Today’s News - Thursday, November 15, 2018
EDITOR'S NOTE: We're taking an extended (and much-needed) Thanksgiving Day break to celebrate and give thanks for all that is good in life (including you, dear readers). We'll be back Tuesday, November 27.
● File under: Why are we not surprised: Schumacher heads to High Court in a "bid to remove other executors of Zaha Hadid's will [reportedly £70 million]. It is understood he has become increasingly frustrated with how the executors have taken an interest in the running of the practice" (not just Hadid's foundation).
● Carpo makes a (convincing) case for why "we can't go on teaching the same history of architecture as before - it grieves me very much to see so many students today waste so much time reinventing the wheel at every turn, due to their sheer ignorance of precedent."
● Kennicott gives thumbs-up to SHoP's Midtown Center that replaced the Washington Post's old HQ, which "was as ugly as a midcentury concrete box could be" - the new building "is a study in urban jazz" that "offers a study in architectural good citizenship" (photo hardly does it justice).
● Davidson isn't at all diplomatic in his take on Piano's Forum (and two other buildings) on Columbia University's Manhattanville campus: "Piano's solution is to answer a set of radical challenges with deeply conventional architecture and then claim that it's never been seen before. Good architects get clients to swallow their bullshit; great architects believe it themselves" (ouch!).
● Eyefuls of Zaha Hadid Architects' 460-hectare smart city outside Moscow - along with Pride Architects, "it consulted studies about happiness - concluding that building communities, access to nature and environmentally friendly design were key factors" (how original).
● Meanwhile, Studio MDA's one-story gallery for Paul Kasmin "is a refined respite among its glitzy neighbors" along NYC's High Line (including Hadid's 520 West 28th Street).
● Sugimoto and Sakakida have helped the Hirshhorn Museum, "perhaps the most oppressive, least welcoming of any Smithsonian Institution museum," rediscover "its architectural bones" with a "stunning transformation" of the "concrete doughnut on stilts. Then the artists got to have some fun."
● The 2018 ARCHITECT 50 list is "a nice mix of small boutique firms and giant multinationals, repeat winners and new practices" in three categories: Business, Sustainability, and Design (topped by Hastings, The Miller Hull Partnership, and Lorcan O'Herlihy, respectively).
● Gerfen x 2: She parses the current and future state of sustainable design, followed by great profiles of the 2018 AIA COTE Top Ten Awards winners (written by some of our faves).
● She outlines new resources and tools AIA COTE will soon release "to help firms of any size or discipline better understand and achieve sustainable goals in their projects."
● Speaking of green: the USGBC is launching LEED Zero "to address Net Zero carbon operations and resources" in LEED projects - the next phase will be LEED Positive, "where buildings are actually generating more energy than they use, and removing more carbon than they produce."
● A good reason to be in Sacramento at the end of the month: 2018 Meeting of the Minds 12th Annual Summit - an "intensive immersion in thought leadership and cross-sector partnership building.
● Or, head to Austin for the 3rd annual HIVE Conference: "Reignite the Dream" that will address "the structural and technological factors that have led to the current affordability crisis in the nation's housing market."
● One we couldn't resist: O'Sullivan considers a "giant corkscrew of metal" that is the 24-step section of the Eiffel Tower, up for auction in Paris later this month; starting bid: €40,000, though will probably go for much more: "In 2016, a collector bought a section of the staircase for over $550,000 - and that was for a piffling 14-step segment."
Weekend diversions:
● Freeman takes a deep (very deep) and fascinating dive into MoMA's "Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948-1980," which "documents an extraordinary architectural legacy that has been neglected by mainstream historians. The exceptional architects clearly deserve more recognition" (so much more than just a review - a must read!).
● Moore cheers "Home Futures" - a" lively, illuminating, sometimes enthralling journey through a century's-worth of aspiration and fantasy, presented in a dreamy, translucent installation by SO-IL" at London's Design Museum (another great read!).
Page-turners:
● Lamster offers "what he considers to be Philip Johnson's most successful buildings, and the ones that haven't exactly held up under the 21st century's exacting lens" that are featured in "The Man in the Glass House."
● YouBeen Kim parses the "pastel Pyongyang" presented in Wainwright's "Inside North Korea" that "takes us on an extraordinary journey" and offers "a window into the architectural aspirations of this veiled world" ("shaped by Moscow-trained architect").
● Fazzare also cheers Wainwright's exploration of the "fascinating stage set" that is Pyongyang and "its socialist-fairy-tale designs."
● ArchPaper offers a round-up of "a crop of new books hitting the shelves with fall reading that are guaranteed to keep readers warm for the winter."
● Metropolis editors pick their faves - with 27 titles, there's something for everyone.
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Patrik Schumacher in High Court bid to remove other executors of Zaha Hadid’s will: ...other three: property developer Peter Palumbo, artist Brian Clarke and Zaha’s niece Rana Hadid. It is understood Schumacher has become increasingly frustrated with how the executors, who are also trustees of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, have taken an interest in the running of the practice...A lawyer acting for the three said: ‘The attempt to remove these three executors is totally unjustified and misconceived.- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
Mario Carpo: We Can’t Go on Teaching the Same History of Architecture as Before: ...a plea for architectural history: ...we can’t teach the history of architecture from Vitruvius to Eisenman any longer...The problem is that, once the Western architectural canon has been thrown overboard, together with its now unpalatable ideological ballast, nobody seems to know what else should replace it...More worryingly, many are simply doing away with all architectural history altogether...training a generation of architects who may graduate without having ever even heard the names of Michelangelo or Le Corbusier...it grieves me very much to see so many students today waste so much time reinventing the wheel at every turn, due to their sheer ignorance of precedent.- Metropolis Magazine |
Philip Kennicott: A new building erases the last physical traces of a newly vibrant newspaper: Where the Watergate scandal was unraveled, a new building is a study in urban jazz: The Post’s flagship office...was as ugly as a midcentury concrete box could be...never has the disappearance of a building seemed so absolute. Largely, that’s a happy symptom of the development that has replaced it...dubbed Midtown Center designed by SHoP Architects...with its greenish oxidizing copper trim, is far more appealing than the rather bland, Michael Graves-designed interior spaces...offers a study in architectural good citizenship. -- Albert Kahn Associates (1972) [image]- Washington Post |
Justin Davidson: Columbia University Tries to Welcome the Neighbors In - and Keeps Them at Arm’s Length: The Manhattanville campus is simultaneously open and remote: ...the university grappled with an age-old pedagogical question: How do we get the townies to like us? The answer, for now, is three conventionally Renzo Piano-esque buildings and a timid little plaza. Oh, and coffee...The Forum’s main public attraction is a coffee shop...Surely he imagined this as a ground-floor urban living room that the populace would flock to in gratitude and awe. If so, he forgot to design one...Piano’s solution is to answer a set of radical challenges with deeply conventional architecture and then claim that it’s never been seen before...Good architects get clients to swallow their bullshit; great architects believe it themselves.- New York Magazine |
Zaha Hadid Architects designing smart city outside Moscow: ...new Rublyovo-Arkhangelskoye district...will be a "people-centric" sustainable smart city....460-hectare site...a mixed residential, business and culture hub...ZHA alongside Pride Architects...consulted studies about happiness whilst masterplanning the district, concluding that building communities, access to nature and environmentally friendly design were key factors. [images]- Dezeen |
Paul Kasmin’s New Chelsea Outpost Is a Refined Respite Among Its Glitzy Neighbors: Designed by Studio MDA, the new flagship art gallery makes a bold statement while maintaining a historical and aesthetic dialogue with its environs: Amid west Chelsea’s eclectic cacophony of low-slung converted blue chip galleries and glitzy condo developments...[it] manages to hold court - quietly...while maintaining a certain imposing, compressive monumentality not often seen - or possible in - storefront galleries...landscaped roof also functions as a sculpture garden... -- Markus Dochantschi; Future Green [images]- Metropolis Magazine |
The Hirshhorn Museum’s Famously Round Building Is Shaping Its Resurgence: ...until recently, [it] was perhaps the most oppressive, least welcoming of any Smithsonian Institution museum...That period officially ended...when a redesign of the lobby by Hiroshi Sugimoto and Tomoyuki Sakakida’s New Material Research Laboratory was unveiled. A stunning transformation...[the] concrete doughnut on stilts is now a vibrant hub...Then the artists got to have some fun. -- Gordon Bunshaft/Skidmore, Owings & Merrill/SOM; Diller Scofidio + Renfro (2013); BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group [images]- Interior Design magazine |
2018 ARCHITECT 50: ...based on how firms perform in these three categories...- a nice mix of small boutique firms and giant multinationals, repeat winners and new practices that scaled the charts. Business: Hastings tops the list thanks to its enviable growth and employee-friendly policies; Sustainability: The Miller Hull Partnership takes the top spot with its wide-ranging commitment to sustainable design; Design: Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects earns the top spot for its amplified urbanism.- Architect Magazine |
Katie Gerfen: Winners of the 2018 AIA COTE Top Ten Awards: The AIA Committee on the Environment...lauds projects that demonstrate that sustainable design is good design - and that it is more important than ever that the architecture industry move toward a carbon neutral future. -- KieranTimberlake; Perkins+Will Canada; Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects; Lake|Flato Architects/Cooper Carry; Studio Twenty Seven Architecture; Olson Kundig; WRNS Studio; DLR Group | Westlake Reed Loskosky; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill/SOM (profiles by Clay Risen; Edward Keegan; Gideon Fink Shapiro; Ian Volner) [images]- Architect Magazine |
Katie Gerfen: AIA COTE to Release New Tools to Help Firms Achieve Sustainable Design: Three new resources will be released this winter that will provide case studies, information, calculators, and more, to help firms of any size or discipline better understand and achieve sustainable goals in their projects. The Toolkit; The Calculator; The Searchable Database- Architect Magazine |
USGBC Launches LEED Zero, to Address Net Zero Carbon Operations and Resources in LEED Green Building Projects: ...can achieve LEED Zero certification when they demonstrate any or one of the following: net zero carbon emissions, net zero energy use, net zero water use or net zero waste...part of a vision to ensure that the next phase of USGBC’s efforts will be LEED Positive, where buildings are actually generating more energy than they use, and removing more carbon than they produce.- U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) |
2018 Meeting of the Minds Annual Summit in Sacramento, CA, November 27-29: 12th annual summit will unearth tools and best practices working for city leaders across the globe...identify innovations that can be scaled, replicated and transferred from city-to-city and sector-to-sector...intensive immersion in thought leadership and crosssector partnership building.- Meeting of the Minds |
Innovation and the Future of Housing: Steven Johnson, Clara Brenner and Majora Carter join the lineup at third annual HIVE Conference: “Reignite the Dream"...will focus on addressing the structural and technological factors that have led to the current affordability crisis in the nation’s housing market. Austin, Texas, November 28-29- Builder magazine |
Feargus O'Sullivan: For Sale: A Piece of the Eiffel Tower: A section of the tower’s original staircase is up for auction in Paris: ...on November 27...Artcurial will be selling off a 24-step...giant corkscrew of metal...Admittedly, it’s not the most visually striking thing, though clearly Gustave Eiffel knew a good staircase when he saw one...a starting price of €40,000, could still go for a very high sum. In 2016, a collector bought a section of the staircase for over $550,000 - and that was for a piffling 14-step segment...sale is only the latest episode in a strange trade in discarded bits of the tower...- CityLab (formerly The Atlantic Cities) |
Belmont Freeman: Concrete Utopia: The republic of Yugoslavia lasted barely half a century. A new exhibition documents an extraordinary architectural legacy that has been neglected by mainstream historians: "Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948-1980"...Far from indulging in rose-tinted retrospection...the curators...offer a rigorous and eye-opening survey of a body of architectural work produced in parallel with, and in service to, the very formation of the nation of Yugoslavia...a monumental achievement, presenting a remarkable, and remarkably diverse, body of work...The exceptional architects whose work is featured...clearly deserve more recognition than current architectural histories accord. -- Martino Stierli; Vladimir Kulic; Anna Katz; Maroje Mrduljaš- Places Journal |
Rowan Moore: "Home Futures" - a century of living the dream: Design Museum, London: An illuminating exploration of today’s home seen through the ideas of 20th-century architects and designers moves from the Russian revolution to '70s escapism and some strangely accurate predictions: ...a lively, illuminating, sometimes enthralling journey through a century’s-worth of aspiration and fantasy, presented in a dreamy, translucent installation by...SO-IL...an exhibition of exotic blooms, fast-growing and fast-withering. As with most futurology, the concepts...tell you more about the times in which they were made than about what would actually happen. thru March 24, 2019 [images]- Observer (UK) |
Mark Lamster: Arbiter of taste, enfant terrible: The best and worst of Philip Johnson: The prolific 20th-century American architect’s work, ranked by the author of Johnson’s mega-biography ["The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century"}: ...listing what he considers to be Johnson’s most successful buildings, and the ones that haven’t exactly held up under the 21st century’s exacting lens.- Curbed |
YouBeen Kim: Pastel Pyongyang: As a Korean-Canadian...I’ve been frequently asked about North Korea...Countering this paucity of information, journalist Oliver Wainwright takes us on an extraordinary journey in..."Inside North Korea"...an intriguing opportunity to experience the atmosphere of dazzling colour palettes...[book] serves as a powerful archival record...a window into the architectural aspirations of this veiled world, allowing readers to question what may emerge in the years to come. -- Kim Jong Hui; FREESPACE; COREARCHISM [images]- Canadian Architect |
Elizabeth Fazzare: How North Korea Uses Design to Craft a Socialist Fairy Tale: In..."Inside North Korea"...Oliver Wainwright explores the "fascinating stage set" of Pyongyang...Moscow-trained architect Kim Jong Hui drew up plans for the totalitarian president's ideal city...Approaching the country as a tourist gave Wainwright increased (though strictly guided) access to what he describes as a "very theatrical" city and its socialist-fairy-tale designs...the entire built world supports ideology. [images]- Architectural Digest |
Check out the best architecture book releases of the fall: ...a crop of new books are hitting the shelves with fall reading that’s are guaranteed to keep readers warm for the winter. Mark Lamster: "The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century"; "Atlas of Brutalist Architecture"; Abby Suckle & William Singer: "Cocktails and Conversations: Dialogues in Architectural Design"; Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen: "Exhibit A: Exhibitions That Transformed Architecture, 1948-2000"; Peter Aaron: "Syria Before the Deluge"; "Michael Webb: Two Journeys"; Warren Chalk, Peter Cook, David Greene, Reyne Banham, Michael Sorkin, Michael Webb: "Archigram - The Book"- The Architect's Newspaper |
Zachary Edelson, Anna Fixsen, Samuel Medina & Bridget Newsham: Fall Books Preview: 27 Top Picks: ...from North Korean architecture to cutting-edge material experimentation...a bracingly candid profile of Philip Johnson...there’s something for everyone here. -- Dominic Bradbury; Helen Thomas; Helen Thomas; Kimberlie Birks; Mark Lamster; Frances Ambler; Tatiana Bilbao; Donald Niebyl; Philip Jodidio; Seetal Solanki; Richard Pare & Jean-Louis Cohen; David Benjamin; etc.- Metropolis Magazine |
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