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Today's News - Wednesday, January 23, 2008

EDITOR'S NOTE: Our apologies for delay in today's news (techno-glitches while in road-warrior mode), but definitely worth the wait. ----- Pearman's take on the global efforts to build eco-cities (it's good and bad news). -- Hawthorne re: the "growing nostalgia in the West for the days when we too built with ambition and even abandon." -- An upcoming London symposium to explore lessons from the past for architects and planners shaping new cities. -- New "American gentry" bringing "bringing cash, culture - and controversy" to rural areas. -- Farrelly on what's wrong with misguided (and expensive) re-do of Sydney's Oxford Street: the "brilliantly funky" days are gone. -- London's Parliament Square may become clutter free, but is that a good thing? -- Ouroussoff the pessimist converts: his "faith is rekindled in architecture's future" by BMW's "cathedral for cars.' -- Miami heats up by Gehry concert hall breaking ground (we want to see the garage). -- Phyllis Lambert goes to the mat (once again) to save historic building from Quebec museum plans. -- Big plans for Matua Bay casino-hotel -- with promise to fit into a "pristine environment" (let's hope so, anyway). -- Author/editor Speaks named University of Kentucky College of Design. -- In their own words: Peter Cook, James Howard Kunstler, and Geoff Anderson. -- Prouvé's La Maison Tropicale takes up residence on the Thames. -- Heathcote heartily endorses the "one of the best artists you've never heard of" (a.k.a. Mrs. Koolhaas). -- We couldn't resist: Potty news from New Zealand and New York.

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Building the world's new eco-cities: enough theory, time for action: Can the 21st century city be the salvation of the planet...The good news is that it can be. The bad news is that we're not quite there yet. However, it's just a matter of time. Oh, and money. By Hugh Pearman -- Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill; Arup; Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM); Jaime Lerner; Foster + Partners; Koolhaas; Bill Dunster [images, links]- HughPearman.com (UK)

Cities of Will: If a camel is a horse built by a committee, then most cities are camels...One by-product of the astonishing changes in Beijing and Dubai is a growing nostalgia in the West for the days when we too built with ambition and even abandon. By Christopher Hawthorne -- Gehry; Hadid; Ando; Nouvel; Herzog & de Meuron; Koolhaas/Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA); Childs; Libeskind; Arad- Condé Nast Traveler

Symposium: New New Town: What the Past Can Teach the Future: What is the role of architecture and planning in shaping new settlements? London, February 20-21- The Architecture Foundation (UK)

The New American Gentry Moves Out Into the Country: Broad swaths of rural America are being gussied up as affluent retirees and other high-income types relocate to these remote areas. These new gentrifiers are bringing cash, culture -- and controversy -- with them.- Wall Street Journal

Shop, horror - nightmare on Oxford Street: Why...did Oxford Street, Sydney, drift from brilliantly funky in 1973...to now resembling nothing more than some unpicked corn cob with half its kernels brown and shrivelled? ...embarrassing $24 million upgrade that left the strip quite as unwell after as before... By Elizabeth Farrelly- Sydney Morning Herald

‘Clutter-free’ Parliament Square planned: ...hoped the heavily congested square can be changed into a tourist attraction by the time of the 2012 London Olympics...plans have raised controversy after the designers said they may move eight listed statues...English Heritage oppose this move... -- Vogt Landscape Architects- The Times (UK)

Polishing the Brand in a Cathedral for Cars: ...the glittering forms of the BMW Welt building appeared, and immediately rekindled my faith in architecture’s future...the most blatant as corporate self-promotion and the most exhilarating as architecture. By Nicolai Ouroussoff -- Wolf Prix/ Coop Himmelb(l)au; Zaha Hadid [slide show]- New York Times

Symphony on brink of a new world: Work is set to begin in Miami Beach on the New World Symphony's $200 million addition designed by Frank Gehry...will alsodesign a two-acre park and a public parking garage. [image]- Miami Herald

Phyllis Lambert fights to save historic monastery: Quebec Museum of Fine Arts plans pavilion at site- Montreal Gazette

Matua Bay casino-hotel will be high-tech but will blend with surroundings: ...$300-million project on Tinian...many innovative resource conservation measures...will integrate the large project into the beautiful and pristine environment... -- Takamatsu Architect & Associates- Saipan Tribune

Michael Speaks named dean of the University of Kentucky College of Design: ...heads Big Soft Orange, a Dutch-American urban research group based in Rotterdam and Los Angeles. He was the founding editor of the cultural journal Polygraph...- University of Kentucky News

ArchRecord Interview: Sir Peter Cook: ...his days with Archigram, his design goals for the Olympic Stadium, his frank advice for architecture schools, the architects and cities he admires, and the cities (and Royals) he doesn’t. [slide show]- Architectural Record

An Interview with the New President of Smart Growth America: Geoff Anderson, former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's [EPA] Smart Growth program- PLANetizen

TEDTalks: James Howard Kunstler: The tragedy of suburbia: ...public spaces should be inspired centers of civic life -- the physical manifestation of the common good. Instead, he argues, what we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about. [video]- TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design)

Tropical house comes to the Thames: ...an unlikely addition to the capital's skyline: a prototype Modernist house designed in the Fifties by French architect Jean Prouvé...La Maison Tropicale...an extension of the Design Museum's current exhibition about the architect's life and work...- Guardian (UK)

One of the best artists you’ve never heard of: The Chrysler Building lies exhausted on a rumpled bed beside the Empire State...surreal, often hilarious images are familiar to architects through their appearance in the 1975 book, Delirious New York, by her husband Rem Koolhaas...‘The World of Madelon Vriesendorp’, Architectural Association, London WC1, until February 8. By Edwin Heathcote- Financial Times (UK)

Price of DoC's (Department of Conservation) 'luxurious dunnies' irks MP Nick Smith...said it was ludicrous to commission architects specifically for one public toilet block. -- Matz Architecture- New Zealand Herald

Greetings, Earthlings. Your New Restroom Is Ready: ...the toilet calls to mind not a port-o-let, but rather the sort of room one imagines adjoined the personal quarters of Capt. James T. Kirk on the Starship Enterprise. It is a 25-cent journey to the future...- New York Times

Lovely, Spooky or Spartan, at Least These Restrooms Are Free: Reinventing the chamber pot for the 21st century was no small matter...Here now an unlikely Baedeker of the unspotless city. [slide show]- New York Times

Women in Green: A Conversation with the Authors: Is there a greener gender? Q&A with Kira Gould and Lance Hosey about their motivation and experience for writing the book, and what have they learned from the process. By Katie Swenson- ArchNewsNow

-- Nearing completion: Gehry Partners: Science Library, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
-- UNStudio: Agora Theater, Lelystad, The Netherlands

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