Today’s News - Thursday, July 11, 2019
EDITOR'S NOTE: Tomorrow and Monday will be no-newsletter days. We'll be back Tuesday, July 16.
● ANN feature: Taylor cheers "Bauhaus Beginnings" at the Getty Research Institute that is so impressive, the president of Germany wondered, "How can there be so much great Bauhaus material outside of Germany?"
● Wainwright is so not wow'd by London's answer to the High Line: DS+R's The Tide "is a textbook piece of artwash and greenwash - it's difficult to work out quite how anyone thought this was a good idea. It has no purpose whatsoever, apart from providing a slightly different perspective on the surrounding carnage" (including "metallic dog-turd brown" cladding on "fat towers").
● O'Sullivan is not awed either: The Tide has "little in the way of either function or charm - calling it a park, linear or otherwise, is a joke - yet another starchitect-designed un-bridge. It's shallow greenwashing tacked onto a bad development" (ouch x 2!).
● Geddes: A "widely reviled plan to add a hulking addition" to Ottawa's historic, turreted Chateau Laurier hotel (by architectsAlliance) risks "marring" the city's historic core, and "serves as a warning that miscues in what's built or expanded or repurposed in this sensitive precinct aren't easily reversed.
● Chianello re: the Château Laurier "debacle": The 11th-hour effort to halt the unpopular "boxy" hotel addition "is unlikely to succeed: Rarely have we seen such thunderous - and largely unanimous - public outcry over a building addition" (another vote slated for this afternoon).
● Millard reports on the International Code Council suing the upstart startup UpCodes over free access to building codes: "It now falls to the courts to determine whether a copyright in this disruptive realm hinders or advances aims that all parties share." - Lam pens a masterful report on "what is on the minds of architects in different regions of Canada - read the buzz" (who didn't she talk to?!!?).
● The Centre Le Corbusier in Zurich (Corbu's final project) finally reopens to the public with "Mon univers" - a masterful mix showcasing his lifetime achievements.
● AIA releases new chapters of its "Guides for Equitable Practice" - "an educational resource to architects and firms on equity, diversity and inclusion issues."
● Bury cheers the Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab for "building an architecture for climate change" with "a bean-shaped buoy - a cross between an ice floe and an alien pod" created by "speculative eco-collaborations" that "demonstrate the practical potential of seemingly impractical approaches."
● ICYMI: ANN feature: Salingaros: "Signs versus Symptoms": A Reply to the Open Letter from British Architecture Students Calling for Curriculum Change: Asking for radical reforms in architectural education, this courageous appeal could help this latest effort be taken seriously, and not simply dismissed, as previous cries for reform have been.
Weekend diversions:
● "Smart Policies for a Changing Climate" at the ASLA Center for Landscape Architecture in Washington, DC, explores 20 case studies that "exemplify key planning and design strategies for building and enhancing communities that works in tandem with natural systems" + Submit Resilient Design Case Studies.
● Haber Glenn hails "Big Plans: Picturing Social Reform" at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - "a grand, thoughtful, and beautiful exhibition that explores the social-reform work of landscape architects, planners, photographers, and others active in the late 1800s and early 1900s."
● Wainwright considers a darker show: "What Remains" at London's Imperial War Museum is an "illuminating if depressing exhibition, which charts the extreme lengths we have gone to as a species to obliterate the physical traces of rival powers and competing ideologies."
● "Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America" at the Denver Art Museum "delves into some of the more joyful aspects of 20th Century design" in a "colorful and whimsical" show presenting over 200 design objects (looks like fun!).
● Gerfen brings us eyefuls of Rockwell's "Lawn" at the National Building Museum, "dotted with Adirondack-style chairs made from recycled milk jugs, blankets for lounging, lawn games, and hammocks - with ambient sounds of the outdoors: birds, crickets, wind" (and then some!).
● Dejtiar parses the Netflix show "Black Mirror" that "paints a picture of a near future that aligns with our current reality - nowhere is this more apparent than in the architecture shown in the series - and forces viewers to consider the impact of technology on their own lives."
Page-turners:
● J. Stephens cheers Goldberger's "Ballpark: Baseball in the American City" - "entertaining, insightful - one of the most engaging books to be written on either cities or baseball" (though it "ends ominously").
● Behre hails Rybczynski's "Charleston Fancy: Little Houses & Big Dreams in the Historic City" that "not only praises these unique buildings but also tells the story of their creation. It's a complicated tale."
● A. King considers Horwitz's "Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide" to be "difficult to classify. It is popular history and a biography of Olmsted, his America, and his writings - and a thoughtful reflection on our times."
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ANN feature: Julie D. Taylor: Beginning the Bauhaus: "Bauhaus Beginnings" at the Getty Research Institute lives up to its name - it is so impressive that, after a preview tour, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wondered, "How can there be so much great Bauhaus material outside of Germany?"- ArchNewsNow.com |
Oliver Wainwright: London's answer to New York's High Line? You must be joking: A tree-scattered, elevated walkway through air vents, The Tide is a textbook piece of artwash and greenwash - more pointless whimsy amid the tortured cityscape of Greenwich Peninsula: ...an elaborate steel structure specifically to elevate the value of a steroidal development of luxury apartments...a decoy to distract from the low levels of affordable housing...it’s difficult to work out quite how anyone thought this was a good idea. It has no purpose whatsoever, apart from providing a slightly different perspective on the surrounding carnage. -- Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Neiheiser Argyros- Guardian (UK) |
Feargus O'Sullivan: London’s ‘The Tide’ Is Public-Space Design at a Low Ebb: ...shows why it’s time to stop copying New York City’s High Line: Can we agree to stop calling things “the new High Line”? ...[it] is an expensive, heavily monitored add-on to a meretricious corporate development, possessing little in the way of either function or charm...calling it a park, linear or otherwise, is a joke...it seems an infrastructural gewgaw to drum up a little attention for the blah condominium cluster that surrounds it...yet another starchitect-designed un-bridge...It’s shallow greenwashing tacked onto a bad development... -- Diller Scofidio + Renfro- CityLab (formerly The Atlantic Cities) |
John Geddes: The Chateau Laurier battle, and the risk of marring Ottawa’s historic core: In the Parliament Hill precinct, just about everything built, upgraded or repurposed demands scrutiny: ...the boxy addition...will spoil the scene for anyone gazing at it from some prime vantage points...track record proves that historic buildings needn’t be left untouched to be properly respected. But it also serves as a warning that miscues in what’s built or expanded or repurposed in this sensitive precinct aren’t easily reversed. -- architectsAlliance; Diamond Schmitt Architects- Maclean’s (Canada) |
Joanne Chianello: Château Laurier debacle underscores gulf between public, city hall: 11th-hour effort to halt unpopular hotel addition unlikely to succeed: Rarely have we seen such thunderous - and largely unanimous - public outcry over a building addition. Then again, [it] isn't just any building. It's a beloved heritage site...the boxy addition is certainly distinguishable from the romantic, Gothic Revival style of the original...If the council had wanted major changes as the public was demanding, our elected officials should have rejected the proposal and ordered the architects to start over. They didn't, and here we are. -- architectsAlliance- CBC (Canada) |
Bill Millard: The International Code Council goes to court over free access to building codes: Potential productivity benefits for architecture, engineering, and construction may depend on the outcome of copyright litigation by the ICC against...startup UpCodes..."a for-profit company is trying to solve a problem that does not exist because the ICC already makes its model codes freely available to all to read on its website"...free digital instruments are already performing more nimbly than their paid equivalents. It now falls to the courts to determine whether a copyright in this disruptive realm hinders or advances aims that all parties share...- The Architect's Newspaper |
Elsa Lam: State of the Nation: What is on the minds of architects in different regions of Canada? To find out, Canadian Architect spoke to dozens of architects from coast to coast - to coast. Click the images to read the buzz.- Canadian Architect |
Le Corbusier's final project opens to the public with "Mon univers": His lifetime achievements...is being reconsidered with the public reopening of his final work, the Centre Le Corbusier, in Zurich...Originally named the Heidi Weber Museum, or “La Maison de l’Homme"...museum recognizes the building itself as central to the collection and narrative...; thru November 17 -- Museum für Gestaltung Zürich; Silvio Schmed; Arthur Rüegg- The Architect's Newspaper |
AIA releases new chapters of “Guides for Equitable Practice”: Guides provide an educational resource to architects and firms on equity, diversity and inclusion issues: ...cover strategies for attracting and retaining talent...using equitable recruitment and retention practices; skills for equitable and inclusive negotiations; and insights for how mentorships and sponsorships can make workplaces more diverse and inclusive.- American Institute of Architects (AIA) |
Louis Bury: Building an Architecture for Climate Change: The Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab evidences the importance of the artistic imagination for developing an architecture adequate to the planet’s climate future: Supported by the California College of the Arts’ (CCA) Center for Impact, and set to launch late summer...a contoured, bean-shaped white buoy...looks like a cross between an ice floe and an alien pod...draws inspiration from architectural and artistic predecessors...AEL’s speculative eco-collaborations demonstrate the practical potential of seemingly impractical approaches. -- Architectural Ecologies Lab; Buckminster Fuller; Robert Smithson; Mary Mattingly; SCAPE- Hyperallergic |
"Smart Policies for a Changing Climate": An Exhibition at the ASLA Center for Landscape Architecture: We need a new paradigm for building and enhancing communities that works in tandem with natural systems...Explore 20 case studies that exemplify key planning and design strategies; thru May 1, 2020 + Submit Resilient Design Case Studies -- SWA; Stoss Landscape Urbanism; Owen Dell and Associates/Billy Goodnick; Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates + HNTB; Kevin Robert Perry; Ten Eyck Landscape Architects; WRT; Hood Design Studio; Klopfer Martin Design Group; Spackman Mossop Michaels; Design Jones; Sasaki; Toole Design; Studio-MLA; Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects; Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects- American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) |
Ezra Haber Glenn: When ‘Big Plans’ Could Change the World: “Big Plans: Picturing Social Reform” looks back at the period of grand urban design and social reform in New York City, Boston, and Chicago: ...a grand, thoughtful, and beautiful exhibition that explores the social-reform work of landscape architects, planners, photographers, and others active in the late 1800s and early 1900s...museum is working to connect this project with its “Map This” outreach effort... Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, thru September 15- CityLab (formerly The Atlantic Cities) |
Oliver Wainwright: 'Look without looting': the Imperial War Museum charts a history of destruction: From burning books to bombed Buddhas...: "What Remains" explores a hundred years of cultural heritage in the firing sights - and the highly charged debates around repair, reconstruction and restitution that always follow the devastation...illuminating if depressing exhibition, which charts the extreme lengths we have gone to as a species to obliterate the physical traces of rival powers and competing ideologies. thru January 5- Guardian (UK) |
Denver Art Museum delves into the "Serious Play" behind Mid-Century Modernism: "Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America"...delves into some of the more joyful aspects of 20th Century design...colorful and whimsical...Presenting over 200 design objects...[show] argues that during the Mid-Century era, material innovations, advances in manufacturing, and a societal focus on leisure activities for a growing middle class came together...thru August 25 -- Charles and Ray Eames; Isamu Noguchi; Henry P. Glass; Herbert Bayer; Eva Zeisel; Alexander Girard- Archinect |
Katie Gerfen: "Lawn," Designed by the Lab at Rockwell Group, Opens at the National Building Museum: ...takes up the museum's entire great hall...latest iteration in the NBM's summer block party series...dotted with Adirondack-style chairs made from recycled milk jugs, blankets for lounging, lawn games, and hammocks...with ambient sounds of the outdoors: birds, crickets, wind... thru September 2 [images]- Architect Magazine |
Fabian Dejtiar: "Black Mirror": What Can it Teach us About the Future of Architecture? Unlike its TV and film counterparts, which imagine the future as an over-populated dystopian nightmare...[it] paints a picture of a near future that aligns far more with our current reality - and nowhere is this more apparent than in the architecture shown in the series...shows a future built on technology and forces viewers to consider the impact of technology on their own lives. -- Abelardo Riedy de Souza *1956); Piratininga Arquitetos (2009); Keichii Matsuda/HYPER-REALITY- ArchDaily |
Josh Stephens: Take Me Out to the City: Paul Goldberger analyzes the evolution of baseball stadiums and celebrates their essential connection to cities in "Ballpark: Baseball in the American City": ...entertaining, insightful...[he] carries an air of highbrow arrogance that is almost required for major critics. And yet...he unleashes his appreciation for the sporting vernacular and urban vernacular in this excellent book...one of the most engaging books to be written on either cities or baseball...The emotional resonance...is a testament to his thoughtfulness, his love for cities...His feelings become less tender in the second half of the 20th century..."Ballpark" ends ominously.- PLANetizen |
Robert Behre: Fancy that! New book heralds Charleston builders who took a different path: A lot of people think Charleston is getting too many new big buildings that don’t fit...But those who worry also should take heart that the city has seen some excellent, if eclectic, smaller scale work...celebrated in “Charleston Fancy: Little Houses & Big Dreams in the Historic City"...Witold Rybczynski...not only praises these unique buildings but also tells the story of their creation. It’s a complicated tale... -- George Holt; Jerry Moran; Vince Graham; Reid Burgess; Andrew Gould [images]- Charleston Post and Courier (South Carolina) |
Aaron King: Tracing Olmsted’s Journey Through the South: "Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide"...about Frederick Law Olmsted by Tony Horwitz, is difficult to classify...It is popular history and a biography of Olmsted, his America, and his writings. It is also reportage from rural America and a thoughtful reflection on our times...Despite Olmsted’s flaws, something he and posterity have in common is the value we place on Central Park...the progressive values that shaped Central Park were the result of Olmsted’s travels in the south. -- Calvert Vaux- The Dirt/American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) |
ANN feature: Nikos A. Salingaros: "Signs versus Symptoms": A Reply to the Open Letter from British Architecture Students Calling for Curriculum Change: Asking for radical reforms in architectural education, this courageous appeal could help this latest effort be taken seriously, and not simply dismissed, as previous cries for reform have been.- ArchNewsNow.com |
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