Today’s News - Friday, December 6, 2013
• A new report should prove useful to all of us who advocate (and struggle for funding) for arts and culture in tight times: they represented $504 billion of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product in 2011 - surely a hefty arrow in our fundraising quivers!
• Russell is rapturous about Weiss/Manfredi's "temple to science" at UPenn: for a building type where "inspiration often lands on the cutting room floor," the Singh Center "is something of a miracle. This isn't wallflower architecture, nor attention-grabbing spectacle - it embodies a rarity: poise."
• Woodman parses OMA's De Rotterdam: it "embodies as no other" the city's "energy and openness...but perhaps something of the insecurity and naivety too."
• H&deM's Binswanger describes the Pérez Art Museum Miami as "a transparent gem rather than the jewel box" (great Baan pix and a video, too!).
• Feilden Clegg Bradley breaks its silence to defend its Southbank Centre scheme: "key elements" of the original design "have survived the revisions" - and skeptics are still not convinced.
• Eyefuls of Arch Record's Design Vanguard 2013 who hail from Europe, North America, and Asia (great presentation!).
• Eyefuls of Central America's 10 Hottest Young Firms "whose work shatters paradigms."
• Two we couldn't resist: a Christmas gift for the impossible-to-buy-for on your list: FLW's 1893 Winslow House in suburban Chicago (his first independent commission - he was just 26) is up for sale for a mere $2.4 million (great pix!).
• A French photographer introduces astronauts, rock stars, long-dead generals - and more - to Paris Metro commuters with vignettes that illustrate station's names: "the results are fantastically bizarre" (and the photos fantastic!).
• Weekend diversions:
• "Almost Lost" at London's Wellington Arch looks back at projects "we can all be a bit thankful that didn't happen."
• Boston's BSA Space offers "Rights of Way: Mobility and the City," with "dozens of examples of visionary urban thinking, showing how the city is shaped by the ways people move through it."
• Calatrava takes center stage "in the monumental spaces of the Charlemagne Wing in the Colonnade of St. Peter's Square" in Rome.
• Davidson decides not to set down Stern/Fishman/Tilove's massive "Paradise Planned" on "its own half-acre lot, give it a peaked roof, and simply move in": "I defy anyone who so much as leafs through this book to sniff dismissively at a verdant enclave ever again."
• Benfield cheers "The Guide to Greening Cities": it is "indispensible" to those "who need to understand how the bureaucracy works in order to be influential," and "a guide to Getting Things Done, pragmatically yet with vision."
• Lamont laments - and lauds - the "seductive beauty" of Campbell's "The Library: A World History": "It's a shame that a survey of the world's libraries focuses on institutions created for the privileged."
• A "scholarly monograph" on Bo Bardi raises hopes that her "growing reputation will encourage local authorities to take better care of her buildings."
• Heathcote and King offer their best-books-of-the-year gift guide with brief, pithy, and witty recommendations.
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U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and National Endowment for the Arts Release Preliminary Report on Impact of Arts and Culture on U.S. Economy: Arts and Cultural Production Account for 3.2% - or $504 Billion - of Gross Domestic Product in 2011- National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) |
Penn’s $92 Million Temple of Science Shakes Up Design: Buildings - especially research labs...are so complex that inspiration often lands on the cutting room floor. That’s why the Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia is something of a miracle. ..This isn’t wallflower architecture, nor attention-grabbing spectacle. Instead, the Singh embodies a rarity: poise. By James S. Russell -- Weiss/Manfredi [images]- Bloomberg News |
De Rotterdam: 17 years in the making, OMA’s latest building embodies Rotterdam‘s attempt to reinvent its passenger docks as a mini-Manhattan: It is a young city with all the energy and openness that such a description suggests but perhaps something of the insecurity and naivety too. OMA’s building embodies it as no other. By Ellis Woodman [images]- BD/Building Design (UK) |
Herzog & de Meuron's Pérez Art Museum Miami: ...a new and enlarged version of the former Miami Art Museum...Christine Binswanger describes the finished product, a transparent gem rather than the jewel box...“Basic in the sense of natural ingredients"... By Janelle Zara, Kristen Boatright -- Patrick Blanc [Iwan Baan images + video]- Artinfo |
Feilden Clegg Bradley defends Southbank scheme for first time: ...have broken their silence to defend their proposals for the £120 million redevelopment...Creating a “new skyline” for the low-rise arts centre...would be good for both the South Bank and London’s wider cultural scene, they said...key elements of the original scheme have survived the revisions.- BD/Building Design (UK) |
Design Vanguard 2013: Hailing from Europe, North America, and Asia, this year’s roster of emerging firms represent diverse backgrounds and attitudes toward design and the profession. -- Héctor Fernández Elorza Architects; William O’Brien, Jr.; Rural Urban Framework; Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office; Marc Fornes/TheVeryMany; JOHO Architecture; Grupo Aranea; Oyler Wu Collaborative; S-AR; Para-Project [slide shows]- Architectural Record |
Architecture South Of The Border: Central America's 10 Hottest Young Firms: ...up-and-coming, exciting architecture firms whose work shatters paradigms. -- Ambrosi i Etchegaray; Gracia Studio; Frida Escobedo; S-AR Stacion-Arquitectura; SanJoseReves; Benjamin Garcia Saxe; Estudio Ji.A Jose Isturain Arquitectura; Sketch; Paz Arquitectura; Cinco Patas al Gato [images]- Architizer |
Frank Lloyd Wright’s William Winslow House (1893) for sale: ...the property, now listed for $2.4 million ...has not been seen publicly since it was featured in a home walk in 1979...was Wright’s first independent commission after leaving Louis Sullivan’s architectural firm. He built it when he was just 26... [slide show]- Chicago Sun-Times |
Paris Métro Stops Come To Life In This Surreal Art Project: A French photographer introduces astronauts, rock stars, and long-dead generals to Paris commuters...Janol Apin's "Métropolisson" project...the results are fantastically bizarre. [slide show]- Fast Company |
The London that might have been: We can all be a bit thankful that most of these projects didn’t happen; A new English Heritage exhibition ["Almost Lost"] at London’s Wellington Arch looks back at projects that have threatened some of London’s most famous historic buildings and beighbourhoods. [images]- BD/Building Design (UK) |
"Rights of Way: Mobility and the City": ...a global exploration of mobility and transportation in cities...dozens of examples of visionary urban thinking, showing how the city is shaped by the ways people move through it; part of Overhaul: The 2013-2014 Transportation Series -- Höweler + Yoon Architecture; MILLIGRAM-office- BSA Space (Boston) |
"Santiago Calatrava: The Metamorphosis of Space" at the Vatican Museums, Rome: ...in the monumental spaces of the Charlemagne Wing in the Colonnade of St. Peter's Square...curated by Micol Forti, the exhibition presents, through 140 of his works, the complex and multi-form artistic production of this celebrated Spanish architect and engineer.- Vatican Museums |
Utopia by Design: "Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City" by Robert A.M. Stern, David Fishman, and Jacob Tilove: The authors deploy industrial quantities of homework and buckets of elegant prose...to rescue a “tragically interrupted, 150-year-old tradition” from modern disrepute...I defy anyone who so much as leafs through this book to sniff dismissively at a verdant enclave ever again. By Justin Davidson [slide show]- Architectural Record |
An Indispensible "The Guide to Greening Cities": From the people that know best....written primarily from the perspective of municipal sustainability officials, sharing their on-the-ground experience...really useful to advocates who need to understand how the bureaucracy works in order to be influential...a guide to Getting Things Done, pragmatically yet with vision. By Kaid Benfield [images, links]- The Atlantic Cities |
"The Library: A World History" by James W.P. Campbell and Will Pryce: It's a shame that a survey of the world's libraries focuses on institutions created for the privileged..."libraries that are designed to be seen"...For all the seductive beauty...there is a niggling sense that superb buildings get erected not to celebrate books and refine access to them, but rather as a way for architects to flex and test themselves...[and] benefactors to create expanses of wall for their good name to go up on. By Tom Lamont- Observer (UK) |
An Unheralded Brazilian Modernist: Niemeyer aside, Latin American architecture has received far too little attention in the US, so this scholarly monograph on Lina Bo Bardi by Zeuler R. M. de A. Lima is especially welcome...one hopes that Bardi’s growing reputation will encourage local authorities to take better care of her buildings.- FORM magazine |
Books of the Year: Architecture & Design: "The Library: A World History" by James Campbell; "Adhocism: The Case for Improvisation" by Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver; "The View from the Train: Cities and Other Landscapes" by Patrick Keiller; "Soviet Modernism 1955-1991: Unknown History" by Katharina Ritter, Ekaterina Shapiro-Obermair and Alexandra Wachter; "Art & Place: Site-Specific Art of the Americas." By Edwin Heathcote- Financial Times (UK) |
Gift guide: "Wunderkammer" by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien; "The Sea Ranch: Fifty Years of Architecture, Landscape, Place, and Community on the Northern California Coast" by Donlyn Lyndon and Jim Alinder; "Shingle Style: Living in San Francisco's Brown Shingles" by Lucia Howard and David Weingarten; "Building Seagram" by Phyllis Lambert; "Donald Olsen: Architect of Habitable Abstractions" by Pierluigi Serraino; "How to Study Public Life" by Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre; "Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China" by Bianca Bosker; "Never Built Los Angeles" by Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell. By John King- San Francisco Chronicle |
Sea Ranch can be yours for $65! (Between covers, that is): The definitive book on the definitive coastal utopia has been republished...an update that evolves in supple and satisfying ways...“The Sea Ranch: Fifty Years of Architecture, Landscape, Place and Community on the Northern California Coast” by Donlyn Lyndon with photographs by Jim Alinder... By John King- San Francisco Chronicle |
INSIGHT: The Place of Architecture as an Art Form in the Changing Cultural Landscape: The fine arts today do not have the shared social purpose they once did. But the built environment is different. Architecture is a collective art form and a collective endeavor. By Peter Gisolfi, AIA, ASLA, LEED AP- ArchNewsNow |
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-- Atelier Peter Zumthor: Shelters for Roman Archaeological Site, Chur, Switzerland (1986): It's astonishing to think it was designed and built almost 30 years ago.
-- Choreography of Thought: Dominique Perrault’s Sketches: "The silence, the mystery that surrounds a sketch constitutes a space in which thought is free."
-- Foreign Office Architects (FOA): Yokohama International Port Terminal (2002), Yokohama, Japan -- Farshid Moussavi; Alejandro Zaera-Polo
-- "The Monocle Guide to Better Living" helmed by founder Tyler Brûlé...It is big....global to the bone and filled with stuff of superb quality. |
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