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Today's News - March 23, 2007

New Taiwan performing arts center will have a Dutch accent (so says Romanian source, anyway). -- An "environmentally savvy" transformation of New Orleans tower (Schwartz finally wins WTC?!). -- Koolhaas's Singapore skyscraper touches the ground lightly (and pix to prove it). -- It looks like a yes vote for Gehry's King Alfred development in Hove (according to "unrivalled access to the decision-making process"). -- Tel Aviv's "most tempestuous city engineer" is practically contemptuous: "The fact that we are bringing superstar architects here who have no work at the moment does not turn Tel Aviv into a mini-Manhattan." (Libeskind and Meier with no work at the moment - that's news to us!). -- Liverpool's Aintree racetrack makeover sports "flamboyant grandstands" (that probably cost in value engineering a bland inside). -- Stern gets fit for Brown. -- Bernstein's Rudolph road trip (before any more disappear). -- Green roofs sprouting everywhere: the people and plants that make them happen. -- Offshoring still a buzzword (but for how long?). -- Smart Environments Awards deadline extended. -- Weekend diversions: Saffron visits Modernism and Moses: "...these shows effectively book-end a movement that imagined a better world but ended up giving us bad things in beautiful new ways." -- "Not satisfied with current architectural process," Russian museum shows he big, the bad, and the beautiful in utopian spires. -- "Building the Gherkin" documents how a skyscraper goes from "being reviled in theory to beloved in actuality." -- An overlooked architect who "deserves his place in the history books."

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Dutch Architect Firm Wins Bid To Design Taiwan Arts Centre: Mecanoo Architects beat 43 competitors Friday to win the bid to design...the National Kaohsiung Performing Arts Centre...- Playfuls.com (Romania)

Firm picked to remake CBD tower into hotel: [New Orleans] World Trade Center project to be environmentally savvy: $160 million project will also involve development of an international cultural museum and the conversion of Spanish Plaza into a public entertainment area. -- Frederic Schwartz Architects; Studio Jack Travis Architects; The Rockwell Group- The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

Koolhaas reveals design for Singapore skyscraper: ...36-storey residential tower will come in at 153m high and will be close to Orchard Road, Singapore’s famous shopping and leisure street. -- Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) [image]- Building (UK)

It's a yes to towers: £290 million King Alfred development will be granted planning permission by the slimmest of margins today... -- Frank Gehry- The Argus (UK)

Castles in the air: Israel Goodovitch...remembered as Tel Aviv's most tempestuous city engineer...In a new book, he confronts 40 of the city's towers..."The fact that we are bringing superstar architects here who have no work at the moment does not turn Tel Aviv into a mini-Manhattan." -- Patrick Geddes; Starck; Libeskind; Meier; Avraham Yasky; Ilan Fibco- Ha`aretz (Israel)

A different beast: Aintree’s makeover doesn’t have much in common with the troubled Ascot redevelopment – or any other stadium for that matter... -- Building Design Partnership (BDP) [images]- Building (UK)

Robert A.M. Stern to Design Jonathan Nelson Fitness Center: $45-million, 65,000-square-foot center...will also include a new quadrangle and a lobby atrium, which will serve as social gathering areas for students.- Brown University (Rhode Island)

A Road Trip Back to the Future: Much of the architect Paul Rudolph’s work is in danger of demolition. This four-stop road trip might be your last chance to see his legacy before it goes. By Fred A. Bernstein [slide show]- New York Times

The Window Box Gets Some Tough Competition: Cities from Los Angeles to Chicago are offering incentives for builders who use environmentally friendly green roofs. -- Renzo Piano; Rana Creek Habitat Restoration; Green Roofs for Healthy Cities; William McDonough + Partners [slide show]- New York Times

Blueprint From India: More architecture firms are offshoring. One California firm found outsourcing helped it cut fees by 30% -- FRCH Design Worldwide; Acres Group- BusinessWeek

Deadline extended: Metropolis/IIDA Smart Environments Awards; new deadline to request entry kit: April 6- International Interior Design Association (IIDA)

Utopia revisited: A century ago the heroic architectural style of Modernism promised that technology could save the world. Two major exhibitions look at what went right - and wrong. By Inga Saffron -- Robert Moses; Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius; Tatlin; Breuer; Aalto; Perriand- Philadelphia Inquirer

Moses as tyrant who saved N.Y.C.: "Robert Moses and the Modern City"...heretofore heretical view that New York needed a wise tyrant to push the creaky metropolis into a lifesaving infrastructural upgrade. By Inga Saffron- Philadelphia Inquirer

Dreaming spires: ...the Russian Museum has collected architectural utopias in its exhibition “Architecture: Ad Marginem” at the Marble Palace..."we are not satisfied with current architectural process. So this exhibition is our response to the situation." [links]- St. Petersburg Times (Russia)

Insightful film about skyscraper meets lofty goal: How does a skyscraper go from being reviled in theory to beloved in actuality? "Building the Gherkin"...traces that process... -- Norman Foster- Boston Globe

Form & Function: "Bruno Mathsson: Architect and Designer" at The Bard Graduate Center...designs are solid, though far from ground breaking...he certainly deserves his place in the history books, if for no other reason than his contributions to and promotion of Sweden's particular aesthetics.- New York Sun

Sacred Simplicity: Park East Synagogue, Pepper Pike, Ohio: Age-old materials and a straightforward design fulfill a growing congregation's vision of a sacred place. -- Centerbrook Architects and Planners [images]- ArchNewsNow

-- Mecanoo architects: La Llotja Theatre and Congress Center, Lleida, Spain
-- Michael Maltzan Architecture: Rainbow Apartments, Skid Row Housing, Los Angeles

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