Today’s News - Thursday, October 26, 2017

EDITOR'S NOTE: Tomorrow and Monday will be no-newsletter days, but we leave you have lots to keep you busy. We'll be back Tuesday, October 31 (hopefully, the Internet gods will be kinder than they're being today and we won't post so late!).

●  ANN feature: Bloszies' Left Coast Reflections #3 takes on "The Wall": It may never be built, but the real damage the Trump Administration is likely to inflict on the built environment will have lasting consequences."

●  Kamin gives two thumbs-ups (and then some) to Foster's new "elegantly understated" Apple store on the Chicago River that is "simultaneously present and absent, there and not there - its transparency is a wow" (though "'almost nothing' does not come cheap - a jaw-dropping $1,350 per square foot"!).

●  Bagli reports that Heatherwick's Pier 55 (a.k.a. "Diller Island") "is back from the dead" - opponents agreed to drop their legal battle in exchange for the promise to complete Hudson River Park.

●  Perrault is tapped to design a "massive" underground transit hub in Seoul, intended to be a multifunctional, cultural and retail space with "an urban park-themed plaza touted as a rival to New York's Central Park and London's Hyde Park."

●  Badger weighs in on Google's plans for a mini-city "built from the internet up" on Toronto's waterfront: tech campuses "are mostly models of how not to build cities. The challenge, amid all the carbon-neutral, internet-enabled robot-monitor sensors, will be to keep humans in mind."

●  Grabar weighs in on "Googletown": "Sidewalk Toronto is more like a modern-day Levittown. Many have tried to master-plan the vibrancy of an organic city; most have failed."

●  Litt lauds the successful conclusion in the 16-year saga to build "cheap, efficient" bike lanes on the Detroit-Superior Bridge that "shows how far Cleveland has come in making itself a pedestrian- and bike-friendly city."

●  Architect/educator Adams and his students turn a littered underpass beneath one of Boston's busiest freeways into a "thriving green space. One of the first things you notice is how peaceful it is. Everything is more than meets the eye - and that's the point."

●  Cheng talks to Koolhaas and Gianotten about their MPavilion in Melbourne's Queen Victoria Gardens, "inspired by ancient amphitheaters" to "steer debate about the city."

●  Stead pens an eloquent intro to Robin Boyd's eloquent1968 essay "Antiarchitecture" that "might have been written yesterday, or this morning" - he was an "architect who could speak to the punters and avoid being dismissed as either a tosser or a prig" (plan to spend some time with both!).

Deadlines:

●  Call for Practices: International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam/IABR - 2018+2020: "The Missing Link."

●  Call for entries: Sevenoaks Nature & Wellbeing Centre in Kent, U.K.

●  Call for entries: Applications for Hart Howerton 2018 Travel Fellowship Program, open to undergraduate and graduate students.

●  Call for entries: Nemrut Volcano Eyes architecture competition for a lookout point along the edge of a collapsed volcano crater in Turkey.

●  Call for Entries: 35th Annual IALD International Lighting Design Awards.

Weekend diversions:

●  A good reason to head to Annapolis, Maryland: 2017 Keeping History Above Water 2nd international conference.

●  Movie time! Architecture & Design Film Festival bows in NYC, November 1-5 (fab line-up!).

●  Petrunia has a great conversation with "Columbus" director Kogonada, and Kyle Bergman, founder of the Architecture & Design Film Festival.

●  Betsky parses "the limited feast of the second Chicago Architecture Biennial. The beauty of 'Make New History' is that it is neither" - he would have called "this modest, but coherent, exhibition 'Make History New, or 'Make New What Is.'"

●  Hawthorne cheers the Getty for finally climbing down from hilltop oasis: with Pacific Standard Time, it has done "what it so dramatically declined to do when it opened" 20 years ago.

●  "Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design" at Atlanta's High Museum "delves into the continent's diversity and vibrancy through more than 200 works."

Page-turners:

●  Schafer parses Deamer's "The Architect as Worker: Immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of Design" that "asks us to unflinchingly consider the way we work - it belongs on every architect's bookshelf."

●  Cramer offers a "brief climate change reading list that presents the truths and consequences of our global addiction to fossil fuels" with "honest reporting and informed opinion."

●  Bernstein considers Mayne's "mission to compile the definitive list with input from Zaha Hadid, Richard Meier, and others" in "100 Buildings: 1900-2000 (Corbu, FLW, and Mies are the most mentioned).

●  Hatherley; Sorkin, and others weigh in with their reading lists "in celebration and reflection on the events of 1917 October Revolution, and learn about their impacts on the built environment today."

●  Wood weighs in on Greenfield's "Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life" that "questions our bright technological future" and "interrogates the costs - the technology sector (like architecture) often doesn't care about its unintended effects."

●  Welton cheers Mostafavi's "Portman's America & Other Speculations," a book "that demonstrates the 93-year-old architect's contributions are no small or unlikeable affairs."

●  Hill offers a trio of Wright tomes "devoted to an architect we're sure to be celebrating again in another 50 years."

We couldn't resist ('tis the season, after all):

●  The ultimate guide to dressing like an architect for Halloween - "remember to keep your facial expression thoughtful, and, when your friends admit they don't know who you even are, your demeanor aghast."

●  Architecture costumes for all occasions: "readers from across the world share their architecture-themed costumes" - submit yours!

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To subscribe to the free daily newsletter click here ANN feature: Charles F. Bloszies: Left Coast Reflections #3: The Wall: The wall may never be built, but the real damage the Trump Administration is likely to inflict on the built environment will have lasting consequences.- ArchNewsNow.com Blair Kamin: Apple's new flagship store an understated gem on the Chicago River: ...thrillingly transparent...and a boon to the city’s riverfront...simultaneously present and absent, there and not there...an architecture of “almost nothing.” Yet “almost nothing” does not come cheap...cost a jaw-dropping $1,350 per square foot...it represents a skillful evolution of the company’s architectural brand...[its] transparency is a wow...More than inside and outside are merging here. So are the civic and the commercial realms. It is the latest twist of the digital age. -- Stefan Behling/Foster + Partners- Chicago Tribune Charles V. Bagli: ‘Diller Island’ Is Back From the Dead: With intervention from Gov. Cuomo...Pier 55, the elaborate $250 million performing arts center on an undulating pier in the Hudson River, is back...opponents...agreed to drop their legal battle. In return, Cuomo...has promised to complete the 4.5-mile-long Hudson River Park...from Battery Park City to 59th Street...and to protect the marine estuary from development. -- Thomas Heatherwick/Heatherwick Studio- New York Times Massive underground transit terminal to be built in Gangnam: Spanning 160,000 square meters...the Yeongdong-daero transit terminal is to be the single largest multifunctional underground complex to be built in the country...“Light Walk”...envisioned to be a multifunctional, cultural and retail space...will create an urban park-themed plaza, touted as a rival to New York’s Central Park and London’s Hyde Park...Seoul City also plans to use this spot as the Korean version of Time Square... -- Dominique Perrault [images]- Korea Herald Emily Badger: Google’s Founders Wanted to Shape a City. Toronto Is Their Chance: ...to develop “the world’s first neighborhood built from the internet up,” but will humans be put first? ...a city designed by technologists...has made some nervous, urbanists especially...tech industry corporate campuses are mostly models of how not to build cities...There’s also the hitch that cities are inherently organic and unpredictable. They resist omniscient engineering...The challenge now amid all the carbon-neutral, internet-enabled robot-monitor sensors will be to keep those humans in mind. -- Dan Doctoroff/Sidewalk Labs [images]- New York Times Henry Grabar: Building Googletown: What matters in city-building isn’t high-tech data - it’s boring old infrastructure: Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff discussed how his company...was pursuing one of the tech industry’s recurring fantasies: building its own city...to develop an 12-acre parcel on the Toronto waterfront...vision for Quayside...a synthesis of existing know-how...and packaged for easy sale, Sidewalk Toronto is more like a modern-day Levittown...Many have tried to master-plan the vibrancy of an organic city; most have failed. -- Rohit Aggarwala- Slate Steven Litt: Cheap, efficient bike lane additions to Detroit-Superior Bridge show sea change in city policy: ...marks the latest step in a long-running city planning saga that once pitted cyclists and pedestrians against trucking interests...shows how far Cleveland has come since 2001 in making itself a pedestrian- and bike-friendly city...on track to complete 70 new miles of bike paths it promised to create by the end of 2017. -- LAND Studio; EcoCity Cleveland [images]- Cleveland Plain Dealer Architect turns littered underpass into thriving green space: One of the first things you notice about the green space Dan Adams designed in the heart of the city is how peaceful it is...turning a litter-strewn, fenced-in, abandoned plot of land underneath one of Boston’s busiest freeways into a space that people will want to use...Everything is more than meets the eye - and that’s the point. -- Landing Studio- News @ Northeastern (Northeastern University) Linda Cheng: ‘Living room in the garden’: OMA’s MPavilion to ‘steer debate about the city’: The structure [in] Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens...“creates a point of activation in the city and an environment in which it is easy to communicate"...Inspired by ancient amphitheaters...; thru February 4, 2018 -- Rem Koolhaas; David Gianotten; Office for Metropolitan Architecture; Bluebottle [images]- ArchitectureAU (Australia) Naomi Stead: Future Archive: (Not So) Anti-Architecture: Robin Boyd was Australia’s most famous architecture critic. In a bracing and still relevant essay from 1968, he challenges the field to cast aside its perennial political timidity: He had...the ability to cut like a scalpel but also to be gentle and thoughtful in prose...“Antiarchitecture”...might have been written yesterday, or this morning...[he] was the exception that proves the rule: the real deal, the expert with the common touch, the architect who could speak to the punters and avoid being dismissed as either a tosser or a prig. [images]- Places Journal Call for entries: Call for Practices: International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam/IABR–2018+2020: "The Missing Link": 3-year program of knowledge sharing, peer supervision, and joint research by design to explore and test how innovative, purposeful design practices can help make the leap to a more resilient future; deadline: November 22- International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) Call for entries: Sevenoaks Nature & Wellbeing Centre (international): a new visitor centre for Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve in Kent. Phase 1 (concept designs) deadline: December 5- RIBA Competitions / Kent Wildlife Trust Call for entries: Applications for Hart Howerton 2018 Travel Fellowship Program; open to undergraduate and graduate students in planning, architecture, landscape architecture or urban design entering their final year in September 2018; deadline: January 26, 2018- Hart Howerton Call for entries: Nemrut Volcano Eyes architecture competition: a functional and aesthetically-pleasing lookout point along the southern edge of a collapsed volcano crater in Turkey; cash prizes; earlybird registration deadline (save money!): December 6 (final registration: April 6; submissions due May 10)- Bee Breeders (formerly HMMD/Homemade Dessert) Call for Entries: 35th Annual IALD International Lighting Design Awards recognizing exceptional architectural lighting design around the globe; deadline: November 6- International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) 2017 Keeping History Above Water conference: 2nd international gathering...discussions will examine the increasing and varied risks posed by sea level rise to historic coastal communities, their built environments and traditional ways of life. Annapolis, Maryland, October 29 - November 1- Keeping History Above Water Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) opens in NYC, November 1-5, with 34 feature-length and short films, director Q&As, conversations about the changing narrative of cities' infrastructures and reclaiming New York's waterfront, an immersive VR experiences by Gary Hustwit, and "Columbus," the festival's first narrative film directed by Kogonada; opens with "Glenn Murcutt: Spirit of Place" and AIA I Look Up People's Choice Challenge Winner.- Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) Paul Petrunia: Architecture & Film: A conversation with Kogonada, the writer and director of the critically-acclaimed film "Columbus," and Kyle Bergman, founder of the Architecture & Design Film Festival.- Archinect Aaron Betsky: Beauty that Is Neither New Nor Historical: The limited feast of the second Chicago Architecture Biennial: The beauty of “Make New History"...is that it is neither...I might thus have called this modest, but coherent, exhibition “Make History New,” or “Make New What Is,” but you can see why Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee preferred their more catchy title...History remains to be mined, but techniques for doing that work remain the work for exhibitions such as the Biennial, and it taught its lessons well. [images]- Architect Magazine Christopher Hawthorne: With Pacific Standard Time, Getty finally climbs down from hilltop oasis it built 20 years ago: ...has managed to do what it so dramatically declined to do when it opened...By mounting its own exhibitions but even more powerfully by supporting shows, events and publications at other local museums and galleries...it has threaded itself into the contemporary cultural life of L.A....That sense of adjacency between exhibition and city at large, each rubbing off on the other, is something Richard Meier's Getty Center...has never been able to offer its visitors. "PST: LA/LA"- Los Angeles Times Exhibition explores African design as agent of change: "Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design" at Atlanta's High Museum of Art. ...delves into the continent's diversity and vibrancy through more than 200 works...One of the most captivating pieces [by] Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse...captures Ponte City...in Johannesburg...A posh address when it was built in 1975, it has become rundown...a captivating glimpse into the tallest apartment building on the continent; organized by Vitra Design Museum ansd Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, thru January 7, 2018 [images]- Houston Chronicle Ashley Schafer: How architects should reconsider the way they work: As ethical imperatives have entered into architectural practices...exploitation, environmental and human, and physical and immaterial labor become issues we can no longer ignore. Peggy Deamer’s "The Architect as Worker: Immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of Design" asks us to...unflinchingly consider the way we work...Far from a rant...provides a mounting argument against architecture as a “calling," revealing the exploitation we have been subjected to as well as that which we have indirectly subjected others to...it belongs on every architect’s bookshelf.- The Architect's Newspaper Ned Cramer: A Brief Climate Change Reading List: Six books that present the truths and consequences of our global addiction to fossil fuels...honest reporting and informed opinion... "Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know" by Joseph Romm; "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Jared Diamond; "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History" by Elizabeth Kolbert; "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate" by Naomi Klein; "Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming" edited by Paul Hawken; "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet" by Bill McKibben- Architect Magazine Fred A. Bernstein: The 100 Most Important Buildings of the 20th Century: ...Thom Mayne made it his mission to compile the definitive list with input from Zaha Hadid, Richard Meier, and others: ...about 70 architects...Called simply "100 Buildings: 1900–2000," it describes each of the “winners” in photos, words (mostly by Val Warke), and remarkably clear drawings (by The Now Institute staff)...Le Corbusier is represented...far more than any other architect. The second-most-mentioned architects are Frank Lloyd Wright and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe... [images]- Architectural Digest Top architecture reads for the October Revolution’s 100th anniversary: We asked some critics and historians to choose a few books that might be good to read in celebration and reflection on the events of October 1917, and learn about their impacts on the built environment today. -- Owen Hatherley; Michael Sorkin; Leo Hollis/Verso Books; Ajay Chaudhary/Brooklyn Institute for Social Research- The Architect's Newspaper Marty Wood: Adam Greenfield’s new book questions our bright technological future: As technology speeds us towards an automated future, "Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life" interrogates the costs...He is at his most convincing...in his big-picture skepticism...the technology sector (like architecture) often doesn’t care about its unintended effects...each of the areas he covers has major implications for our field.- The Architect's Newspaper J. Michael Welton: John Portman in Retrospect: Two words from Frank Lloyd Wright - and a short stint designing Atlanta storefronts - dramatically changed the career trajectory of one of America’s best-known architects. “Seek Emerson"...It changed his life...“He made the user the star of the show"...He also expanded the role of what an architect could be...“Portman’s America & Other Speculations” [edited by Mohsen Mostafavi], a book that demonstrates the 93-year-old architect’s impact on American design and the architecture profession. His contributions are no small or unlikeable affairs. -- Jack Portman [images]- Huffington Post John Hill: A Trio of Wright: This year's 150th anniversary of [FLW's] birth (1867-1959) has generated much in the way of content...some takes on three publications devoted to an architect we're sure to be celebrating again in another 50 years: "Frank Lloyd Wright in New York: The Plaza Years 1954-1959" by Jane King Hession and Debra Pickrel; "Metropolis 150 FLW: Wright for Our Times" edited by Samuel Medina; "Travels with Frank Lloyd Wright: The First Global Architect" by Gwyn Lloyd Jones- A Daily Dose of Architecture/Archidose The ultimate guide to dressing like an architect for Halloween: From Le Corbusier to Denise Scott Brown: ...dressing like an architect is all about pulling off a signature look, and this is the guide to show you how. Whichever of these geniuses' costumes you use, 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. [images]- Curbed Architecture Costumes For Halloween, Carnival and Office Parties: ...architects are particularly well-suited to designing and building head-turning outfits...readers from across the world...share their architecture-themed costumes with us...submit yours... [images]- ArchDaily   Obituary: Kent Martinussen: Vale/In memory of Kirsten Kiser – founder of arcspace: a great Dane, an architecture entrepreneur...ever engaged and tireless front-runner of modern communication, exposure and dissemination of contemporary international architects and their works... it was with her deep insight into architecture and a lovable, sweet, and hyper generous personality that she really won the hearts and confidence of so many great international architects...

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