Today’s News - Tuesday, November 22, 2016
EDITOR'S NOTE: We are taking a rather extended Thanksgiving Day break. Even in this fractious world, we have much to be grateful for - like you, dear readers. We'll be back Tuesday, November 29 (with lots of catching up to do!). Happy Turkey Day!
• "After much soul-searching prompted by anxiety and anger" (over Trump), Architecture 2030's Mazria calls for the "sleeping giant" (i.e., AIA and allied professional organizations) to awaken with a call to action as "a formidable force for implementing change. Now is the time to act."
• Finch defends Schumacher's screed re: solving London's housing crisis (see Yesterday's News): "His free-market answers to the housing crisis may be unfashionable, but our current arrangements are simply not working."
• A "stellar" shortlist of 10 (very impressive!) teams now in the running for the UK Holocaust Memorial.
• Nouvel (with Architectus) gets the green light for a $700-million mixed-use tower in Melbourne "despite exceeding the plot ratio limits" because "the building meets the requirement of delivering public benefit."
• Merrick mulls London's new Design Museum: "does it matter that OMA's apartment blocks have a politely retro, Colgate-white SuperDutch look? Or that Pawson has created a beautifully made (if not beautiful) three-storey high piece of oak-faced furniture?"
• A local planning committee councilor ponders what benefits the Design Museum will bring to Kensington: it "won't do anything to regenerate Kensington High Street"; inside, "the first impression is more of a prestigious hotel cum conference center. From the street it is, frankly, joyless" (ouch!).
• Morris is a bit more cheery: the Design Museum's new home "mixes spontaneity and grandeur" (+"Fear and Love" reviews below).
• Sisson reports that, even though its on the National Register of Historic Places, an FLW in Whitefish, Montana (who knew?!!?) is facing possible/probable demolition to make way for a commercial building; the city committee will give the proposal thumbs-up - or -down - on December 6.
• On a brighter note: 59 photos of FLW's Darwin Martin House first floor, now "restored to its 1907 glory" (wow!).
• Weekend diversions:
• The documentary "Glenn Murcutt - Spirit of Place" puts the spotlight on his "most ambitious" project, the Australian Islamic Centre - also the subject of a National Gallery of Victoria show.
• Wainwright finds "Fear and Love" a "fun ramble through the zeitgeist. McGuirk has set out a powerful stall for the institution to act as a forum for exploring a world of critical, provocative and unsettling ideas."
• Thorpe thinks "'Fear and Love' opens up questions about how design could be destroying our lives."
• Morby walks us through "Fear and Love," in which 11 architects and designers "confront a different issue shaping today's world."
• "Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture" at the San Diego Museum of Art "captures the majesty of Kahn's work" in a "sprawling assemblage of artifacts meant to honor his legacy."
• The Halprin retrospective at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, and the "accompanying website examines his legacy as well as the current state of his spaces across the country."
• Bernstein says H&deM's "Treacherous Transparencies: Thoughts and Observations Triggered by a Visit to Farnsworth House" is "a rare attack on one of the profession's deities, but Herzog supports his arguments with careful analysis and with de Meuron's incisive, unflattering photos."
• Fallows finds Binney's "'Big Saves: Heroic transformations of great landmarks' obscures its important message on conservation", yet is "a charming yet peculiar retrospective."
• The Mies van der Rohe Foundation's "Contemporary European Architecture Atlas" offers analysis of the 2,881 works nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture - Mies van der Rohe Award over the last 30 years.
• One we couldn't resist (it's click bait, but worth it): Eyefuls of "the world's 10 best public toilets for 2016" (some beauties, some doozies!).
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Ed Mazria: Trump/AIA. . . A Sleeping Giant Awakens: After much soul-searching prompted by anxiety and anger, architects and our allied design and planning professionals have articulated a vibrant vision for themselves and their profession...there’s also an increased awareness that we, as individuals and as a profession, are a formidable force for implementing change. Now is the time to act.- Architecture 2030 |
Paul Finch: Patrik Schumacher has provided a necessary challenge to housing: His free-market answers to the housing crisis may be unfashionable, but our current arrangements are simply not working: ...I agree that we should go for higher densities...and stop treating the only people who produced housing in quantity as pariahs.- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
World's biggest names in running for UK Holocaust Memorial: ...a stellar 10-strong shortlist to design a £40 million national Holocaust memorial next to Parliament in Victoria Tower Gardens... -- Adjaye Associates/Ron Arad Architects; Allied Works Architecture/Robert Montgomery; Caruso St John/Rachel Whiteread; Diamond Schmitt Architects/Martha Schwartz Partners; Foster + Partners/Michal Rovner; heneghan peng architects/Bruce Mau Design; John McAslan + Partners/MASS Design Group; Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects/David Morley Architects; Studio Libeskind/Haptic Architects; Zaha Hadid Architects/Anish Kapoor- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
Jean Nouvel’s first Melbourne tower approved: $700-million mixed-use tower...approved despite exceeding the plot ratio limits...“the building meets the requirement of delivering public benefit"...30% of the 2,850-square-metre site will be publicly accessible at the ground plane, as well as one of four sky gardens... -- Architectus; Oculus Landscape Architecture & Urban Design [images]- ArchitectureAU (Australia) |
Jay Merrick: Building study: John Pawson, OMA, and Allies and Morrison’s new Design Museum in the former Commonwealth Institute may be delightful, but it does not convey any worshipful creative mystique: ...does it matter that OMA’s apartment blocks...have a politely retro, Colgate-white SuperDutch look? Or that Pawson has...created a beautifully made (if not beautiful) three-storey high piece of oak-faced furniture under the marvellous ram-jam skews of the concrete roof elements? -- Deyan Sudjic; Justin McGuirk [images]- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
What will the Design Museum do for Kensington? Kensington and Chelsea planning committee councillor Emma Dent Coad says the [museum] won’t do anything to regenerate Kensington High St.: The first impression is more of a prestigious hotel cum conference centre. Legibility has been sacrificed on the altar of architecture...From the street it is, frankly, joyless.- BD/Building Design (UK) |
Ali Morris: London Design Museum's new home mixes spontaneity and grandeur: ...the former Commonwealth Institute’s £83 million (about $102 million) makeover is finally complete...it’s the building’s original hyperbolic, paraboloid roof that still manages to grab all of the attention...The result is a space that, despite its lofty proportions, has a sense of informality about it. -- John Pawson; OMA; Allies and Morrison; Arup; Deyan Sudjic; Justin McGuirk; Universal Design Studio [images]- Curbed London |
Patrick Sisson: One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s last buildings slated for demolition: Designed in 1958, the Lockridge Medical Center is a rare example of the architect’s work in Montana...in the town of Whitefish...completed after [FLW] passed away in 1959...added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012...Local developer...plans to tear [it] down to make way for a three-story commercial development.- Curbed |
First floor of Martin House restored to its 1907 glory: "Every decision we made was prescribed by Frank Lloyd Wright." + A Closer Look: The Darwin Martin House (59 photos by Sharon Cantillon)- Buffalo News |
Veronica Simpson: "Destruction of Memory": ...inspired by Robert Bevan’s 2006 book of the same name, is a tough but compelling film that takes...no prisoners as it examines the way strategic attacks on key buildings and artefacts...have increasingly been deployed as a weapon of war and terror...man’s inhumanity to man is the dominant narrative...What Tim Slade does...is expand and enrich Bevan’s narrative of war, weapons, architecture and politics...this film is a must-see.- DesignCurial / Blueprint Magazine (UK) |
Murcutt’s ‘most ambitious’ project on film: Catherine Hunter has produced a new hour-long documentary film on...the Australian Islamic Centre in Newport, Melbourne, designed in collaboration with Elevli Plus Architects..."Glenn Murcutt - Spirit of Place"...depicts the unwavering determination of the Newport Islamic community...on the ABC (Australia) 6 December.- ArchitectureAU (Australia) |
Oliver Wainwright: "Fear and Love" - Grindr and a Brexit living room light up Design Museum launch show: From the shocking secrets of dating apps to 3D death masks and the meet’n’greet robot, this is a fun ramble through the zeitgeist (but don’t worry, there are still floor lamps): Justin McGuirk has set out a powerful stall for the institution to act as a forum for exploring a world of critical, provocative and unsettling ideas. -- Terence Conran; Sam Jacob; OK-RM; OMA [images]- Guardian (UK) |
Fear and love: the Design Museum taps a fractious design landscape: "Fear and Love - Reactions to a complex world" installations demonstrate the increasing polarisation of inward-looking and outward-looking perspectives...opens up questions about how design could be destroying our lives, from increasing pollution in China to perpetuating self-love. The [museum] has tapped into these two contemporary emotions and their uneasy juxtaposition. By Harriet Thorpe -- Justin McGuirk [images]- Wallpaper* |
Alice Morby: Design Museum's opening exhibition presents reactions to a complex world: "Fear and Love: Reactions to a Complex World" presents...11 architects and designers, who each confronted a different issue shaping today's world. -- John Pawson; Justin McGuirk; OMA/AMO/Rem Koolhaas; Neri Oxman; Madeline Gannon; Neri Oxman; Andrés Jaque/Office for Political Innovation; Arquitectura Expandida; Rural Urban Framework; etc. [images]- Dezeen |
San Diego Museum of Art captures the majesty of Kahn's work: “Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture"...is a sprawling assemblage of artifacts meant to honor [his] legacy...the most comprehensive retrospective of Kahn’s work since 1991. [images]- San Diego Union-Tribune |
Lawrence Halprin Retrospective Opens in Washington, D.C.: Featuring 30 projects...a new traveling exhibition and accompanying website examines his legacy as well as the current state of his spaces across the country: "The Landscape Architecture of Lawrence Halprin" at the National Building Museum...third in a series of collaborations between the museum and The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF)... By Sara Johnson [images]- Architect Magazine |
Fred A. Bernstein: "Treacherous Transparencies: Thoughts and Observations Triggered by a Visit to Farnsworth House": The book argues that the house leaves much to be desired and, perhaps worse, that “Mies’s statements on architecture are not coherent.” It is a rare attack on one of the profession’s deities, but Jacques Herzog supports his arguments with careful analysis and with Pierre de Meuron’s incisive, unflattering photos... -- Mies van der Rohe- Architectural Record |
Benjamin Fallows: "Big Saves: Heroic transformations of great landmarks" by Marcus Binney: ...this book’s ‘pamphlety’ delivery obscures its important message on conservation...a charming yet peculiar retrospective...it is refreshing to read architectural writing that presents the social and political framework, rather than the finished object...Eventually the unrelenting optimism begins to feel forced...- BD/Building Design (UK) |
Contemporary European Architecture Atlas: ...the fruit of research and analysis [of] the 2,881 works that have been nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture - Mies van der Rohe Award 1988-2015...a means by which to understand the transformation that European cities have undergone over the last 30 years...- Mies van der Rohe Foundation / Fundació Mies van der Rohe |
The world's 10 best public toilets for 2016: ...recognising toilet design across the globe...We have straw-bale urinals, emerging steel pillars and cherry blossom gardens amongst the public toilets that struck gold this year. -- Sou Fujimoto Architects ; Lahz Nimmo Architects; Gramazio & Kohler; Studio Pacific Architecture; Olivier Rambert; Oloom; Shuichiro Yoshida Architects; Todd Saunders/Saunders & Wilhelmsen; LaN Architecture - Monika Wittig; LGM 3d Studios [images]- DesignCurial (UK) |
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Duplex Architeckten et al: Mehr Als Wohnen, Hunziker, Switzerland: ...a housing co-operative situated in Hunziker, just north of Zurich. The precinct, which translates to mean 'More Than Living,' has emerged as an ambitious new model for co-op housing developments. By Jennifer McMaster -- Futurafrosch; Pool Architekten; Müller Sigrist; Miroslav Šik; Müller Illien [images] |
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