Today’s News - Thursday, August 8, 2013
EDITOR'S NOTE: Just a reminder that we're taking Fridays and Mondays off through August. We'll be back Tuesday, August 13. Happy Weekend!
• Taylor reminisces about the "ill-fated" history of LACMA as told in "The Presence of the Past," and while she's a fan of Zumthor, she finds his proposal to be "a blob that could eat Los Angeles" (but "could be cool almost anywhere else").
• Melbourne picks the HASSELL/Herzog & de Meuron team for the Flinders Street Station make-over (never mind it was third behind the People's Choice pick - three University of Melbourne graduates' very cool proposal).
• The winning design has some Melburnians raving and others railing ("spaceship" or "pasta tubes" anyone?).
• Brake breaks the story of Rogers Marvel's "amicable divorce to form two independent practices" (we wish them all good things and continued great success!).
• Kats reports that Hadid has "incurred the wrath of preservationists and urban denizens" in both Beijing and Belgrade: "'All of our buildings respond to specific site' ring hollow."
• Kamin sees "all the trappings of sad reversion to business as usual" (despite a "stellar" shortlist) in the decision to not involve the community before an architect is selected for the DePaul arena/event center.
• Brownell parses two new RMIT University buildings in Melbourne that "could not be more different": is one "frighteningly beautiful or simply frightening?"; is the other "invigorating or merely vigorous?"
• Guess co-founders tap wHY Architecture to transform "one of Los Angeles' most notorious real estate white elephants" into a private art museum.
• Rochon cheers the transformation of a highway underpass in Toronto into "a lively park that glows at night" (skateboards and basketballs welcome!).
• Berman counters claims that "landmarking makes New York unaffordable - landmark designation tends to help, not hinder, the cause of keeping our neighborhoods affordable" (an argument that could apply anywhere).
• Five projects garner the AIA 2013 Educational Facility Design Excellence Award.
• Call for entries deadline reminder: Arch Record's Design Vanguard 2013 (submissions due Monday!).
• Weekend diversions:
• Webb weaves a rather woeful tale of MOCA's "A New Sculpturalism": "beset by curatorial and funding issues," it turned into "a missed opportunity. The material is fascinating; the presentation sadly deficient. You feel sorry for the younger architects who are most in need of a boost."
• Hawthorne has a much brighter take on the "revelatory" show, "Never Built: Los Angeles": it is filled with "beautiful architectural ghosts" that have lessons for today's L.A. and its leaders; of course, "not all of the projects provoke regret. More than a few qualify as bullets mercifully dodged."
• Amelar agrees: "'Never Built' exuberantly illuminates" that "the evolution of an urban area lies not only in what gets built - or demolished - but also in what fails to rise there" (dodging bullets included).
• Rossi finds it "encouraging that such a high profile architect has not used the exhibition format for self-aggrandizement," but "as a platform to promote a message" - one "that makes 'Richard Rogers: Inside Out' such a worthwhile visit."
• The Skyscraper Museum reprises "Urban Fabric: Building New York's Garment District" - in the Garment District.
• Sorkin seems more than a bit sour on Duany and Talen's "Landscape Urbanism and its Discontents": "Their critique is antique," and "winds up as another - and completely unnecessary - iteration of that beloved chestnut, New Urbanism vs. Modernism" (a nag and a glue factory included - Duany's lengthy rebuttal is worth a look, too!).
• "Archive: Design Biennial Boston" is more than a showcase of new architecture from Massachusetts - it's "a lever to pry open opportunities in this often hidebound city for young Boston architects."
• Filler expounds most eloquently about Michael Arad in an excerpt from "Makers of Modern Architecture, Volume II": Arad's 9/11 Memorial has "ratified him as one of the signal place-makers of our time."
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The Blob That Could Eat Los Angeles: The history of our ill-fated Los Angeles County Museum of Art is told in "The Presence of the Past: Peter Zumthor Reconsiders LACMA": I'm a fan of Zumthor, but this building could be cool almost anywhere else. By Julie D. Taylor [images]- ArchNewsNow |
Flinders Street Station winners of the Judges Award and the People’s Choice Award -- HASSELL/Herzog & de Meuron; Eduardo Velasquez/anuel Pineda/Santiago Medina; John Wardle Architects/Grimshaw; NH Architecture; Ashton Raggatt McDougall; BVN Donovan Hill/Zaha Hadid Architects [images, links]- Australian Design Review |
Flinders Street Station design has some raving and others railing: To some it looks like a spaceship, or the tentacles of a giant squid, or pasta tubes. But does it look anything like a railway station? Melburnians had mixed reactions... -- Hassell/Herzog &de Meuron [images, slide show]- Herald Sun (Australia) |
Rogers Marvel's Amicable Divorce: Leading New York architecture and urban design practice to be divided...to form two independent practices, to be known as Marvel Architects and Rogers Partners. By Alan G. Brake- The Architect's Newspaper |
Zaha Hadid Piques Preservationist Anger in Beijing and Belgrade: “All of our buildings respond to specific site"...Patrik Schumacher’s words...ring hollow when compared to the architecture [they] are erecting...In both cities, the firm has recently incurred the wrath of preservationists and urban denizens...Beko Masterplan in Belgrade, yet another mixed-use luxury development...just below the walls of the ancient Kalemegdan Fortress...Galaxy Soho...set an unwelcome precedent. By Anna Kats [images]- Artinfo |
DePaul arena input coming later rather than sooner: Urban project won't involve community reps until architecture firm is selected: ...the process has all the trappings of sad reversion to business as usual..."event center"...will be built smack in the middle of a dense urban neighborhood...And this is no ordinary neighborhood. By Blair Kamin -- John Ronan Architects; Krueck + Sexton Architects; Ross Barney Architects; Grimshaw Architects; OMA/AMO Architecture; Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects- Chicago Tribune |
A Tale of Two Buildings: An architectural contest of the people: ...two iconic structures were commissioned by RMIT University...designed by prominent local architects, the buildings...could not be more different...Design Hub...Frighteningly beautiful or simply frightening? Swanston Academic Building...Invigorating or merely vigorous? By Blaine Brownell -- Sean Godsell/Peddle Thorp Architects; Lyons Architects [images]- Architect Magazine |
Bluejeans moguls to turn Masonic lodge in L.A. into a private museum: The co-founders of clothier Guess have bought the Scottish Rite Masonic Temple on Wilshire Boulevard...one of Los Angeles' most notorious real estate white elephants... -- Maurice and Paul Marciano Art Foundation; Millard Sheets (1961); Kulapat Yantrasast/wHY Architecture- Los Angeles Times |
Out from the Shadows: Finding useful public space in an unlikely location, Toronto transforms a highway underpass into a lively park that glows at night: Underpass Park, a gutsy template that repairs a previously marginalized urban zone...Compared to high-profile waterfront parks in Toronto...[it] is a sleeper, except to those with skateboards or basketballs. By Lisa Rochon -- Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg (PFS)/The Planning Partnership [slide show]- Architectural Record |
Op-Ed: Preservation Can Contribute To Affordability: ...Real Estate Board of New York/REBNY claims that landmarking makes New York unaffordable...a true examination of this relationship actually shows that landmark designation tends to help, not hinder, the cause of keeping our neighborhoods affordable. By Andrew Berman/Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP)- Gotham Gazette (NYC) |
The AIA recognizes five projects with the 2013 Educational Facility Design Excellence Award: ...serve as an example of a superb place in which to learn...while demonstrating excellence in architectural design. -- LPA; Dull Olson Weekes – IBI Group Architects; Duvall Decker Architects; SmithGroupJJR; Lake|Flato Architects [images]- American Institute of Architects (AIA) |
Call for entries (deadline reminder): Design Vanguard 2013 (international): looking for the best emerging architects who have had their own practices for less than 10 years; no fee; deadline: August 12- Architectural Record |
A crucible of contention: Beset by curatorial and funding issues, a new survey of Los Angeles architects at MOCA is a missed opportunity, with genuine talent lost in an undiscriminating blare of projects..."A New Sculpturalism"...The material is fascinating; the presentation sadly deficient...You feel sorry for the younger architects who are most in need of a boost. By Michael Webb -- Christopher Mount; Thom Mayne/ Morphosis [images]- Architectural Review (UK) |
A city's unrealized ambitions in 'Never Built Los Angeles': The Architecture and Design Museum's exhibition is filled with dream projects that have lessons for L.A. and its leaders...revelatory...to corral the city's most beautiful architectural ghosts...Not all of the projects provoke regret. More than a few qualify as bullets mercifully dodged... By Christopher Hawthorne -- Sam Lubell; Greg Goldin; Clive Wilkinson Architects [slide show]- Los Angeles Times |
A Los Angeles We Never Knew: "Never Built: Los Angeles" at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum revives a century of ambitious schemes that might have been...from heroic to futuristic...L.A. can be thankful for dodging some serious bullets...As [it] exuberantly illuminates...the evolution of an urban area lies not only in what gets built—or demolished—but also in what fails to rise there. By Sarah Amelar -- Sam Lubell; Greg Goldin; Clive Wilkinson Architect; Neutra; Lautner; Morphosis; Gehry; Nouvel; Lloyd Wright;; S. Charles Lee; Frank Lloyd Wright; Robert Stacy-Judd- Architectural Record |
Richard Rogers: Inside Out: ...not a showcase of the architect’s impressive output but rather an exploration of its existence...it is encouraging that such a high profile architect has not used the exhibition format for self-aggrandisement. Instead, he has seen it as a platform to promote a message...In the context of the multiple challenges facing architecture and the society in which it operates, it is this message that makes Inside Out such a worthwhile visit. By Catharine Rossi [images]- Domus |
The Skyscraper Museum mounts "Urban Fabric: Building New York's Garment District": ...reprising in a pop-up space at 1411 Broadway at 40th St...summarizes Andrew S. Dolkart's years of research on the architects and developers who created the district. -- Jacques Ely Kahn; Cooper Joseph Studio- ArtDaily.org |
Rumble in the Urban Jungle: A recent book by New Urbanist authors revives an old battle with Landscape Urbanism: "Landscape Urbanism and its Discontents: Dissimulating the Sustainable City" edited by Andres Duany and Emily Talen...Their critique is antique...winds up as another - and completely unnecessary - iteration of that beloved chestnut, New Urbanism vs. Modernism. By Michael Sorkin- Architectural Record |
Can This Town Find A Home For New Boston Architecture? “Archive: Design Biennial Boston,” published by the folks behind...pinkcomma design gallery, is a showcase of new architecture from Massachusetts. But it’s also something more...a lever to pry open opportunities in this often hidebound city for young Boston architects. -- Chris Grimley; Michael Kubo; Mark Pasnik; Dan Hisel Architect; William O’Brien Jr.; Höweler + Yoon; GroundView; over,under; C&MP- WBUR Boston Public Radio |
A Master of Modern Architecture: ...one cannot predict whether Michael Arad’s youthful masterwork [September 11 Memorial] will be seen...as his lift-off point or apogee. But just as the test of time has already proven the validity of Maya Lin’s insights into the wellsprings of mourning...[his] profound variations and expansions on her themes have in turn ratified him as one of the signal place-makers of our time. By Martin Filler -- Peter Walker; J. Max Bond Jr./Davis Brody Bond [excerpt: "Makers of Modern Architecture, Volume II"]- Metropolis Magazine |
Nuts + Bolts #5: Why Mid-Sized Design Firms Should Hire a Director of Operations: Hiring a DOO has the potential to significantly increase revenues while creating an environment where designers design, not manage! By Michael Bernard, AIA, and Mary Breuer- ArchNewsNow |
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