Today’s News - Wednesday, December 9, 2009
• Weinstein offers his picks of the best architecture books of '09: 10 crucial volumes from the classic to the iconoclastic.
• Glancey reviews a decade of architecture: it was all "taller, shinier, crazier," but "is the age of bling over?"
• Bell on why the profession really needs the Association of Architecture Organizations now.
• Architects decry the "concrete tsunami" that is "wiping out Russian heritage."
• A special report on climate change: Copenhagen offers the chance to do better (our fingers are crossed!).
• We're sad to hear NYC mayor caved in to building owners on policy that "would have put New York far ahead of other cities in the green-buildings movement."
• King's caveats re: SFMOMA's expansion plans; his guess: Don't put your money on 'Botta: The Sequel.'"
• Hawthorne offers his own caveats (and high hopes) for LACMA's Zumthor/Govan collaboration (forward - slowly - could be good).
• Why Pei's National Gallery needs an $85 million facelift: "It seems pretty clear that the architect's 'technological breakthrough' was more of an experiment than he realized."
• Expansion of the National Museum of the Pacific War "is embedded with multiple layers of meaning" - and fits perfectly into its Texas landscape.
• Saffron pays tribute to Malcolm Wells, "considered a crackpot in 1964," he was clearly an architect ahead of his time.
• London to get £600m chromosome-shaped genetic research complex.
• San Diego's Old Globe Theatre shows off new additions in Balboa Park.
• A new guide for rural development "doesn't pretend to have all the answers but it does highlight the type of questions that get thrown at you - the expected, and the unexpected" (like bones and relics).
• An Australian winery adds new pavilions (named for architects) and a new museum aimed at those who are who are interested in a "subversive adult Disneyland."
• Call for entries: weave the Gateway Arch back into the fabric of St. Louis and the region; and young architects/designers challenge to design in Carrara marble and glass.
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Best Architecture Books of 2009: 10 crucial volumes from the classic to the iconoclastic. By Norman Weinstein -- Steven Holl; Le Corbusier; Jerry Yudelson; Álvaro Siza; Vincente Guallart; Calatrava; Bauhaus; etc.- ArchNewsNow |
Review of the decade: Taller, shinier, crazier &hellip architecture in the noughties was an outlandish celebration of wealth...It began with the Millennium Dome and now comes to an end with the Burj Dubai...frame the noughties...like a pair of eye-popping follies...Is the age of bling over? By Jonathan Glancey -- Gehry; Hadid; Koolhaas; Libeskind; Alastair Lansley; Future Systems; Tony Fretton; Charles Barclay; Sutherland Hussey; Wilkinson Eyre; Marks Barfield; Richard Rogers; Diller + Scofidio; Toyo Ito/Cecil Balmond; Foster + Partners; Auer and Weber; Herzog & de Meuron/Ai Weiwei; David Chipperfield; Adrian Smith/SOM; etc. [slide show]- Guardian (UK) |
Why the Architecture Profession Needs the Association of Architecture Organizations (AAO): Centers of architecture, design museums, schools, and other entities that work to improve the built environment have flourished in recent years...But the challenges...have never been greater...AAO will help all of us to share best practices and ideas about how to respond to events that affect our communities... By Rick Bell- Architectural Record |
Concrete tsunami is wiping out Russian heritage, say architects: Design experts protest at picturesque wooden dachas being cleared to make way for 'concrete giants'. The historic architecture of Russia's provincial towns is being destroyed at an alarming rate...same depressing trends visible in Moscow are being replicated across Russia's "great European cities" -- Moscow Architecture Preservation Society- Guardian (UK) |
Getting warmer: A special report on climate change and the carbon economy: So far the effort to tackle global warming has achieved little. Copenhagen offers the chance to do better [links]- The Economist (UK) |
Bloomberg Drops an Effort to Cut Building Energy Use: After intense opposition from building owners, Mayor...has dropped the most far-reaching initiative of his plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions...It would have put New York far ahead of other cities in the green-buildings movement.- New York Times |
SFMOMA expansion depends on lots of ifs: ...the most formidable challenge facing the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as it prepares to enlarge its brick-clad citadel...The architecture must soar, or the new wing will mock the museum's grand dreams. By John King -- Mario Botta (1995)- San Francisco Chronicle |
Peter Zumthor, Michael Govan plot LACMA's future: ...we’re up to three architectural saviors for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in less than a decade...collaboration with Zumthor will face a few obvious hurdles. The first is simply vision fatigue...hiring three graying male European Pritzker winners in a row may stand out for all the wrong reasons. By Christopher Hawthorne -- Rem Koolhaas; Renzo Piano; William Pereira (1965); Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer (1986); Bruce Goff (1988)- Los Angeles Times |
An Ultramodern Building Shows Signs of Age: Despite the stylistic divide between Pope's spare but refined classicism and I.M. Pei's prismatic, sculptural modernism, the [National Gallery of Art] two buildings' exterior marble walls appear to have been constructed in the same way...They weren't...It seems pretty clear that the architect's "technological breakthrough in the construction of masonry walls" was more of an experiment than he realized.- Wall Street Journal |
Local architects' design is used at National Museum of the Pacific War; tells story of World War II using Texas Hill Country as backdrop...new George H.W. Bush Gallery...$15.5 million expansion...adds 32,500 square feet for display of more of the 25,000 items... -- Richter Architects [images]- Corpus Christi Caller-Times (Texas) |
Malcolm Wells, an architect ahead of his time: ...considered a crackpot in 1964...he lived long enough to see some of his most radical ideas become standard practice...Long before words like sustainability and green design became part of our vocabulary, he had identified the building industry as a major source of the world's environmental problems. By Inga Saffron- Philadelphia Inquirer |
London to get £600m chromosome-shaped genetic research complex: A design based on the genetic structures that carry human DNA has been chosen for the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI), not only for its symbolic importance but also because it should encourage scientists from different disciplines to mingle and co-operate. -- HOK [image]- The Times (UK) |
Old Globe Theatre shows off new additions: ...unveiled a $22-million theater and education center on its 3-acre campus in Balboa Park. -- LMN Architects- Los Angeles Times |
Digging deep: the challenges of rural developments: ...building homes in rural communities was a challenge, heightened by protected slow worms, a buried skeleton and Roman relics..."Sharing Positive Practice in Rural Development"...doesn't pretend to have all the answers but it does highlight the type of questions that get thrown at you - the expected, and the unexpected. -- Rooftop Housing Group- 24dash.com (UK) |
Avant-garde by the river: Moorilla Estate Winery pavilions...architectural gems, inhabitable sculptures that play with geometry and light...Still to come is $75 million Museum of Old and New Art, or MONA..."someone in New York who is like-minded with me, who is interested in the subversive adult Disneyland nature of the museum, might bother to come here" -- Nonda Katsalidis [images]- Sydney Morning Herald |
Call for entries: Framing a Modern Masterpiece: The City + The Arch + The River 2015: in the spirit of Saarinen...weave the Gateway Arch back into the fabric of St. Louis and the region; registration deadline: January 26, 2010- CityArchRiver 2015 Foundation |
Call for entries: Dressed Stone 2010: Water Shape Dressed Stone 2010: open to young designers/architects and students of architecture or industrial design...submit projects using white marble of Carrara and glass; sponsored by Antonio Lupi Design and Carrara Fiere; deadline: February 12, 2010- Abitare |
WORDS THAT BUILD Tip #21: Communicating Architectural Edges: Write about meaningful circulatory patterns of light by personifying the interplay of architecture and light. By Norman Weinstein- ArchNewsNow |
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-- Gehry Partners, LLP: Novartis Campus, Basel, Switzerland
-- Construction start: MVRDV: Rotterdam Market Hall, Rotterdam, The Netherlands |
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