Today’s News - Thursday, January 14, 2021
Editor's note: Tomorrow and Monday will be no-newsletter days - we'll be back Tuesday, January 19. In the meantime: Stay well. Stay safe (and wear a mask!).
● ANN feature: Dave Hora: Nature of Order #3: Nos. 9-15 of Christopher Alexander's 15 Fundamental Properties of Wholeness: In contrast with the first eight, something feels more primal and elemental in these properties.
● John King re: the ransacking of the U.S. Capitol: "The violence inflicted on America underscored Trump's contempt for a diverse modern culture - his cynical embrace of the idea that some brands of architecture are morally superior to others" (i.e. his "idiotic" executive order).
● Carolina A. Miranda re: the insurgency at the Capitol. "And we thought 2020 was nuts. Welcome to Coup Week, 2021 - government assessment teams worked through the night to catalog the destruction. 'Wednesday was a difficult day for our campus,' Architect of the Capitol J. Brett Blanton said" + link to her thoughtful take on what the Capitol symbolizes.
● Hilburg reports on the "calls for the Architect of the Capitol's removal - Blanton's Office of Security Program is responsible for securing and hardening the Capitol campus."
● From across the Big Pond: The U.K.'s former construction minister - now business secretary - "tells architects they are making 'major contribution' to recovery" while "a debate is raging among architects and those in the wider industry about safety, critical worker status and the challenge of working while homeschooling children."
● Cajsa Carlson reports on Saudi Arabia's plans for The Line, a zero-energy, 100-mile-long, car-free linear city for a million people - "with all residents living within a five-minute walk of essential facilities" (no firm designing the master plan is named - skepticism abounds).
● Blair Kamin "reflects on 28 years of reviewing Chicago's wonders and blunders" (in more than 2,500 columns!): "Whether or not you agreed was never the point - my role was to serve as a watchdog, unafraid to bark - and, if necessary, bite - when developers and architects schemed to wreak havoc on the cityscape."
Deadlines:
● Call for entries: International Junior Wonders Drawing Competition: BD's drawing competition for home-schooled kids aged 5-11. "Each week we will choose a building type" (and cash prize for art supplies); deadline: every Friday (we can't wait to see the results!).
● Call for entries: Design Educates Awards 2021: best ideas and implementations of architectural, product, universal, and responsive design that can educate.
● Call for entries Submissions for Sophia Journal, 6th edition: "Visual Spaces of Change: photographic documentation of environmental transformations."
Weekend diversions + Page-turners:
● "Famed Toronto flâneur" (and urbanism authority, author, journalist) Shawn Micallef maps a leisurely stroll through the Mount Dennis neighborhood, "far from the city's core with dramatic topography and many delightful secrets to discover."
● The Metropolitan Museum of Art launches "The Met Unframed" - an "immersive AR experience that invites museum-goers to remotely explore digitally-rendered galleries."
● Kate Wagner cheers Peggy Deamer's "Architecture and Labor," which "recognizes architecture is not the creative calling one was promised as a 19-year-old. This is work, plain and simple. The prospect of unionization haunts the pages - and though it may seem like an all-too-simple solution to our current maladies, it isn't."
● Michael J. Crosbie cheers Mark Alan Hewitt's "Draw in Order to See" that "reaffirms the essential role of drawing in design - this broad, well-researched, and absorbing cognitive history of architectural design" also "addresses education as well as practice - an excellent road map of how we might get back to an architecture with a human face."
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ANN feature: Dave Hora: Nature of Order #3: Nos. 9-15 of Christopher Alexander's 15 Fundamental Properties of Wholeness: In contrast with the first eight, something feels more primal and elemental in these properties.- ArchNewsNow.com |
John King: Trump uses architecture as a weapon. His mob just ransacks it: The violence inflicted on America...underscored [his] contempt for a diverse modern culture...his cynical embrace of the idea that some brands of architecture are morally superior to others...executive order...was a victory for a group of classical architecture buffs...who want to impose their tastes on new government buildings...It suggests that there is unified vision of beauty that all of us share, except for those snooty urban elites...What's far worse is the notion that how buildings look is more important than what happens within...- San Francisco Chronicle |
Carolina A. Miranda: The U.S. Capitol’s architecture at the center of an insurgency: And we thought 2020 was nuts. Welcome to Coup Week, 2021...In the wake of the incursion...government assessment teams worked through the night to catalog the destruction. “Wednesday was a difficult day for our campus,” Architect of the Capitol J. Brett Blanton said...- Los Angeles Times |
Jonathan Hilburg: After Capitol is breached, calls for the Architect of the Capitol’s removal: ...the Capitol police and their failure to secure the seat of U.S. government has come under public scrutiny...some of that ire is falling on J. Brett Blanton...AOC’s Office of Security Program...is responsible for securing and hardening the Capitol campus...unless removed, Blanton is on track to serve as Architect of the Capitol until 2030.- The Architect's Newspaper |
Business secretary tells architects they are making ‘major contribution’ to recovery: ...former construction minister [Kwasi Kwarteng] makes case for sites to stay open - as some architects call for their closure: ...a debate is raging among architects and those in the wider industry about safety, critical worker status and the challenge of working while homeschooling children. The Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) and architects’ union the UVW-SAW have called for non-essential sites to be closed in an effort to reduce the spread of the coronavirus...RIBA president Alan Jones has called for architects and other construction workers to be given critical worker status...- BD/Building Design (UK) |
Cajsa Carlson: Saudi Arabia announces plans for a 100-mile, car-free linear city called The Line: ...zero-energy walkable communities for a million people...will have no cars or streets, with all residents living within a five-minute walk of essential facilities...part of Neom, Saudi Arabia's fully automated $500 billion region...entirely powered by renewable energy.- Dezeen |
Blair Kamin: Tribune architecture critic reflects on 28 years of reviewing Chicago’s wonders and blunders, and why such coverage should continue: .Whether or not you agreed...was never the point. My aim was to open your eyes to, and raise your expectations for, the inescapable art of architecture, which does more than any other art to shape how we live...my role was to serve as a watchdog, unafraid to bark - and, if necessary, bite - when developers and architects schemed to wreak havoc on the cityscape...In this town, architecture was, is, and always will be newsworthy - and worthy of sharp scrutiny...- Chicago Tribune |
Call for entries: International Junior Wonders Drawing Competition: Building Design/BD’s drawing competition for home-schooled kids aged 5-11: Draw your favourite building and be in with a chance of winning a £100 voucher for art supplies. Each week we will choose a building type; deadline: every Friday- BD/Building Design (UK) |
Call for entries: Design Educates Awards 2021: best ideas and implementations of architectural design, product design, universal design, and responsive design that can educate; deadlines: registration: February 1; late registration: March 1 (submissions due March 2)- Laka Foundation |
Call for entries Submissions for Sophia Journal, 6th edition: "Visual Spaces of Change: photographic documentation of environmental transformations"; deadline: February 26- Sophia Journal |
Famed Toronto flâneur Shawn Micallef maps a leisurely route through the Mount Dennis neighbourhood: Book an afternoon-long stroll with yourself and discover (or rediscover) a Toronto neighbourhood. Here’s where to start, stop and linger: ...far from the city’s core with dramatic topography and many delightful secrets to discover...Micallef - urbanism authority, author, journalist and documentarian...shares his current favourite Sunday stroll.- Toronto Star |
The Metropolitan Museum of Art launches immersive AR experience, "The Met Unframed": ...invites museum-goers to remotely explore digitally-rendered galleries...While it is currently open to the public with a reservation-based timed ticketing...during the COVID-19 crisis, acknowledges that some might not yet be fully comfortable stepping inside [and] allows the museum to reach a larger and more diverse audience free of geographic constraints.- The Architect's Newspaper |
Kate Wagner: People Power: In "Architecture and Labor," Peggy Deamer recognizes architects are workers: [Architecture] is not the creative calling one was promised as a 19-year-old. This is work, plain and simple...And yet architects do not see themselves as workers...slim volume is best understood as a resource...a series of thoughtful propositions to build on rather than blindly follow...disciplinary myth-busting...Perhaps the most interesting and enlightening parts...are her histories of events that have shaped architectural practice...The prospect of unionization haunts the pages...and though it may seem like an all-too-simple solution to our current maladies, it isn’t. -- Architecture Lobby- The Architect's Newspaper |
Michael J. Crosbie: Reaffirming the Essential Role of Drawing in Design: A new book on how architects visualize and design asserts the critical importance of working by hand: Mark Alan Hewitt’s "Draw in Order to See" is a resounding affirmation that not only must architects draw, they cannot help but do so...human beings are wired this way, as Hewitt demonstrates in this broad, well-researched, and absorbing cognitive history of architectural design...The value of his book is that it addresses education as well as practice.,,book is an excellent road map of...how we might get back to an architecture with a human face.- Common Edge |
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