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Today's News - Monday, April 21, 2008

EDITOR'S NOTE: We're still on the road, but unexpectedly found ourselves with Internet access and some free time this morning, so can catch up with a short news round-up…not sure when the next posting will be…soon, we hope. ----- ArcSpace brings us an eyeful of Snøhetta's Oslo Opera House. -- Glancey finds it breathtaking. -- In NYC, the winning Hudson Yards bid will end up being "as different from the model as the politicians surrounding it." -- Ouroussoff minces no words about developers' sleight-of-hand in process. -- Davidson thinks Nouvel's MoMA tower is just what the neighborhood needs. -- Could there be a Gehry instead of Grimshaw at Fulton St. Transit Hub? -- Bayley's personal heartfelt plea to whoever is London's next mayor: please appreciate that "architecture is more important than politics" because "civilizations are remembered by their artifacts, not their bank rates." -- Hawthorne is a bit disheartened that "landscape architects are turning greenery into genuine civic momentum" everywhere but L.A. -- Kaplan hopeful (yet cynical) about another big L.A. plan. -- Heathcote's take on the new craze of collecting architecture as if it's art. -- Tonkin Liu cultivates 'Fresh Flower' pavilion for London Festival of Architecture. -- UNLV launches a program to groom a new breed of engineers with the Las Vegas Strip as its laboratory. -- An eyeful of "a collection of promised skylines we never got to see - and a few that may yet come to be." -- Rawsthorn's "bleak truth" about what's on in Milan. -- Notable retail projects from all over. -- An ode to Fred Bassetti, an "early, loud, persuasive voices" for good planning in Seattle. -- "Serious Play" conference coming up in Pasadena.

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Snøhetta: Oslo Opera House, Oslo, Norway

A mountain of music: The sloping marble roof of the Oslo opera house may be perfect for snowboarding. But the warm heart of this stunning building is just as thrilling...one of the most determinedly modern - and different - buildings of its type...anyone who travels to Oslo will want to see, and climb, Snøhetta's marble mountain. By Jonathan Glancey- Guardian (UK)

How the West Won’t Be One: Tishman Speyer bid selected, but design likely to change...When complete in 2016, the design will be as different from the model as the politicians surrounding it. -- Murphy/Jahn; Peter Walker- The Architect's Newspaper (NYC)

Now You See It, Now You Don’t: Developers have become magicians in the way they tailor architectural renderings for public consumption. Case in point: the design for the West Side railyards ...the end result is a distorted picture of reality, one that stifles what is supposed to be an open, democratic process. By Nicolai Ouroussoff [images]- New York Times

Where a 75-Story Tower Blends Right In: The “contextualists” have it all wrong: Jean Nouvel’s beast is exactly what 53rd Street needs...design...is an ecstatic reproach to Manhattan’s regularity...is in fact craftily contextual...the tower would complete a suite of early-21st-century designs, giving the block a period integrity that the future will want to protect. By Justin Davidson- New York Magazine

Gehry theatre may oust Grimshaw’s transport centre: $1.19bn (£508m) Fulton Street Transit Centre ...could now have a performing arts centre...built over it to save money and time.- Building (UK)

Will a new mayor bring a new view? In a heartfelt personal plea, our architecture critic takes issue with the current mayor's record and calls on the other leading contenders to build us a better capital. By Stephen Bayley -- Rogers; Foster; Simpson; Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF)- Observer (UK)

A grand park plan? Not really: Both visions for downtown's civic plaza are less than inspiring and raise questions about how the design will be handled...Landscape architecture has become the most dynamic of the design disciplines...around the world, landscape architects are turning greenery into genuine civic momentum. In downtown Los Angeles, that prospect seems as distant as ever. By Christopher Hawthorne -- Rios Clementi Hale Studios- Los Angeles Times

Visions for the Mangrove: Who Will Win Design Competition Has Little to Do With Who Should Win: At stake is the future of the 4.5-acre nexus of the Arts District and Little Tokyo...it's uncertain at best whether the design of any of the proposals will ever see the light of a Downtown dawn. But we go on hoping. By Sam Hall Kaplan -- Johnson Fain/Ankrom Moisan; Jerde Partnership; Rothenberg Sawasy Architects; Rios Clementi Hale Studios/Susiman Urban Design- LA Downtown News

Bridging the great divide: Architecture, despite its pretensions to art, was ultimately a commodity... What about the idea of collecting architecture the way some people collect art? By Edwin Heathcote
-- Richard Neutra; Le Corbusier; Frank Lloyd Wright; Mies van der Rohe; Jean Prouvé; John Allan/Avanti Architects- Financial Times (UK)

Tonkin Liu cultivates 'Fresh Flower' pavilion for London Festival of Architecture: ...portable steel pavilion, which will move around the five 'Festival Hubs'... [image]- The Architects' Journal (UK)

Technical minds meet fine art instincts: A UNLV program grooms a new breed of engineers... Entertainment Engineering and Design program...priceless advantage of access to the largest laboratory in the world, the Las Vegas Strip...Vegas is watching. So is Disney. And Broadway. And the world.- Las Vegas Sun

Mile-High Skyscrapers and Floating Cities That Never Were: ... a collection of promised skylines we never got to see -- and a few that may yet come to be... -- Frank Lloyd Wright; Albert Speer; Taisei; Hyder Consulting; Boris Iofan; Eugene Tsui; etc. [slide show essay]- Wired

Designers give recycling a creative twist at the Milan Furniture Fair: Let's be blunt...The bleak truth is that 99% of the tables, chairs and everything else introduced in Milan last week was either O.K. or bad...That said, there are always some good - and a few great - things to discover...The dominant theme...this year was survivalism... By Alice Rawsthorn [slide show]- International Herald Tribune

2008 Notable Projects: Retail -- Office dA | Johnston Marklee; WORK Architecture Company; Tighe Architecture; PATTERNS; dialogue38; Johnston Marklee; Wendy Evans Joseph; Lynch/Eisinger [images]- Architype Review

Fred Bassetti and 'warmed-up modernism' in architecture: ..along with his great architectural buddy, the late Ibsen Nelsen...were early, loud, persuasive voices for urbanism and urban planning, and Seattle owed a great deal to their advocacy...as Seattle went global in a brutally rapid way, we outgrew our regionalist vocabulary. Some might think that progress. Not me.- Crosscut (Seattle)

2008 Art Center Design Conference: "Serious Play," Pasadena, California, May 7-9- Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, CA)

Infill in Green: 22nd Street Condominiums: Lorax Development backs up its environmental claims with a GreenPoint Rated label for an infill project in San Francisco's Mission District. -- John Maniscalco/Architecture [images]- ArchNewsNow

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