Today’s News - Thursday, December 23, 2010
EDITOR'S NOTE: We're taking a Christmas break until Monday, January 3, 2011(!). As ANN heads into its 9th(!) year, we'd like to thank our faithful readers, tipsters, and mentors for your continued support. We wish everyone a Happy Happy Holiday - and here's to grand adventures for us all in the New Year!
• Viñoly ends his year on a high note getting a thumbs-up from London mayor for Battersea Power Station (there's still the question of getting the bucks to build it).
• Glancey gives two thumbs-up's to Royal Veterinary College's "weirdest courtyard cafe in Britain" (skeletons included): "Those planning or redesigning our town and city squares would do well to come here and see how a space that was once all but dead...can come so intelligently alive" without "annoying gimmickry" or spending a fortune.
• An eyeful of Snøhetta's new museum plans for the University of Guadalajara.
• Philip Johnson's Interfaith Peace Chapel in Dallas, the last building he designed, "looks more like a biomorphic sculpture" with "a sense of serene spirituality...swirls and roundness, twisting and arching, prevail."
• Tasmania's "cheekiest devil" is a "provocative and irreverent" multimillionaire who's building a "subversive Disneyland" that includes an underground museum that's a "labyrinth rich with myth and mortality" (it's just him "doing stuff" - and he doesn't care "if rising sea levels drown his temple to secularism in decades to come").
• Old Montreal's newest attraction is a floating spa inside a former ferryboat.
• Brussat cheers Stern "finally" winning the Driehaus Prize as he thumbs through the master's massive tomes: "Some architects have an Edifice Complex. Bob Stern has an Opus Complex."
• Kamin cheers two landscape architects being named Chicagoans of the Year because they "brighten the cityscape and reflect their field's rising profile."
• Q&A with Bjarke Ingels who "is creating a long-overdue dialogue around housing and the urban form," and likes to make up words to fit his new ideas (we like "hedonistic sustainability").
• Q&A with Ole Scheeren re: why he split from Rem, life in Beijing, and plans for the future (a London office, perhaps).
• Esther Robinson of ArtHome is an "urbanist you should know" if architects and planners want to have a serious architectural conversation about how to stabilize our neighborhoods.
• NYC's MoMA/PS1 Young Architects Program teams up with Rome's MAXXI (this should be fun!).
• A report on the mantownhuman's "Critical Subjects: Architecture & Design Winter School": 26 young architecture students find themselves "held in a windowless, basement for 24 hours" - and a good time was had by all (full disclosure: we were on the advisory and judging panel who selected the students).
• Our favorite bit of news for the day: the Beatle's Abbey Road zebra crossing declared a landmark (how cool is that?!!?).
• Winding up the year, Slevin, Lin, and Brizzio wax (amusingly) poetic about the 10 Best Architecture Moments of 2001-2010, the 10 Top Interiors of the Decade, and What's Coming in 2011 (great slide show essays).
• Azure offers its picks of hits and misses of the year: "Women architects kicking ass in Italy," but "We're still drowning in packaging."
• We couldn't resist ('tis the season and all that): AN and Fast Co.'s ideas for way-out-there Christmas gifts: "architect-worthy toys and treasures" and things "we'd rob banks to buy" + a cautious tale about why you should never "go hunting for a Christmas tree with someone who is pursuing a double major in engineering and architecture."
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London mayor Boris Johnson has approved Rafael Vinoly’s £5.5 billion scheme at Battersea Power Station: ...seen as integral part of London government’s the Nine Elms regneration scheme...REO is planning an international design competition for the first phase of the scheme, a 90,000sq m mainly residential development- BD/Building Design (UK) |
A skeleton safari at the Royal Veterinary College: Is this the weirdest courtyard cafe in Britain? Jonathan Glancey has a delightful cuppa surrounded by the skulls and bones of dead animals...Those planning or redesigning our town and city squares would do well to come here and see how a space that was once all but dead...can come so intelligently alive without recourse to annoying gimmickry... -- Architecture PLB- Guardian (UK) |
Snøhetta Heads South of the Border: ...chosen to design the new Museum of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guadalajara. -- Arup [images]- The Architect's Newspaper |
No Typical Texas Church: The Interfaith Peace Chapel was the last building Philip Johnson designed before his death...looks more like a biomorphic sculpture or a cave...than a typical religious building...It has no right angles or parallel lines...a sense of serene spirituality infuses it...Swirls and roundness, twisting and arching, prevail. [image]- Wall Street Journal |
Tasmania's cheekiest devil: Provocative and irreverent, the gambling multimillionaire David Walsh has built a breathtaking art gallery – billed as "subversive Disneyland" – on his vineyard outside Hobart...Museum of Old And New Art...created by excavating a giant hole in the sandstone bluffs of Moorilla...Mona's labyrinth is rich with myth and mortality..."it's about subversion, but it's not too serious...It is just me doing stuff." By Robert Bevan -- Nonda Katsalidis/Fender Katsalidis Architects [images]- Observer (UK) |
Creative Destinations: An Old Boat Becomes a Floating Spa: Among the cobblestones and quays of Old Montreal, a floating spa arrives to brighten up the dark days of winter...Bota Bota spa, inside a former ferryboat docked permanently on the St. Lawrence, will go a long way toward making the trip worthwhile. -- Sid Lee [images]- Fast Company |
Stern finally wins his Driehaus Prize: ...caused many devotees of classicism, including me, to exclaim, "It's about time!"...While this occasional modernism does confuse the Stern "brand," few people are aware of it. Good! That part of [his] oeuvre just creeps me out, but I probably overreact. By David Brussat -- Robert A.M. Stern Architects [images, links]- Providence Journal (Rhode Island) |
Chicagoans of the Year in design: Landscape architects Peter Schaudt and Ernest Wong brighten the cityscape and reflect their field's rising profile. By Blair Kamin -- Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects; Site Design Group [images, links]- Chicago Tribune |
Q&A: Bjarke Ingels: Young, gifted, and funny, the 36-year-old Danish architect is creating a long-overdue dialogue around housing and the urban form...likes to coin expressions to fit his new ideas, such as “hedonistic sustainability,” “neighborship,” “inclusivism.” -- BIG/Bjarke Ingels Group [images, links]- Metropolis Magazine |
Newsmaker: Ole Scheeren: After 15 years at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture - eight years as a partner - [he] has split from Rem Koolhaas and set up his own firm...Q&A about life in Beijing, leaving OMA, and plans for the future..."I hope...to open an office in Europe, probably London. I like the idea of reversing the direction of influence, to bring what I've learned in the East back to the West." -- Büro Ole Scheeren [slide show]- Architectural Record |
An Urbanist You Should Know: Esther Robinson: Maybe architects, designers and planners don’t need to become experts in every new idea about how to address issues of homeownership, displacement, debt and risk. But too often, the most innovative of these ideas fail to infiltrate the architectural conversation about how to stabilize our neighborhoods...ArtHome’s...reminds us why diversity and creativity are worth supporting in the first place.- Urban Omnibus |
Rome Museum Joins Young Architects Program: Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1...will collaborate with MAXXI...in this year’s competition to transform the courtyard of MoMA PS1...There will also be a separate installation in Rome. -- Raffaella De Simone/Valentina Mandalari; Ghigos Ideas; stARTT; Asif Khan; Langarita Navarro Arquitectos; Interboro Partners; Matter Architecture Practice; FormlessFinder; MASS Design Group; IJP Corporation Architects- New York Times |
Critical Subjects: Report on the mantownhuman "Critical Subjects: Architecture & Design Winter School": Two weeks ago, 26 eager young architecture students...converged on central London, only to find themselves held in a windowless, basement for 24 hours, where they were engaged in eight consecutive hours of discussion; kept up all night; and then asked to sing for their suppers (and breakfasts).- Future Cities Project (U.K.) |
Abbey Road zebra crossing preserved in asphalt as well as vinyl: Grade II listing for London site of Beatles cover shot for 1969 LP, a pilgrimage site for music fans from all over the world...while the crossing was "no castle or cathedral", it had "just as strong a claim as any to be seen as part of our heritage"... [image]- Guardian (UK) |
10 Best Architecture Moments of 2001-2010: 2010 marks the beginning of the architecture recovery, lead by 8 House, Burj Khalifa, and anything else that's survived the past three years + 10 Top Interiors of the Decade + Architecture: What's Coming in 2011. By Jacob Slevin/DesignerPages + Jean Lin + Patricia Brizzio -- Bernard Tschumi; Foreign Office Architects (FOA); Gehry Partners; Office for Metropolitan Architecture/OMA; Safdie Architects; Weiss/Manfredi; Renzo Piano/FXFOWLE Architects; Herzog & de Meuron; Zaha Hadid; BIG Architects; Populous; KPF; Asymptote; SOM; Jean Nouvel; Foster + Partners [slide show essays]- Huffington Post |
2010 in Review: Hits and Misses: Cool pavilions invigorating public spaces; Women architects kicking ass in Italy; Green design that’s really green; Schools getting re-tooled...We’re still drowning in packaging. -- Zaha Hadid; Odile Decq; Pugh + Scarpa; Foster + Partners; Shigeru Ban; LOT-EK; dRMM [links]- Azure magazine (Canada) |
AN's Twelfth-Hour Gift Grab 2010: Are code approvals sucking the air out of your Christmas spirit and punch lists preempting your shopping list? Take cheer!...all the architect-worthy toys and treasures to meet your most pressing deadline of the year:- The Architect's Newspaper |
Most Wanted of 2010: 13 Products We’d Rob Banks to Buy: Designers have had to learn to make do with less, and...consumers are better off for it...Get ready to revise your shopping list (and maybe take out a second mortgage). By Suzanne LaBarre [slide show]- Fast Company |
Why my mom branched out to an artificial tree: Do not - I repeat - do not go hunting for a Christmas tree with someone who is pursuing a double major in engineering and architecture.- The Manteca Bulletin (Georgia) |
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Gehry Partners: Dr. Chau Chak Wing Building, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia |
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