Today’s News - Thursday, November 1, 2018
EDITOR'S NOTE: Tomorrow and Monday will be no-newsletter days - we'll be back Tuesday, November 6.
NOTE to our U.S readers: don't forget to turn your clocks/watches back an hour Saturday night (groan).
NOTE: And to all our fellow Americans: please VOTE on Tuesday, November 6!
● Rosa Sheng urges architects to join the Design Justice movement, and challenges them "to gain a broader understanding of how social justice is linked to our built environment. Do we address social impact only when the client mandates it, or when we have a personal connection at stake?"
● Mankad & Vázquez take a deep (and fascinating) dive into a theater and a hospital in Houston's 5th Ward that "have become bellwethers for changing a neighborhood without destroying its character - thanks in part to the Fabulous Fifth, a planning effort by the AIA Communities by Design program" that "will show the country what the redevelopment of a black community looks like" without displacing its longtime residents.
● Tsao & McKown Architects' 46-acre development in China "upends traditional urbanization" with a holistic master plan "with a social backbone" - Sangha is "a 'live-work-learn' community, where man-made structures are human-scaled, sensitive to nature, and nourished by work and culture."
● A referendum in Mexico puts the kibosh on the $13 billion Foster + Partners/FR-EE-designed Mexico City International Airport, already three years into construction - it "could cost the Mexican government $5 billion" (president-elect "said he hopes to turn it into 'a big sports and ecological center").
● Plitt reports better news for Foster + Partners: JP Morgan Chase has tapped the firm to design its new HQ at 270 Park Avenue, replacing the 1961 Union Carbide designed by SOM's Bunshaft and de Blois - preservationists did what they could do save it, to no avail, it seems.
● Eyefuls of the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, Ohio, designed by Allied Works, OLIN, and Ralph Appelbaum Associates - it is the "crowning jewel" of the city's decade-long redevelopment project along the Scioto River (it looks amazing).
● Welton sounds the alarm for a good cause to help restore Saint Germain des Prés, the oldest church in Paris - the French and American foundations vow to save it: "'We're going to keep at it until we fix the damn thing.' Now that's the kind of attitude that every American should be known for in Europe" (great pix - save your own star).
● Zandberg weighs in on the possibility of Niemeyer's "surreal architecture" of his Tripoli International Fairground becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and delves into his fascinating and "convoluted romance with Israel that ranged from mutual enthusiasm to disappointment and frustration" (hopefully, this won't fall behind a paywall).
● Elks introduces us to a British artist's efforts to awaken Lebanon's "sleeping beauties - abandoned historic buildings dotted with bullet holes and scarred by war" with free exhibitions and "community events to help stir public interest in their history" (great pix).
● Aedas's Griffiths explains why his and RSH+P's teams "looked to nature" in designing the immigration checkpoint building on a man-made island along the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, "the world's longest sea crossing."
Weekend diversions:
● Keane parses "Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture" at NYC's Center for Architecture that offers "evidence for the existence and significance of hip-hop architecture, as influenced by the musical genre and cultural movement" (repurposed shipping containers included).
● Zaha Hadid Architects's exhibition in Mexico City includes "KnitCandela," an "ultra-thin concrete shell that pays homage to Félix Candela" using technology developed at ETH Zurich - and carried to Mexico from Switzerland in a suitcase (fab photos!).
● Eyefuls of "12 Walls - Architecture and Contemporary Ornament" in Veszprém, Hungary, where "12 designers have coated walls of an aging school to illustrate the significance of architectural ornamentation" (great slide show!).
● Belogolovsky's "Sergei Tchoban: Drawing Buildings/Building Drawings" in Shanghai "brings together 50 of the architect's large scale urban fantasy drawings, deeply personal contemplations about his favorite cities," along with five realized projects.
Page-turners:
● Turrentine cheers Speck's "Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places" that "equips citizens with the tools they need to make their cities healthier - by making them more walkable"; it's "a primer on how to free our cities from the tyranny of the automobile."
● Pedersen's (great!) Q&A with Lamster re: his new, "thoroughly engaging" biography "Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century: The Man in the Glass House": "I came to both love and hate him at the same time."
● McDonald cheers architect and planner MacCabe's "The Civic Visions of Frank Gibney": A "revealing" and "copiously illustrated" book about the architect "who left his mark far and wide - now deservedly rescued from relative obscurity."
● Crosbie hails Harmon's "Native Places: Drawing As a Way to See": "What comes through is great empathy for the human beings who populate the places that he records. As subjects of this architect's drawings and commentary, ordinary objects take on extraordinary presence."
● An excerpt from Levitt's "Listening to Design: A Guide to the Creative Process": "As you get more and more practiced at identifying the creative impulse, you can learn to trust it, act on it and share it."
● Budds brings us a book we couldn't resist: "Pet-tecture: Design for Pets" offers some "paw-some structures" for creatures of all sorts (we want the structures - and the creatures - and the book!).
● ICYMI: ANN feature: Weinstein parses "Frederic Church's Olana on the Hudson: Art, Landscape, Architecture" that "combines resplendent photography with essays reflecting architectural myopia."
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Rosa Sheng: Does Design Perpetuate Injustice? Surprisingly in more ways than one might imagine: ...I challenge architects to gain a broader understanding of how social justice is linked to our built environment. We speak of aspiring to seek better outcomes for our civic realm, yet we often ignore or overlook how architecture...has influenced our built context in ways that prevent equitable and just access for people of color, immigrants, and the LGBTQ+ community...The design of private space marketed as public space has further blurred the line of who is responsible for creating inclusive civic places...Do we address social impact only when the client mandates it, or when we have a personal connection at stake? -- SmithGroup; AIASF committee Equity by Design (EQxD)- Architect Magazine |
Raj Mankad & Irene Vázquez: Betting on the Nickel: Two disused buildings in Houston’s Fifth Ward - a theater and a hospital - have become bellwethers for changing a neighborhood without destroying its character: In the late 1960s...890 buildings at the heart of Houston’s black community [were cleared]...for a single highway interchange...Now - thanks in part to the Fabulous Fifth, a planning effort by the American Institute of Architects Communities by Design program...will show the country what the redevelopment of a black community looks like...that doesn’t entail the loss of neighborhood culture, or the displacement of its longtime residents...Houston now has the chance to carry out a massive and comprehensive transformation if decision-makers can implement the Complete Communities vision they were working on before [Hurricane Harvey]. -- Smith & Company Architects [images]- Curbed |
A New Development Upends Traditional Urbanization with Holistic Architecture: New York’s Tsao & McKown Architects just realized a decade-long mission to create a better model for sensitive urban planning: ...Sangha is a holistic response to Shanghai’s rapid expansion into the historic canal city of Suzhou...here is a viable master plan with a social backbone...a [46-acre] “live-work-learn” community, where man-made structures are human-scaled, sensitive to nature, and nourished by work and culture. [images]- Architectural Digest |
Mexico Referendum Kills Foster + Partners/FR-EE Fernando Romero Enterprise Mexico City International Airport: ...70% of voters opposed completionof the project, which broke ground in 2015...cancellation would save Mexicans about $5 billion of the total $13 billion budget. But...could cost the Mexican government $5 billion due to "completed construction and existing contracts"... president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has reportedly said he hopes to turn it into “a big sports and ecological center for Mexico City.”- Architect Magazine |
Amy Plitt: Foster + Partners will design Union Carbide building’s replacement: JP Morgan Chase has selected the British firm...for its new HQ at 270 Park Avenue: ...the bank would tear down [the building], designed by SOM’s Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois - and replace the tower with a gleaming new 70-story building...preservationists rallied to try and save the original [1961] structure...Landmarks Preservation Commission hasn’t indicated that will change any time soon. Alexandra Lange: “It’s the worst form of shortsighted to throw this building away.”- Curbed New York |
National Veterans Memorial and Museum: Designed by Allied Works, OLIN, and Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the museum tells the stories of American veterans across all the armed services: Columbus, Ohio’s decade-long riverfront redevelopment project, which connects the city’s urban core with acres of greenspace and cultural amenities along city’s Scioto River, receives its crowning jewel... -- Brad Cloepfil [images]- Metropolis Magazine |
J. Michael Welton: Help Restore the Oldest Church in Paris: Construction started on it in 543 A.D. It was rebuilt after the Vikings sieged and sacked Paris in 845 A.D...Saint Germain des Prés...has not only survived, it’s endured...Being owned by the City of Paris presents certain difficulties...The city can’t afford to take care of all its historic properties, so the French formed a foundation...And they called on Brian Smith...to head an American foundation to do the same...“You can save your own star...contribute $150 they’ll name one after you...We’re going to keep at it until we fix the damn thing"...Now that’s the kind of attitude that every American should be known for in Europe. [images]- Architects and Artisans |
Esther Zandberg: Will Oscar Niemeyer's Surreal Architecture in Lebanon Become a UNESCO World Heritage Site? The Brazilian architect's Tripoli International Fairground, an unfinished masterpiece, is now up for belated recognition: ...it looks like...a surrealistic half-ruin that seems to have descended from the future right into the heart of Lebanon’s most ancient port...a “surrealistic fantasy"...it stands today is more of a symbol of a future never realized...He had a convoluted romance with Israel that ranged from mutual enthusiasm to disappointment and frustration. [images]- Ha`aretz (Israel) |
Sonia Elks: Sleeping beauties: Artist revives Lebanon's abandoned historic buildings: Dotted with bullet holes and scarred by war, a once iconic hotel in Lebanon abandoned for more than 40 years is coming back to life...British artist Tom Young studies the history of abandoned buildings...and creates paintings based on old photographs, stories, architecture and their surrounding environment...His exhibitions, held in the abandoned buildings, are free of charge and include community events to help stir public interest in their history. -- Naji Raji/Save Beirut Heritage [images - via Place / Thomson Reuters Foundation]- Star2.com |
Why architect of Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge’s passenger clearance building looked to nature for inspiration: Aedas boss Keith Griffiths wanted to create a unique structure that represented Hong Kong and left visitors feeling at ease: ...the wavelike architecture of Hong Kong’s passenger clearance building for the world’s longest sea crossing...two-storey building, sited on a 150-hectare artificial island, would serve as an iconic “front door” to amaze passengers...so they would be less stressed in an immigration checkpoint facility... -- Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners [images]- South China Morning Post |
Katharine Keane: Legitimizing and Embracing Hip-Hop Architecture: “Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture” showcases installations, completed buildings and proposed developments, façade studies, and academic work, to provide evidence for the existence and significance of hip-hop architecture, as influenced by the musical genre and cultural movement...features work by 21 artists, designers, students, and professors...much of the featured work is mounted on repurposed shipping containers. Center for Architecture, New York City, thru January 12 -- Sekou Cooke; Craig Wilkins; Michael Ford; Boris “Delta” Tellegen; James Garrett Jr./4RM+ULA [images]- Architect Magazine |
Zaha Hadid Architects designs ultra-thin concrete shell that pays homage to Félix Candela: ...part of the firm’s first exhibition in both Mexico and Latin America..."KnitCandela"...experimental scheme re-imagines Candela’s inventive concrete shell structures through the introduction of new computational design methods and formwork technology developed at ETH Zurich...carried to Mexico from Switzerland in a suitcase. Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mexico City, thru March 3, 2019 -- Block Research Group, ETH Zurich (BRG); Zaha Hadid Architects Computation and Design Group (ZHCODE); Architecture Extrapolated (R-Ex) [images]- designboom |
International designers team up to paint the power of architectural ornament: In Veszprém, Hungary, 12 designers have coated walls of an aging school to illustrate the significance of architectural ornamentation and what it means for and to young architects today..."12 Walls - Architecture and Contemporary Ornament" project...walls vying for visual attention in a cacophony of color and ornamentation. Each wall has its own agenda...serve as standalone works but end up interacting...to create a dazzling landscape inside the vacant [Elementary School of Music (formerly the Industrial School)]. thru November 30 -- Paradigma Ariadné/Dávid Smiló/Attila Róbert Csóka/Szabolcs Molnár; Heléna Csóka; Architecture Uncomfortable Workshop; Enorme Studio; False Mirror Office; Gyulai Levente; Adam Nathaniel Furman; Andrew Kovacs; MNPL Workshop; Giacomo Pala; Space Popular; TREES; Very Good Office [images]- The Architect's Newspaper |
"Sergei Tchoban: Drawing Buildings/Building Drawings": an exploratory exhibition that brings together 50 of the architect’s large scale urban fantasy drawings, deeply personal contemplations about...his favorite cities - Saint Petersburg, Rome, Amsterdam, Venice, Berlin, New York - along with documentation on five realizations; Vladimir Belogolovsky, curator. Hong Kong University Study Center, Shanghai, thru December 16 -- Tchoban Voss Architekten; SPEECH Tchoban & Kuznetsov- Hong Kong University |
Jeff Turrentine: Freeing Towns From the Tyranny of the Automobile: A How-To Guide: ...urban planner Jeff Speck equips citizens with the tools they need to make their cities healthier - by making them more walkable: "Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places"...can be thought of as a primer on how to free our cities from the tyranny of the automobile, moving them closer to their original identities as urban villages that foster community interaction by encouraging people to stroll sidewalks and linger in public spaces.- OnEarth magazine (Natural Resources Defense Council/NRDC) |
Martin C. Pedersen: Mark Lamster on His New Biography of Philip Johnson: ...a thoroughly engaging biography..."Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century: The Man in the Glass House"...Q&A about the book and the bundle of contradictions that was Philip Johnson..."Johnson has a certain voice. It’s antic, witty, cutting...I was very concerned about capturing his voice. I wanted you to be able to feel him in the book...trying to bring fresh eyes to some of this work that people either don’t know about or had dismissed. Or, conversely, had celebrated, when they shouldn’t...I came to both love and hate him at the same time."- Common Edge |
Frank McDonald: Ambition and Achievement by Fergal MacCabe: Rescuing architect Frank Gibney: A revealing book for anyone with an interest in Ireland’s mid-20th century development: The most famous Gibney...was Arthur Gibney...But there was another Gibney, not even distantly related to Arthur, who left his mark far and wide...has now been deservedly rescued from relative obscurity by retired architect and planner MacCabe in a copiously illustrated book that documents his hero’s often radical plans..."The Civic Visions of Frank Gibney"... -- Arthur Gibney/Sam Stephenson- Irish Times |
Michael J. Crosbie: How the Quick Daily Drawing Puts Humanity Back into Architecture: "Native Places: Drawing As a Way to See" by Frank Harmon explores the idea of sketching as a heightened way of seeing: [His] flickering hand imparts great energy...What comes through is great empathy for the human beings who populate the places that he records...The quick sketch is the perfect medium for focusing on how people might be shaped or changed by the architecture...This is fertile research for any architect...As subjects of this architect’s drawings and commentary, ordinary objects take on extraordinary presence... [images]- Common Edge |
Andrew Levitt: The Act of (Design) Creation: As you get more and more practised at identifying the creative impulse, you can learn to trust it, act on it and share it... If you feel that you have lost your creative spirit, you might as well take a break. Indifference and creativity do not mix...If you are not sure where to go with a particular creative act, bring it into your heart and listen. Ask yourself, does this agree with my heart’s desire? [excerpt from Levitt's "Listening to Design: A Guide to the Creative Process"]- Canadian Architect |
Diana Budds: A new book proves pets get the best design: Paw-some structures for dogs, cats, birds, fish, bees, and more: Though small in scale, these structures are inventive, experimental, and - of course - downright cute. "Pet-tecture: Design for Pets" by Tom Wainwright surveys over 200 of contemporary design’s most delightful products, homes, and ideas for animals of all types... [images]- Curbed |
ANN feature: Norman Weinstein: Writing About Architecture As If Only Art Matters: A new coffee table book about Frederic Church's Olana combines resplendent photography with essays reflecting architectural myopia. "Frederic Church’s Olana on the Hudson: Art, Landscape, Architecture," edited by Julia B. Rosenbaum and Karen Zukowski...Larry Lederman’s finely-detailed and exquisitely composed photos...arguably worthy enough to compensate for an architecturally-challenged text.- ArchNewsNow.com |
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