Today’s News - Friday, April 3, 2009
• Can China be green by 2020? It's just might - if there is political will.
• A "Shiny Greenish-Gold" rating for China's first "green-colored suburb city" (literally: lots of green paint and roads made from recycled U.S. currency, for starters); but experts are concerned (from pix, we are, too).
• Hume cheers that public transit is back on the agenda, but fears that "NIMBY hordes are surely bracing for battle."
• Pearman lunches with Diller Scofidio + Renfro: "rebels with a cause."
• Ouroussoff and Russell on NYC's two new stadiums: architecturally, a home run here and there, but no grand slams.
• Hawthorne on Gehry's Eisenhower memorial win, competitions, harder times for younger firms: a pity we won't get to see the other finalists' proposals when "there is still a good deal for the profession...to learn from competition entries that nearly won the day."
• Sparks might fly when Zaha, Fuksas, and Jencks cross swords at Barbican next week.
• Want your own Turnbull-designed Sea Ranch cottage? Yours for $1,500 online (a good thing?).
• A Japanese steel factory diversifies to survive the downturn: it's now growing lettuce (the edible kind).
• Weekend diversions: "Las Vegas Studio": Venturi and Scott Brown's archives offer "a glimpse behind the curtain of a significant moment in architectural history."
• Another take on Corbu tome: "the man depicted in these pages exhibits few of the humane qualities" suggested by a vision of "an architecture that would celebrate color and nature."
• "Designing the Seaside" is a "fine celebration of a very English invention" (saucy postcards included).
• "One Square Inch of Silence" looks at how we're killing a national treasure.
• Film: "Bridging Waters: Creating a Peace Park on the River Jordan" documents Yale students' adventure on the Israeli-Jordanian border working with Jordanian and Palestinian architects and Israeli students.
• An eyeful of Nouvle's "extreme" exhibition design in Milan.
• In Boston, architect-artist Downsbrough's "playful and witty exhibit....uses lines and words to explode his viewers' assumptions about space and language."
• A Bauhaus B&B: "if minimalism is your thing, it's a great place to stay" (and "amazingly cheap").
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Can China be green by 2020? ...unprecedented economic growth over the past 30 years has come at a huge cost to the environment...measures adopted during the Olympics, although limited in their reach, proved the country is capable of fighting against its environmental problems if there is political will.- BBC |
China Reveals Plans for Green-Colored "Suburb City": ...Wuyang could transform into a Chinese vision for the future..."For our sustainable vision to spread, green cities must spread out"...But Western experts have voiced concern about the plan, which one report calls "an unsustainable pipe-dream -- no, pipe-nightmare." By Alex Pasternack -- Crain and Steele [images, links]- TreeHugger.com |
Transit plan highlights province's power: The good news is that public transit is back on the agenda. The bad news is that cities aren't...Partly, it's because we elect the sort of lowest common-denominator councillors who pander to our worst instincts. By Christopher Hume- Toronto Star |
First We Take Manhattan: Diller Scofidio + Renfro are rebels with a cause and they have brought that to their first mainstream project, the transformation of Lincoln Center. By Hugh Pearman -- FXFowle Architects [images, links]- RIBA Journal (UK) |
Two New Baseball Palaces, One Stoic, One Scrappy: The new homes of the Yankees and Mets, both major upgrades over their predecessors, subtly reflect the character of the franchises that built them...both stadiums will be a disappointment to students of architecture. For us, the buildings are just another reminder of the enormous gap that remains between high design and popular taste. By Nicolai Ouroussoff -- Populous (formerly HOK Sport) [images, video]- New York Times |
Yankees, Mets Embalm Baseball at Stadiums Costing $2.3 Billion: Once you get beyond the exterior preening, both stadiums are cut from the same architectural cloth...These structures are perfect for the kinds of acrobatic engineering that made Beijing’s spectacular “bird’s nest” stadium last year’s Olympics icon. New York’s teams dropped the ball. By James S. Russell -- Populous (HOK Sport)- Bloomberg News |
Frank Gehry learns to like Ike - and the memorial competition: ...it is disappointing to learn that the General Services Administration plans not to release the proposal by Rogers Marvel (and of the other finalists...Peter Walker and Krueck & Sexton Architects)...If younger firms continue to face hurdles in landing the juiciest commissions, there is still a good deal for the profession - and the public at large - to learn from competition entries that nearly won the day. By Christopher Hawthorne- Los Angeles Times |
Zaha, Fuksas and Jencks to cross swords at Barbican April 9: ...focusing on the legacy of Le Corbusier- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
Do We Really Need Architects? Your next home may come from a Web site, not a design studio. -- William Turnbull; Garrell Associates; Nick Noyes; Dan Tyree; Ross Anderson; David Wright [images, links]- Fast Company |
Salad saves Japanese steel factory: Firm diversifies into growing lettuce as downturn hits demand for construction products- Building (UK) |
Book review: "Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archive of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown," edited by Hilar Stadler and Martino Stierli...a glimpse behind the curtain of a significant moment in architectural history.- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
Book review: "Le Corbusier: A Life" by Nicholas Fox Weber: ...despite [his] copious articulation of an architecture that would celebrate color and nature and "accommodate the physical and emotional requirements he considered inherent in all human beings," the man depicted in these pages exhibits few of the humane qualities suggested by such a vision.- Chicago Tribune |
Book review: "Designing the Seaside: Architecture, Society and Nature" by Fred Gray...Although dry at times, the wonderful illustrations...more than compensate...this is a fine celebration of a very English invention.- Guardian (UK) |
Book review: The Looming Death of Natural Silence: How we’re killing a national treasure: "One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World" by Gordon Hempton and John Grossmann- Obit magazine |
Architects strive to achieve vision of peace park: "Bridging Waters: Creating a Peace Park on the River Jordan"...Yale architects traveled to the Israeli-Jordanian border to work with Jordanian and Palestinian architects and Israeli students from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in an initiative to design the Middle East’s first peace park.- Yale Daily News |
In Milan, Nouvel Fashions an “Extreme” Exhibition: “Extreme Beauty in Vogue,” a photographic survey of beauty...the exhibition design does suggest a certain wrestling with — and escape from — the current recession. [slide show]- Architectural Record |
Reading between the lines: The world appears askew at Barbara Krakow Gallery...Architect-artist Peter Downsbrough's playful and witty exhibit....uses lines and words to explode his viewers' assumptions about space and language.- Boston Globe |
Grand designs at Bauhaus B&B: The influential German design school now offers tourists the chance to stay in its former student quarters...If minimalism is your thing, it's a great (and, at €40 for a double, amazingly cheap) place to stay + More Meccas for lovers of architecture -- Walter Gropius; Mikhail Eisenstein- Guardian (UK) |
WORDS THAT BUILD Tip #13: Re-invent Green Communication: Try the spectacular 2-step program to cut fat and reduce telltale signs of greenwash. By Norman Weinstein- ArchNewsNow |
Op-Ed: CAMP Notes: GAP Founder Don Fisher Wants To Leave His Art in San Francisco. But They Don't Want It. By Kenneth Caldwell -- Gluckman Mayner Architects; WRNS Studio [images]- ArchNewsNow |
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-- I.M. Pei Architect: Museum of Islamic Art, Al Corniche, Doha, Qatar
-- Experimental Urban Vision: Huaxi City Centre, Guiyang, Southwestern China -- Atelier Manferdini; BIG; Dieguez Fridman; Emergent/Tom Wiscombe; HouLiang Architecture; JDS; Mass Studies;
Rojkind Arquitectos; Serie; Sou Fujimoto Architects; MAD |
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