Today’s News - Thursday, February 23, 2017
EDITOR'S NOTE: Tomorrow and Monday will be no-newsletter days. We'll be back Tuesday, February 28.
• Walker wades deep into how cities are dealing with climate change "as the White House aims to stifle climate science": they're cooperating globally and planning locally.
• Speaking of politics, a good reason to be in NYC next week: Parsons' "Making Home in Wounded Places: Memory, Design, and the Spatial" 2-day symposium (impressive line-up of speakers!).
• Romero takes a totally fascinating tour of Fordlândia, Henry Ford's 1928 "failed utopia" deep in Brazil's Amazon: "It turns out Detroit isn't the only place where Ford produced ruin."
• Lenora Brown parses the fascinating history of Johannesburg's Ponte Tower, "an ode to the gods of brutalism" considered "an apartheid-era architectural triumph" - and now "a mainstay of movies about the end of the world."
• Waite ponders the sad fate of Hodder's once-lauded National Wildflower Centre - it's "a rotting mess" and "tragically decomposing" - and it's only 16 years old (before/after pix are heartbreaking).
• Rawn returns to Tanglewood with "ambitious" plans to add a new complex to its 1994 Seiji Ozawa Hall for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
• A major donation brings the Denver Art Museum closer to completing its plan to renovate Ponti's North Building and add a welcome center by Fentress and Machado Silvetti.
• An impressive shortlist of five international teams now vying to design Toronto's Etobicoke Civic Centre.
• Kamin considers how architects and urban designers are preparing for the coming era of driverless cars: "The possibilities are dazzling. There is also a dystopian alternative of technology run amok."
• Call for entries: The Driverless Future Challenge (how timely!) + Architect magazine's 2017 R+D Awards + Hong Kong Pixel Homes Competition.
• Weekend diversions:
• Lambert reflects on her 75 years in architecture as part of "Phyllis Lambert: 75 Years at Work" at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
• The Met Breuer revisits four of Breuer's buildings.
• In Austin, the goal of "Shape the Conversation" is to "to 'pull off the cloak of invisibility' of women in architecture."
• Toronto's Winter Stations are bringing Torontonians to their winter waterfront with what Rochon calls "gutsy" and "lyrical" installations.
• Hawthorne hails Krumwiede's "Atlas of Another America: An Architectural Fiction": it's a "satirical jolt for the earnest world of architecture publishing."
• Brownell cheers Rael's "Borderwall as Architecture: A Manifesto for the US-Mexico Boundary" as "an intrepid" book that "captivates readers with bittersweet tales and imaginative futures."
• Lewis parses four Jane Jacobs tomes: "The [two] new biographies are satisfying. But they leave nagging gaps."
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Alissa Walker: How cities can stand up to climate change: As the White House aims to stifle climate science, cities cooperate globally and plan locally: There’s also a movement to educate lawmakers about resilience...“This is happening now...Not in 50 or 100 years - now.”- Curbed |
Symposium Explores Design Responses To Political Trauma: "Making Home in Wounded Places: Memory, Design, and the Spatial" at the Parsons School of Design, March 3-4: Scholars, designers, and activists will discuss more than 30 case studies... -- Lina Sergie Attar- Parsons The New School for Design (NYC) |
Simon Romero: Deep in Brazil’s Amazon, Exploring the Ruins of Ford’s Fantasyland: The town of Fordlândia, founded in 1928 by Henry Ford, stands as a crumbling testament to the folly of trying to bend the jungle to the will of man: ...ineptitude and tragedy plagued the venture...“It turns out Detroit isn’t the only place where Ford produced ruin"... -- Albert Kahn [images]- New York Times |
Ryan Lenora Brown: The South African Building That Came to Symbolize the Apocalypse: Ponte City, Africa’s tallest apartment block, is a mainstay of movies about the end of the world - but it was once an apartheid-era architectural triumph: An ode to the gods of brutalism...a projection of white South Africa’s desire to be seen as Western and sophisticated... -- Rodney Grosskopff/Manfred Hermer (1976) [images]- The Atlantic |
Richard Waite: ‘A rotting mess’ - the sad fate of Hodder’s National Wildflower Centre: The latest of a number of Millennium projects to fail, the much-admired Merseyside visitor facility is closed and decaying. What went wrong? ...tragically decomposing...afflicted with problems which go deeper than the cosmetic. -- Stephen Hodder/Hodder+Partners (2001); Will Alsop/Bill Dunster/Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios; Richard Rogers; BDP [images]- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
Tanglewood presents plan for big expansion: The Boston Symphony Orchestra is set to launch an ambitious expansion of its Tanglewood campus in Lenox, creating a new $30 million complex. -- Dongik Lee; William Rawn Associates; Reed Hilderbrand [images]- Boston Globe |
Sie family donates $12 million for Denver Art Museum renovations: Museum more than halfway to $150 million needed [for the North Building Revitalization project]: ...welcome center will unify the building’s design and appear more welcoming. -- Gio Ponti; James Sudler Associates (1971); Fentress Architects; Machado Silvetti [images]- Denver Post |
Five shortlisted teams announced in Etobicoke Civic Centre design competition: "Build Toronto and the City are driving the focus on City-Building by exploring creative and innovative design ideas..." -- Adamson Associates Architects/Henning Larsen Architects/PMA Landscape Architects; Diamond Schmitt Architects/Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates; KPMB Architects/West 8; Montgomery Sisam Architects/Adjaye Associates/OLIN; Moriyama & Teshima Architects/MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects/FORREC- Canadian Architect |
Blair Kamin: Driverless cars could change urban landscape: Architects and urban designers...have started shaping bold new city planning ideas to prepare for the coming era of the self-driving car...The possibilities are dazzling...There is also a dystopian alternative...of technology run amok... ["The Driverless City" by Marshall Brown, Lili Du, Laura Forlano, Ron Henderson and Jack Guthman]- Chicago Tribune |
Call for entries: The Driverless Future Challenge (international): proposals that actively shape New York City's response to driverless technology. It's not about the cars themselves, but everything else; ore than $60k worth of resources to help finalists; earlybird registration (save money!): March 3 (submissions due May 19)- Blank Space / NYC Mayor's Office / New Lab / AIANY / Fast Company |
Call for entries: 2017 R+D Awards: 11th annual awards program celebrates the research, materials, and technologies that have advanced the profession at every scale; earlybird deadline (save money!): April 14 (submissions due April 19)- Architect Magazine |
Call for entries: Hong Kong Pixel Homes Competition (international): fill HK's vacant pixel-sized spots of the land with designs for...buildings that could work to alleviate the city's affordable housing crisis; cash prizes; earlybird registration deadline (save money!): March 8 (submissions due May 17)- Bee Breeders (formerly HMMD/Homemade Dessert) |
Phyllis Lambert: A Reflecting Lens: She looks back on her 75 years in architecture: ...taken from the exhibition "Phyllis Lambert: 75 Years At Work"...at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal: "Art has always been for me the essence of existence."- The Architect's Newspaper |
Met Breuer Exhibition Revisits Namesake Architect's Contemporary Buildings: "Breuer Revisited: New Photographs by Luisa Lambri and Bas Princen" explores the complexity of four buildings...focusing on the evolution of the building and the concept of post occupancy.- Architect Magazine |
Where are the women in architecture? New exhibit tries to answer that: “Shape the Conversation” asks...has its roots in a national survey of architects that came out of San Francisco...showcases the variety and breadth of women’s contributions...the goal was to “pull off the cloak of invisibility” of women in architecture; at the University of Texas School of Architecture, Austin. -- The Missing 32 Percent- Austin American-Statesman (Texas) |
8 art installations on Toronto beaches aim to draw people outside: ...temporary artworks are helping to make the city 'winter-friendly'...Lisa Rochon [said they] are "gutsy" and "lyrical." -- RAW Design; Ferris and Associates; Curio; Asuka Kono/Rachel Salmela; Joao Araujo Sousa/Joanna Correia Silva; Mario García/Andrea Govi; Dionisios Vriniotis/Rob Shostak/Dakota Wares-Tani/Julie Forand [images]- CBC news (Canada) |
Christopher Hawthorne: Keith Krumwiede's satirical jolt for the earnest world of architecture publishing: "Atlas of Another America: An Architectural Fiction"...cribs the basic designs of the houses in Freedomland from the big U.S. home-builders...stringing or mashing them together to form an odd new kind of communal housing...accompanied by a series of Old Master and landscape paintings...to which he has added renderings of the Freedomland houses... [images + Q&A]- Los Angeles Times |
Blaine Brownell: The Borderwall as a Physical and Cultural Divide: Ronald Rael's "Borderwall as Architecture: A Manifesto for the US-Mexico Boundary"...an intrepid new book...is not one-dimensional. Part historical account, part theoretical appraisal, and part design manifesto...captivates readers with bittersweet tales and imaginative futures... -- Rael San Fratello- Architect Magazine |
Michael J. Lewis: What Jane Jacobs Saw: ...the centenary of the birth...was marked by the publication of two ambitious biographies, an anthology of essays, and a book of interviews...Her message was first, do no harm; it was not do nothing at all. And yet this is the distorted lesson that architects and planners drew...The new biographies are satisfying...But they leave nagging gaps. -- "Eyes on the Street" by Robert Kanigel; "Becoming Jane Jacobs" by Peter L. Laurence; "Jane Jacobs: The Last Interview and Other Conversations; "Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs"- First Things magazine (Institute on Religion and Public Life) |
ANN Feature: Bill Millard: Book Review: "Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation" by Edward Humes: The systems that bring materials and goods from their far-flung sources to end-consumers' doorsteps, as this Pulitzer-winning author shows, are astonishing. The infrastructure supporting them is "breaking the world."- ArchNewsNow.com |
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Sigurd Lewerentz: Church of St Peter (1966), Klippan, Sweden: ...embodies a holistic and obsessive architectural vision...manifesting a range of spatial references...all interpreted through the use of brick. The result is a strange and particular architecture that feels strikingly contemporary yet primitive, exceptional yet vernacular...managed to subvert constructional norms, redefine religious spatiality... [images] |
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