Today’s News - Thursday, October 24, 2019
EDITOR'S NOTE: Tomorrow and Monday will be no-newsletter days. We'll be back Tuesday, October 29.
● ANN feature: McGraw brings us Building Abundance #5: Small City Rejuvenation and Architectural Abundance: Schools are more than conduits of knowledge. Through regenerative design, architects can rethink of how learning is delivered that emphasizes its importance to small cities and rural areas.
● Wainwright bemoans Manchester selling its soul for luxury skyscrapers that do nothing to "help the city's rocketing homelessness problem" - only 28 "social homes were built last year" (with 13,500 households on the waiting list) - but "Mancunians' vocal criticisms are beginning to have an impact."
● Leigh minces no words about the "planned mutilation" of NYC's "glorious" Frick Collection: "'Stripped classical' doesn't do justice. 'Anorexic classical' is more like it. Selldorf's ham-handed scheme is so unwise and uncourageous" (the board's October 30 hearing could change things).
● Nouvel sues the Philharmonie de Paris architect over a €170.6m fine for the project being over-budget and behind schedule - the claim is "all the more unusual for the fact that the concert hall was targeting only the architect and no other business involved" (and could be "a death sentence for Nouvel's studio").
● Sayej, on a brighter note, reports on the City Canvas initiative "hoping to beautify the blahs" by inviting female and non-binary artists to create murals for some of NYC's over 300 miles of scaffolding.
● A shortlist of four teams of architects and landscape architects now vying for the National Medal of Honor Museum to be built in Arlington, Texas.
● Firehouse Magazine announces winners of its 6th annual Station Design Awards "recognizing outstanding achievement in station architecture and design" (to be showcased in the November issue and online).
● ICYMI: ANN feature: Claire Hempel: Three Trends to Know in Community Park Landscape Design & Planning: A look at the relevant trends incorporated into the new Branch Park in a mixed-income, mixed-use urban village in Austin, Texas.
Weekend diversions:
● Wainwright cheers "Moving to Mars" at London's Design Museum, a "fascinating show" and "an accessible introduction to the questions of space habitation, without dumbing down" - though "despite the technical ingenuity, the prototypes on show wouldn't make anyone much want to move to Mars any time soon."
● Moore says "Moving to Mars" is "an intelligent and thoughtful exhibition. Its most compelling sensation, though, is one of wonder."
● Welton wanders "Thomas Jefferson: Palladian Models, Democratic Principles, and the Conflict of Ideals" at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, where "the uplifting content of early American civic buildings is offset by the reality of enslaved labor - as this show reveals, the moral price for Jefferson was high."
● Morse says the Jefferson exhibit "has something to stir the masses - we will see how the masses receive it," and it "may help us better appreciate why Palladio's design elements remain so visually satisfying - if love lifts us up where we belong, so does Andrea Palladio."
● Jaklitsch considers "Made in Tokyo: Architecture and Living, 1964/2020" at NYC's Japan Society, designed and curated by Atelier Bow-Wow, is "a promising but ultimately underwhelming exhibition - what is interesting is that which is excluded or left unsaid."
● "Resident Alien: Austrian Architects in America" at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York spotlights "the distinct cultural contributions" of the likes of Loos, Neutra, Schindler, and Gruen, "practitioners whose expertise not only changed the profession but in some cases, the American zeitgeist."
● Eyefuls of the "pooch palaces" on view this weekend at Barkitecture 2019, celebrating its 15th anniversary in Austin, TX - to be auctioned for animal charities (some real wow's for your bow-wow!).
Page-turners:
● Hall Kaplan hails urbanists "celebrating the crafting and care of public spaces" in Chase & "Envisioning Better Cities: A Global Tour of Good Ideas"; Mallach's "The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America"; and editors Bharne & Khabdekar's "Affordable Housing, Inclusive Cities."
● Weder weighs in on "Driverless Urban Futures - A Speculative Atlas for Autonomous Vehicles": Meyboom "has issued one of the most comprehensive texts of this impending development," and "calls for architects to play a major role in this urban reformatting, given the multifaceted nature of this complex issue."
● Kamin gives (mostly) thumbs-up to Bey "training his camera and critic's intelligence on a wide range of unsung buildings and the role they play in people's lives" in his "eye-opening" book "Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago's South Side."
● Moore measures Jenkins' "A Short History of London: The Creation of a Wealth Capital," an "accessible history" ("if a little skimpy"): "I'd quibble with his animus against 60s architects. He claims that they never apologized for their mistakes: my own memories - they were agonized by self-flagellation. But it is no bad thing to be reminded that Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden were nearly swept away."
● Wainwright weighs in on Meuser's "Zoo Buildings: Construction and Design Manual," a "weighty new tome" that "aims to provide guidance for future zoos" - perhaps this "thought-provoking guide" will one day "find itself in the history section."
● Among the "60 beautiful stills and hand-written reflections" in Fiedler's "The Working Journal," Ranalli "reflected on his 40+ year career in NYC."
● An excerpt from Francis's "Bubbletecture: Inflatable Architecture and Design": These inflatable structures and "this deceptively simple technology has been at the forefront of architectural movements - enabling cutting-edge artistic practice and symbolizing technological utopianism."
| |
|
|
|
To subscribe to the free daily newsletter
click here
|
ANN feature: Edward McGraw: Building Abundance #5: Small City Rejuvenation and Architectural Abundance: Schools are more than conduits of knowledge. Through regenerative design, architects can rethink of how learning is delivered that emphasizes its importance to small cities and rural areas.- ArchNewsNow.com |
Oliver Wainwright: Welcome to Manc-hattan: how the city sold its soul for luxury skyscrapers: Giant towers are sprouting up all over Manchester. But how will sky lounges and penthouse olive groves help the city’s rocketing homelessness problem? How many social homes were built last year? Just 28. Yet Manchester is visibly booming...none of these schemes provide any [affordable housing]...we are a long way from that uplifting skyline...the centre “used to be a ghetto for people who couldn’t get out”, but now it’s a desirable place - it needs the swanky flats to match..."there aren’t enough expensive homes in the city"...Mancunians’ vocal criticisms are beginning to have an impact. -- Ian Simpson- Guardian (UK) |
Catesby Leigh: Degrading a Masterpiece: New York’s glorious Frick Collection does not deserve its planned mutilation: ...will cause considerable harm to the finest house museum in the U.S. This is particularly unfortunate because the Frick’s superb classical architecture is integral to the experience of its magnificent art collection...“Stripped classical” doesn’t do justice...“Anorexic classical” is more like it. With their dull, blank white walls, these spaces will be as cold as ice...Annabelle Selldorf’s ham-handed scheme...is so unwise and uncourageous...Let’s hope the old medical injunction - first, do no harm - prevails at the board’s October 30 hearing. -- John Russell Pope; John Barrington Bayley; Thomas Hastings- City Journal/The Manhattan Institute |
Philharmonie de Paris architect sues over fines for late opening: Jean Nouvel’s lawyers say sums demanded from him are ‘totally disproportionate’: ...suing the body that manages it over fines issued against him when the building opened over-budget and behind schedule...Philharmonie issued Nouvel, with a bill for €170.6m, which included vast penalties for late delivery....[claim] all the more unusual for the fact that the concert hall was targeting only the architect and no other business involved in the project...sums...“unprecedented in the world of architecture” and amounted to a death sentence for Nouvel’s studio.- Guardian (UK) |
Nadja Sayej: 'It makes people look up': the street artists taking over scaffolding: In a new project, female and non-binary artists have created murals to enliven construction boards in New York City: ...the city has over 300 miles of street-level construction - one initiative is hoping to beautify the blahs...a new project called City Canvas...powered by ArtBridge, a public art non-profit...hopes to bring roughly 30 mural projects over the two-year period to all five boroughs.- Guardian (UK) |
Shortlist announced for the National Medal of Honor Museum: Arlington, Texas, was selected in August as a fitting setting...a shortlist of four high-profile teams comprised of both architects and landscape architects with distinct visions for the project. -- Davis Brody Bond/Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates; Ennead Architects/Hargreaves Jones; Fentress Architects/Civitas; Rafael Viñoly Architects/MPFP- The Architect's Newspaper |
Firehouse Announces Station Design Award Winners: 6th annual program recognizing outstanding achievement in station architecture and design...will be published in the November issue... -- Charles Cunniffe Architects; Jeff Katz Architecture (JKA); Brown Reynolds Watford Architects; Manns Woodward Studios; Mitchell Associates Architects; LeMay Erickson Willcox Architects; H2M architects + engineers; Brinkley Sargent Wiginton Architects; etc.- Firehouse Magazine |
Oliver Wainwright: Just nipping out for a zero-gravity mocha! - "Moving to Mars," Design Museum, London: As this fascinating show makes clear, colonising the Red Planet will require technical genius - plus an eye for fashion and coffee you can drink upside-down: It’s an accessible introduction to the questions of space habitation, without dumbing down...For survivalist architects Mars represents a kind of utopian blank slate to test out their most extreme ideas...despite the technical ingenuity, the prototypes on show wouldn’t make anyone much want to move to Mars any time soon. thru February 23, 2020 -- Justin McGuirk; AI SpaceFactory; Galina Balashova; Hassell- Guardian (UK) |
Rowan Moore: "Moving to Mars" - a rendezvous with the red planet: This fascinating show offers close encounters with an actual Mars rover, footage from the planet’s surface - and ambitious plans for inhabiting it, should the need arise: Design Museum’s show is both a picture of a human idea and a sampling of intense human ingenuity...at pains to stress the human and the cultural, as well as the purely technical, aspects of the subject...an intelligent and thoughtful exhibition. Its most compelling sensation, though, is one of wonder. -- Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg; Chesley Bonestell; Raymond Loewy; Hassell + Eckersley- Observer (UK) |
J. Michael Welton: New Exhibition Explores Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic Architecture - and the Slaves Who Built It: In "Thomas Jefferson: Palladian Models, Democratic Principles, and the Conflict of Ideals," the uplifting content of early American civic buildings is offset by the reality of enslaved labor" ...Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, sets out to examine all those influences through a nearly overwhelming array of material...as this show reveals...the moral price for Jefferson was high.- Metropolis Magazine |
Gordon C. Morse: New Chrysler Museum exhibit intends to challenge: ...has something to stir the masses...we will see how the masses receive it...“Thomas Jefferson, Architect: Palladian Models, Democratic Principles, and the Conflict of Ideals" locks on Virginia’s dinged but unbowed leading son...his favorite Italian architect...and how democratic ideals get conveyed by design...may help us better appreciate why Palladio's design elements remain so visually satisfying...if love lifts us up where we belong, so does Andrea Palladio...With TJ, there are paradoxes...disparities between works spoken and deeds done. If the Chrysler helps us to sort through them, it would be a good and valuable thing. Norfolk, Virginia, thru January 19, 2020- The Virginian-Pilot |
Stephan Jaklitsch: Japan Society Exhibition Examines Tokyo from the 1964 to 2020 Olympic Summer Games: Designed and curated by...Atelier Bow-Wow, a promising but ultimately underwhelming exhibition...in New York City...intended to demonstrate both the development of urban life in Tokyo in the 1960s and how that life is being re-examined today...what is interesting in "MADE IN TOKYO: Architecture and Living, 1964/2020" is that which is excluded or left unsaid. thru January 26, 2020.- Architectural Record |
"Resident Alien: Austrian Architects in America" at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York: ...shining a light on the distinct cultural contributions that Austrian-American architects like Adolph Loos, Richard Neutra, and Rudolph Schindler have made over the last century in the U.S...practitioners whose expertise not only changed the profession but in some cases, the American zeitgeist. Think Victor Gruen, inventor of the mid-century American shopping mall...and why it so heavily affected American architecture. thru February 17, 2020 -- Carl Pruscha; Hans Hollein; Peter Trummer; Mark Mack Coop Himmelb(l)au; Barbara Imhof/Liquifer Systems Group; Maties Del Campo/Sandra Maninger/SPAN Architecture; Andrea Lenardin/A-L-M Projects; Raimund Abraham; Liane Zimbler; Julia Koerner; Herwig Baumgartne/B+U- The Architect's Newspaper |
Dig the designer dog houses of Barkitecture 2019: Peek at pics of this year’s pooch palaces: annual event in which that shows off Austin construction and design to benefit nonprofit shelter and animal advocacy groups. This weekend sees the 15th anniversary of the show (who knew?), now officially called Nulo Barkitecture Austin...For the first time, the doggy domains will be up for auction on Ebay as well as available for bidding at a silent auction at the local event.- Curbed Austin (Texas) |
Sam Hall Kaplan: Considering the Revival of Public Space: ...urbanists are celebrating the crafting and care of public spaces...an encouraging new awareness and appreciation for context and community..."Envisioning Better Cities: A Global Tour of Good Ideas" by Patricia Chase & Nancy K. Rivenburgh...journeys to well grounded places, projects and programs + "The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America" by Alan Mallach. Insightful and progressive + "Affordable Housing, Inclusive Cities" edited by Vinayak Bharne & Shyam Khabdekar...well-organized, informative and illustrated...case studies and real projects...- California Planning & Development Report |
Adele Weder: "Driverless Urban Futures - A Speculative Atlas for Autonomous Vehicles": ... our common concept of the automobile itself is on the way out...The driverless car...will eventually transform the very act of being at the wheel...As AnnaLisa Meyboom relays...this upcoming transformation will change the nature of driving and the design of cars...but also the format of our cities....[She] has issued one of the most comprehensive texts of this impending development, raising questions and issues that few designers, politicians, planners and voters have even begun to think about...calls for architects to play a major role in this urban reformatting, given the multifaceted nature of this complex issue.- Canadian Architect |
Blair Kamin: An eye-opening book shows that Chicago’s much-maligned South Side is stocked with architectural treasures. Many (but not all) have been overlooked: In “Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side"...Lee Bey pushes back against this harsh stereotype...[he] deserves credit for training his camera and critic’s intelligence on a wide range of unsung buildings and the role they play in people’s lives...But Bey’s account has some flaws...Yet if he overstates his case, his words and images still are worth pondering...[it] is an exercise in cultural excavation, unearthing value where some see only decay and disinvestment. His prose, which varies in quality, can be street-smart and entertainingly earthy... -- Eero Saarinen; John Wellborn Root; John Van Bergen; Perkins+Will; John Ronan; Ernest Grunsfeld Jr.; EXP architects; Cordogan Clark & Associates/AECOM- Chicago Tribune |
Rowan Moore: "A Short History of London: The Creation of a Wealth Capital" by Simon Jenkins: The columnist gets personal - especially about 1960s architects - in this accessible history of the capital: ...the dominant story of these times is one of politicians and public bamboozled by planners, transport engineers and, especially, architects made rigid by Corbusian dogma...I’d quibble with his animus against 60s architects...[He] claims that architects never apologised for their mistakes: my own memories of the aftermath of this period is that they were agonised by self-flagellation. But it is no bad thing to be reminded that Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden were nearly swept away...A great book...would offer a fuller account of those crucial postwar decades. What we have is a hybrid - an accessible history...if a little skimpy...- Observer (UK) |
Oliver Wainwright: Have zoos had their day? The architecture of zoos has come a long way from its barbaric beginnings. But not even mirrored pods and sci-fi islands can shake the feeling that these are relics from a bygone age: Natascha Meuser, author of a weighty new tome, "Zoo Buildings: Construction and Design Manual"...architect and professor, aims to...provide guidance for future zoos...A growing awareness of captivity-related problems...has caused a number of zoos around the world to close. It might not be too long before Meuser’s thought-provoking guide finds itself in the history section.- Guardian (UK) |
"The Working Journal": The book features 60 beautiful stills and hand-written reflections from the subjects: Michael Fiedler...continuing his passion for photography and storytelling...From circus jugglers to orchestra conductors, boxers, and even architects - like New York’s own George Ranalli...pioneer of loft living. He reflected on his 40+ year career in NYC, helping to renovate many old factories and neighborhoods.- Fox 5 New York |
Sharon Francis: The strange history and radical future of bubble architecture: Innovative, revolutionary and often avant-garde, inflatable structures are, by their very nature...a reimagining of traditional forms...this deceptively simple technology has been at the forefront of architectural movements in recent decades, enabling cutting-edge artistic practice and symbolizing technological utopianism. -- Walter Bird; Frank Lloyd Wright; Archigram; Ant Farm; Spatial Effects; Zieta Prozessdesign Studio; Grimshaw Architects; Herzog & de Meuron; Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Michael Rakowitz; Arata Isozaki; Anish Kapoor; Foster + Partners; BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group; etc.- CNN Style |
ANN feature: Claire Hempel: Three Trends to Know in Community Park Landscape Design & Planning: A look at the relevant trends that Design Workshop incorporated into the planning and design of the new Branch Park in a mixed-income, mixed-use urban village in Austin, Texas.- ArchNewsNow.com |
|
|
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window.
External news links are not endorsed by ArchNewsNow.com.
Free registration may be required on some sites.
Some pages may expire after a few days.
© 2019 ArchNewsNow.com