Today’s News - Tuesday, July 7, 2020
EDITOR'S NOTE: We're b-a-a-a-ck! Lots to catch up with: sad news, bad news, good news, and then some…
● We've lost Milton Glaser. Each of these tributes highlights different aspects of one of our heroes: Bonanos: "If they're talented and they're lucky, designer-artist-creators get to lob an icon out into the larger culture - he just kept hitting the bull's-eye, again and again" (great images & links to more great images!).
● Chayka: "Glaser made you look once, think twice. Looking back over his colorful, textured career, it becomes clear how anemic the dominant commercial graphic design of the 2010s has been."
● Anne Quito reprises her report from Glaser's studio last year: It's "Glaser's 90th birthday and he is spending it in his happy place: the office" + link to Q&A with Glaser + Walter Bernard.
● Pedersen "was lucky enough to have worked with Milton on a number of projects": excerpts of "Glaserisms" from a 2003 interview + Glaser's "12 Steps to Hell": 1. Designing a package to look bigger on the shelf.
● Sad news of a different kind: After 60 years, Contract magazine is closing up shop.
● Ravenscroft reports that, after 37 years, Blueprint magazine is ending its print edition - but will launch a digital "reimagined version" as a "content hub for architects and designers" (is that different than what the mag was?).
● On brighter notes: Lamster brings us a much-needed laugh with his "fan fiction review" of Kengo Kuma's new Rolex tower in Dallas that "is straight out of a superhero movie": Superhero Pegasus: "It's tough but not brutish. A building that shape-shifts seems right for a band of superheroes. And it's not too flashy or garish."
● Miranda brings us good news: Paul R. Williams' archive, "thought lost to fire, is safe - the blaze didn't, as has long been reported, erase Williams' legacy" - the Getty and USC will acquire it.
● Wainwright, meanwhile, parses "the scandal of excluded black architects. In one London borough, a quarter of residents are black. Yet of the 110 firms selected by the council to compete for £100m in fees, not a single one is led by a black architect."
● Moore mulls the up- and down-sides of turning vacant stores into housing: "The devil is in the detail. The waiving of planning rules has produced horrors - the proposed changes to high streets look reasonable in theory but catastrophic in practice."
● Jason Schupbach is leaving ASU and heading to Philly as dean of Drexel University's Westphal College of Media Arts & Design.
● Waite reports on the brouhaha surrounding the AA's director, Eva Franch, after a vote of no confidence for her 2020-25 strategic plan, while more than 150 notable names "urge the school 'not to proceed in removing Franch from her position' and that she should be given more time" (she's only been there since 2018).
● ICYMI: ANN feature: Peter Piven's "The New Norm, Part 2: Finances": Recommendations and mandates to fight the COVID-19 pandemic impacted architectural practices immediately. The operational changes have financial consequences.
Of protests, racism, and urban issues - the industry responds:
● King: "Toppled San Francisco monuments signal larger social changes about how and what we memorialize - anger and frayed nerves are palpable in our nation. If shared values somehow emerge from today's tumult, then that achievement will deserve a monument of its own."
● Green’s (great!) Q&A with Walter Hood re: his upcoming book, the pandemic, and Black Lives Matter: "Everything is unsettled at this moment. It’s the perfect storm. Until it changes, we’ll be back in the same position 20 years from now, asking why we’re not a diverse profession."
● Sayer takes a deep dive into how "the pandemic and protests have highlighted just how unequal our cities are - the reaction is indicative of what cities' priorities are: control is more important than public health - actions (and inactions) protect the wealthiest and harm the poorest."
● Chiotakis talks to Alissa Walker and Destiny Thomas re: how "pop-up parks, new bike lanes, and playgrounds, however well-intentioned, can prove detrimental if people from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds don't have input on how those developments are planned."
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Christopher Bonanos: Milton Glaser, Co-founder of New York Magazine and Creator of ‘I <heart> NY,’ 91: If they’re talented and they’re lucky, designer-artist-creators get to lob an icon out into the larger culture...If they’re great, maybe they create two. Glaser, though, operated on another plane - he just kept hitting the bull’s-eye, again and again, throughout his seven decades as an illustrator, graphic designer, art director, and visual philosopher and paterfamilias.- New York Magazine |
Kyle Chayka: Milton Glaser Made You Look Once, Think Twice: The polymathic artist...recognized the true job of graphic design: The greatest artistic fame might be the kind where few people know your name but everyone knows your work..becomes part of our shared visual lexicon. There aren’t many artists who get to see such a process happen during their lifetime...Looking back over Glaser’s colorful, textured career, it becomes clear how anemic the dominant commercial graphic design of the 2010s has been.- New Yorker |
Anne Quito: Milton Glaser: Work = Love: Today (June 26, 2019) is Milton Glaser’s 90th birthday and he is spending it in his happy place: the office...“The idea of retirement is disgusting to me,” he says. “I would drive my wife nuts for one thing.” Retirement, he argues, is an outdated construct from the industrial age..."We’re doing interesting work, aided in this case with this mechanical contrivance,” he says, referring to the computer...“Not having anything to do...I fear that more than anything else. It’s greater than the fear of death.”- Design Observer |
Martin C. Pedersen: A Tribute to the Great Milton Glaser: In more or less, his own wise words: ...died on his 91st birthday. He helped shape 20th century American visual culture...I was lucky enough to have worked with Milton on a number of projects...he was a bottomless well of wisdom, a kind of design oracle...Here are excerpts from an August 2003 interview I conducted with Glaser for Metropolis..."I believe that thinking about the consequences of your work - the issue of ethics - is essential" + Glaser's “12 Steps to Hell”: 1. Designing a package to look bigger on the shelf. -- Pushpin Studios; Seymour Chwast; Edward Sorel; Clay Felker; New York Magazine- Common Edge |
End of an Era: After 60 years, we are closing Contract magazine: ...and its affiliated events and website...roster of Emerald Design Group brands - Hospitality Design, Boutique Design, Healthcare Design, Environments for Aging, ICFF - will continue... last issue will be the July 2020 edition, and we will continue to publish content and our newsletters through September 1. -- Karen Donaghy; Paul Makovsky- Contract magazine |
Tom Ravenscroft: Blueprint magazine ends print edition after 37 years and 369 issues: ...has published its last print edition...and is set to launch a "reimagined version" later this year...magazine, which was launched in 1983 by Peter Murray and Deyan Sudjic, will [focus] on investing in its digital offering...will now focus on becoming a "content hub for architects and designers." -- Rowan Moore; Marcus Field; Vicky Richardson; Johnny Tucker- Dezeen |
Mark Lamster: The new Rolex tower in Dallas is straight out of a superhero movie: ...a fan fiction review: These are fraught times for Dallas...The city could use all the help it can get. But here’s some good news: Five homegrown superheroes have come to the rescue...There’s just one problem: They need a place to call home, a headquarters where they can plot their acts of derring-do...“Looks pretty cool. What is this thing?” Emmy: “The Rolex tower"...Peg: “It is distinctive...Tough but not brutish. I like the way it corkscrews up as it rises. A building that shape-shifts seems right for a band of superheroes. And it’s not too flashy or garish..." -- Kengo Kuma; Sadafumi Uchiyama- Dallas Morning News |
Carolina A. Miranda: Paul R. Williams’ archive, thought lost to fire, is safe. The Getty and USC will acquire it: In 1992, when Los Angeles went up in flames in the wake of the Rodney King verdict, one of the buildings claimed by fire...in 1955 it was transformed into a bank by Williams...[he] deposited his important papers there...the blaze...didn’t, as has long been reported, erase Williams’ legacy...most of the architect’s thousands of original drawings were safe at another location...35,000 architectural plans, 10,000 original drawings, [etc.]...serves as a chronicle of almost a century of architecture in the region...a cornerstone of the Getty’s 2-year-old African American History Initiative. -- Milton Curry; Maristella Casciato- Los Angeles Times |
Oliver Wainwright: 'People say we don’t exist': the scandal of excluded black architects: In one London borough, a quarter of residents are black. Yet of the 110 firms selected by the council to compete for £100m in fees, not a single one is led by a black architect: Southwark council declared that its New Architect Design Services Framework was a “first-of-a-kind” attempt to engage with a new generation of diverse designers...under the Equality Act, simply having an open tender is not good enough...councillor places the blame on the nature of the architecture profession itself...some suggest such thinking does a disservice to the minority-led practices that have succeeded against the odds..."If you want to be successful and earn some money as a black person, why on earth would you stick with architecture?” -- Elsie Owusu; Ye?mí Àlàdérun; Akil Scafe-Smith/Seth Scafe-Smith/Resolve Collective- Guardian (UK) |
Rowan Moore: Wouldn’t it be great for British town centres if people could just move into closed shops? As the effects of the pandemic scythe through high street brand...it makes sense, on paper, to hand over the spaces they vacate to people desperate for somewhere to live...There would be the added benefit that any homes achieved in this way would, in theory, reduce the pressure on the nation’s green belts...The devil, though, is in the detail...The waiving of planning rules has produced horrors...Boris Johnson's proposed changes to high streets looks reasonable in theory but catastrophic in practice.- Observer (UK) |
Arizona State University Design School Director Jason S. Schupbach Named Dean of Westphal College of Media Arts & Design: ...to succeed Allen Sabinson...The new dean joins Drexel September 1...At ASU, he led the ambitious ReDesign.School initiative...a key collaborator on ASU projects as diverse as the launch of the Studio for Creativity, Place and Equitable Communities...Previously, he was director of Design and Creative Placemaking Programs for the National Endowment for the Arts...- Drexel University (Philadelphia) |
Richard Waite: Global names rally to support under-fire AA [Architectural Association] director Eva Franch i Gilabert: More than 150 leading figures...urge the school ‘not to proceed in removing Franch from her position’ and that she should be given more time. Following a recent ballot of students and staff, more than 80% of the nearly 900 people in the ‘school community’, said they did not support her 2020-25 strategic plan...She also narrowly lost a vote of confidence by 52% to 48% in her role as director of the AA - a position she has only held since 2018.- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
John King: Toppled San Francisco monuments signal larger social changes about how and what we memorialize: The age of heroic statuary has reached a dead end...Justified revulsion drives many of the actions...But...it’s hard not to see adrenaline-fueled vandalism in the mix...anger and frayed nerves are palpable in our nation...“This is a moment of social unrest,” said Walter Hood...“Maybe it’s OK to overreact right now"...If shared values somehow emerge from today’s tumult, then that achievement will deserve a monument of its own.- San Francisco Chronicle |
Jared Green: Interview with Walter Hood: Black Landscapes Matter: "Everything is unsettled at this moment, and all the pieces have come together. It’s the perfect storm...Until it changes, we’ll be back in the same position 20 years from now, asking why we’re not a diverse profession. -- Hood Design Studio; Grace Mitchell Tada- The Dirt/American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) |
Jason Sayer: The Pandemic and Protests Have Highlighted Just How Unequal Our Cities Are: With a new urban crisis surfacing, designers from around the world propose radical changes to transportation, cooperative living, working, and public space: ...the reaction to protests and the pandemic is indicative of what cities’ priorities are: control is more important than public health...actions (and inactions) protect the wealthiest and harm the poorest. -- Nathalie de Vries/MVRDV; Shumi Bose; Jack Self; Finn Williams; Anna Puigjaner/MAIO; PriestmanGoode- Metropolis Magazine |
Steve Chiotakis: Designing cities without Black consent upholds white supremacy, says urban planner: Developed neighborhoods and cities, as innocuous or well-intentioned as they may seem, have contributed to the plight of African Americans and people of color. Pop-up parks, new bike lanes, and playgrounds can prove detrimental if people from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds don’t have input on how those developments are planned. -- Alissa Walker; Destiny Thomas/The Thrivance Group- KCRW (Los Angeles) |
ANN feature: Peter Piven, FAIA: The New Norm, Part 2: Finances: Recommendations and mandates to fight the Covid-19 pandemic impacted architectural practices immediately. The operational changes have financial consequences.- ArchNewsNow.com |
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