Today’s News - Friday, April 25, 2014
• Pedersen and Waite pay tribute to Pritzker winner and Postmodern pioneer Hans Hollein, who "was a kind of hydra-headed creative force."
• Wainwright cheers the Peabody Trust's vision for the future of affordable housing: "it's all about ping-pong tables, bulletproof fittings and young architects having fun with bricks - design quality is top of the agenda."
• Zara's Q&A with Culture Lab Detroit's Shulak re: how and why "creative talents are taking advantage of the Motor City's current surplus of low-cost spaces and sparking a city-wide grassroots movement that's high on productive potential."
• Kamin x 2: he offers a most poetic ode to why Chicago's Wrigley Field is still "so adored" on its 100th anniversary: "When it comes to creating timeless treasures that people love, architects are at their best when they focus on human experience and feelings rather than the creation of attention-getting 'icons'" (and please don't call it a stadium - it's a ballpark).
• He cheers the start of public tours through one of FLW's "most beguiling and troubled buildings," the S.C. Johnson Research Tower in Racine: it's easy to see it "as a functional flop," but it "was also an inspiring incubator - worthy of debate and a trip."
• Could there be a "Pop-up" Pompidou coming to Mexico City?
• Eyefuls of the 2014 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers winners (great presentation).
• Weekend diversions:
• O'Sullivan is quite taken by "Bye Bye Barcelona," a new film that "offers a cautionary tale" about how tourism could be zapping "the very urban vitality that attracts visitors there in the first place."
• A female(!) urban planner takes center stage in "If/Then," a new Broadway musical garnering grand reviews (we gotta see this one!).
• In London, some of the best designs by architectural stars from the past two centuries are on view - before going on the auction block (great slide show - too bad our lottery ticket didn't pan out this week).
• Q&A with curator Albrecht re: "Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism" on view in San Francisco, starring "space-age bachelor pads, minimalist utopias for wannabe Cleaver clans, sleek love nests for wildly glam mad men" (great pix!).
• "Bowlarama: California Bowling Architecture" at L.A.'s A+D Museum offers "elaborate pin palaces tricked out with amenities that rivaled a Vegas hotel," creating what Anderson calls "the Bowlbao effect" (with pix to prove it!).
• Medina muses that the "Lebbeus Woods: Architect" retrospective "brings the architect's singular world back to New York City. It's all too biblical an irony."
• Kats is fairly smitten by Richard Meier's new Model Museum in Jersey City, where he's "created the content rather than the container" - and "the models are mesmerizing."
• Lefaivre cheers Mehrotra's "Architecture in India since 1990" that "attacks the effect the country's liberalized economy has had on its built environment - in its measured way, it addresses some of the most burning issues of our time."
• Jodidio's "Small Architecture Now!" explores projects that are "not only intimate but innovative" (and "sexy").
• Rosen gives thumbs-up to Saval's "Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace" that "explores these odd spaces - how they came to be, how they make us feel."
• Bernstein has a lively Q&A with Polshek re: his new book "Build, Memory," what he learned studying with Louis Kahn ("modesty"), and what he sees when he looks at his buildings: "Architects always see flaws."
• Q+A with Pennoyer re: "New York Transformed: The Architecture of Cross & Cross," which "casts an overdue spotlight on the creative duo."
• Coming sooner or later: "Untitled Opera about Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs."
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Obituary: Hans Hollein: 1934-2014: The Austrian architect was a pioneer of Postmodernism, for whom everything was architecture...was a kind of hydra-headed creative force. By Martin C. Pedersen [images]- Metropolis Magazine |
Obituary: 'Fantastically inventive' Hans Hollein, 80: Pritzker Prize-winning, Postmodern pioneer...Austrian architect and artist is best known for his Haas House, Retti Candle Shop in Vienna and his product design for Alessi and the Memphis Group...was described as an ‘Austrian Archigram-wannabe’..."His work was, to its credit, not easy but brave, challenging and iconoclastic." By Richard Waite [images]- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
Quality street: Peabody Trust rolls out the future of affordable housing: ...has been making model homes for the 'needy of this great metropolis' since Victorian times. Now, it unveils the first build of the next generation – and it's all about ping-pong tables, bulletproof fittings and young architects having fun with bricks...design quality is top of the agenda. By Oliver Wainwright -- Henry Darbishire (1800s); Pitman Tozer Architects; Stephen Marshall Architects; PCKO architects; Haworth Tompkins; Hawkins\Brown [images]- Guardian (UK) |
Culture Lab Detroit: What Creativity Can Do for Urban Regeneration: Despite the economic tumult plaguing Detroit...creativity is flourishing...Creative talents, some local and some from around the world, are taking advantage of the Motor City’s current surplus of low-cost spaces and sparking...a city-wide grassroots movement that’s high on productive potential. Q&A with Jane Shulak. By Janelle Zara- Artinfo |
Design gives Wrigley Field a firm sense of place: History of ballpark's architecture offers insight to why it's so adored: ...a building shaped by many different hands that still hangs together beautifully. It helps us hang together, too...teaches a valuable lesson: When it comes to creating timeless treasures that people love, architects are at their best when they focus on human experience and feelings rather than the creation of attention-getting "icons." By Blair Kamin -- Zachary Taylor Davis; Graham, Anderson, Probst & White; Holabird & Root [images]- Chicago Tribune |
Frank Lloyd Wright's tower worthy of debate, and a trip: One of [his] most beguiling and troubled buildings opens to public tours for the first time next week, and when it does, it will raise an eternal, vexing question: Which matters more, beauty or utility? It's easy to paint Wright's 15-story S.C. Johnson Research Tower...as a functional flop...was also an inspiring incubator. By Blair Kamin- Chicago Tribune |
"Pop-up" Pompidou coming to Mexico City? French culture minister reveals plans for a temporary outpost of the Paris museum: The Pompidou confirmed that it is negotiating the project, but did not have any further details.- The Art Newspaper (UK) |
2014 Winners of The Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers -- Kutan Ayata/Michael Young/Young & Ayata; Claus Benjamin Freyinger/Andrew Holder/The LADG; Adam Fure/SIFT Studio; Thomas Kelley/Carrie Norman/Norman Kelley; Jenny Sabin Studio; Geoffrey von Oeyen Design [links to images, info]- Architectural League of New York |
Is Tourism Ruining Barcelona? A new film makes the case that the city's now at risk of losing the very urban vitality that attracts visitors there in the first place. ..."Bye Bye Barcelona" shows some long-term residents wondering aloud how much longer they can stay...The problem? Tourism...has become so dominant it risks stifling ordinary, everyday life in the city's heart...offers a cautionary tale... By Feargus O'Sullivan- The Atlantic Cities |
In Duality and Doubt, "If/Then" Is a Musical of City Life Now: Elizabeth is a walking irony...die-hard New Yorker...moves to Phoenix...An urban planner by training, she thus finds herself in a city so sprawly and unregulated she can’t practice her profession, and so teaches it there instead...she returns to New York, divorced and jobless and 38, to untangle her ironies and, in the great tradition of such stories, start over.- New York Magazine |
Star Architects' Designs Go on the Block: A Phillips auction in London brings together some of the best designs by architectural stars from the past two centuries..."The Architect," curated by Lee Mindel/Shelton, Mindel & Associates...Rarely are the works of so many architectural stars gathered under one roof, much less put on offer...in many ways an ode to the ideas and philosophies that have shaped our built environment. -- Shigeru Ban; Alvar Aalto; Axel Einar; Frank Lloyd Wright; Gio Ponti; Jean Prouvé; etc. [slide show]- Wall Street Journal |
"Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism": Space-age bachelor pads, minimalist utopias for wannabe Cleaver clans, sleek love nests for wildly glam mad men - these still seductive images of all-American postwar modern design are given a new twist; at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; Q&A with curator Donald Albrecht [images]- San Francisco Chronicle |
A Salute to California's Midcentury Pin Palaces: For a brief period...rubber-shoed entrepreneurs were one-upping each other with elaborate pin palaces tricked out with amenities that rivaled a Vegas hotel...Occasionally they hired big name architects...the Bowlbao effect. “Bowlarama: California Bowling Architecture 1954-1964" at A+D Architecture & Design Museum Los Angeles. By Lamar Anderson -- Powers, Daly, and DeRosa; A. Quincy Jones; Edward Killingsworth; Armet & Davis [images]- Architizer |
Coming Home: "Lebbeus Woods: Architect" retrospective brings the architect’s singular world back to New York City: It’s all too biblical an irony..."New York was very much the center of his world"...It is that sense of destined, even chiliastic, return that suffuses the expansive survey, which collects decades of Woods’s incredibly rich drawings and models...at The Drawing Center in SoHo... By Samuel Medina [images]- Metropolis Magazine |
Worlds of Possibility at Richard Meier's Model Museum: ...with his latest museum project...at the Mana Fine Arts complex in Jersey City — the Pritzker-winner has created the content rather than the container, and is getting the artist treatment himself...As miniature versions of a proposed reality, the models are mesmerizing...for him, the model is a pragmatic tool to aid in the design process, nothing more. By Anna Kats [slide show]- Artinfo |
Architecture Without Planning: Rahul Mehrotra's "Architecture in India since 1990" attacks the effect the country's liberalized economy has had on its built environment: This is an unusual book...in its measured way, it addresses some of the most burning issues of our time...the devolution of the last remnants of responsibility for planning from government agencies..to speculative profit-driven private interests. By Liane Lefaivre [images]- The Architect's Newspaper |
In Architecture, Small is Big: “Small Architecture Now!” by Philip Jodidio explores innovative buildings with diminutive footprints: Whether in Washington, Hokkaido, or anywhere in between, these projects prove not only intimate but innovative. In other words, as Jodidio puts it, “small is sexy.” -- Terunobu Fujimori; David Salmela; Jorge Gracia; Haugen/Zohar Arkitekter; Toyo Ito; Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects; Suzuko Yamada [images]- New York Times |
How the Modern Office Shapes American Life: How did we come to work in spaces that make us so miserable? Nikil Saval explores these odd spaces—how they came to be, how they make us feel—in his new book "Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace"... By Rebecca J. Rosen- The Atlantic Cities |
James Polshek: The 84-year-old architect discusses studying with Louis Kahn, working for I.M. Pei, and designing for Bill Clinton, as well as his new book "Build, Memory," which looks at 16 of the 300-plus projects built by his firm...."What I learned from Kahn was modesty"...What do you see when you look at your buildings? "Architects always see flaws." By Fred A. Bernstein -- Polshek Partnership Architects; Ennead Architects- Architectural Record |
Q+A: Architect Peter Pennoyer Tells AD About His Latest Book "New York Transformed: The Architecture of Cross & Cross": ...casts an overdue spotlight on the creative duo, surveying projects that range from exuberant skyscrapers...to Colonial Revival houses...the most recent in a series of scholarly tomes by Pennoyer and architectural historian Anne Walker... [images]- Architectural Digest |
Robert Moses Vs. Jane Jacobs, The Central Drama Of Urban Planning, Will Be An Opera: New York City's seminal 1960s urban design battle will be turned into an opera, with a libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winner poet Tracy K. Smith. Here's why that is not such a weird thing...thanks to composer Judd Greenstein and director Joshua Frankel.- Fast Company |
-- Zaha Hadid Architects: Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Seoul, South Korea: Critics and the general public are currently discussing whether [it] is an architectural marvel or an "urban pimple"...As much as it was political ambition that caused the DDP to come into existence rather than actual need, it is political envy that blurs its appreciation now. By Ulf Meyer
-- Akira Takaue: ...a structural & consulting engineer from Japan...travels around the world producing fine art architectural images rooted in his approach of structural mechanics and material engineering.- ArcSpace |
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