ArchNewsNow

Home Yesterday's News Calendar Contact Us Subscribe

Today's News - Thursday, December 20, 2007

Governors Island picks design team; Ouroussoff and Pogrebin weigh (oh - Calatrava's gondola design is not off the table either). -- Finally some good news coming from New Orleans: waterfront plan taking shape; and Anderton chats with some of the Making It Right team. -- Historic Scotland on the hot seat. -- Beijing begins to protect some if its 20th century treasures. -- A Manhattan Beaux-Arts gem getting a much-needed face lift. -- An "Australian Idol" of historic Sydney landmarks has a cemetery in the lead. -- Big plans in the making for capitals of Kenya and Botswana. -- German villages being replaced with mining, but inhabitants are fighting back. -- Hume is happy Toronto will have a Gehry. -- Libeskind's ROM as "spectacle, nightmare and catalyst for change." -- Gardner is (mostly) thumbs-up about retro and "neo-preo" projects in NYC. -- Dyckhoff finds AR Awards for Emerging Architecture winners "what REAL architecture is about." -- A Prague practice bringing "modern-age flair" to the capital. -- The "eclectic designer of Dubai." -- Call for entries: Dubai gallery launches the Middle East's first regional annual design competition.

To subscribe to the free daily newsletter click here

A Landscape’s Isolation Is Turned Into a Virtue: The winning design for a 40-acre park that would unfold across the southern half of Governors Island...reflects...imaginative, civic-minded thinking that can restore our faith in city and state leaders. By Nicolai Ouroussoff -- West 8/Diller Scofidio & Renfro/Rogers Marvel/Quennell Rothschild/SMWM [slide show, links]- New York Times

New Orleans Waterfront Plan Takes Shape: A team of architects led by Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, Hargreaves Associates, TEN Arquitectos, and Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, will unveil the final design in February for revitalizing a stretch of the Mississippi River... [slide show]- Architectural Record

DnA/Frances Anderton: The LA-China Toy Connection: ...many are designed in Los Angeles. We visit the Otis College Department of toy design. Plus, a conversation with LA architects who are "Making It Right" with Brad Pitt in New Orleans -- Thom Mayne/Morphosis; Alejandra Lillo/Graft; Larry Scarpa/Pugh+Scarpa ; Steve Dumez/Eskew+Dumez+Ripple [images, audio]- KCRW.org (Los Angeles)

Hysteric Scotland? Planning quango's competence is called into question: The box-like house...looks like standard 1960s architecture to most people. However, that did not deter Historic Scotland granting it listed-building status – infuriating its owner and blocking his attempts to knock it down... -- Alexander Esme Gordon (1960s); Richard Murphy- The Scotsman (UK)

Architecture in Beijing protected: ...list of architectural structures designated for protection... constructed from the mid-20th century through the late 1970s.- China.org

A Centennial Face-Lift for a Beaux-Arts Gem: New York Public Library is restoring the facade of its main building, in time for the structure’s centennial in 2011. -- Carrère & Hastings (1911); WJE Engineers and Architects; François Jousse- New York Times

Historic cemetery may win a new lease on life: It was the Australian Idol of historic Sydney landmarks ...the gates of Waverley Cemetery are the favourite, ahead of Clifton Gardens pool, in an online vote to select a Sydney site for restoration.- Sydney Morning Herald

Revving up Nairobi: The Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) has come up with a five-pronged solution to the woes of Nairobi city...."For Nairobi to attain a 24-hour city status, we need to design, plan and position Nairobi as one of the world intelligent cities like Putrajaya in Malaysia"- The Standard (Kenya)

Gaborone gets new face: ...a new 25-year development plan...1997-2021 plan had a deficiency in that it was planning led as opposed to market led... -- Mosienyane and Partners International (MPI)- Botswana Press Agency (BOPA)

Germany's Sorb Minority Fights to Save Villages From Vattenfall: With 10 more villages threatened by Vattenfall's mining plans, Sorb inhabitants are fighting back...top environmental priority isn't the villages, but carbon-dioxide emissions.- Bloomberg News

AGO [Art Gallery of Ontario] design a welcoming site to see: It's easy to forget that architecture is as much about solving problems as creating icons...Gehry...has figured out how to move design forward without leaving the audience behind. By Christopher Hume- Toronto Star

The ROM [Royal Ontario Museum] as spectacle, nightmare and catalyst for change: It has been said architects do not invent anything, instead they transform reality. If any architect embodies that truism, it is Libeskind.- National Post (Canada)

An Impressive New Home for Pop Burger: In full retro mode, it invokes the sort of hospitality architecture you might have found in Manhattan back in the swinging 1960s; 120 W. 72nd St./Harsen House...the dominant look is...neo-preo: It is a new structure trying its damnedest to look pre-war. By James Gardner -- Ali Tayar/Parallel Design; BKSK Architects; Platt Byard Dovell White- New York Sun

Slow architecture that tastes good: The AR Awards for Emerging Architecture response to the bombast, fakery and crash-bang-wallop of globalisation is radical in its reactionariness...with their tendency towards good honest, well made, but still ambitious projects, seem not perverse, but stunningly prescient...This is what REAL architecture is about... By Tom Dyckhoff -- Chris Bosse/PTW Architects; Thomas Heatherwick; Ecosistema Urbano Arquitectos; Taketo Shimohigoshi; FAR: Frohn & Rojas- The Times (UK)

Adding spice to Prague architecture: A69 brings modern-age flair to building projects around the capital and countryside..."Fighting, arguing, conversing and compromising" – it’s all part of the creative process... [images]- The Prague Post

The Eclectic Designer of Dubai: Paul Bishop brings global design to the interiors of the Arabian Gulf. By David Sokol [images]- Metropolis Magazine

Call for entries: traffic gallery, Dubai, launches the Middle East's first regional annual design competition...open to all designers residing in the Middle East or of Middle Eastern origin; deadline: March 9, 2008.- Gulf News (UAE)

Welcome to the Neighborhoods: Jones Lang LaSalle Americas Headquarters...addresses corporate agility through space planning... -- IA Interior Architects [images]- ArchNewsNow

-- SANAA: New Museum, New York, NY
-- Competition winner: Coop Himmelb(l)au: Center of Performing Arts, Zarautz, Spain
-- The Architect’s Studio: I.M. Pei Concept Sketches: Musée d’Art Moderne

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window.
External news links are not endorsed by ArchNewsNow.com.
Free registration may be required on some sites.
Some pages may expire after a few days.

Yesterday's News