Today’s News - Thursday, December 3, 2020
EDITOR'S NOTE: Tomorrow and Monday will be no-newsletter days - we'll be back Tuesday, December 8. In the meantime: Stay well. Stay especially safe.
● ANN feature: Dave Hora's Nature of Order #2: The First Eight of Christopher Alexander's 15 Fundamental Properties of Wholeness: These are properties that describe how centers work together to produce life in a given scope of the structural fabric we inhabit, the wholeness.
● Sisson parses a new report that "paints a disturbing future" when it comes to "how climate change will slowly drown a significant part of the nation's already inadequate stock of affordable housing" ("some potential good news, too").
● Shannon Mattern (in a tweet): "I wrote about plexiglass as a pandemic prophylactic and a polymeric paragon of paranoia and racial prejudice" (and a fascinating history of plexi in architecture).
● Colleen Wilson's deep (deep!) dive into the potential future(s) for Penn Station, now "a shell of its former flawed-but-bustling pre-pandemic self" - the big question is whether it "will return to greatness for its bustling commuter dwellers or simply those who want to stand in awe of an urban wonder in the middle of New York City" ("lipstick on a pig" included).
● Kimmelman's latest walkabout - this time around the "resilient and proud" Chinatown, "the tiny community that remains the origin story for Chinese culture in New York" - with Nancy Yao Maasbach, president of the Museum of Chinese in America, as his guide.
● Ravenscroft x 2: After his Q&A with Architects Declare folks (see Tuesday's News), Foster + Partners withdraws from the climate change group "following tensions over signatories who have designed airports."
● That was yesterday - today he reports that Zaha Hadid Architects has also "withdrawn from climate action network" Architects Declare: "We need to recognize that we have a significant difference of opinion with the [AD's] steering group on how positive change can be delivered."
● Diana Budds reports that "a largely anonymous group of designers and architects" is demanding that MoMA remove Philip Johnson's name "from all spaces and titles" because of "his white-supremacist past" - 31 "prominent names" also signed on to the initiative that "joins other recent efforts to address racism in cultural institutions, design, and academia."
● ICYMI: ANN feature: Patrick MacLeamy: In this excerpt from his new book, "Designing a World-Class Architecture Firm: The People, Stories, and Strategies Behind HOK," the former HOK CEO contends that just as buildings need strong foundations, companies on firm footing stand a better chance of long-term success.
Cool competition (no fee; cash prizes!):
● Call for entries: Low-Rise: Housing Ideas for Los Angeles (international): asks architects and landscape architects to imagine appealing and sustainable new models of low-rise, multi-unit housing (sponsored by the Mayor's Office; overseen by Christopher Hawthorne, L.A.'s Chief Design Officer).
Weekend diversions + Page-turners:
● Philadelphia-based architect Joel Levinson launches the Daring Diagonal Virtual Museum, "dedicated to the obscure but surprisingly commonplace geometric motif of diagonality that appears in art, architecture, and numerous design-related disciplines - visual treats and fascinating articles fill the 33 galleries."
● Wainwright cheers "Memphis: Plastic Field" at the MK Gallery in "modernist" Milton Keynes - "a luscious feast of eye-searing colors, polished synthetic surfaces and clashing patterns, executed with brash, swaggering brilliance - exactly the saturated, joyful tonic we all need" in these times (a great analysis of Memphis history, too).
● Gompertz cheers "Memphis: Plastic Field" in Milton Keynes - "a town that took to post-modernism like Don Johnson to a fuchsia suit in Miami Vice. It is their gaudy, joyous world of ebullient expressiveness you enter -.Memphis was a rebuke to a cold, glum world. We could do with a bit of that spirit today."
● "All Will Be Well: Children's Rainbows from Lockdown" at the V&A: "step inside a large scale installation of these joyful artworks. These homemade rainbows became an international signal of hope and animated streetscapes around the world during lockdown."
● Kolson Hurley cheers "the enigma Jason Diamond plumbs in 'The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburbs' - an enjoyable, generous, and heartfelt tour around the suburbs of the American psyche."
● Brussat hails "The Art of Classic Planning: Building Beautiful and Enduring Communities" - a "comprehensive, fascinating and brilliant volume by Nir Haim Buras" that "should be the new bible for the planning profession. My joy at his thumping of modernism knows no end."
● Welton: "In a time of fake news - why not take a look at fake architecture around the world?" In Anne-Catrin Schultz's "'Real and Fake in Architecture: Close to the Original, Far from Authenticity?' we have the perfect read for 2020."
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ANN feature: Dave Hora: Nature of Order #2: The First Eight of Christopher Alexander's 15 Fundamental Properties of Wholeness: These are properties that describe how centers work together to produce life in a given scope of the structural fabric we inhabit, the wholeness.- ArchNewsNow.com |
Patrick Sisson: In Many Cities, Climate Change Will Flood Affordable Housing: Rising seas risk inundating housing markets in coastal cities that lack options for low-income residents, says a new study: “Sea level rise and coastal flooding threaten affordable housing"...examines how climate change will slowly drown a significant part of the nation’s already inadequate stock of subsidized and market-driven affordable housing...paints a disturbing future...problem is intertwined with housing discrimination...analysis undergirding the report...is far more precise than previous efforts...reveals some potential good news, too. -- Environmental Resource Letters- Bloomberg CityLab |
Shannon Mattern: Purity and Security: Towards a Cultural History of Plexiglass: ...demand for plexiglass has skyrocketed...The new architectures of protection hastily installed across our built environments aim to keep us safe. Yet the plexi shields and hoods are little more than the architectural equivalents of hydroxychloroquine, snake oil neatly packaged...jury-rigged shells mocked up so that we can keep working and consuming and pretending that social space hasn’t split open at its long-deepening fault lines...In contested neighborhoods, plexi...marks patrons as suspect.- Places Journal |
Colleen Wilson: New York Penn Station was plagued with problems before COVID-19. Is the pandemic the time to fix them? [It] didn’t need a pandemic to make it the least desirable transit hub...sits there, a shell of its former flawed-but-bustling pre-pandemic self...pandemic could be an opportunity to take advantage of the lull...to transform this derelict pit into a visionary hub...The question that remains is how - or whether - Penn Station will return to greatness for its bustling commuter dwellers or simply those who want to stand in awe of an urban wonder in the middle of New York City. -- FXCollaborative Architects; WSP USA; Vishaan Chakrabarti/Practice for Architecture and Urbanism/PAU; ReThinkNYC- USA Today |
Michael Kimmelman: Chinatown: Resilient and Proud: ...the tiny community that took root by the 1870s...remains the origin story for Chinese culture in New York...discover the monuments, parks and restaurants that have shaped the neighborhood for 150 years. -- Andrew S. Yuen; Calvert Vaux; C.B.J. Snyder- New York Times |
Tom Ravenscroft: Foster + Partners withdraws from Architects Declare climate change group: ...stating that aviation needs "the most sustainable buildings"...The decision to leave...was made following tensions over signatories, including...Zaha Hadid Architects, who have designed airports...The studios have been criticised for being involved in the aviation sector..."clearly contravening" climate pledges...Foster believes that aviation has a role in tackling climate change and preventing future pandemics.- Dezeen |
Tom Ravenscroft: Zaha Hadid Architects withdraws from Architects Declare: ...has withdrawn from climate action network...a day after fellow founding signatory Foster + Partners left the group... "As a founding signatory, we agreed to continue and accelerate our work towards progressive change in our built environment, However, today we need to recognise that we have a significant difference of opinion with the [AD] steering group on how positive change can be delivered."- Dezeen |
Diana Budds: Artists to MoMA: Take Down Philip Johnson’s Name: The founding director of the museum’s Architecture and Design department was a known white supremacist: ...a largely anonymous group of designers and architects documenting [his] influence on MoMA and the field of architecture - sent a letter to the museum, demanding that his name be removed from all spaces and titles. 31 prominent names in architecture, design, and art also signed on...What disqualifies Johnson...is his white-supremacist past, which is well documented...initiative joins other recent efforts to address racism in cultural institutions, design, and academia. -- V. Mitch McEwen; Kate Orff; Amale Andraos; Justin Garrett Moore; Bryan C. Lee- Curbed |
Call for entries (no fee!): Low-Rise: Housing Ideas for Los Angeles (international): asking architects and landscape architects to imagine appealing and sustainable new models of low-rise, multi-unit housing; cash prizes; registration deadline: December 18 (submissions due February 12, 2021)- Mayor’s Office & Christopher Hawthorne, Chief Design Officer for the City of Los Angeles |
The Daring Diagonal Virtual Museum launches: Diagonality Signature Geometry of the Modern Era “Hidden in plain sight” ...dedicated to the obscure but surprisingly commonplace geometric motif of diagonality that appears in art, architecture, and numerous design-related disciplines...Visual treats and fascinating articles fill the 33 galleries...- Daring Diagonal Virtual Museum |
Oliver Wainwright: An MDF bookcase for £12,000? The jolting genius of design superstudio Memphis: The high-voltage style, comic-strip colours and eye-watering price tags of this Italian collective changed the world of design - what better place for "Memphis: Plastic Field" than modernist Milton Keynes? The first glimpse you get of the garish thrills in store in this new exhibition is through a big picture window...of the MK Gallery...[for] anyone with a fondness for the era - it is a luscious feast of eye-searing colours, polished synthetic surfaces and clashing patterns, executed with brash, swaggering brilliance...exactly the saturated, joyful tonic we all need. thru April 25 -- Ettore Sottsass- Guardian (UK) |
Will Gompertz: Memphis Group: "Memphis: Plastic Field" at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes: ...a town that took to post-modernism like Don Johnson to a fuchsia suit in Miami Vice...Bold, brash, and squiggles galore: a synthetic garlic to ward off the minimalist vampires...It is their gaudy, joyous world of ebullient expressiveness you enter when walking into the exhibition...The show is as much a manifesto for their willingness to challenge the status quo as it is a celebration of a notable design movement...Memphis was a rebuke to a cold, glum world...We could do with a bit of that...spirit today. In the meantime, you can get a flavour of it at the MK Gallery. thru April 23 -- Ettore Sottsass- BBC News |
"All Will Be Well: Children's Rainbows from Lockdown": ...step inside a large scale installation of these joyful artworks paired with quotes from the young creators...These homemade rainbows became an international signal of hope and animated streetscapes around the world during lockdown. thru February 21, 2021- V&A Museum / Victoria and Albert Museum |
Amanda Kolson Hurley: The Weird Beauty of Suburbia: How can a place that we're intimately familiar with...be so unknowable? This is the enigma Jason Diamond plumbs in "The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburbs," a collection of essays tracing the "undercurrent of strangeness"...The result is an enjoyable, generous, and heartfelt tour around the suburbs of the American psyche...But suburbia is already changing, perhaps more rapidly than Diamond is willing to credit...there's reason to think the suburbs of the future will be more inclusive - and weirder - than the suburbs of today.- Reason Magazine |
David Brussat: “The Art of Classic Planning: Building Beautiful and Enduring Communities": ...comprehensive, fascinating and brilliant volume by Nir Haim Buras, who founded the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA)...urges planners to embrace anew the planning practices that worked for thousands of years before the onset of those we suffer under today...My joy at Buras’s thumping of modernism knows no end...book should be the new bible for the planning profession.- Architecture Here and There |
J. Michael Welton: A Real Book about Fake Architecture: In a time of fake news...why not take a look at fake architecture around the world? That was Anne-Catrin Schultz’s thinking when she sent out a call for entries on the topic...The result is a book called “Real and Fake in Architecture: Close to the Original, Far from Authenticity?” ...here we have the perfect read for 2020...- Architects + Artisans |
ANN feature: Patrick MacLeamy: The Pyramid Strategy: In this excerpt from his new book, "Designing a World-Class Architecture Firm: The People, Stories, and Strategies Behind HOK," the former HOK CEO contends that just as buildings need strong foundations, companies on firm footing stand a better chance of long-term success.- ArchNewsNow.com |
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