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Today's News - Wednesday, August 1, 2007

The rebirth of the environmental movement: "actually an old idea repackaged for the 21st Century." -- Is the word "community" overused - and underserved - by architects and planners? -- Farrelly on architects as egoists: arrogance is an "occupational hazard." -- Hawthorne revisits MoMA: a rare chance "to watch as the critical consensus...waxes and wanes in a matter of months rather than decades." -- Kamin cheers a "stunning" political turnabout in previous plan to demolish an architectural and social landmark. -- Rooftops as garden spots (and selling points). -- The newest addition to Germany's edifice complex: BMW's shrine to horsepower. -- A "Manhattanized" vision for Las Vegas. -- A winning design to replace derelict cooling towers in Sheffield, U.K. -- Glancey garners a rare interview with Niemeyer: "What I could do at 60 I can still do now" - at 99 (a must-read!). --Ellen Dunham-Jones on retrofitting suburbia: "How do you overlay smart growth onto a sprawled system?" -- "Womenfolk" in Malaysia making their mark. -- Call for entries: The Buckminster Fuller Challenge. -- Another take on Rybczynski's "Last Harvest": "a gently entertaining and frequently enlightening tale...with no bad guys." -- One we couldn't resist: BP allowed to increase the amount of toxic chemicals pumped into the Great Lakes (what?!!?).

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Op-Ed: Another Inconvenient Truth: The Environmental Movement is Reborn...Sustainable development is actually an old idea repackaged for the 21st Century...with the scientific credentials and the political clout of the international community. By Richard Carson- Cyburbia

Op-Ed: In The Name Of 'Community': ...many architects, planners and developers like to talk creating a sense of 'community'. But glossy plans and new buildings generally do little to strengthen an area's 'social' fabric -- rather, it often can cause the reverse. By Ali Modarres- PLANetizen

Architects are egotists by their own design: But, of course, arrogance is just insecurity's flipside. And to some extent it goes with the territory...Architecture is a top-down kind of deal. Which makes arrogance, of the Ayn Rand type, an occupational hazard. By Elizabeth Farrelly- Sydney Morning Herald

That lived-in look: MoMA's huge new galleries: praised, then reviled. But Serra's work looks great in them...It's not often we get a chance to reassess our earlier judgments of a new building. It's rarer still that we get to watch as the critical consensus on a piece of architecture waxes and wanes in a matter of months rather than decades. By Christopher Hawthorne -- Taniguchi; Nouvel- Los Angeles Times

Cook County Hospital turnabout a victory for all preservationists...a potential triumph for the view that great landmarks can be found not just in a city's downtown, but also in its neighborhoods.... two-block-long hospital building is both an architectural landmark and a social landmark. By Blair Kamin -- Paul Gerhardt (1914)- Chicago Tribune

In New Jersey, the ‘Backyard’ Up on the Roof: Increasingly, developers are looking to rooftops to create shared, or even private, garden spots. -- Melillo & Bauer [images]- New York Times

BMW’s Shrine to Horsepower: Strolling through BMW Welt...it is easy to forget why the carmaker built this more than $250 million palace: to hand over cars to customers...rarely has so elegant a form been harnessed to so mundane a function. -- Coop Himmelb(l)au; Zaha Hadid [images]- New York Times

Cosmopolitan Resort Rising On Vegas Strip: ...will bring urban high-rise design and sophistication... "Manhattanized" vision for Las Vegas...crystal-shaped, 53-story dual high-rises will house a combined 3,000 condo-hotel rooms... -- Arquitectonica; Friedmutter Group- Rocky Mountain Construction

Insite Environments' Sheffield steel clinches cooling tower design win: Striking design...will form centrepiece of sustainable business park...along with two other prize winners by DLA Architecture and Astudio with Alfredo Caraballo respectively, can form “the basis of a shared vision” to regenerate the site. [image]- Building (UK)

'I pick up my pen. A building appears': He is arguably the world's greatest living architect. As Oscar Niemeyer prepares to turn 100, he grants Jonathan Glancey a rare interview - and looks back on an extraordinary career- Guardian (UK)

'In between' with Ellen Dunham-Jones: Georgia Tech's architecture program director favors 'sociable' design...focused on what she calls the "in between."...It's also called suburbia...co-writing a book called "Retrofitting Suburbs"...- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Even when you are gone, your buildings will stand forever": Womenfolk in Malaysia have come a long way, having contributed significantly to the country’s growth in many areas...Labeling hers a success story is the easy part...What’s amazing is how Nafisah Radin pulled it off. -- NR Architect- New Straits Times (Malaysia)

Call for entries: The Buckminster Fuller Challenge: Design science solutions that exemplify the trimtab principle: Doing more with less; deadline: October 30- The Buckminster Fuller Institute

Book review: This New House: "Last Harvest: How a Cornfield Became New Daleville" by Witold Rybczynski...a gently entertaining and frequently enlightening tale with many players. There are no bad guys here...- New York Times

EPA backs BP dumping: Lake Michigan will get more pollution...the first company in years allowed to increase the amount of toxic chemicals pumped into the Great Lakes.- Chicago Tribune

-- MAD Ai Weiwei: Hong Luo Club, Beijing, China
-- Exhibition: Sophie Calle: Exquisite Pain (Douleur Exquise), Luxembourg Cultural Capital 2007

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