Today’s News - Tuesday, July 10, 2018
EDITOR'S NOTE: We're b-a-a-ck! After a lovely (if scorching-hot!) break, there's lots of catching up to do!
● Hopkirk parses the "strong arguments on both sides of the Mac debate, but the case for rebuilding the Glasgow School of Art has the edge," and offers a few reasons that "make the case for reconstruction more compelling."
● Chipperfield "leads calls for the Mac to be rebuilt": "The issue is going to be money" (check out comments, too!).
● Kamin says Chicago is "only stuck with the lousy Union Station design if we fail to rethink it. Here are three alternatives to that looming mess" (also called a "fourth-rate design" - ouch!).
● Descendants of the founder of the Girl Scouts and the TCLF want the organization to abandon its landscape renovation plans for its HQ in Savannah, designed in the mid-1950s by Clermont Lee, the first registered woman landscape architect in Georgia: "It's not just her work, but her story as a woman making it in the middle part of the last century."
● Walker takes issue with those who use "derision and ridicule" to stereotype others who choose alternatives to sitting "behind tinted safety glass and one-ton steel cages to get around - the term 'cyclists,' in particular, has become weaponized."
● Lange x 2: she ponders the preponderance of parks and public spaces above ground level: "Sky this, sky that. But every story they rise above ground level makes that visible public good less accessible" (though "not all skythings are bad").
● She cheers the makeover of the Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis: Saarinen's "Arch is perfect. What lay at its feet was the problem" - the "megaproject offers a succinct and positive statement of where we are today in city-building. Public. Accessible. Local. Landscape."
● Capps parses the winning design for Washington, DC's National Native American Veterans Memorial, designed by artist and Arapaho and Cheyenne Marine Corps veteran Harvey Pratt: the "Warriors' Circle of Honor" doesn't "highlight a specific conflict, but rather an entire people."
● McGlone, meanwhile, considers why "it takes so long for memorials to be built in Washington. The process's unpredictable zig and zag" is particularly evident in the debate over the proposed National Desert Storm and Desert Shield Memorial.
● Wainwright reports from Ramallah re: the West Bank's new arts center that has opened "against huge odds": Spanish architects Donaire Arquitectos "have brought a refined Andalusian sensibility to the arid site," and "pulled off an impressive feat - it is alien enough to stand out, while doing so with modesty" ("We cannot be Zaha Hadid here").
● Moore hails London Wall Place - the city's "neglected postwar 'streets in the air' have been opened up" and "are more playful and dramatic than the rational originals" (and Make's "most inspired moment to date").
● Still in London, Heatherwick and SPPARC unveil their £700m expansion plans for the Olympia exhibition center that will "add swathes of new office, hotel and leisure space."
● Middleton mulls millennials: Their demands "should be listened to because they reflect what other staff want too - should we not be considering the ways in which our businesses and the glacial pace of our profession could be adapted to appeal to this new generation of architects?"
● Kafka cheers the just-ended London Festival of Architecture: "Feminist approaches to architectural history, practice, and theory played a particularly strong part. LFA must double down on its support for these more radical projects and work harder to amplify the voices of those often still missing from these conversations" (and an "uncomfortable truth" about his own relationship to the profession).
● Budds offers highlights from the Architecture Lobby's "Think-In" at the AIA confab: "#MeToo hit architecture. Now what?"
● RIBA goes to war with presidential candidate Elsie Owusu with a "cease and desist" letter "to prevent her making 'damaging public statements' about the institute" (but claims it's not a gag order).
● Beamon has a great Q&A with Owusu re: "her contentious campaign, her vision for RIBA's future, and her own nimble practice."
● Meanwhile, a "trailblazer group" of 20 British firms "has developed apprenticeship standards in a bid to improve the link between academic and on-the-job training - a potential route to boosting" diversity (sounds like a win-win for all!).
● Zara offers a round-up of a few fellowship programs that are "paving the way for the future of architecture - and a look at where their graduates end up."
● Premiering tonight on PBS: "10 That Changed America": the new season "takes viewers on a cross-country road trip to learn the back stories behind ten streets, monuments and modern marvels that transformed the nation."
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Elizabeth Hopkirk: If the Mac can be built once it can be built twice: There are strong arguments on both sides of the debate but the case for rebuilding the Glasgow School of Art has the edge: ...three things make the case for reconstruction more compelling...if we’re going to do it, we need to make absolutely certain we do it well. And that’s going to take real grit from everyone involved... -- Charles Rennie Mackintosh; Page\Park; Alan Dunlop- BD/Building Design (UK) |
David Chipperfield leads calls for Mac to be rebuilt: [He] has called for the Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh building to be declared a ‘monument of exceptional importance’ and rebuilt...as debate rages over its future..."The issue is going to be money"...Ray McKenzie [said] the Mac should be allowed to stand as ruins. -- Charles Rennie Mackintosh; Alan Dunlop; Charlie Hussey/Sutherland Hussey; Tim Pitman/Pitman Tozer; Jane Meneely/Hypostyle Architects; Mike Stiff/Stiff and Trevillion; Gillian Stewart/Michael Laird Architects; Gerry Hogan/Collective Architecture; Page\Park; Martin Ashley; Graeme Nicholls- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
Blair Kamin: We're only stuck with the lousy Union Station design if we fail to rethink it. Let the debate begin: There’s nothing so wickedly amusing as watching a bad design become an architectural pinata everybody takes a swing at. That’s what’s happened since the release of the deeply disappointing plans for a vertical expansion...Are we stuck with this fourth-rate design...Idea mills already are churning out ways to improve the plans...Here are three alternatives to that looming mess... -- Graham, Anderson, Probst & White (1925); Solomon Cordwell Buenz [image]- Chicago Tribune |
Low descendants want Girl Scouts to modify renovation plan: The Cultural Landscape Foundation along with descendants...are calling for Girl Scouts of the USA to abandon their recently unveiled renovation plans, which they say will destroy the garden at the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace...Landscape architect...Clermont Lee...also worked to lead the way to establish the licensure of landscape architects in the state of Georgia, becoming the fourth registered landscape architect in Georgia and the first woman..."it’s not just her work, but her story as a woman making it in the middle part of the last century." -- Charles Birnbaum/TCLF; Doug Mund/dmdg2 [images]- Savannah Morning News (Georgia) |
Alissa Walker: People are not defined by what we use to get around: Transportation stereotypes, like stereotypes of any sort, are silly. But they can also make streets more dangerous: ...as more people emerge from behind tinted safety glass and one-ton steel cages to get around...modes that are more unique - at least for now - put users out in the open. And, sadly, more open to derision and ridicule...The term “cyclists,” in particular, has become weaponized...- Curbed |
Alexandra Lange: Skymall: We shouldn’t abandon the cities we have for some amenities in the clouds: Sky this, sky that...Why the sky? What is the benefit to putting parks, play equipment, cafes, trails, forests up high? The list of elements elevated skyward sounds like a list of public goods. But every story they rise above ground level...makes that visible public good less accessible, often literally...not all skythings are bad. You can leave a few up there...my fear for the future of the ground plane: Earth becomes second-tier real estate. Anyone with means ascends, and those who don’t keep their eyes trained upward. -- Moshe Safdie; William Kaven Architecture; SHoP Architects; Studio Boeri; Skidmore, Owings & Merril (SOM) [images]- Curbed |
Alexandra Lange: Gateway to what? The Arch is perfect. What lay at its feet was the problem: ...Gateway Arch National Park, a renovated 91-acre landscape above a renovated and expanded 150,000-square-foot museum and visitor center. The $380 million megaproject...offers a succinct and positive statement of where we are today in city-building. Public. Accessible. Local. Landscape. -- Eero Saarinen; Dan Kiley; Philip Johnson and John Burgee; Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK); Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates; Cooper Robertson; James Carpenter Design Associates; Haley Sharpe; Stoss Landscape Urbanism [images]- Curbed |
Kriston Capps: Here’s D.C.’s Memorial For Native American Veterans: Unlike other war memorials in Washington, D.C., the National Native American Veterans Memorial does not highlight a specific conflict, but rather an entire people: The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian just announced the winner of the international design contest...Harvey Pratt’s design - dubbed the “Warriors’ Circle of Honor”...Arapaho and Cheyenne Marine Corps veteran says that he relied on a handful of symbols and conceits... -- Butzer Architects and Urbanism [images]- CityLab (formerly The Atlantic Cities) |
Peggy McGlone: Why does it take so long for memorials to be built in Washington? A memorial’s journey from concept to reality can be painfully slow in this historical city...Sometimes the oversight seems fickle, sometimes contradictory...The process’s unpredictable zig and zag was on view...at the Commission of Fine Arts, where leaders of the proposed National Desert Storm and Desert Shield Memorial sought approval..."be a better listener. Don’t be stubborn." -- OLIN/CSO Architects; Charles Birnbaum/The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF); M. Paul Friedberg (1981); Joe Weishaar; Sabin Howard [images]- Washington Post |
Oliver Wainwright: 'Beacon of culture': West Bank's £16m arts centre opens against huge odds: An imposing hillside citadel concealing gardens and galleries, the A.M. Qattan Foundation, built under occupation, aims to provide an oasis of calm in Ramallah...Donaire Arquitectos...have brought a refined Andalusian sensibility to the arid site...have pulled off an impressive feat...it is alien enough to stand out, while doing so with modesty. As Donaire puts it: “We cannot be Zaha Hadid here." [images]- Guardian (UK) |
Rowan Moore: London Wall Place - a high walk back to the future: The City of London’s neglected postwar ‘streets in the air’ have been opened up and extended at the heart of an inspired new office complex: ...it’s the most inspired moment to date in the career of the architectural practice Make...The new pedways are more playful and dramatic than the rational originals. They curve and wind. They duck into the shade...and emerge into light...part of a wider idea of a multilayered open space...Potential cliches of public space - pools of water, old fragments - are given life. -- Ken Shuttleworth [images]- Observer (UK) |
Heatherwick Studio unveils £700m Olympia expansion: Designer works with SPPARC on historic west London exhibition centre: ...to add swathes of new office, hotel and leisure space...56,000sq m of creative offices and studios, 5,100sq m of co-working space and a similar amount of new theatre and performing-arts space. -- Henry Edward Coe (1886); Joseph Emberton (1920s) [images]- BD/Building Design (UK) |
Mark Middleton: Millennials are changing practice but not architecture itself: The demands of the rising generation should be listened to because they reflect what other staff want too: ...should we not be considering the ways in which our businesses and the glacial pace of our profession could be adapted to appeal to this new generation of architects?- BD/Building Design (UK) |
George Kafka: At the 2018 London Festival of Architecture, It’s a Girl’s World: A handful of exhibitions and performances...radically interrogate gender and space: Feminist approaches to architectural history, practice, and theory played a particularly strong part...highlight the importance of feminist solutions to architecture and the built environment more widely...Feminism at LFA is thus vital for both the production of cities that are more equitable, democratic, and representative...LFA must double down on its support for these more radical projects and work harder to amplify the voices of those often still missing from these conversations... [images]- Metropolis Magazine |
Diana Budds: #MeToo hit architecture. Now what? During the annual AIA convention, the Architecture Lobby debated how to better protect workers from harassment and discrimination - and how to fight back: "Think-In" explored ways to improve the “soft infrastructure” of architecture, including better labor practices and achieving gender equity.- Curbed |
RIBA at war with Elsie Owusu: institute tries to gag presidential candidate: ...has sent a ‘cease and desist’ letter...to prevent her making ’damaging public statements’ about the institute..."This is not ‘gagging’..."- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
Kelly L. Beamon: Interview with RIBA President Candidate Elsie Owusu: ...campaigning to become the first nonwhite woman president in the 185-year history of the Royal Institute of British Architects...[her] path to the nomination is the most fraught...snubbed by some for accusing RIBA of institutionalized racism and sexism...Q&A re: her contentious campaign, her vision for RIBA’s future, and her own nimble practice.- Architectural Record |
Foster leads work to create architectural apprenticeships: Group of 20 leading practices thrashes out standards for new routes into the profession: A “trailblazer group”...has developed apprenticeship standards...in a bid to improve the link between academic and on-the-job training...a potential route to boosting social inclusion, as apprentices are exempted from paying tuition fees and would also receive a salary... -- Foster + Partners; AHMM; Grimshaw Architects; HOK; Hawkins Brown; Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios; Scott Brownrigg Architects; Arup; BDP; HTA; Lipscomb Jones Architects; Seven Architecture; Pollard Thomas Edwards; HLM Architects; Perkins+Will; PLP Architecture; Purcell; Ryder Architecture; Stanton Williams; TP Bennett- BD/Building Design (UK) |
Janelle Zara: The Fellowship Programs Paving the Way for the Future of Architecture: Graduates get one-of-a-kind hands-on experience while firms benefit from new perspectives: ...a handful of fellowships that range from hands-on mentorship to sponsored travel abroad - and look at where their graduates end up. -- Ike Kligerman Barkley IKB Traveling Fellowship; Hart Howerton Travel Fellowship; EYP Tradewell Fellowship; Eskew+Dumez+Ripple EDR Research Fellowship; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill SOM Prize and Travel Fellowship- Architectural Digest |
"10 That Changed America": new season of the PBS series...which explores America's built environment, premieres on July 10. This season, host Goeffrey Baer takes viewers on a cross-country road trip to learn the back stories behind ten streets, monuments and modern marvels that transformed the nation.- PBS / WTTW Chicago |
ANN feature: Girl UNinterrupted Presents Equity Survey Findings, Launches Tips Manual at the AIA Conference on Architecture 2018: From Young Female Designers to Firm Leaders: The Boston Experiment: What's possible when you bridge the gap between young female designers and leaders in architecture? Key takeaways from Boyadzhieva and Chun's illuminating equity survey findings.- ArchNewsNow.com |
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