a flamingo city, this tends more in the pterodactyl direction" (that's a good thing).
•   Nouvel's modern take on traditional architecture deserves recognition for its role in shaping our urban landscapes (and by no means is he "past his creative prime").
•   Ricky Burdett offers an eloquent tribute to Bruce Graham who "reinvented the role of the architect."
•   UN-Habitat's new "State of the World Cities" report released at the World Urban Forum in Rio.
•   U.S. EPA study says "smart growth" is taking root in U.S. cities, marking a "fundamental shift" in the real estate market (even ahead of the Obama administration's push for denser development).
•   A researcher data-crunches and theorizes about what defines a great city (it all boils down to four "C"s).
•   L.A. leads the country in Energy Star-rated buildings.
•   That might - or might not - mean all that much as an audit finds some serious flaws in the Energy Star program.
•   McDonald on the "Armageddon" for architects in Ireland: the collapse of Murray Ó Laoire last week "shows how bleak the outlook is for many professionals in the construction sector."
•   On a lighter note: Groves cheers USC getting the archives of Edward H. Fickett, an "unsung hero" of architecture.
•   Spielberg takes on Ground Zero, a documentary conceived by Brooklyn-based architect that "will largely celebrate architectural and engineering accomplishments at the site" and "won't dwell on the infamous delays."
•   Winners all: eyefuls of the HB:BX - High Bridge: Bronx, Building Cultural Infrastructure international ideas competition winners; and the 2010 Re-Skinning Award winners (plus why the winning "glowing cocoon" for a Sydney university tower won't be built).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_03_29.htm - Monday, March 29, 2010

Today’s News - Wednesday, February 17, 2010

•   A dressing down of starchitects who "feel able to design abominable" buildings, and "expect the rest of us to be admiring, deferential and grateful" (specifically Libeskind in Dresden and Hadid in Oxford - ouch!).
•   Ditto for Canadian architects designing "technological dinosaurs" and missing opportunities being filled by others: the "profession has marginalized itself with its passive stance."
•   A new report warns London's 2012 Olympics "may not leave its promised legacy of regeneration" (perhaps a study trip to Vancouver would help).
•   Lubell is a bit kinder than Hawthorne was to L.A. Live's new hotel/condo tower: it's overall aesthetic may not be "earth-shattering," but it's still "a major step forward for an urban project that has been sorely lacking in innovative design and urbanism."
•   An infusion of big bucks for NYC's Moynihan Station plans (remember those?), but its future is still "murky" (bless the transit advocates who are trying to stay optimistic - so are we).
•   H&deM tapped for a residential project in Beirut with hopes it will "raise the bar in terms of quality architecture and community development."
•   Baghdad names a winner in a competition to develop an area surrounding shrines in Al Kadhimiya that is "sensitive to area's historical, cultural and social character."
•   An impressive shortlist to reinvent Toronto's St. Lawrence Market North building.
•   Potential work for green designers? Ford to offer dealerships a sustainability program to help them become more energy-efficient.
•   Discovering the mystery of the tent-roofed cube house, the "most characteristic countryside building type of 20th century Hungary."
•   Glancey offers a glowing (but bitter-sweet) tribute to Eduardo Catalano: the ghost of his house in Raleigh "lives on to haunt the architectural imagination."
•   Mark your calendars: this Saturday is 20x20 Pecha Kucha Haiti fundraiser in 200+ cities around the world (check listings - some cities are doing it on different dates).
•   Szenasy challenges design competitions to get beyond awarding prizes based on pretty pictures: it's "a hopelessly outdated approach" that "does a disservice to everyone."
•   Winners all (pretty pictures included): 4th Annual Smart Environment Awards for "for intimate spaces that are not just inspirational but humane"; Travel + Leisure's Design Awards 2010 (Motel 6 among 'em!); and UPTO35 winner is a "bold scheme" for student-housing in the historic center of Athens.
•   Call for entries: UNESCO poster to celebrate "2010, International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures."
•   We couldn't resist: some really amazing 3D pavement art (part deux).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_02_17.htm - Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Today’s News - Thursday, February 18, 2010

•   Q&A with Kunstler re: how he came to write "The Long Emergency" and why he advises: "If you live in the suburbs, you could sell your house and relocate to a place that has a future."
•   McDonald chats with RIAI's new president re: an 11-point action plan for "survival, renewal and recovery," and his mantra "architecture matters."
•   Rochon visits Vancouver's Olympic Village and finds it "a serious urban accomplishment" and "a test zone of urban daring" + a few Olympic additions "that inspire and impress" (Canada Pavilion not included).
•   Brussat on the "hypocrisy of additions, old and new" (and - gasp - "a modernist triumph (yes, even I love it)."
•   Merrick marvels at SANAA's "spectacular floating" Rolex Learning Center in Lausanne: sort of like Niemeyer's architecture "on acid" - but not really; watch out, starchitects - you now have some "serious competition." + an eyeful of what it looks like.
•   Atlanta Beltline design team selected (no pix - yet).
•   In Kentucky (as elsewhere), universities have to decide between operational budgets and new construction: "It is, indeed, a Sophie's Choice."
•   Yale's Morse College by Saarinen will sport right angles so square tables (and radiators) will fit into the corners of its rooms.
•   Holl will build again at flood-damaged University of Iowa.
•   Pearman offers an amusing romp through the history of hotel typology.
•   Levete's big impact in a tight setting in London "does more than capture the passing glance - it commands attention."
•   Heatherwick's "seed cathedral," a.k.a. British Pavilion, for the 2010 Shanghai Expo intends to change Chinese view of Britain.
•   Libeskind on his unusual career path: "My life has developed in a reverse order" + his new prefab house.
•   Seattle's DKA Architecture's central tenet serves nonprofits, public agencies with its "culture of resourcefulness": it's all about making do with what you have.
•   Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies 2010: DS+R and MVRDV make the Top 50 (plus a bunch more).
•   SpecSimple's "Save A Sample!" goes national to create "another life" for design firms' unused resource library materials by donating them to local design schools.
•   Call for entries: two-stage international competition is for the design of a children's center for the Aoibhneas Women and Children's Refuge in Dublin.

EDITOR'S NOTE: ArchNewsNow.com celebrates its 8th anniversary today! With thanks to our faithful readers...here's to many more!
http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_02_18.htm - Thursday, February 18, 2010

Today’s News - Monday, January 4, 2010

•   ArcSpace brings us Chipperfield in Anchorage, and Perrault in Seoul.
•   We are deeply saddened by the passing of Norval White - so close to the release of his 5th AIA Guide to New York City.
•   Hawthorne on the Burj Dubai: if it is "too shiny, confidently designed and expertly engineered to be a ruin itself, it is surely the marker - the tombstone - for some ruined ideas."
•   Kamin is a bit kinder: "It is a luminous, light-catching skyscraper that looks like a skyscraper - ridiculously tall, but exquisitely sculpted, elegantly detailed and unapologetically exultant"; and a profile of the architect behind it: Adrian Smith marries "poetry and pragmatism," and "designs with an eye toward economical construction and function, not just surface dazzle."
•   Meanwhile Dubai's "The World" archipelago may not be totally under water: an Austrian investor says he will soon proceed with construction on the island of "Germany."
•   Ouroussoff gets the scoop on a pharmaceuticals giant's hidden campus designed by (another) gathering of starchitects: have they managed "to make a rigidly controlled, insulated environment that is also human?"
•   Russell has a most interesting conversation with the mastermind behind CityCenter re: "how big-name architects figured into a city defined by fantasy and spectacle" (hint: Ground Zero played a part).
•   Kennicott finds CityCenter "strangely isolated and insular...It's good, as far as it goes, but is it really revolutionary? Is this the sort of thing that progressive architects should be involved in?"
•   Q & A with Pelli re: CityCenter: "This is a project of many, many architects working simultaneously...getting here is a surprise and a miracle and we all still remain friends."
•   Looking forward:
•   Now it's done, CityCenter architects face a future of far fewer high-profile projects (if there will be any).
•   Lewis offers some predictions for the future: smart growth, density, and sustainable design among the obvious; as for architectural styles: we will "have plenty of them, and regrettably plenty of not-so-beautiful buildings, regardless of their style."
•   Rawsthorne on a new wave of designers redefining "their discipline as something that does more than produce "things... Let's hope design does better in the next decade."
•   Hawthorne offers up some faces to watch in 2010.
•   Looking back:
•   Rochon says "the boom has slowed, but the pause is making room for some serious assessments of what it means to build with care."
•   King looks at architectural trends of the decade: "iconic museums! stratospheric towers! Let's hope that when architectural ambitions come back, the I-word doesn't" + plus his pick of Top 10 San Francisco projects that (hopefully) portend a trend where "neighborhoods count for more than icons."
•   Kennicott's take on the decade: the most encouraging trend was green design, and "'starchitect'...became something of a dirty word, as momentum grew for a new kind of modesty and problem-solving, rather than flamboyance and busted budgets."
•   Some surprises in a round-up of the "Brightest Green Projects of 2009."
•   Inaugural Imagine H2O Prize finalists are "awash with innovative ideas."

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_01_04.htm - Monday, January 4, 2010

Today’s News - Friday, January 22, 2010

•   Haiti on our minds: a round-up of initiatives proposed by the architecture and design community.
•   Betsky says, "If we are going to help build a better world in such places...architects will have to be part of that process."
•   Calys queries AfH's Sinclair to find out just what he and his organization are doing.
•   An in-depth look at how Calatrava just might be able to "make Americans care about infrastructure."
•   England's most hated building is about to bite the dust: "No one wanted it before it was built and no one wanted it after it was built" (and that was only 12 years ago).
•   An eyeful of plans for 8 skyscrapers "trying to capture the title as the next tallest tower."
•   NYC's urbanSHED competition winner offers a "lighter, friendlier alternative" to 1950s-era design for construction scaffolding (something we won't try to avoid walking under - what a concept!).
•   P.S.1/MoMA's Young Architects Program winner will have poles dancing this summer.
•   Galway, Ireland, wants to join the bandwagon with other cities finding innovative ways to use vacant buildings.
•   A vacant Tower Records store in NYC is the latest in a wave of arts venues popping up in empty retail spaces around the country.
•   Call for Statement of Interest: NEA Mayors' Institute on City Design 25th Anniversary Initiative grants.
•   Weekend diversions:
•   Boddy's "Vancouverism" show puts the emphasis on buildings and materials "to bring back the credit for Vancouverism to architects and engineers."
•   Iovine visits Yale's "What We Learned": it's easy to see why Venturi Scott Brown's thinking continues to give pause for a new generation.
•   "Mega City Network" at Korea's National Museum of Contemporary Art "implicates that big-scale developments may not be the solution in a mega city like Seoul."
•   In Berlin, Wasmuht's "Supracity" never loses sight of the human scale.
•   Two "young and opportunistic artists" have found a way to make the most of the Queens Museum of Art's ambitious renovation.
•   Page turners: Weber's "The Bauhaus Group" is a must-read, "combining gossip, art, and architectural criticism."
•   "Miami Modern Metropolis" is "smart, thoroughly-researched and visually exciting."
•   Two we couldn't resist: Betsky says go see "Avatar" in 3D: "This will be our world, this is almost already our world" that "can perhaps only survive as apps that have not yet been invented."
•   Education by stealth in a new video game that immerses you in Renaissance Italy (especially the urban and architectural elements) - without the tourists.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_01_22.htm - Friday, January 22, 2010

Today’s News - Tuesday, December 1, 2009

•   Aligning sustainability and historic preservation: retrofitting existing buildings is a vital strategy in the battle against climate change.
•   Krier bemoans NIMBYism and overdevelopment: "There's no hope for very large cities": could a "2012" apocalypse help? (how's that for cheering up his San Diego hosts, though he did manage some compliments).
•   Walker offers up an eyeful of the "revolutionary convergence of starchitects" creating "a jackpot of contemporary architecture" in Las Vegas readying for its close-up this week.
•   Hume cheers Safdie's plan for a "Queens Quay jewel": it's "the best thing to have been proposed for Toronto's long-neglected harbor lands in decades."
•   Kamin x 2: he's not so cheery about Chicago's Block 37 mall: "Despite some good urban design strokes, Block 37's curse lives on"
•   He does cheer the demolition of Mies's Test Cell building: "Must we save every scrap of a great architect's work, as if it were a musical doodle from Mozart?"
•   Rochon makes the best of being stuck in Frankfurt's airport by musing on others that avoid "terminal frustration."
•   In Melbourne, the transformation of a rusting railway shed turns a deteriorating steel and brick hulk into a modern - and very green - building.
•   Davidson finds that "despite the laconic elegance" of the new U.S. Mission to the U.N., it is "made for a lethal world" broadcasting "a primitive mixture of toughness and fear."
•   Neighbors cheer as plans for Chicago's Three Arts Club to house ashes of the dead are scrapped (but they might not be any happier with other proposals).
•   Could Oakland Museum of California's retrofit usher in a Brutalist revival?
•   Calatrava's Peace Bridge is under-budget and underway; despite value engineering, he says his overall vision "remains unaltered."
•   A good reason to head to New Orleans next week: DesCours 2009.
•   We couldn't resist: people see red when easyJet uses Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe for a fashion shoot (whatever where they thinking?!!?); and Pentagram's Bierut offers up "The Lazy Designer's Guide to Success" (take heed!).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_12_01.htm - Tuesday, December 1, 2009