ArchNewsNow

Home Yesterday's News Calendar Contact Us Subscribe

Today's News - March 19, 2007

ArcSpace brings us Mecanoo's theater and conference center in Spain, and Maltzan's skid row housing in L.A. -- A call for planners to have more respect for their craft and their cities. -- Hopefully, that will apply to plans for building a new California city of 70,000 from scratch. -- A sociologist argues that "today's leading architects learned the wrong lessons from modernism's mistakes" and need to "re-engage with the life of cities." -- Is Chicago's mayor channeling Robert Moses's darker side? -- Architecture as one of Europe's most visible exports. -- Will starchitect power win the bet on high-end housing in Brooklyn? -- "Vancouver style" is a winner for housing project in San Diego. -- A 1920s packing house in Claremont, CA, to be reborn as "a regional museum of international significance." -- Kamin revisits architecture's "green guerrilla" with a Q&A with McDonough. -- Universal design may never become law, but should lead "to different ways of thinking about design." -- St Pancras station signals the rebirth of the golden age of rail travel. -- Another take on why Boston's City Hall is worth saving. -- Protech takes on the mantel of developer (and hopes he can afford to live there). -- What made Aalto "the kinder, gentler face of modernism." -- RFQ to remodel FC Barcelona stadium. -- Campbell finds Zagreb exhibit "proves something we often forget: A city is an organism, as alive as any other ecosystem." -- We picked a few (above), but here's link to the entire NYT special real estate magazine.

To subscribe to the free daily newsletter click here

-- Mecanoo architects: La Llotja Theatre and Congress Center, Lleida, Spain
-- Michael Maltzan Architecture: Rainbow Apartments, Skid Row Housing, Los Angeles

Planning And The Scourge Of The Collective Action Problem: ...planners must have enough respect for their craft and love for their cities to convince people that, for instance, $750 million could be better spent on incentives to carpool than on concrete, dust, and takings through eminent domain. By Josh Stephens- PLANetizen

Playing SimCity for Real: Tejon Ranch, just 60 miles north of Los Angeles, is over 270,000 acres of open space attached to an equally vast question: How do you build a city [of 70,000] from scratch? Whether the blueprint for a self-sustaining town actually becomes reality is another matter... -- Randy Jackson/Planning Center- New York Times

Structural Integrity: "From a Cause to a Style: Modernist Architecture's Encounter with the American City"...Sociologist Nathan Glazer argues that today's leading architects learned the wrong lessons from modernism's mistakes, and need to re-engage with the life of cities. -- Le Corbusier; Yamasaki; Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Gehry; Koolhaas; Libeskind; Duany Plater-Zyberk- Boston Globe

No gold medal for Daley maneuvering: The dangers of Daley's "Moses moments," it turns out, are physical, not just financial...Not only should the [Olympic] games themselves be fair; so should the urban planning process leading up to them. By Blair Kamin -- Frederick Law Olmsted; Ben Wood; Peter Schaudt- Chicago Tribune

The Best Architecture: ...generation of designers has become one of Europe's most visible exports...Only Frank Gehry, alone among Americans, has had a bigger impact on contemporary architecture than the Europeans... By Cathleen McGuigan -- Rogers; Foster; Koolhaas; Hadid; Nouvel; Calatrava; Herzog & de Meuron; Grimshaw; Piano- Newsweek

Betting on Star Power: On Prospect Park...has park views, multimillion-dollar apartments and Manhattan’s hottest architect. Just one thing: It’s in Brooklyn...the project’s success will depend on whether the marketability of Richard Meier overwhelms the power of that most potent of all real estate forces, location.- New York Times

Exporting the 'Vancouver style': A San Diego housing project designed and developed by Vancouverites demonstrates both this city's place in the world, and the place of the world in this city. By Trevor Boddy -- Hossein Amanat [slide show]- Globe and Mail (Canada)

Long-awaited museum picks Claremont packing house as its home: Downtown expansion project starts up with..."a regional museum of international significance"... -- Mark von Wodtke/Claremont Environmental Design Group- Los Angeles Times

Green architect McDonough finds mainstream acceptance: ...in 1993...Helmut Jahn mixed it up with green guerrilla William McDonough...struck me as a zealot...while Jahn seemed to be the hard-headed realist...14 years later...Jahn himself has jumped on the green bandwagon... By Blair Kamin- Chicago Tribune

In Universal Design, Comfort and Function for All: Although the distinction between the ADA and universal design may seem subtle, it nevertheless leads to different ways of thinking about design, to new principles and outcomes. By Roger K. Lewis -- Ron Mace; Center for Universal Design- Washington Post

Hail the new golden age of the train: Once the pride of the Victorian railway era, St Pancras is now about to put the glamour back into rail travel. By Stephen Bayley -- George Gilbert Scott; WH Barlow (1868); Norman Foster; Richard Griffiths Associates [audio slide show]- Observer (UK)

Op-Ed: Why City Hall is worth saving: References to New Brutalism trivialize the building's achievement...To lay waste to a great building that is positioned so effectively and created with such vigor and skill is a foolhardy proposition. By Donlyn Lyndon -- Gerhard Kallmann/Michael McKinnell- Boston Globe

A Gallerist Turned Developer: Max Protetch has not only a gallery but a condo project, Grand Machinery Exchange. By Fred A. Bernstein -- Ohlhausen DuBois Architects; Rawlings Architects- New York Times

Ahead of the curve: Alvar Aalto was the kinder, gentler face of modernism - the man who put Finland on the architectural map, and made saunas his speciality...an alternative to Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and other architects of the modernist elite.- Guardian (UK)

Request for Qualifications: Remodeling Camp Nou (FC Barcelona stadium); deadline: April 10- FC Barcelona

Exhibit explores Zagreb and its transformations: Zagreb is not a city most of us know, or perhaps have even heard of. But in a fascinating exhibit [at] Harvard Design School, it's worth seeking out...proves something we often forget: A city is an organism, as alive as any other ecosystem. By Robert Campbell -- Eve Blau- Boston Globe

Key Magazine: Special Real Estate Supplement- New York Times

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window.
External news links are not endorsed by ArchNewsNow.com.
Free registration may be required on some sites.
Some pages may expire after a few days.

Yesterday's News