Perl's Architecture Weblog

2007 Fall

Associate Professor Robert D. Perl, AIA

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 Texas Tech University  College of Architecture  Robert D. Perl 

updated 16-Feb-2008

Face It webcast January 30
Reverberate two one-day design competitions January 30-31
Focus the Nation: Global Warming Solutions for America January 31

Plan now to participate in these important January 2008 events. -RDP

Events sponsored by:  
Metropolis magazine,
American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS), and
Architecture 2030

Новый облик Москвы?

ID4.ru Dec. 27 "Если звёзды займут нужное положение, в Москве через пять лет может появиться одно из высочайших в мире зданий. Сэр Норман Фостер, глава архитектурного бюро Foster+Partners, недавно провёл презентацию «Острова-кристалла» — колосса (который недоброжелатели уже окрестили «Новогодней ёлкой Москвы»), занимающего 25 миллионов квадратных метров на территории Нагатинской поймы. Оценочная высота — не менее 450 метров (без шпиля)."

World’s Biggest Building Coming to Moscow: Crystal Island

Inhabitat Dec. 26
"The statistics for the project are absolutely staggering; floor area alone will be four times the size of Pentagon in Washington DC. The incredible 1500 ft. tall multi use structure will feature 900 apartments, 3000 hotel rooms, an international school for 500 students, cinemas, a theater, sports complex and much more. There will also be a 16,500 space underground parking lot for all the visitors. The Crystal Island visitors will be able to enjoy panoramic views of Moscow on the viewing platforms located 980 ft. above ground. And as we’d expect from Foster + Partners, this soon-to-be world’s biggest building will also incorporate a number of sustainable design features into the overall scheme."

Chinese Unveil Mammoth Arts Center

New York Times Dec. 24
"Compared variously to a floating pearl and a duck egg, the titanium-and-glass half-dome of the National Center for the Performing Arts formally opened its underwater entryway to Chinese officials and dignitaries here over the weekend. The $400 million complex, a concert hall, opera house and theater under one space age span, is designed to be the center of Chinese culture, just as Tiananmen Square next door was designated this country’s political center. The complex’s lush, dazzling interior, sophisticated acoustics and mechanical wizardry rival any hall in Europe or the United States, its promoters say. Chen Ping, the center’s director, proclaimed it “a concrete example of China’s rising soft power and comprehensive national strength” during the opening ceremony on Saturday night. Yet the center, designed by the French architect Paul Andreu, has attracted at least as much attention for its cost overruns, safety concerns and provocative aesthetics...
Mr. Andreu said that he envisioned the hall as a tribute to the traditional Chinese image of heaven and earth, round above square. His bubblelike soaring glass dome encloses several performance spaces and is suspended above a shallow pool. Viewed at night, illuminated from within, the dome resembles a spaceship hovering over a calm lake. But on dim days when the haze and dust of Beijing cover the silvery titanium shell, the hall can look no more distinguished than an airport service hangar. A few years ago a group of Chinese architects organized a vocal petition campaign to protest the design. They said it blended poorly with the Stalinist Great Hall of the People next door and high vermilion walls of the imperial Forbidden City across the street. Their effort received a boost in 2004 when the roof of a new terminal building at the Charles de Gaulle International Airport near Paris, which Mr. Andreu also designed, collapsed. Some critics of the design said that the complex’s entryway, a subterranean glass-enclosed corridor extending 250 feet under the artificial lake, posed safety risks in the event of structural problems or a terrorist attack. The project faced stoppages and reviews, and was several years late and many tens of millions of dollars over budget."

High Noon in New Orleans: The Bulldozers Are Ready

New York Times Dec. 19
"Ever since it took over the public housing projects of New Orleans more than a decade ago, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been itching to tear them down. Now, after years of lawsuits and delays, it looks as if the agency will finally get its Christmas wish. The New Orleans City Council is scheduled to vote on Thursday (pdf) on whether to sign off on the demolitions of three projects. HUD already has its bulldozers in place, engines warm and ready to roll the next morning.
Arguing that the housing was barely livable before the flooding unleashed by Hurricane Katrina, federal officials have cast their decision as good social policy. They have sought to lump the projects together with the much-vilified inner-city projects of the 1960s. But such thinking reflects a ruthless indifference to local realities. The projects in New Orleans have little to do with the sterile brick towers and alienating plazas that usually come to mind when we think of inner-city housing . Some rank among the best early examples of public housing built in the United States, both in design and in quality of construction...
This mentality also threatens other public buildings in New Orleans that can be considered 20th-century landmarks. If the government gets its way, a rich architectural legacy will be supplanted by private, mixed-income developments with pitched roofs and wood-frame construction, an ersatz vision of small-town America. That this could happen in a city that still largely lies in ruins is both sad and grotesque...

Cast as the city’s saviors, architects are being used to compound one of the greatest crimes in American urban planning."

The Building, Digitally Remastered

Technology Review J/F

"Fifteen years ago, it would have been difficult--and in some cases impossible--to engineer the buildings in these pages. Now powerful computer-assisted design and manufacturing techniques let architects build according to wholly new geometries. In this era, the rectilinear glass box has become a quaint relic of the predigital past."

I've posted something in the blog on each of these buildings at least once during the last year. -RDP

"Phaeno Science Center
Zaha Hadid Architects
Wolfsburg, Germany, 2005
Most of the Phaeno Science Center's weight rests on a series of scattered concrete cones that seamlessly taper down from the building's underbelly. But the cones are not only structural supports: they also house a bookstore, a theater, and the museum's entrance. Computers configured the exact cone placement necessary for the curvaceous design to work, and a new material called self-compacting concrete filled it out. It is the only concrete capable of sustaining a structure with such sweeping curves and tight angles."

"Hearst Tower
Foster + Partners
New York, NY, 2006
The Hearst Tower's triangular frames, known as diagrids, eliminate the need for any vertical steel columns around the building's perimeter. It is the first building in North America to feature this ­gravity-­defying technique. So efficient is Foster's design that the building uses 20 percent less steel tonnage than a conventional building of its size."

"Turning Torso
Santiago Calatrava
Malmö, Sweden, 2005
From top to bottom, Calatrava's anthropomorphic apartment tower twists 90º. The building was constructed by stacking nine warped cubes, each five stories high, on top of each other; each cube rotates about 11º from the one below it. An external spine buttresses the twist, mimicking a human spinal column, while an exoskeleton sprouts from the spine to provide wind resistance and damp the building's vibrations."

"30 St. Mary Axe, "The Gherkin"
Foster + Partners
London, England, 2004
The pickle-shaped 30 St. Mary Axe owes its bulging and tapering structure to a diagrid steel framework like that of the Hearst Tower, which allows the perimeter to remain column-free. Its aerodynamic profile reduces wind load and creates a difference in air pressure between the inside and outside that draws cooler outdoor air in through panels in the façade. Thanks to this and other features, like abundant natural light, the building consumes as little as half as much energy as other office buildings its size."

Renzo Piano, Hon. FAIA, Named 2008 AIA Gold Medal Recipient

"Piano praised for his sculptural, technically accomplished, and sustainable forms."

KieranTimberlake Associates, LLP Receives 2008 AIA Architecture Firm Award

"Firm noted for its work with sustainable design and research."

Stanley Tigerman, FAIA, Awarded AIA Topaz Medallion

"Recipient known as distinguished educator and innovative architect."

Norma Sklarek, FAIA, Selected as 2008 Recipient of the Whitney M. Young Jr. Award

"First African-American woman to become a registered architect and an AIA Fellow."

Richard Meier’s Atheneum Selected to Receive 2008 AIA Twenty-five Year Award 

"Visitors Center for New Harmony is the starting point for the tour of this historic town."

AIA Press Releases December 13, December 18

Let the ‘Starchitects’ Work All the Angles

New York Times December 16

"It's hard to pinpoint when the “starchitect” became an object of ridicule. The term is a favorite of churlish commentators, who use it to mock architects whose increasingly flamboyant buildings, in their minds, are more about fashion and money than function. Often the attacks are a rehash of the old clichés. Cost overruns and leaky roofs are held up as evidence of yet another egomaniacal artist with little concern for the needs of us, the little people. (As a rule, if a roof leaks in a Frank Gehry building it’s headline news; if the building was designed by a hack commercial architect, the leak is ignored, at least as news.) John Silber, the former president of Boston University, has gotten into the game with “Architecture of the Absurd,” a glib little book that eviscerates contemporary architects for the extravagance of their designs. The more serious criticism comes from those inside the profession who see a move into the mainstream as a sellout. The pact between high architects and developers, to them, is a Faustian bargain in which the architect is nothing more than a marketing tool, there to provide a cultural veneer for the big, bad developers whose only interest is in wringing as much profit as possible from their projects...
But in general I find these attacks perplexing. For decades, the public complained about the bland, soul-sapping buildings churned out by anonymous corporate offices. Meanwhile, our greatest architectural talents labored in near obscurity, quietly refining their craft in university studios and competitions that rarely led to real commissions. If their work had any impact, it was in the realm of ideas, where the designs served as a cutting critique of a profession that seemed to have lost its way. Today these architects, many of them in their 60s and 70s, are finally getting to test those visions in everyday life, often on a grand scale. What followed has been one of the most exhilarating periods in recent architectural history. For every superficial expression of a culture obsessed with novelty, you can point to a work of blazing originality. Most important, the profession has become more democratic. The age of the manifesto is dead; there is no dominant style. Instead, we live in a time of competing creative voices, the best of which can offer penetrating insights into a culture that is in constant flux...
The real issue here is not the architects’ egos but a significant shift in the kind of clients they serve. In the United States, the enlightened homeowners and high-minded cultural institutions that made up the bulk of these architects’ commissions a decade ago have now been joined by mainstream developers like Forest City Ratner or Hines — multibillion-dollar corporations who see an alliance with a high-profile architect as both a chance to raise their own profiles and to help push their projects through an often tricky public review process. At the same time, the handful of architecturally ambitious public works commissions that once existed here — like the federal government’s celebrated Design Excellence program, which produced a string of beautiful courthouses in the late 1990s and early 2000s — has largely dried up. And even in Europe, which traditionally has invested more in the quality of public architecture, the grand cultural commissions of the 1980s and 1990s have been replaced by designs for soaring corporate towers or offices for, say, BMW and the European Central Bank...
In the end, it is the public’s responsibility to do the hard work of parsing the difference between superficial creations designed to cover up a hidden, cynical agenda, and sincere efforts to create a more enlightened vision of a civilization that is evolving at a brutal pace."

Judge Rules Against Calatrava in Bilbao Suit

Architectural Record December 11

"A civil judge in Bilbao, Spain, has ruled against Santiago Calatrava in his suit challenging Arata Isozaki’s addition to his 1997 footbridge over the Nervión River. The addition was built without Calatrava’s knowledge and opened last February. In the first test of Spain’s Law of Intellectual Property applying it to a work of engineering, Calatrava sued the City of Bilbao, which owns the bridge, and the two local contractors that built the addition, demanding that the extension be demolished and that he be awarded $365,000 in damages—or $4.3 million if it was not removed. The curving glass deck of Calatrava’s 250-foot-long footbridge is suspended by cables from a tilted arch; Isozaki’s work, in contrast, introduces solid paving, different balustrades, and a conventional concrete structure. The addition spans a boulevard and allows pedestrians to reach the bridge without descending and re-ascending flights of stairs. The city commissioned the 200-foot extension as part of the urban plan for Isozaki’s new 320-unit complex of apartment buildings, which faces the river, including two 270-foot-tall glass towers that frame views of Calatrava’s bridge. In his ruling, judge Edmundo Rodríguez Achútegui recognized that Calatrava’s rights as author of the bridge had been infringed, but he ruled that the public utility of the addition took precedence over this private right. “In addition to constituting a singular artistic creation suitable for protection, the work is public one, offering a service to the citizens, and thus satisfies a public interest,” he said. “If we weigh these interests, the public must prevail over the private.” Nevertheless, the judge added that he found it “incomprehensible” that the city failed to consult Calatrava or seek his participation."

Oscar Turns 100

A Daily Dose of Architecture December 15

"Today is Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer's 100th birthday. This marker is extra-extraordinary as Niemeyer continues to practice architecture, something that might not come as a surprise to fellow architects but is nevertheless amazing. Projects include a new city in Algiers on the drawing board and a cultural center for Avila, Spain."

The Getty Center at 10: Still aloof, yet totally L.A.

Los Angles Times December 16

"During much of the 1990s, as the Getty Center was rising on its Brentwood hilltop, a couple of stubborn questions dogged the hugely ambitious project: Would Richard Meier's design ever have anything meaningful to do with, or say about, the cityover which it loomed? Or would it exist as an expensive import, a vast collection of smooth enamel and rough travertine conjured up by a New York architect who looked west for commissions but east, to Europe and its Modernist past, for inspiration?
This weekend, as the $1.2-billion complex celebrates its 10th anniversary, those questions seem as relevant as ever. In part that's because the answers keep changing. When Meier's design proposal was unveiled, the Getty was widely seen as an anomaly in Los Angeles, an effort to lend instant, old-fashioned respectability to an institution that craved it. Then, after it opened Dec. 16, 1997, the Getty surprised us by fitting in. And in the last couple of years it has begun to look like an anomaly all over again, though for a fresh set of reasons.
Looking back at the museum's changing reputation offers more than the chance to see how the relationships between a city and its most significant landmarks change over time. It also helps explain the various shifts -- many of them profound -- that have redefined the field of architecture, and the city of Los Angeles, over the last 10 years."

BusinessWeek/ Architectural Record Awards: The Best Buildings of 2007

"This was the tenth year of the BW/AR architectural awards. Intended to celebrate more than just a pretty façade, the competition rewards design that demostrably contributes to business success. A jury of editors from BusinessWeek and Architectural Record analyzed nearly 100 applicants from an eclectic group of workdwide architects and their clients. There were four Award of Excellence winners and six other finalists which received a Citation of Excellence."

The ArchRecord Interview: Sir Peter Cook

Architectural Record
"Had Peter Cook’s career ended in the early 1970s, this founding member of the über-influential Archigram group would still be considered one of the most important architects of our time. As RECORD has written, “As the Beatles of architecture, Archigram broke down the dreary conformity of the 1950s, sweeping aside sclerotic convention with their antics.”
But in the decades since Archigram disbanded, Cook (b. 1936) has continued to inspire architects as a highly regarded teacher. He helped transform Frankfurt’s Staedelschule into one of Europe’s leading architecture schools, and he served as the Bartlett’s chair of architecture for a dozen years, retiring from this noted U.K. university in 2005.
And while Archigram, which received the RIBA Gold Medal in 2002, changed the direction of architecture with its theories and drawings—but not its executed projects, of which there were none—Cook has seen a number of his recent proposals get built, most notably the Kunsthaus Graz, which was on the shortlist for the Stirling Prize in 2004.
Currently, he is serving as a consultant for HOK Sport, which is designing the London Olympic Stadium for the 2012 Games. He was knighted earlier this year for his “services to architecture.”
In this in-depth interview, Cook also proves himself an engaging, witty raconteur, discussing his days with Archigram, his design goals for the Olympic Stadium, his frank advice for architecture schools, the architects and cities he admires, and the cities (and Royals) he doesn’t.
Plus, he discusses what inspired him to become an architect, the biggest challenges facing the profession today, the drawbacks of computing power, what he dislikes about American architecture (think École des Beaux-Arts), and which notable American architect he once thought overrated and now thinks “gets better and better.” There are also two (highly recommended) audio (mp3) clips."

"•Archigram was often said to be the Beatles of architecture, and the Beatles had a particular group dynamic that came together to produce that music. What was it about the group dynamics of Archigram that led to its success and influence?
PC: We ranged over 10 years in age. No two people came from the same academy. And the psychology of the different people was very wide. And there was a hint of internal competitiveness. So it was rather like a studio in a college would be—looking over the shoulder of the other and thinking, “That’s interesting, now I must do something, too.”
•Some of the projects that were technologically infeasible when originally proposed by Archigram could actually be built today, or versions of them.
PC: That’s the lesson that one learned at [Kunsthaus] Graz—which is that one might have drawn something that looked slightly similar some years before, but it would have been, if not impossible to build, then it would have been extraordinarily expensive without the advent of computer cutting and computer modeling and so forth. Also, the effect of smart glasses and layering and embedded electronics—the whole responsive environment [concept] which we banged on about in Archigram times endlessly. It’s the world we now live in."
•You’ve said many times you’re still an optimist. What does the architecture profession as a whole have to be most optimistic about today?
PC: It doesn’t have much in terms of politics, society, money, et cetera. So probably one could be as pessimistic as one wants to be. But the architect at best has a wonderful mandate to create and dabble in almost anything. And I hope it will long be so. As long as you can say, “Look, the person sitting behind me is actually much more interested in sociology, and the guy sitting in front of me is into studying hedgehogs, and they both have something to offer architecture,” it’s a wonderful mandate for indulgence and speculation and creativity, if you make it so. It must be awful for people who simply want something predictable and want to make money—they should get the hell out."

101 Things I Learned in Architecture School

Book now available from Amazon.com and local bookshops

"This is a book that students of architecture will want to keep in the studio and in their backpacks. It is also a book they may want to keep out of view of their professors, for it expresses in clear and simple language things that tend to be murky and abstruse in the classroom. These 101 concise lessons in design, drawing, the creative process, and presentation--from the basics of "How to Draw a Line" to the complexities of color theory--provide a much-needed primer in architectural literacy, making concrete what too often is left nebulous or open-ended in the architecture curriculum.
Architecture graduates--from young designers to experienced practitioners--will turn to the book as well, for inspiration and a guide back to basics when solving a complex design problem."

A cute little book. I don't agree with all 101 ideas, but most are right on target for students and professionals. -RDP
 

Publisher's webpage:
MIT Press; 5 lessons (pdf)

New Look for the New Museum

New York Times November 30

"Designed by the Japanese firm Sanaa, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, on the Bowery at Prince Street on the Lower East Side, is the kind of building that renews your faith in New York as a place where culture is lived, not just bought and sold. The architects, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, conceived the building as a series of mismatched galleries precariously stacked one atop the other. It succeeds on a spectacular range of levels: as a hypnotic urban object, as a subtle critique of the art world and as a refreshingly unpretentious place to view art.
But what elevates the building itself to art is the way it captures an unnerving moment in the city’s cultural history with near-perfect pitch. Its ethereal forms hover somewhere between the legacy of a fading bohemian downtown and the ravenous appetites of a society awash in new money. That the building is so artfully rooted in the present means that its haunting quality will probably deepen as the city ages around it. Ms. Sejima and Mr. Nishizawa may have seemed unlikely candidates to shake up the establishment. The pair is known for work of a high level of refinement and an almost aching sensitivity to a project’s social and physical context."

Viewing Art in a Stack of Boxes

Nice presentation technique: a three minute audio/photo/animated-diagram presentation of the new New Museum. -RDP

The Gray Ghost of the Bowery: An unsentimental valentine from the New Museum

New York Magazine November 25

"The quirks of form lead to oddities indoors, some appealing, other less so. The core—a vertical concrete tube crammed with elevators, plumbing, and electrical risers—pins down the building on one side rather than through the middle, leaving room for vast, column-free floors. These skylighted rooms are glorious in their sense of possibility and high-ceilinged spaciousness. Here art can sprawl, climb, or hang from thick steel beams. Behind the elevators, though, are commensurately skimpy spaces: a claustrophobic staircase, a throwaway corner, a tall, skinny niche carved out of dead space in the core. Most visitors won’t see the offices or the education floor, which is a good thing, because neither is welcoming to adults. Seen from outside, the strip windows there emit a blurred glow through the mesh. But from within, the metal creates a dispiritingly correctional effect: Inmates look through the grate at a skyline partitioned into little diamonds. And the suspicion arises that maybe the coat of mail serves less to protect the museum than to shield the Bowery from the relentlessly gentrifying influence of art."

Bowery Dreams

New Yorker November 19

"Sejima and Nishizawa have designed a building that is just right for this moment of the Bowery’s existence. It is a pile of six boxes, stacked unevenly, like a child’s blocks. Sometimes the blocks mount up in a pattern of setbacks like that of a traditional New York building; sometimes they jut out over open space in a way that suggests the architects had something more radical in mind. The building is original, but doesn’t strain to reinvent the idea of a museum. Sejima and Nishizawa have a way of combining intensity with understatement.
The depth and shadow and texture of the façade can be almost magical in the changing light. When you get near, however, the mystery is lost. You see that Sejima and Nishizawa have performed their magic with routine elements, and when you stand right in front of the building its metal mesh looks harsh, even abrasive. Once the museum opens, next month, the effect may be more welcoming: the ground floor is sheathed entirely in glass, and a gallery and bookstore will be visible from the street. At the moment, the museum is enticing from afar but off-putting up close."

After 10 Years and 3 Plans, U.N. Renovation Is in Sight

New York Times November 28

"This decade-long search has ended now with a decision to begin a five-year, $1.876 billion renovation of the complex in the spring and to house the 2,600 people who must move out in rented space in Manhattan, across the East River in Long Island City and a temporary conference building on the United Nations campus. The 55-year-old steel and glass Secretariat tower and its companion General Assembly Hall, sleek and shapely icons of postwar modernism, still look smashing from the outside, but their interiors are not wearing their years as well. Periodic surveys have cited asbestos insulation, lead paint, outmoded plumbing and electrical systems, lack of sprinklers, frequent power shutdowns and leaking roofs.

While the famous exteriors will be unchanged, the insides will be brought up to 21st century standards of efficiency and security and reconfigured to consume 40 percent less energy. The glass curtain wall will be replaced by a heavily laminated one that appears identical but is far stronger and able to withstand the blast of a bomb attack. Energy-saving additions include sensors that turn off lights in unoccupied rooms and solar power systems."

"The author of the new plan is Michael Adlerstein, 62, an affable Brooklyn-born former National Park Service architect involved in the preservations of Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, the New York Botanical Garden and the Taj Mahal and a man with 20 years of experience dealing with lawmakers in Washington. He is unfazed by the problems that have plagued past plans."

Blades of glass: New Spertus Institute's gemlike wall of glass a welcome counterpoint on South Michigan

Chicago Tribune November 25

"The 10-story, $55 million structure, which opens to the public Friday and was paid for almost completely with private funds, represents the finest cultural project in Chicago since the 2004 completion of Millennium Park -- and a welcome sign that the park's bold embrace of the new was no one-shot deal. Designed by Chicago architects Ron Krueck and Mark Sexton, who have been in the public eye as the shapers of the controversial plan to put the Chicago Children's Museum in Grant Park, the new Spertus forms an object lesson in how the past should engage the present: through sophisticated counterpoint rather than through facile imitation. There is no tacked-on brick and limestone here to "blend in" with the mighty row of historic buildings across from Grant Park.
In the old building, these uses were stacked like flapjacks on separate floors. Ho hum. The new offers a spatial surprise: The architects punched a soaring lobby and a meandering atrium through the building's steel floors, symbolically connecting its functions in a series of grandly scaled rooms that borrow light, space and vitality from each other.
It marks the first insertion of a contemporary design into the clifflike wall of buildings that extends along the western edge of Grant Park since Mayor Richard M. Daley pushed through city landmark status for the strip in 2002. At the time, architects fumed that giving city bureaucrats tight rein over this so-called Historic Michigan Boulevard District, which includes such masterpieces as Adler & Sullivan's muscular Auditorium Building, would put a crimp on their creativity. But Krueck and Sexton have shown that accepting constraints, opposed to unbridled freedom, is an essential part of the creative process. So, like the other buildings in the Michigan Avenue historic district, theirs has a bottom, a middle and a top, and is deeply three-dimensional, not just a flat plane.
Far too often these days, such technical wizardry seeks only to produce "wow" buildings, as if architecture's job was to make us yelp. But in the capable hands of Krueck and Sexton, whose resume includes award-winning modernist houses and a supporting role in the design of Millennium Park's Crown Fountain, the new Spertus is no one-liner, like the clunky, slice-topped skyscraper at 150 N. Michigan Ave. The building's crystalline forms are dramatic enough to stand up to the heft of such muscle-bound neighbors as the Chicago Hilton. Yet they do not seem jagged and aggressive, as silvery, sharp-pointed buildings of Daniel Libeskind can."

"The faceted, folding wall of glass at the new Spertus Institute exemplifies advances in digital design and the freedom it gives architects to customize forms rather than standardizing them, as in the industrial age. The new Spertus facade is comprised of 726 pieces of glass, formed in 556 different shapes, including parallelograms that tilt in two ways, not one. The pieces project outward over the sidewalk by as much as five feet and inward toward the center of the building by as much as two."

Architecture of the Absurd: How "Genius" Disfigured a Practical Art Book now available from Amazon.com and local bookshops

Publisher's webpage:
Quantuck Lane Press

John Sibler on architecture of the absurd

10min 17 sec video

Pale Gray or Light Yellow? A Ruling on Guggenheim

New York Times November 21

"The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will remain light gray.
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission decided yesterday that the Guggenheim should maintain the same light-gray paint shade it has had since 1992, when a major expansion of the museum by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects was completed, rather than the original light yellow. The spiraling museum on Fifth Avenue, a 1959 masterpiece by Frank Lloyd Wright, is in the midst of a $29 million renovation. As part of the project, conservators stripped away 11 layers of paint from the landmark building’s exterior and found that it was originally coated with a light brownish-yellow shade. That shade has been stripped from the facade as well. Some critics argue that this hue more closely matched the intent of Wright, who was not especially fond of white. But the original color was used only for a few years; since the early 1960s the Guggenheim has been clad in various shades of light gray — off-white to many eyes."

"After a lively public meeting that included a presentation by Thomas Krens, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the commission voted 7 to 2 in favor of the contemporary light gray (a color known as Tnemec BF72 Platinum) over the original light yellow (similar to Benjamin Moore
HC-35)."

Lessons from Cincinnati: What can Harvard learn from the Midwestern university's bold building boom?

Boston Globe November 18

"Harvard is building a new campus across the river from Cambridge, in Allston. How should they go about doing it? Should the new architecture be daring and inventive? Or should it replicate the so-called "Harvard brand" - buildings of red brick with white cupolas, in the 18th-century style known as Georgian or Colonial? That was the suggestion made to Harvard's new president, Drew Faust, by an audience member at a conference on city planning earlier this month. Faust gently demurred, saying the new campus would be different from the old but harmonious with it. What that means, time will tell.
I was thinking about these questions last week, while visiting the American school that's undoubtedly built more buildings in less time than any other in the last 15 years or so: the University of Cincinnati. Twenty years ago, when I last saw it, Cincinnati was a hilly wasteland. Vast parking lots surrounded a miscellany of buildings of many shapes and styles. Since then, the university has been building like crazy. There are green quads where the parking used to be. And architecturally, Cincinnati feels as if it must have hired every famous architect in the world. The campus is a celebrity party of what real-estate ads are now calling "signature architects." Is this the way to go? Well, it's certainly interesting.
There are major buildings by two winners of the Pritzker Prize, architecture's equivalent of the Nobel, Frank Gehry and Thom Mayne. Architecture buffs will recognize other names, like Michael Graves, Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey, Bernhard Tschumi, George Hargreaves, Buzz Yudell, Wes Jones, Laurie Olin . . . The list seems endless. It was Jay Chatterjee, longtime dean of Cincinnati's department of art and architecture, who proposed in the early 1980s that the way to put the university on the map was to stop hiring locals and instead to get creative national architects. (That was long before the so-called "Bilbao effect," the attempt by some cities to duplicate the fame brought to that Spanish town by its Gehry-designed art museum.)"

University of Cincinnati Master Plan

"The University of Cincinnati set its Master Plan in motion in 1989 to transform an architecturally frenetic campus into an integrated whole studded with masterpieces of design."
Webpage includes many individual buildings with design credits.

New Book Focuses on UC’s Celebrated Campus
University of Cincinnati:
Campus Guide Tours,
Virtual Tours

The Green Space Cure: The Psychological Value of Biodiversity

Scientific American Mind Matters November 13

"The researchers measured several indices of mental health. A key measure was an effect the researchers called reflection, which referred to the participants' reported ability to clear their heads, gain perspective on life and think more easily about personal matters. The study revealed a positive correlation between reflection and green space biodiversity and size, but not between reflection and bird and butterfly diversity. Overall, the richer, more complex green spaces clearly provided more restorative benefit than did simpler areas with just trees and grass. One possible explanation comes from Stephen Kaplan's theory of restorative environments, which suggests that attention is the mediator between green space and psychological benefit. Kaplan hypothesizes that natural environments allow our directed attention to rest as nature engages an involuntary and effortless form of attention that he calls fascination; this in turn improves mood, directed attention, and cognition afterwards."

Helvetica

DVD now available from Amazon.com and local shops

A one hour 20 minute documentary about a typeface doesn't exactly sound thrilling I know, but this is great stuff! The interviews with designers offer insights into their thinking in a way I almost never see or read about in architecture. Some very articulate people.
Highly recommended! -RDP
"Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type. Helvetica encompasses the worlds of design, advertising, psychology, and communication, and invites us to take a second look at the thousands of words we see every day."

"Reviews of the film from Time Out, the Daily Telegraph, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Metropolis, and Frieze. Director Gary Hustwit on CNN International; the International Herald Tribune and US News and World Report on Helvetica's 50th, Kobi Benezri and Cliff Kuang interview Gary in the new issue of I.D. Magazine; Steven Heller interviews Gary about the film for AIGA Voice; Andrew Dickson profiles the film in The Guardian."

Director's webpage:

HelveticaFilm

Official clips from the film

YouTube clips

"Helvetica was developed by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann in 1957 for the Haas Type Foundry in Münchenstein, Switzerland."

Pride and Nostalgia Mix in The Times’s New Home

New York Times November 20

"The grand old 18-story neo-Gothic structure on 43rd Street, home to The New York Times for nearly a century, had its sentimental charms. But it was a depressing place to work. Its labyrinthine warren of desks and piles of yellowing newspapers were redolent of tradition but also seemed an anachronism. The new 52-story building between 40th and 41st Streets, designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, is a paradise by comparison. A towering composition of glass and steel clad in a veil of ceramic rods, it delivers on Modernism’s age-old promise to drag us — in this case, The Times — out of the Dark Ages.
Mr. Piano’s building is rooted in a more comforting time: the era of corporate Modernism that reached its apogee in New York in the 1950s and 60s. If he has gently updated that ethos for the Internet age, the building is still more a paean to the past than to the future. What makes a great New York skyscraper? The greatest of them tug at our heartstrings. We seek them out in the skyline, both to get our bearings and to anchor ourselves psychologically in the life of the city.
Few of today’s most influential architects buy into straightforward notions of purity or openness. Having witnessed an older generation’s mostly futile quest to effect social change through architecture, they opt for the next best thing: to expose, through their work, the psychic tensions and complexities that their elders sublimated. By bringing warring forces to the surface, they reason, a building will present a franker reading of contemporary life.
Journalism, too, has moved on. Reality television, anonymous bloggers, the threat of ideologically driven global media enterprises — such forces have undermined newspapers’ traditional mission. Even as journalists at The Times adjust to their new home, they worry about the future. As advertising inches decline, the paper is literally shrinking; its page width was reduced in August. And some doubt that newspapers will even exist in print form a generation from now.
Depending on your point of view, the Times Building can thus be read as a poignant expression of nostalgia or a reassertion of the paper’s highest values as it faces an uncertain future. Or, more likely, a bit of both."
Photographs, videos, 360° panoramas; extensive coverage -RDP

Building a Brand: How architecture firms name themselves.

Slate November 14

"When the American Institute of Architects was founded in 1857, architecture was not yet considered a profession—it was one step up from carpentry and contracting. To be taken seriously by clients, architects followed the practice of law firms—a well-established profession—and strung together the names of the principal partners. This produced Adler & Sullivan, Burnham & Root, Carrère & Hastings, and that powerhouse, McKim, Mead & White. It sounded a bit stodgy, but also reliable and, above all, respectable...
Fanciful firm names have become de rigueur for young architects who want to be seen as being on the cutting edge of design: Asymptote, Allied Works, Office dA, Studio/Gang, and, one of my favorites, a Brooklyn firm called noroof architects. The irrepressible Rem Koolhaas actually has it both ways; he has adopted a serious-sounding organizational name, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, whose corporate initials—OMA—sound like a Buddhist mantra (and the German for grandma). What's going on? Another shift. Not satisfied with being perceived as respectable or corporate professionals, these architects want to be seen as subversive artists, bad boys—and girls—with laser cutters."

Beyond the Spectacle

Metropolis November 21

"Fifty years from now,... the megacity of Dubai, one of the seven federal states of the United Arab Emirates, will be the new economic and cultural capital of the world, spanning its neighboring emirates of Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and beyond in one urbanized mass, rich in the biggest source of renewable energy—sunlight—a pioneer in sustainability and new technology, and conveniently located within easy travel distance of a population of more than two billion in the Middle East, Europe, India, and Africa. In the six years since the Twin Towers fell, a thousand skyscrapers have been rising on the Arabian Gulf."

The DIY Future: What Happens When Everyone Is A Designer?

Information Designer Joe Lamantia's 114 slide presentation on THE FUTURE. Interesting perspective. -RDP

"Broad cultural, technological, and economic shifts are rapidly erasing the distinctions between those who create and those who use, consume, or participate. This is true in digital experiences and information environments of all types, as well as in the physical and conceptual realms. In all of these contexts, substantial expertise, costly tools, specialized materials, and large-scale channels for distribution are no longer required to execute design. The erosion of traditional barriers to creation marks the onset of the DIY Future, when everyone is a potential designer (or architect, or engineer, or author) of integrated experiences - the hybrid constructs that combine products, services, concepts, networks, and information in support of evolving functional and emotional pursuits. The cultural and technological shifts that comprise the oncoming DIY Future promise substantial changes to the environments and audiences that design professionals create for, as well as the role of designers, and the ways that professionals and amateurs alike will design. One inevitable aspect consequence will be greater complexity for all involved in the design of integrated experiences. The potential rise of new economic and production models is another."

Gehry, Skanska Point Fingers Over MIT Lawsuit

Architectural Record November 16

"The finger-pointing has already begun in response to a lawsuit filed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) against Frank Gehry’s firm, Gehry Partners, and general contractor Skanska USA. The suit alleges that flaws exist in the design and construction of the $300 million Stata Center for Computer, Information and Intelligence Sciences. The suit, filed on October 31 at Suffolk Superior Court, in Boston, claims that “Gehry and Skanska committed design and construction failures on the project which caused, among other things, masonry cracking, efflorescence, and poor drainage at (Stata Center’s) outdoor amphitheater; efflorescence and mold growth at various locations on the brick exterior vertical elevations; persistent leaks at various locations throughout the building; and sliding ice and snow from the building.” It alleges that “MIT has suffered considerable damage, in the form of investigatory, redesign, and remedial work, as a result of the Defendants’ failures.” Although the suit does not specify an amount the university is seeking in damages, it says that MIT paid Gehry Partners $15 million to design the center and it claims that Gehry Partners “failed to provide design services and drawings in accordance with the applicable standard of care.” "

M.I.T. Sues Frank Gehry, Citing Flaws in Center He Designed

New York Times Nov 7
"Mr. Gehry, whose firm was paid $15 million for the project, said construction problems were inevitable in the design of complex buildings. “These things are complicated,” he said, “and they involved a lot of people, and you never quite know where they went wrong. A building goes together with seven billion pieces of connective tissue. The chances of it getting done ever without something colliding or some misstep are small.”
Mr. Gehry said “value engineering” — the process by which elements of a project are eliminated to cut costs — was largely responsible for the problems."

Designers, Architects Celebrate 25 Years of Computer-Aided Design

Wired November 14

"Autodesk's former CEO Carol Bartz used to be fond of saying, "Look around you: If God didn't create it, AutoCAD did." That wasn't just hubris, either. For a time -- especially during the late '80s and early '90s -- Bartz's statement was actually pretty accurate. During that period, Autodesk's computer-aided drafting (CAD) software was pervasive across a wide variety of fields. In fact, most of the buildings that went up during that time were designed, in some capacity or another, using AutoCAD...
But there's a darker side of CAD, too. While it can be used for everything from early-stage concept development to final product surfacing, it is only a tool. And like any other tool, CAD can be overused, says Logan. Among other pitfalls, designers often lose a sense of emotional relationship to their products when working in CAD, he says. "It gives you a different level of freedom and … because the software is so prevalent, and some versions are so inexpensive, you end up getting a lot of clichéd and bad industrial design."

KRob 2007 Winners

"For 33 years, The KRob Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition has celebrated the best in delineation in architecture. Open to architecture students, professionals and architectural illustrators who are working in the United States, Canada or Mexico, KRob accepts both hand and digital delineation and is the longest-running architectural delineation competition currently in operation anywhere in the world."

Donald Judd: Architecture in Marfa, Texas by Urs Peter Flueckiger

Book now available from Amazon.com and local bookshops

"As one of the most important exponents of American minimal art, Donald Judd (1928-1994) has exerted a lasting influence in the field of architecture. Among the lesser-known aspects of his work is a large collection of architectural designs, which explore the relationship of architecture and art. Of special importance for Judd's work in this field is a former military fort in Marfa, Texas, part of which he purchased and then, beginning in 1971, systematically transformed into one of the largest existing ensembles of contemporary art.
This book is the first to address Judd's built work from an architectural perspective. With this in view, the Marfa buildings have for the first time been carefully measured and drawn to scale by the author and his students. Using standard CAD drawings together with historical and contemporary photographs, this volume illustrates Judd's architectural alterations to the buildings in Marfa, and discusses and describes them in its accompanying text. The result is an invaluable source of inspiration for contemporary architecture."

Urs Peter Flueckiger is an Associate Professor in the College of Architecture at Texas Tech University.

Publisher's webpage: Birkhäuser

The Prado Makes Room to Show Off More Jewels

New York Times October 31

"The Prado has in the last several years hired a crew of gifted young curators under an ambitious young director with Byronic good looks named Miguel Zugaza. Now there’s a serious and world-class exhibition program, more than two million visitors annually (this year a record number is expected) — and, just opening, a 237,000-square-foot extension. It’s said to have cost several times more than was budgeted; but then, so did your kitchen. The final price tag was $219 million. Devised by the 70-year-old Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, it moves the museum, stuck so long in the 19th century, into the 21st by modernizing and rationalizing what had become, willy-nilly, a haphazard and disorganized physical plant.
Endless haggling and a slew of editorial jeremiads unfolded over the better part of a decade. Mr. Moneo finessed the preservation issue by burrowing below ground for the temporary exhibition galleries so that the cloister, now restored, sits on top, exactly where it always was. It’s enclosed, below a skylight, and incorporated as a kind of giant ready-made sculpture into the museum, which silences critics who argue that the cloister needed saving, even if the solution somewhat sterilizes the site. Meanwhile, the glass-and-steel light well that Mr. Moneo cut through the cloister’s floor provides windows for the galleries, relieving them of some of the claustrophobia always felt in underground spaces.
Give much credit to Mr. Moneo, whose humility reflects a native’s respect for a national symbol and for the painters with whom he was wise not to compete. Subtlety is hard and self- effacement brave in this age of chest-thumping designers. The extension implicitly rebukes all the excessive posturing that has overtaken many museums lately."

Chicago, My Kind of Green: The Windy City Presents a Snapshot of The Sustainability Movement’s Strengths and Shortcomings

GreenSource October

"When I was having lunch the other day with Chicago architect Doug Farr, who has made green design a hallmark of his practice, I got a bit of a shock. As we sat in the Cliff Dwellers Club, the aerie with the stunning views of the lakefront, Farr revealed some surprising numbers. In Chicago, which Mayor Richard M. Daley famously wants to make “the greenest city in America,” there are just 27 LEED-certified buildings. That’s more than in any other American city except Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, but still, only a tiny fraction of Chicago’s total of more than half a million buildings. Nationally, as I found out with a phone call to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the picture is every bit as bleak—with only about 1,100 LEED-certified structures, though thousands more are said to be in the pipeline. I left the lunch reeling. After all the hoopla about green design, this was the state of our progress in combating the scourge of global warming?"

Where Gods Yearn for Long-Lost Treasures

New York Times October 28

"No sane architect, one can assume, would want to invite comparisons between his building and the Parthenon. So it comes as little surprise that the New Acropolis Museum, which stands at the foot of one of the great achievements of human history, is a quiet work, especially by the standards of its flamboyant Swiss-born architect, Bernard Tschumi. But in mastering his ego, Mr. Tschumi pulled off an impressive accomplishment: a building that is both an enlightening meditation on the Parthenon and a mesmerizing work in its own right. I can’t remember seeing a design that is so eloquent about another work of architecture. The museum’s rhetorical power may surprise people who have followed the project over the last six years. Mr. Tschumi won the competition with a design that seemed chaste and austere by comparison with the flamboyant confabulations that are now common in contemporary museum design. The museum had to respond to more than 100 lawsuits before construction could begin, including disputes over its location and whether the sculptures could be moved without putting them at risk. (Local preservationists are now fighting to block plans to demolish two landmark buildings — an Art Deco gem and a lesser neo-Classical structure — that block the sightlines from the museum to an ancient amphitheater at the base of the Acropolis.)
But the end result is a remarkably taut and subtle building.
It’s a magical experience. Rather than replicating or simply echoing the Classical past, Mr. Tschumi engages in a dialogue that reaches across centuries."

"A double facade (above) helps maintain comfortable temperatures in the Parthenon Gallery while providing daylight and views to the ancient temple. Skylights, along with spotlights, wall washers, and discreetly placed fluorescent fixtures help achieve optimum lighting conditions for viewing the sculptures."

"Seismic isolators are sandwiched between the grade floor structure and the lobby level."

A Temple to Transparency Rises in Athens

Architectural Record

Prague library will be built unchanged, insists Kaplicky

Building Design (UK) October 26

"Jaw-dropping designs for the Czech Republic’s most significant post-Communist building will be built as planned despite a huge political row, Future Systems’ director Jan Kaplicky vowed this week. In recent weeks, British-based Kaplicky’s National Library project in Prague, which beat 354 other entries in an international competition (News March 2), has been at the centre of a bitter public debate in the country, coming under attack from both the Czech president and the mayor of Prague. But speaking to BD this week, Kaplicky — who last week took part in a head-to-head televised debate with the mayor — said that a forthcoming settlement between the warring parties would not see the design altered. Hopes of realising the 50,000 sq m building, dubbed “the octopus” and set to hold 10 million books, were also boosted by a 3,000-name petition of support and by backing from competition jurors including architect Eva Jiricna.
“An agreement will be struck between the library and the mayor,” Kaplicky said. “The mayor has been on the defensive because he lost the duel with me on television, 70% of the population voted for it and only 30% against it. “It has been a strictly political battle… but there’s no question the project will happen.” Kaplicky added that the building would be the most advanced library ever seen."

Sustainability and aesthetics in one building?

San Francisco Chronicle October 16

"Thom Mayne finds it strange enough that he - a left-leaning architectural iconoclast - is designing federal buildings. Now there's another twist: he's being hailed as a symbol of the green building movement. "I have no interest in being a 'green architect,' " Mayne said at the start of the event arranged by Harvard Design Magazine and Harvard's Graduate School of Design for local alumni. "I find the term ridiculous." That's because Mayne - who boasts of driving a BMW that gets "6 miles per gallon" ("it's a real car. But I only drive it a mile a day, so that's all right.") - came of age in the 1960s in Southern California. In his world, "green" meant back to the land, solar panels and straw bales and an unctuous contempt for the rough innovative design that Mayne loves. So why the change? Partly it's scale: a conscientious architect pays more attention to energy use and raw materials when designing (in this case) a 605,000-square-foot office complex as opposed to the restaurants and houses that first drew attention to Mayne and his firm Morphosis. Beyond that, there's a mature adult's awareness that we've got to pay attention to our impact on the earth and its natural resources. "We're in a period of time when architecture and its relationship to the environment is changing," Mayne said. "We're heading into a completely different place." If the San Francisco Federal Building is any indication, Mayne sees that place as one that fuses style and substance - with a dash of swagger as well. One reason the complex has attracted so much attention is that it embraces two architectural values that often are at odds: sustainability and pure aesthetics. Mayne boasts of how the tower should consume just one-third the energy of a typical California office building, saving enough electricity to power 600 homes per year. But the perforated steel panels that are supposed to filter the sun and glare don't hang straight against the slab. They careen up and over the tower: "I'm interested in skin as a sculptural idea," Mayne said happily."

Solar Decathlon Final Results

"The Solar Decathlon challenged 20 college and university teams to compete in 10 contests (Architecture 200 points, Engineering 150 points, Market Viability 150 points, Communications 100 points, Comfort Zone 100 points, Appliances 100 points, Hot Water 100 points, Lighting 100 points, Energy Balance 100 points, and Getting Around 100 points) and design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered home. After two years of preparation and a week of competition, the final scores and standings are in."

First Place: Technische Universität Darmstadt
Second Place: University of Maryland
Third Place: Santa Clara University

Photo Gallery

One min video tours

Detailed drawings are available at the website. TUD's set is 137 pages!

The Green Standard? LEED buildings get lots of buzz, but the point is getting lost.

Fast Company October

"As alarm over the environment intensifies, LEED has been in the right place at the right time. Two federal agencies, 22 states, and 75 localities from Seattle to Boston have instituted policies to require or encourage LEED; in New York, the new rules are expected to affect $12 billion in new construction in the next few years. A host of major New York projects, including new luxury condos in Battery Park City, a 2‑million-square-foot skyscraper on Bryant Park in midtown, and the rest of the buildings around the World Trade Center site, have all sought the council's stamp of approval. But critics say that the LEED standard falls short of what's possible in terms of saving energy. While a 25% to 30% improvement in energy use over conventional buildings sounds impressive, it pales compared with, say, the 50% target adopted by the dozens of firms that have signed on to the Architecture 2030 initiative. Assessing LEED is further complicated by the business growth of the Green Building Council. Awarding gold--and silver and platinum--certification has been a gold mine for the nonprofit organization. Once a small operation with seven paid employees, it now fields a 116-member staff and earns 95% of its $50 million annual budget."

Japanese architect Kurokawa dies at 73

International Herald Tribune October 12

"Kisho Kurokawa, who made his world debut in 1960 at age 26, led a style known as the Metabolism Movement, advocating a shift from "machine principle" to "life principle" in his literally work and architectural designs based on themes including ecology, recycling and intermediate space. His major works include the National Ethnological Museum in Tokyo, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia that encompasses palm trees and rain forest, the National Art Center in Tokyo's posh Roppongi that looks like a wavy curtain, as well as the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam."

Kisho Kurokawa, Japanese Architect Who Pioneered Organic Structures, Dies at 73

New York Times October 23

"Countering the machine aesthetic of International Modernism, the Metabolists saw buildings as living cellular organisms that could evolve and expand over time. Mr. Kurokawa conceived of houses floating on a lake and a tower patterned on DNA molecules. Among the most notable Metabolist projects he realized was his Nakagin Capsule Tower (1972) in Tokyo’s Ginza district, in which the apartments were replaceable pods. In 1977 he designed the Capsule Inn Osaka, considered the first pod hotel. Even as he championed this progressive form of architecture, Mr. Kurokawa honored traditional Japanese design, both in his execution of details that are virtually invisible and in a reliance on natural tones and textures. He was later associated with a movement called Symbiosis, which championed an architectural synthesis of global cultural influences and viewed buildings as living entities that could enrich human beings."

Kurokawa’s Capsule Tower To Be Razed

Architectural Record April 30, 2007

"Kurokawa has pleaded to let the Capsule Tower express one of its original design qualities: flexibility. He suggested “unplugging” each box and replacing it with an updated unit, letting the base towers —which he calls “timeless”—remain untouched."

National Art Center, Nakagin Capsule Tower and more at arcspace.

"In the twilight of his life, Mr. Kurokawa grappled with setbacks. He ran for governor of Tokyo in April and lost to his longtime friend Shintaro Ishihara, and he was defeated in elections for the upper house of Japan’s Parliament in July. He learned that the Nakagin Capsule Tower would be torn down; the Sony Tower was demolished last year."

Restoring a Campus-Full of Frank Lloyd Wright

National Public Radio October 8

"Florida Southern College has begun restoration of the buildings, which Wright designed and built over a 20-year period, from the 1930s to the '50s, on its campus in Lakeland.
Architect Jeff Baker, who specializes in restoring historic buildings, is preparing a plan for the restoration of all of the Wright buildings at Florida Southern, including elements that never really fulfilled Wright's vision. For example, workers are fixing the basin of a huge fountain that Wright called the "water dome." The fountain, completed in 1948, is a perfect circle, 160 feet across. Around its perimeter are high-pressure water nozzles that will shoot water 45 feet into the air to create a "dome" of water. The dome effect has never really worked as designed, due to a lack of water pressure. Now, after installing new plumbing and pumps and restoring the fountain, Baker said the fountain will finally operate as Wright envisioned."

On the NPR webpage:
"Listen To This Story"
8min 14 sec

"Hear Wright Talk About Architecture at Florida Southern in 1950"
13min 13sec

Herbert Muschamp, Architecture Critic, Is Dead

New York Times October 3

"As the architecture critic for The Times from 1992 to 2004, Mr. Muschamp seized on a moment when the repetitive battles between Modernists and Post-Modernists had given way to a surge of exuberance that put architecture back in the public spotlight. His openness to new talent was reflected in the architects he championed, from Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid and Jean Nouvel, now major figures on the world stage, to younger architects like Greg Lynn, Lindy Roy and Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto.
His criticism stood out for the way he wove together seemingly unrelated themes in an arch, self-deprecating tone, a signature style that helped break down the image of the critic as an all-knowing figure who wrote from atop a pedestal."

Herbert Muschamp, 1947–2007

The Architect's Newspaper October 3

"Herbert’s contribution to architectural criticism has not been fully measured. His opinions were often hyperbolic; his prose outrageous; the path of his thinking inimitably complex. Unforgettable samplers would have to include his comparing Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao to the “reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe,” and calling Zaha Hadid’s Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati “the most important American building to be completed since the end of the cold war.” Famously, he wrote positively in September 2002 that Daniel Libeskind’s tower proposal for Ground Zero “attains a perfect balance between aggression and desire,” only to switch allegiances five months later."

In Praise of the Anti-Icon: Architecture that succeeds without showing off.

Slate October 3
"In architecture, a little excitement goes a long way, and the problem with iconic buildings is that they are generally too exciting, which detracts from their primary function. Tadao Ando avoided this problem by using distinctly prosaic forms at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Although the Y-shaped supports are striking, the overall atmosphere is one of calm and contemplation, accentuated by the straightforward geometry and the still water of the reflecting pool. Exactly what you want in a museum."

2007 Masters of Design

Fast Company October

"Innovation and inspiration. Management and creativity." Numerous stories on many design disciplines and what design means to business. Includes The Brains Behind Billionaire Homes: "When it comes to building a house for a billionaire, money isn't a constraint but the stakes can be very high. Here, architects, including those responsible for creating homes for the likes of Bill Gates and David Geffen, talk about the challenges of bringing unrestrained visions to life."

Fast Company Master of  Design Approved: 2007 MV Agusta F4-1000 Senna
"It combines blinding acceleration with beauty, and sounds like a Ferrari."  Antoine Predock, Architect"

2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture

"The Aga Khan Award for Architecture has a triennial prize fund of US$500,000, making it the world’s largest architectural award. The rigor of its nomination and selection process has also made it, in the eyes of many observers, the world’s most important architectural prize. Awarded projects have ranged from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur to a primary school in Bangladesh.
The selection process emphasizes architecture that not only provides for people's physical, social and economic needs, but that also stimulates and responds to their cultural and spiritual expectations. Particular attention is given to building schemes that use local resources and appropriate technology in an innovative way, and to projects likely to inspire similar efforts elsewhere."

<"With its emblematic high-tech architecture, the University of Technology Petronas provides an inspiring structure for progressive education in this rapidly developing nation. The Award will be presented to the architects, Foster + Partners and GDP Architects, and the Petronas Corporation (the Petronas Towers won an Award in the 2004 cycle)."

Designs Solicited, Discussion Unwanted at the Barnes Foundation

New York Times September 22

"Although the six firms that competed for the Barnes commission are all highly regarded, the idea that people might want to discuss, debate and appraise the actual design proposals seemed to terrify the Barnes. Little information was released to the public, and the six teams were instructed to present only vague conceptual sketches to the Barnes itself. While the architects doubtless invested considerable creative energy in their proposals, ordinary people will probably never see what they envisioned. And in announcing that Mr. Williams and Ms. Tsien had won, the Barnes gave almost no indication of how the two will proceed.
From ground zero to a proposed new Pennsylvania Station [old Pennsylvania Station: McKim, Mead and White] in Midtown Manhattan to other arts institutions, secrecy has come to dominate many architecture commissions that are vital to the public interest. In a blend of paranoia and near-contempt for the people such institutions will serve, the decision makers have come to assume that the less the public knows, the better."

Peter Gluck’s Social Work

Metropolis September

"Peter Gluck has a problem with the AIA. He has a problem with architectural education too. Really he has a problem with the whole profession of architecture as it is currently practiced. Economic exploitation of youth. Big ideas in service of the highest bidder. Callow young CAD monkeys trained in archispeak. Designers who don’t know how to build. Engineers rescuing forms untethered from reality. He doesn’t seem like an angry person: he’s a sort of laid-back father figure with a gentle demeanor who appears to relish his work. But don’t get him started on the irresponsibility of architects and the way the profession is practiced. Or do get him started: you might learn something."

Bilbao, 10 Years Later

New York Times September 23

"The iridescent structure wasn't just a new building; it was a cultural extravaganza. No less an authority than Philip Johnson deemed it “the greatest building of our time.” The swooping form began showing up everywhere, from car ads to MTV rap videos, like architectural bling. And in certain artistic and architectural social circles, a pilgrimage to Bilbao became de rigueur, with the question “Have you been to Bilbao?” a kind of cocktail party game that marked someone either as a culture vulture or a clueless rube. “No one had heard of Bilbao or knew where it was,” said Terence Riley, director of the Miami Art Museum and a former architecture and design curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “Nobody knew how to spell it.”
The Guggenheim changed that overnight. Microsoft Word, Mr. Riley noted, added “Bilbao” to its spell checker. And as word of the Guggenheim spread, tourists of all stripes began converging onto the small industrial city — the Pittsburgh of Spain — just to check it off their list. Even for those who couldn't spell “Bilbao,” let alone pronounce it (bill-BAH-o), the city became synonymous with the ensuing worldwide rush by urbanists to erect trophy buildings, in the hopes of turning second-tier cities into tourist magnets.
The impact on this city of 354,000 was dramatic. Charmless business hotels and musty pensions were supplanted by trendy hotels like the Domine Bilbao and a Sheraton designed by the Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta. The rusty shipyards near the Guggenheim were razed for a manicured greenbelt of playgrounds, bicycle paths and riverside cafes. A lime-green tram was strung along the river, linking the Guggenheim to Casco Viejo and beyond. And all across the city, a who's who of architects added their marquee names to Bilbao's work-in-progress skyline: Álvaro Siza (university building), Cesar Pelli (40-story office tower), Santiago Calatrava (airport terminal), Zaha Hadid (master plan), Philippe Starck (wine warehouse conversion), Robert A. M. Stern (shopping mall) and Rafael Moneo (library), to name just a few."

"The so-called Bilbao Effect was studied in universities throughout the world as a textbook example of how to repackage cities with “wow-factor” architecture. And as cities from Denver to Dubai followed in Bilbao's footsteps, Mr. Gehry and his fellow starchitects were elevated to the role of urban messiahs. But what has the Bilbao Effect meant for Bilbao?"

The Photographic Memory of Julius Shulman

Metropolis September

"On the eve of his 97th birthday, Julius Shulman—the éminence grise of architectural photography—is excited about Modernism Rediscovered, his new three-volume set from Taschen featuring more than 400 architectural projects taken over a seven-decade career. Think of any significant Modern building in Southern California and chances are that Shulman has documented it at one stage in his career. His photograph of Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #22, the one with the two girls looking over the Hollywood Hills, has arguably become the most widely published image in the history of architecture. Ask him about an iconic house and he’s not likely to talk about its aesthetics—the way most midcentury Modern architecture is fetishized today—but to focus instead on its innate connection between indoors and out."

"1960 Pierre Koenig Stahl Residence  “The Stahls purchased a piece of property on a steep hillside with a 270-degree view of Los Angeles,” Shulman says. “Some people might not want to build on such a difficult lot, but Pierre agreed to design a house for them. The house, known as Case Study House #22, hangs over the edge of the cliff, and when it was published it created a sensation. It’s been in nearly every architectural book and magazine throughout the world since 1960. So in approaching the image, I thought: How to best portray this structure and its relationship, interior and exterior, to the site and function of the house? You see the view, the sitting room. This is how the house functions. To achieve the picture of this projecting steel beam in the foreground that directs attention into and through the entire house—to demonstrate how the house literally floats in space—I sat on a wall outside. The key to a successful photograph is about finding the proper balance of light, using it properly, and finding the right time of day. My photographs are successful because the architecture melds so beautifully with the environment.” "

New French Museum Embraces Architecture

New York Times September 18

"President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who is increasingly faulted, even by his own government, for usurping the responsibilities of his top ministers, stepped into the role of culture minister on Monday. At a low-key ceremony he inaugurated La Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, (the City of Architecture and Heritage) in Paris, which reopened after a $114 million, decade-long makeover. “I commit myself fully to this mission, to give back the possibility of boldness to architecture,” he said in his speech.
The new French president was surrounded by 14 prizewinning architects, including the Briton Norman Foster, who designed the Reichstag dome in Berlin and the viaduct at Millau in France; Richard Rogers, one of the builders of the Pompidou Center in Paris; and the Iraqi-British avant-garde architect Zaha Hadid. The architects did not disappoint their host. Speaking in the Élysée courtyard after lunch with the president, Mr. Foster called Mr. Sarkozy’s approach to culture “fantastic,” and “very refreshing,” adding, “I thought there was a great enthusiasm, a sense of passion, of conviction, a belief in the importance of architecture, the way that it’s a litmus test, if you like, a barometer for the values of a nation.”
With three galleries and 86,000 square feet of space, the City of Architecture and Heritage bills itself as the largest architectural museum in the world. It is housed in the east wing of the Palais de Chaillot, at the Place du Trocadéro on a hill overlooking the curve of the Seine, with gorgeous views of Paris, including a straight-on view of the Eiffel Tower just across the river. The museum is a shrine to 12 centuries of France’s architecture — with exhibitions that range from the reproduction of a stained-glass window in the gothic cathedral at Chartres to a walk-in replica of an apartment in Le Corbusier’s mid-20th century Cité Radieuse in Marseille. It includes a soaring, glass-roofed main gallery housing 350 plaster-cast reproductions of the most important examples of medieval, Gothic and Renaissance church architecture: cathedral facades, gargoyles, pillars, statues, crypts."

Sipping From a Utopian Well in the Desert

New York Times September 16

"At first approach, the skyline — a pair of concrete apses, a network of modular concrete dwellings, a rusty old crane — fails to make much of an impact. But it swells with the dream behind it. The Italian architect Paolo Soleri, a former student of Frank Lloyd Wright, began construction of this ecologically harmonious community in 1970. With its radical conservation techniques and a brilliantly scrunched-together layout, Arcosanti was intended to reinvent not just the city, but also man's relationship to the planet: picture a 60s vision of a Mars colony, but with a cutting-edge, eco-friendly design. Evaporative cooling pools release moisture into the air. In winter, heat from the foundry furnace is collected by a hood and sent through the apartments above. And there are always apartments above, or a library below, or another set of rooms just beyond those Italian cypresses. Through a carefully managed density, the impact is minimal, and the idea of community is reimagined.
In 1976, Newsweek declared: “As urban architecture, Arcosanti is probably the most important experiment undertaken in our lifetime.” “Undertaken” being the key word — then and now. Completion has legendarily eluded Arcosanti. Built in stages and chronically underfinanced, the place exists in a permanent state of half-doneness. What was once the future of intelligently designed communities has morphed into something less optimistic: a stalled revolution in urban planning or a moldering relic of impractical idealism, depending on whom you ask. Often enough it's referred to as Mr. Soleri's “desert utopia,” and as with all utopias, reality doesn't always match the blueprints."

A New Social Construct

Morning News September 13

"But if modern architecture died, the debate about it—or, rather, one side of that debate—did not. While a few architects still publicly consider themselves modernists, architecture itself has moved on to various “posts” and “isms.” Nevertheless, the critics of modernism—from Prince Charles to the neoclassicists at Notre Dame’s School of Architecture—continue the attack. It is as if, knowing the beast is dead, they continue stabbing to make sure it doesn’t come back to life. Every few years another strike at the modernist legacy arrives, and now we have Nathan Glazer’s From a Cause to a Style: Modernist Architecture’s Encounter with the American City, released earlier this year...
What Glazer does not answer, though, is the paradox he uncovers. He clearly feels that modernism, particularly in architecture and urban design, needed to be hubristic, to issue manifestos declaring the status quo corrupt and the past useless, to make vast claims about its own ideas. “Modernism was not simply a new style,” Glazer writes. “It represented a rebellion against historicism, ornament, overblown form, pandering to the great and rich and newly rich as against serving the needs of a society’s common people.” But in demonstrating the myriad ways in which that new social commitment became compromised, commoditized, and co-opted, Glazer leaves unsaid whether it was possible for things to have been any different—and whether, then, it is possible to do things differently next time. Certainly today one has a hard time imagining an aesthetic, particularly in a field as intricately tied to social intercourse as architecture, existing outside of our hyper-commercialized environment. As soon as a new idea about design emerges, it gets shoehorned into the plans for the next blockbuster museum or lavish seaside residence. Glazer, in essence, accuses modernism of selling out; but today everything and everyone is already sold out ab initio."

Sky Fighter: Daniel Libeskind shares his vision for architecture and why he's at peace with the plans for Ground Zero that replaced his own.

Fast Company September

"Q: What did you learn from your disappointing experience designing the 9/11 site?
A: There was never disappointment. What I learned is that you have to work with everybody and come to a compromise. Even if you don't want to work with those people, even if you think they are subverting your vision. There are always struggles to build a piece of a city. In architecture, you need to build consensus with all the stakeholders. With the Ground Zero project, that meant the families of victims, politicians, investors, and the developer's architect. In the end, I convinced everyone that Ground Zero is not just for the office leaseholders; it's for all of New York.
Q: With so many projects under way, is your role changing?
A: Our growth has been gradual and organic. When we moved to New York in 2003, we had seven projects and maybe 25 people. Now we have 30 to 40 projects and 150 people around the world. I'm still very involved in every project. Not by just doing a sketch and then having others process it through the computer. I'm still choosing the tiles for the bathroom, still working on the door handles. That's how I was brought up. Architecture is handmade, a sculpted thing--not a technical entity but a communicative one. If it got too big and I couldn't do what I do, I'd find it less fun. So far, I've been lucky."

Dubai tower world's tallest structure

Business Week September 14 "Burj Dubai, the world's tallest building since July, has also become the tallest free-standing structure on earth, reaching 1,822 feet, the developers said. The Dubai Tower's final height is a closely guarded secret, but completion of the concrete, glass and steel structure is expected by the end of 2008. The building's relentless climb is one example of Dubai's stratospheric rise from a sleepy desert town on the Persian Gulf to one of the principal business centers in the Middle East.
In July, the Dubai Tower, as it is known in English, moved past Taiwan's 1,667-foot Taipei 101, the highest skyscraper in the world since 2004.
By the end of 2008, the developers say, the Burj will fulfill all four criteria for the tallest building, listed by the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The criteria include: the height of the structural top, the highest occupied floor, the top of the roof, and the tip of the spire, pinnacle, antenna, mast or flag pole."

Burj Dubai Becomes the World's Tallest Free-Standing Structure

Bloomberg September 13 "Burj Dubai is the world's tallest free-standing structure, beating the 31-year old record held by the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, its developer said today. The Dubai tower, situated 1 kilometer southwest of Dubai's financial center, now has 150 storeys and is 555.3 meters (1,822 feet) high, surpassing the CN Tower's 553.3 meters, Emaar Properties PJSC said in an e-mailed statement, without disclosing when it measured the building. Emaar is the Middle East's biggest real estate developer, and started building the $900 million, 160-storey Burj Dubai in 2004 to be the centerpiece of its $20 billion 'Downtown' project. The tower is facing delays of at least a year after Swiss contractor Schmidlin Ltd. Facade Technology went bankrupt, leaving it without external walls. Samsung Corp. is building Burj Dubai with help from New York-based Turner Corp. and Cardiff, U.K.-based Hyder Consulting Plc. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP is the architectural designer."

<Drawings and hundreds of photos posted here.

The Spire of Dublin

Slate September 10

"Watching the World Trade Center Memorial stumbling to completion, one might be excused in thinking that building a modern memorial is inevitably destined to be a star-crossed enterprise. Remember the controversy that surrounded the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.? That's one reason why the Spire of Dublin, which was inaugurated in July 2003, is impressive. In 1998, the city held an international competition to find a replacement. The winner was Ian Ritchie Architects of London, which proposed a slender spike rising not 136 feet, like the original column, but an astonishing 400 feet.
What does the Dublin Spire mean? Whatever you want. There is no writing, no iconography, no overt symbolism. This spire is not a sign. St. Augustine said of signs that if you didn't know what an object was a sign of, it could teach you nothing, but if you did know, what more could you learn from it? That's why the most potent monuments—the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, the Kaaba at Mecca, the Washington Monument—lend themselves to many interpretations."

Bush's Architect is a Perfect Match for His Presidency

New Republic September 13

"Now right-thinking people who stand at any place on the political spectrum can say that, in one instance at least, President Bush has demonstrated judgment superior to that of his father. Only twelve presidential libraries grace our land, all run with public funding by the National Archives and Records Administration. The first president to be honored with this by now de rigueur monument to posterity and the information glut of this Information Age is, of all the unlikely candidates, Herbert Hoover. In most cases the architects of presidential libraries have been chosen by the presidents whose terms they document and purport to celebrate; George H. W. Bush chose the 2,100-plus strong, international corporate firm of Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, which fashioned a sorry affair in College Station, Texas, little more than an incoherent piece of bombast. [George Bush Presidential Library and Museum] His son stands to do better. For his library, Bush fils has aptly--brilliantly, one might even say--chosen Robert A.M. Stern, who runs an active, 300-person practice in New York.
Most significantly for the purpose of pondering his newest high profile commission, Stern led the charge in the 1970s and early 1980s toward what is best described as historicist postmodernism. While modernists advocated an architecture of progressive (sometimes radical) change, Stern argued for what he called a "traditional" rather than a "schismatic" modernism, one that would buttress the values of what he called western humanism. He rejected the notion that the technological, social, scientific, political, and economic revolutions of the early twentieth century obviate a traditionalist approach to design. He rejected the schismatic modernist insistence that the character of modern life was perpetually, and often radically, changing and the idea that a new architecture should reflect, accommodate, and respond to those changes. Architecture, he argued, must reassure its users, using forms drawn from the local character and regional identity of a given place. Architecture stemming from the acknowledgment that modernization has in fact occurred only runs the risk of further alienating that abstract construct, the alienated modern man."

Barnes Museum Chooses Architects

New York Times September 10

"The selection follows years of pitched battles over the foundation’s plan to bypass its own founding charter and move its famed collection of Renoirs, Cézannes and Matisses and other masterpieces to Philadelphia from its stately home in suburban Merion, Pa. Ms. Tsien and Mr. Williams, the New York husband-and-wife team responsible for the American Folk Art Museum in Manhattan and an expansion of the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona, were chosen over five other finalists. Those were Diller Scofidio & Renfro of New York, Thom Mayne of the Los Angeles firm Morphosis, Rafael Moneo of Spain and Tadao Ando & Kengo Kuma, both of Japan. No model or preliminary sketches were released by the foundation or the architects, and the Barnes said that Ms. Tsien and Mr. Williams had won over the foundation with a philosophical approach rather than a concrete plan.
Mr. Mayne, reached by telephone, said it was a hard commission to lose out on. “I loved it,” he said. “It calls for extremely different kind of thinking.” He said his firm had come up with “a very specific idea” that he declined to describe.
Elizabeth Diller said she and her partners had centered on rethinking the lighting but declined to describe their thinking further. “It’s a beautifully perverse project, which we dove into,” she said.
Ms. Tsien added: “It’s why I’ve always felt architecture as a practice is more interesting than fine arts. You have these boundaries, you have these kinds of chains and ropes tied around you and you’re really trying to figure out that trick — where somehow or other you’re free, but you’re still tied. “This a magnification of that. Everything is bigger. The stakes are bigger, the chains are bigger. So hopefully the possibilities can be bigger.” "

The Pitfalls of Designing for Designers

Chronicle of Higher Education September 11

"Buildings for schools of architecture should be the best structures on college campuses. The architects are working for clients and occupants who understand the process of designing buildings — its possibilities, limitations, and pitfalls. Alas, that’s not the case. Think of a really ugly, really problematic building on the campus, and you just might be thinking of the one that houses the architecture department. Various architecture buildings get a thorough evaluation in a new book, Designing for Designers: Lessons Learned From Schools of Architecture, written and edited by Jack L. Nasar, a professor of city and regional planning at Ohio State University; Wolfgang F.E. Preiser, a professor of architecture at the University of Cincinnati; and Thomas Fisher, a professor and dean of design at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities."

Belgium building zero-emission Antarctic station

Reuters September 5

"Belgium is building the first ever zero-emission polar station in the Antarctic, powered by solar panels and wind turbines and designed to have minimal impact on the climate change its scientists are studying. All waste from the Princess Elisabeth station, housing up to 20 researchers, will be recycled. Fossil fuel will only be used for back-up systems. With a stainless steel shell, a 40-centimetre (16-inch) layer of polystyrene charged with graphite and sandwiched between wood panels, the walls will be well insulated against the cold. Heat from computers will help keep the inside habitable."

Spaceport America: First Looks at a New Space Terminal

Space.com September 4

"Last month, a team of U.S. and British architects and designers had been recommended for award to design the primary terminal and hangar facility at Spaceport America - structures that symbolize the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport. Selected from an international field of eleven firms, the winning design is the work of URS Corporation - a large design and engineering enterprise - teamed with Foster + Partners of the United Kingdom, a group with extensive experience in crafting airport buildings.
When the 100,000 square-foot (9,290 square-meter) facility is completed -- the centerpiece of the world's first, purpose-built, commercial spaceport -- the structures will serve as the primary operating base for Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceliner, and also as the headquarters for the New Mexico Spaceport Authority. The design chosen is a low-lying, striking bit of construction that uses natural earth as a berm, and relies on passive energy for heating and cooling, with photovoltaic panels for electricity and water recycling capabilities. A rolling concrete shell acts as a roof with massive windows opening to a view of the runway and spacecraft. According to a press statement released today, the low-lying, organic shape resembles a rise in the landscape, and will use local materials and regional construction techniques."

 Texas Tech University  College of Architecture  Robert D. Perl 

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