Thursday, September 21, 2017
EDITOR'S NOTE: Tomorrow and Monday will be no-newsletter days. We'll be back Tuesday, September 26.
Click here to see today's news.
In this particularly vicious hurricane season, the Architects Advocate network's Jacobs calls for architects to take action, "guided by our common humanity, we must do all we can to help ease the devastation that future storms will bring." -- NYC's Mayor de Blasio puts forth a proposal that "would make energy-efficient heat and water systems mandatory by 2030," but it faces "an uphill battle" with tenant advocates, and is unclear about what it "means for architects and building owners whose structures have yet to be built." -- Three of the six firms contracted to build prototypes of Trump's U.S.-Mexico border wall have a "spotty history" of defrauding the government and more (doesn't this foster confidence in our industry and government - not!). -- Lange applauds Cornell Tech's new Roosevelt Island campus, with buildings that "wear their sustainability on their sleeves," and their "palpable generosity that goes beyond the numbers." -- Budds also cheers Cornell Tech, and the buildings "meant to nurture real-world innovations, in some cases through architecture itself" (no ivy-covered ivory towers here). -- Hume has a most interesting conversation with urban planner Beasley re: why "Toronto could lose its role as world city" because "leaders want to turn it into a suburb," and why "the most important prerequisite for success is optimism. Without it, planners are wasting their time - and ours." -- Kamin gives (mostly) thumbs-up to AS+GG's "flexible, intimate and innovative" The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare on Navy Pier: it is "a solid example of working creatively within severe constraints of time, budget and a challenging site." -- ULI's upcoming fall meeting explores "Getting Cities Right" - check it out now: registration fee increases after tomorrow. -- Definitely check out the AIA's 2017 I Look Up Film Challenge winners - and cast your vote for People's Choice Award.
Weekend diversions:
-- The traveling exhibition "Harry Seidler: Painting Toward Architecture" takes center stage at CCNY Spitzer School of Architecture, opening Monday with a Q&A with Kenneth Frampton, Abby Suckle, Jeremy Edmiston, and curator Vladimir Belogolovsky. -- Meanwhile, at NYC's Bard Graduate Center Gallery, "John Lockwood Kipling: Arts & Crafts in the Punjab and London" is the first major exhibition to examine the too-long overlooked designer, architectural sculptor, curator, educator, illustrator, and journalist (and Rudyard Kipling's father).
Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA:
-- Bakare considers the sprawling Getty-led initiative to be the "perfect exhibition for Trump's America," and "could not feel more timely." -- "Albert Frey and Lina Bo Bardi: A Search for Living Architecture" at the Palm Springs Art Museum "explores the undeniable similarities between the two architects' works, even though they never met" (Arpter's reissued version of Bo Bardi's Bowl chair is also part of the exhibition - we want one!). -- LACMA puts the spotlight on California and Mexico's shared design cultures in "Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico, 1915 - 1985."
Chicago Architecture Biennial
-- Kamin claims that the Biennial "no longer can be accused of indulging in the city's long tradition of windy braggadocio," and is "thick with strong ideas - some offerings could - and should - be built today" (lots of pix!). -- Hawthorne has a great Q&A with Biennial artistic directors Johnston and Lee re: their "dense and ambitious portrait of contemporary architecture, and how the profession must move beyond what simply looks cool" (and dealing with some easy, some difficult "for not a very good reason" architects). -- Bernstein picks 15 of his fave "takeaways" from the Biennial: "mini-dissertations (at maxi-scale)"; "new buildings with old souls"; "architecture in the service of architecture"; and then some. -- Sisson picks "10 things we loved" at the Biennial: "model skyscrapers, funky churches, and more."
"Never Built New York"
-- Schwab is quite taken by the 1:1200 scale miniatures inserted into the Queens Museum's historic Panorama: "Lit from below in eerie blue light, they look like architectural ghosts, some of which have been mourned and many more of which would have been true disasters" (lots of pix!). -- Heinrich has a grand time exploring "plenty of grand ideas to be regretted": some "never stood a chance," but "are still magical to think about" - and some other ideas "are hair-raising." -- Rollings finds "Never Built New York" a "parallel New York full of architectural wonders, whether better off unbuilt or not."
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