Today’s News - Friday, October 31, 2014
EDITOR'S NOTE: Monday is next week's "floating" no-newsletter day. We'll be back Tuesday, November 4. Americans: don't forget to vote on Tuesday! And don't forget to turn your clocks back an hour tomorrow (except lucky Arizonans). We end today's news with some great Halloween fun!
• ANN Feature: New York Falls in Love with Gaudí's Complexity: a great (and exclusive) translation of a review in El País re: "Sagrada Família - Gaudí's Unfinished Masterpiece" now on view at CCNY's Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture.
• Weder is so not wow'd by Predock's human rights museum in Winnipeg, though "perhaps no architect could salvage such a doomed design brief," and "all that glass reads as a Darth Vaderesque cape wrapped around a Gumby-headed sasquatch" (ouch! and the renderings were so beautiful...).
• Meanwhile, it looks like the National Medal of Honor Museum in South Carolina is a go, and Safdie "will be actually getting to work on what this museum will look like."
• Live! 2014 Guardian/UN-Habitat's World Cities Day Challenge: a sort of Pecha Kucha for 36 cities vying for the crown for best urban transformation strategies (winner to be announced momentarily).
• Betsky makes no bones about why he's not so impressed with L.A.'s change of heart about flat-roof-only skyscrapers.
• Melbourne's skyscraper boom could be heading for a bust as concerns rise about too many going up: "The supply has been sufficient over recent years, and that could turn very quickly into an oversupply."
• China's "obsession with vertical cities prompts a megacity building bonanza", but the "never-ending game of architectural one-upmanship" could be impractical, never mind unsustainable.
• Part 2 in series on the state of gender equity in Australian architecture re: results of two surveys, this time men included.
• Weekend diversions (and some Halloween fun!):
• A heretofore rarely screened 1961 TV documentary "Our Vanishing Legacy, the "first primetime broadcast advocating preservation efforts in New York City (with rare footage of Penn Station, which was facing demolition at the time - amazing!).
• Down Under, "Burst Open" in Brisbane is a "rewarding exhibition" of technology and techniques "shaping contemporary architecture and design in the digital age."
• Sydneysiders who missed the Venice Biennale can catch "Augmented Australia 1914 - 2014" as part of the 2014 Sydney Architecture Festival.
• They can also get eyefuls of the "grand designs, famed collaborators, and stunning personal collection of the visionary who defined Sydney's skyline" in "Harry Seidler: Painting Toward Architecture."
• Webb and Brown are beside themselves with joy by the re-issuing of "Nairn's London": "There never was and probably never will be another architectural critic as impassioned, omnivorous, and outspoken."
• Van der Ryn's "Culture, Architecture, and Nature" calls for "an ecological revolution - nothing less than the redesign of human life."
• Lange takes a long (and fascinating) look at the past and future of cemeteries: "Cities of the dead aren't disconnected from cities of the living but are rather extensions of them" (could interaction designers be the lavish mausoleum architects of tomorrow?).
• Heathcote has a high old time looking at "the role of domestic settings in scary movies" (great pix!).
• Ferro ferrets out "how Victorian architecture became the default haunted house."
• How could we resist - it's Halloween! "The Ultimate Guide to Dressing Like an Architect for Halloween" (what you'll need to look like Hadid, Corbu, Libeskind, Loos, etc.) + "Halloween Costumes for Urban Planners."
| |
|
|
|
To subscribe to the free daily newsletter
click here
|
ANN Feature: New York Falls in Love with Gaudí's Complexity: A school of architecture displays the Sagrada Familia as a collective masterwork. By Vicente Jiménez, El País; translated by Prof. Lisa Paravisini-Gebert- ArchNewsNow |
Faulty Tower: The Canadian Museum for Human Rights as tourist trap, failed memorial, and white elephant: ...our newest arena of noisy ethno-political sniping...Perhaps no architect could salvage such a doomed design brief...all that glass reads as a Darth Vaderesque cape wrapped around a Gumby-headed sasquatch. By Adele Weder -- Antoine Predock; Smith Carter (now Architecture49)- The Walrus (Canada) |
National Medal of Honor Museum poised to break ground late next year [at Patriots Point, Mount Pleasant, SC]: "...and starting today the architectural design firms will be actually getting to work on what this museum will look like"... -- Moshe Safdie; Gallagher & Associates- Charleston Post and Courier (South Carolina) |
2014 Guardian World Cities Day Challenge – live: ...in conjunction with UN-Habitat, we’re putting 36 contestants in the ‘hot seat’ to tell us their city’s best idea – and why other cities should adopt it.- Guardian (UK) |
L.A. Doesn't Need Spires. It Needs to Play Itself: Aaron Betsky reacts to news that Los Angeles will change regulations that have long dictated flat roofs for skyscrapers....will not help downtown L.A. in the way that the renovation of existing buildings and the erection of a few more culture palaces already has.- Architect Magazine |
Skyscraper Boom in Second-Largest Australian City Flags Glut: Melbourne seeing its skyline being transformed at the fastest pace ever by Asian developers building residential towers. Now there are concerns too many are going up...“The supply has been sufficient over recent years, and that could turn very quickly into an oversupply.”- Bloomberg News |
China's obsession with vertical cities: ...its state-orchestrated urbanisation drive prompts a megacity building bonanza...Getting cities wrong could create slums, exacerbate climate change and encourage social instability...sprawl is not a sustainable solution to density. But building towers of dizzying height in a never-ending game of architectural one-upmanship is impractical too. -- Gensler; Urban Future Organization/CR-Design; MAD Architects; Ole Scheeren [images]- Guardian (UK) |
Where do all the women go? In this second report from our series on the state of gender equity in Australian architecture, Justine Clark reveals the results of two Parlour surveys into women’s (and men’s) participation in architectural practice: Comments indicate that many men also feel the need for serious discussion of, and changes to, architectural working conditions.- ArchitectureAU (Australia) |
"Our Vanishing Legacy": the first primetime broadcast advocating preservation efforts in New York City. Written and produced by...Gordon Hyatt, the film has rarely been screened since it originally aired on WCBS-TV on September 21, 1961...includes rare footage of Pennsylvania Station, which was slated for demolition at the time... [video]- New York Preservation Archive Project |
"Burst Open" in Brisbane: The rewarding exhibition demonstrates techniques shaping contemporary architecture and design in the digital age, with experimental works exploring intellectual property, open source design and 3D printing...intentionally raises more questions than could possibly be answered... By Charles Rowe [images]- Australian Design Review |
Unbuilt Australia - see what might have been at the Sydney Architecture Festival: Sydneysiders will be treated with a little bit of the Venice Architecture Biennale when "Augmented Australia 1914 – 2014" exhibition from the 2014 event is premiered as part of the 2014 Sydney Architecture Festival.- Architecture & Design (Australia) |
"Harry Seidler: Painting Toward Architecture" at the Museum of Sydney: The grand designs, famed collaborators and stunning personal collection of the visionary who defined Sydney’s skyline...Curated by Vladimir Belogolovsky of Intercontinental Curatorial Project and Dr Caroline Butler-Bowdon of Sydney Living Museums.- Museum of Sydney |
Architectural Character: "Nairn's London" by Ian Nairn: There never was and probably never will be another architectural critic as impassioned, omnivorous, and outspoken...it's cause for celebration to have this reprint of the original with its period black and white illustrations. By Michael Webb- FORM magazine |
If anyone had 'fingertips', it was Ian Nairn: The architecture writer had so much empathy for his subject he had a characteristic mannerism of patting things - walls, columns - with the palm of his hand...wrote one great book, "Nairn’s London"...his meditation on the city...and it cannot be recommended highly enough. By Andrew Brown- Telegraph (UK) |
Environmental Revolution: "Culture, Architecture, and Nature: An Ecological Design Retrospective" by Sim Van der Ryn...calls for an ecological revolution...nothing less than the redesign of human life, which he describes as the “shift from an industrial-growth society to a life-sustaining civilization.” By Sabrina G. Richard- The Architect's Newspaper |
The Past and Future of Cemeteries: "Sylvan Cemetery: Architecture, Art and Landscape at Woodlawn": Many of the most lavish mausoleums are really rural estates in miniature...Cities of the dead aren’t disconnected from cities of the living but are rather extensions of them...Today’s Harkness might do better to call in her interaction designer. By Alexandra Lange -- James Gamble Rogers; Beatrix Farrand; Ellen Biddle Shipman; Olmsted Brothers; McKim, Mead & White; Carrère and Hastings; Guastavino- New Yorker |
House of horror: the role of domestic settings in scary movies: Homely environments and suburbia are just as important a feature as the ghosts and ghouls...What horror films can do is allow us to understand the nature of our surroundings and fears...The movies make it clear – the home is an extension of our selves and its security is sacrosanct. By Edwin Heathcote [images]- Financial Times (UK) |
Why Are Victorian Houses So Creepy? Frank Lloyd Wright, the Addams Family, and Hitchcock: How Victorian architecture became the default haunted house. By Shaunacy Ferro [images]- Fast Company |
The Ultimate Guide to Dressing Like an Architect for Halloween: ...remember to keep your tone quixotic, your facial expression thoughtful, and, when your friends admit they don't know who you even are, your demeanor aghast. What you'll need... -- Zaha Hadid; Le Corbusier; Daniel Libeskind; Adolf Loos; Charles Renfro; Denise Scott Brown; etc. [images]- Curbed |
Halloween Costumes for Urban Planners - 4th Edition- PLANetizen |
|
-- Kengo Kuma & Associates: Contemporary Art Center (FRAC), Marseille, France: ..the 3D version of the 'museum without walls' invented by...André Malraux. By Kirsten Kiser
-- What's New on the Bookshelves? October 2014 edition: first and foremost Rem Koolhaas' monumental 15-volume book set "Elements"...Taschen's Renzo Piano monograph...a revised edition. |
|
|
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.
© 2014 ArchNewsNow.com