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Today’s News - Tuesday, January 29, 2019

●  A sad way to start the day: We lose Florence Knoll Bassett at 101: "Throughout her career she promoted the Modernist merger of architecture, art and utility in her furnishings and interiors" (word is that Paul Makovsky is penning her biography - what an amazing life!).

●  Kamin comes out with his "clear first choice" among the five shortlisted plans for the "massive O'Hare expansion": The Foster + Partners team's design "promises to be everything an airport should be - a spectacular presence, but not an empty spectacle."

●  Jessel reports on a lively panel that included the U.K.'s "Beauty watchdog" Roger Scruton, who "has admitted the government's beauty commission he leads could be a decoy to distract from some of the UK's more pressing housing issues," conceding: "I'm here in order to make it look like something is being done."

●  Ives reports on the possible fate of Singapore's Brutalist buildings: A few "are on the verge of being sold to private developers, prompting a last-ditch scramble by enthusiasts to have them protected. Others see them as important markers of national identity because they were designed by a generation of up-and-coming local architects."

●  The World Monuments Fund taps Selldorf Architects to transform the "250-year-old retirement digs of an 18th-century Chinese emperor" in Beijing's Forbidden City into a tranquil (i.e. no flat-panel screens) interpretation center ("It's totally intimidating," sayeth Selldorf).

●  It's a smart cities kind of day: Bozikovic offers a fascinating take on Sidewalk Toronto, and "what's been overlooked amid the controversy": "There is a coherent urbanism here: mutable, mixed, and fine-grained. A substantial and novel development project has been largely cast as a Trojan horse for 'surveillance capitalism.'"

●  Evitts Dickinson x 2: Perhaps Sidewalk Labs should look to Stockholm's Royal Seaport as "a model for smart-city development" that "stands out as a project that's remained true to its word."

●  She tells the cautionary tales of some authoritarian states that are using "smart megacities to transform their economies - a reminder that even for a centralized or authoritarian government, the smart-city concept is not a magical elixir" (and the notable names who have "detached themselves" from the projects).

●  Eyefuls (54 photos!) of the "Manhattanization" of San Francisco's skyline - 1980s vs. 2017.

●  Sussman considers further her findings of "The Primal Pattern" for architecture, and "what the 'House Experiment' ["draw a house as if they're five years old"] demonstrates so well," and even finds a "primal pattern happily greeting everyone" at JFK.

●  Fixsen reports that Herzog & de Meuron is donating a portion of its archive to MoMA: "A rich assortment of architectural models, drawings, and building fragments could pave the way for similar contributions and recalibrate global practices' relationship with MoMA."

●  Meanwhile, the M+ museum in Hong Kong buys Archigram's archive for £1.8 million: "The deal marks the culmination of a decade long search by the 1960s avant-garde group to find a suitable buyer" (despite the Arts Council objections, and despite being valued at £2.7 million in 2016).

●  Perkins Eastman "began the conversation of the practice's second generation of leadership 11 years ago" - and now announces a leadership transition to three co-CEOs (firm name remains).

●  ICYMI: ANN feature: rise in the city 2018 Update: Student designs for affordable housing in Maseru, Lesotho, Southern Africa, are in and - hot-off-the-press - winning designs will be prototyped! (A few prized blocks needing sponsors remain.)

Winners all!

●  Liz Diller wins AJ/AR's 2019 Jane Drew Prize, architectural photographer Hélène Binet is awarded the 2019 Ada Louise Huxtable Prize, and impressive shortlists in the running for the 2019 Architect of the Year award and the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture.

●  Four projects garner the AIA 2019 Institute Honor Awards for Regional and Urban Design, "based on how well the design addresses environmental, social, and economic issues through sustainable strategies" (great presentations).

●  The Society of Architectural Historians names architect Aymar Mariño-Maza and architectural historian Zachary J. Violette as the 2018 H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellows.

●  Brussat is always happy to learn who wins the Driehaus Prize, though "this tribute to Maurice Culot is really a lesson in how to admit you know very little about your subject."

●  This year's Arts Foundation Awards include the inaugural Experimental Architecture Award - a "category reflecting the many ways in which spatial design now manifests itself, from physical spaces to virtual ones"; Holly Hendry wins.

Deadlines:

●  Call for entries: InNOVAte 2019 Challenge: Disrupting the Built Environment: for entrepreneurs and innovators who have reached the prototype stage (and need funding).

●  Call for entries: CCA/Canadian Centre for Architecture 2019 Emerging Curator program (international).

●  Call for entries: 2019 Lyceum Fellowship: A traveling fellowship in Architecture: propose a sanctuary for San Francisco's Angel Island - open to students attending any accredited school of architecture in North America.


  

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