Perl's Architecture Weblog

2007 Summer

Associate Professor Robert D. Perl, AIA

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 Texas Tech University  College of Architecture  Robert D. Perl 

updated 28-Sep-2007

Bush design firm chosen

Dallas Morning News August 29

"The architects selected to design the most visible incarnation of President Bush's legacy are no strangers to high profile and politically sensitive projects. Robert A.M. Stern Architects of New York City won the job in an announcement Tuesday, and its founding partner said that bringing together a learning center and a historical site at SMU made the project especially appealing.

"The president, if he were here, he'd say, 'Eventually people will not be so interested in George W. Bush but they will be interested in the ideas, the forums and debates and things that can occur,' " Mr. Stern said. "So I think he and I are on the absolute same wavelength in that respect." Mr. Stern, who also is dean of the Yale School of Architecture and has done several other projects in Dallas and across Texas, said he was still formulating his vision for a building that, based on the selection panel directive, must incorporate the "spirit" of Mr. Bush's presidency. "That's the million, the billion-dollar question in these days," he said.

He did not present an actual design or model to the selection panel, and he would not discuss the possible location. But he said, "There's a wonderful site available for the library that will have more than enough space to meet its needs."

Stern Architects, which he founded 38 years ago, was among three finalists chosen from roughly a dozen nationally prominent architectural firms invited in June to apply to design the library. The New York firm beat out two Texas finalists – Lawrence W. Speck Studio of PageSoutherlandPage in Austin and Overland Partners of San Antonio – interviewed by a five-member committee led by first lady Laura Bush.

... Neither Mr. Stern nor the firm's other seven partners have donated to Mr. Bush's presidential campaigns, according to federal records. Mr. Stern said he met with the president for the first time in Crawford.

... The initial solicitation letter, a copy of which The Dallas Morning News obtained earlier, called for proposals based on a location "adjacent to the SMU campus" – probably in its southeast quadrant. The panel's guidelines call for a pair of buildings – a 145,000-square-foot library and a 40,000-square-foot public policy institute."

Stern to Design Bush Presidential Library

Architectural Record August 29

"Stern beat out a dozen Texas-based and national firms for the roughly $200 million commission, including Hammond Beeby Rupert Ainge, Pelli Clarke Pelli, Lake/Flato, HOK, and HKS."

Architect selected for Bush library project

SMU Daily Aug 29

"... Despite the selection of an architect, the committee did not say when an announcement would be made regarding the site of the library.

SMU was named by the selection committee as the sole finalist for the project in late December 2006 and entered into exclusive negotiations with the committee. Since then both the school and the committee have said little publicly about progress made between the two sides. Stern's firm has been a finalist in recent buildings constructed on campus. Cheves said that Stern is familiar with SMU and the way the campus looks.

Stern's firm was selected with the help of a five member committee that evaluated different architecture firms for the project. That committee included Laura Bush, Roland Betts, a partner with Bush in the Texas Rangers; Deedie Rose, whose husband Rusty was also a partner in the Texas Rangers, Witold Rybczynski, who Bush appointed in 2004 as a member of the Commission of Fine Arts; and Marvin Bush, the President's brother. The committee interviewed all three finalists before recommending Stern's firm to the president."

To Woo Europeans, McDonald’s Goes Upscale

New York Times August 23

"Mr. Hennequin [President of McDonald’s Europe] said he did not have a choice. “Reimaging is essential in the competitive world of retail,” he said. “We need to avoid aging faster than our customers.” To do that he instructed the design studio he had set up in Paris to come up with nine different designs. Franchised restaurants, which account for about 64 percent of all European outlets, can then choose the design most appropriate for their location and clientele. The designs range from “purely simple,” with minimalist décor in neutral colors, to “Qualité,” featuring large pictures of lettuces and tomatoes and gleaming stainless steel kitchen utensils, like meat grinders. While palates differ from country to country, design is more universal, Mr. Hennequin said. “We would like to stay true to our roots while moving forward,” Mr. Hennequin said. This means that McDonald’s kept its trademark golden arches logo in Europe but got rid of the red accompanying it. Instead, restaurants feature a warm burgundy color. The pointy roofs are being phased out and replaced by simple olive green facades, and the bright neon lights in the restaurants were dimmed."

What’s so good about British architecture?

Financial Times UK August 31

"We will probably never see another building boom like the one we are in now. The last time anything happened on this scale was in the aftermath of the Blitz, a huge programme of post-War reconstruction that, in most aspects and except for a few brilliant and heroic schemes, failed. This time, though, we are sure everything will be better. Now we are the centre of the creative world.
At least that is the rhetoric. The reality I see is different. British architecture, so often talked about as one of our biggest cultural success stories, is dull, corporate and profoundly uninspired. There are exceptions, Foster undoubtedly heads the slickest and most successful architectural business in the world. Other names from the visionary Zaha Hadid to the classically minimal David Chipperfield are building truly great things (albeit abroad).

These sub-public spaces are surrounded by “contemporary” architecture. Contemporary architecture is what became of modernism once the politics, the social intent, the aesthetic rigour and the idealism were stripped out. This is an architecture of glass (because glass is supposedly transparent, transparency is a corporate ideal), steel (because steel expresses modernity and thrusting technology) and terracotta (because that can be used to blend in with brick without actually being anything as banal as brick). It is the architecture of emptiness, of the status quo.

We don’t have to travel far to see how architecture can be a natural part of an intellectual, artistic, national and urban culture. The finest example is, undoubtedly, Switzerland. Here, somehow, modernism was embraced into the broader culture and the country avoided both the stick-on pastiche that so affected English cities and the shallow glass emptiness of contemporary commerce. While in Britain, industrial and retail architecture is crushed by the big tin shed, in Switzerland every building type is taken as an opportunity to express a set of cultural and business values."

Calatrava addition spurs Milwaukee Art Museum revival

USA Today August 21

"A majestic white winged addition designed by famed architect Santiago Calatrava can do wonders for business. The Milwaukee Art Museum has pulled itself out of $30 million in debt, increased attendance and attracted acclaimed exhibits since the internationally known Calatrava finished the structure on Milwaukee's lakefront in 2001. It was his first project in the United States. "This has been a transforming event in the museum's life," said museum director David Gordon, who leaves next year to become a consultant after more than five years at the museum's helm.

Milwaukee is not alone. A 2006 survey by the American Association of Museums found that 50% of responding museums had begun or completed construction, renovation or expansion in the previous three years. The boom is partly due to museum officials who recognize that using name architects for expansions helps attract tourists, according to association spokesman Jason Hall. Also, it is easier for museums to get donors for capital improvements than operating expenses because donors like having their names attached to the work. Milwaukee's addition took four years to build and cost $130 million. Attendance grew 43% from the year before the expansion to 2006. The museum estimated the economic impact on the city increased over that time by 44% to $20.1 million.

Mayor Tom Barrett said it has become the city's unofficial symbol used in marketing and in national television and print advertisements. It spurred nearby projects, including the Discovery World museum, a state park and two new high-rises."

How to build today's supertalls

Chicago Tribune August 18

"Bill Baker, a 53-year-old partner and structural engineer at the Chicago architecture, engineering and planning firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill... has just illustrated the essence of a relatively new but little-noticed way of erecting skyscrapers, in which massive arms of steel or concrete extend outward from a building's core and grab high-strength structural columns at or near the perimeter, bracing the building against gravity and the overturning force of the wind. This is the method, called core and outrigger, that is propelling a skyscraper boom unlike any other in Chicago, birthplace of the skyscraper. Today, for the first time in its history, the city has three supertall skyscrapers -- those 1,000 feet or higher -- under construction simultaneously. And owing to shifts in both physics and aesthetics, they aim to become icons of a new post-industrial, post-lunch bucket city -- less about old-fashioned machismo than new-age elegance.

"It's the difference between somebody who is a gymnast and a dancer," said Zurich-based architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava, designer of the now-under-construction Chicago Spire, in a telephone interview from Spain. "We try to be elegant -- we are not being athletic. We are not showing muscles."

There is the Spire, the twisting 2,000-footer at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive, which will be the nation's tallest building and the world's tallest all-residential structure. For now, it consists of a few holes in the ground, into which contractors will drive steel and concrete caissons reaching 120 feet down to bedrock.

Portal-frame construction was supplanted in the 1960s and 1970s by the framed tube, in which the building's outer shell bore the forces of the wind and much of its own gravity loads. The Hancock Center, a collaboration of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Khan, led this charge in 1969 with its industrial-strength X-braces and undeniable economy. The steel-framed, 100-story "Big John" was built for the same cost as a 45-story office building with a conventional structural cage. The Aon Center (originally the Standard Oil Building), Sears Tower and New York's World Trade Center all followed its pathbreaking example.

Yet another revolution would sweep aside the framed tube in the 1980s and 1990s, this one spawned by architects' desire to break free from the aesthetic bonds of structural expressionism -- and by the irony that the closely spaced perimeter columns in some of the framed-tubed skyscrapers were cutting off the very panoramic views that their great height made possible.

Instead, following the example of the unbuilt Miglin-Beitler Skyneedle -- a superskinny 125-story office building proposed for Chicago in 1988 and designed by New Haven, Conn., architect Cesar Pelli with New York structural engineers Thornton Tomasetti -- architects shifted from steel to new, high-strength concrete and ditched the framed tube for a combination of a concrete core attached to perimeter super columns. Here, science met art in a shift that allowed supertall towers to be both tall and thin. And the trend goes on. The Spire, for example, will have a height-to-width ratio of 10-1, compared with Sears' much-chunkier 6½-1. It will, its backers claim, be the most slender supertall skyscraper in the world."

More great diagrams at SkyscraperPage.com

Make Mine Midcentury Modern: What's so bad about modern architecture?

Wall Street Journal August 18

"In 1845, Henry David Thoreau built a tiny cabin near Walden Pond in Massachusetts, lived there for two years, then published a book about it. "Most men," he wrote, "appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have." A century later, a German architect in flight from the Nazis moved to a meadow a stone's throw from Walden Pond, where he put up a small house that is as deeply considered a dwelling as has ever existed. The Gropius House, built by Walter Gropius in 1938, is a simple two-story structure that still looks breathtakingly contemporary. Its clean, right-angled lines and uncluttered floor plan are the very essence of the architectural style now known to aficionados as midcentury modernism. I paid a visit to the Gropius House the other day, and as I pulled into the driveway, I thought, This house could have been built yesterday -- except that in 2007, few people would be willing to build a home that looks so utterly unlike the ones in which their neighbors live.

Most Americans enjoy the music of Aaron Copland, and we flock to museums to gaze admiringly at the mobiles of Alexander Calder and the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock. Yet when it comes to living in buildings designed along similar lines, the vast majority of us, like Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, prefer not to. Such structures are respected but not loved, and even the great ones typically fill their visitors with chilly awe."

Ten Modern Masterpieces

Chicago Magazine

"The heyday of Chicago architecture is back. Eager to cheer it on, Chicago magazine has selected ten masterpieces that illustrate why we are, once again, a global epicenter of architecture. As a companion project, Chicago commissioned a survey from the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Collectively, these ten buildings provide a glimpse of the "Chicago effect," or the creative power long in residence here. And they exhibit a need-a moral conviction, even-that form ever follows function and that the best architecture is that which draws the straightest line (or the cleanest curve) between what a building does and how it looks."

See also:

The List,

What the Pros Said,

The Chicago Effect, and Chicago Architecture
in 2020

Ready, Set, Design: Work as a Contest

New York Times August 19

"It seems that nearly every day a new architectural competition is announced featuring an international lineup of established or emerging architects vying to design an eye-catching museum, airport, theater, courthouse or concert hall. “It seems to have kind of metastasized,” said the Los Angeles architect Thom Mayne, who recently won a competition to design a 68-story tower at La Défense, a business district on the western edge of Paris. (He beat out heavyweights like Rem Koolhaas of the Netherlands, Jean Nouvel of France and Herzog & de Meuron of Switzerland.) “In the last 30 years just about every major building you think of came through a competition.”

But architects can be deeply ambivalent about entering such contests. Simply emerging as a finalist can bring prestige and business to a firm and unleash creative juices. But losing can also mean steep financial loss and profound disappointment after months of effort.

While competitions have long been a staple of planning in Western Europe — in some countries they are legally required for public buildings — they have a spotty history in the United States. In America’s early years they were seen as part of the democratic process; contests were organized for the design of the White House and the Capitol. “A competition was something like a public referendum,” said the architectural historian Barry Bergdoll, chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art. That spirit was paramount in design contests like those for the Chicago Tribune Tower in the 1920s, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis in 1947 and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1981.

To limit the financial burden, some architects enlist the help of interns. The summer interns in Mr. Eisenman’s office, for example, many of whom are European, work only on competitions, not commissions. They are not paid a salary, but Mr. Eisenman said the experience enhances their graduate school and job prospects. However great a drain a competition can be on a firm’s finances and personnel, Mr. Eisenman said that he enjoys the fight, that it kept him in good form and in the game. “I’m a competitive human being,” he said. “To me, when I stop getting invited to competitions is when I quit. That’s what makes me alive.” "

"Walter Gropius in 1922 with his Chicago Tribune Tower entry, a Modernist design that was not selected but became influential anyway."

Architect Peter Eisenman Sells West Village Co-Op to Night Crawler for $3.2 M

New York Observer July 31

"Did Mr. Eisenman craft the apartment for himself and wife Cynthia Davidson? “I would never live in anything I design,” he told The Observer. “Life and art are different. My life is very precious to me—my art is precious to me. I love designing things for other people, but I don’t like designing things for myself.” He called the 2,000-square-foot apartment, designed by a former student named Joe Tanney, “very, very cool.”

... “If you were a son of mine, I wouldn’t want you to be an architect,” the septuagenarian told this reporter, “because it’s a tough way to be in the world. Look, my son who graduated from law school three years ago makes more than I do after 40 years of working.” "

Resolution 4 Architecture

Impossible to directly link. Scroll down to Eisenman/Davidson Apt. for photos and diagrams.

For Architects, Personal Archives as Gold Mines

New York Times July 23

"In reflecting on where a long career’s worth of architectural drawings and models will ultimately go, Frank Gehry is not focusing strictly on institutions that he feels close to — like the Guggenheim Museum, say, for which he designed a famous satellite branch in Bilbao, Spain. He’s trying to determine which place will pony up. “I don’t want to give it away — it’s an asset,” Mr. Gehry said. “It’s the one thing in your life you build up, and you own it. And I’ve been spending a lot of rent to preserve it.” Mr. Gehry, 78, is among a small but influential number of celebrity architects who are considering selling their archives — which can include tens of thousands of objects, from multiple large-scale models and reams of drawings to correspondence and other records — even as they continue to practice.

Barry Bergdoll, the chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, said he had been approached about the Gehry archive and that the price range was “in multimillion dollars.” He declined to be more specific. “There is a huge seismic shift,” Mr. Bergdoll said. “It used to be architects would be so grateful that there was someone interested in dedicating space to their work, and they would donate it. Now architects view their designs as a kind of profit center. Architects are getting valuations of them as though they were selling the studio of Picasso.”

Peter B. Lewis, the philanthropist and a longtime Gehry fan, commissioned a study two years ago on the value of Mr. Gehry’s archive — he declines to disclose the results — and he continues to evaluate possible homes for it. Jennifer Frutchy, Mr. Lewis’s philanthropic adviser, said that the archive may be in its own class in terms of size, consisting of about 30,000 square feet of models, a slide library, a digital archive and more than 5,000 drawings.

The architect Peter Eisenman, 74, says he could not afford not to sell his archives, which he did for an undisclosed amount to the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal; the sale was made in pieces over the last 10 years. The goal was to provide for his children, he said. “I’m not in a position to give it away,” said the architect, whose projects have included the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. Currently he is negotiating with the Beinecke Library at Yale University over some of his collected books and magazines, which could go there partly as a donation."

Barcelona says Gaudi's Sagrada Familia church has lacked construction permit for 122 years

International Herald Tribune

"Antoni Gaudi's Sagrada Familia church, an unfinished Barcelona landmark that is considered a marvel of modern architecture, has lacked a construction permit for more than a century, city officials acknowledged Friday. Gaudi first presented a design for the church in 1883 and two years later suggested changes to the blueprint. Both times he won permission. But planning officials never responded to two later requests to change the construction plans, in 1916 and 1990. The administrative silence amounted to acquiescence, a town hall official said, confirming a report in the newspaper El Pais.
To this day, construction continues on the church, widely considered Gaudi's masterpiece, and tourists flock to it even as scaffolding obstructs much of the interior and facade. More than 2 million did so last year."

La Sagrada Familia se construye sin permiso de obras municipal

El Pais "Las obras del templo de la Sagrada Familia se realizan sin ningún permiso de obras cursado por el Ayuntamiento de Barcelona. La legalidad de los trabajos en curso se ampara en un silencio administrativo del año 1885, cuando Antoni Gaudí pidió al Consistorio una modificación al permiso de obra solicitado en 1883, poco después de colocarse la primera piedra."

First-ever Survey of Pro Bono Service by U.S. Architecture Firms Completed

PRweb August 14

"Across the U.S., architects are putting their skills and talents to work for the public good, according to a recent survey of 150 firms by nonprofit Public Architecture. The survey sample ranged from sole practitioners to some of the largest firms in the country, such as HKS and Perkins Will, all of which have pledged a minimum of 1% of their billable hours to pro bono service via Public Architecture's flagship "1% Solution" program."
theonepercent.org

"The 1% Solution program grew out of a realization that there are no formal mechanisms within the architecture profession to support or recognize pro bono design, service, or work in the public interest. While many architects are quite generous with their time, the profession as a whole has never encouraged pro bono service as a fundamental obligation of professional standing--or as an integral component of a healthy business model."

People in Glass Houses

DavidByrne.com August 29
David Byrne (formerly of Talking Heads) visits Philip Johnson's Glass House and as usual, makes unique observations, such as those pictured to the left, and "a regular old basement-style closet here with a hot water heater, electric meters, mops etc. that feeds into a hidden tunnel leading to the glass house. The support system was outsourced. Which answers that recurring question.
Further away are structures that house Johnson’s art collection, a reading library and, almost completely out of sight, an old shingle house that contains the stuff for tending the grounds, bottled water, and “the help”."

The Tower

Harvard Design Magazine Summer

"Is the tall building an anachronism? Does it, like sprawling suburbia and out-of-town shopping malls, seem doomed to belong only to what is increasingly referred to as “the oil interval,” that now fading and historically brief moment when easily extracted oil was abundant and cheap? The answer is probably “Yes,” particularly for the conventional freestanding, air-conditioned, artificially lit tower that guzzles vast amounts of energy and is built for short-term profit out of high-embodied-energy materials, many of them petroleum derivatives. Such buildings are utterly contrary to the requirements of times of increasingly insecure and dwindling oil supplies, in which even the United States must one day embrace the quest for more sustainable lifestyles and forms of development. Energy-wasteful buildings also offend values held by more and more people.
But ironically, the green agenda and quest for sustainability, the death knell of these kinds of towers, might reinvent and reinvigorate the tall building. Reaching up into fresh air and abundant daylight, tall buildings cry out to be naturally lit and ventilated, bringing energy savings, healthier conditions, and more personal environmental control. Touching tall buildings is abundant ambient energy in the form of sunlight and wind, only a little of which needs to be harvested to serve all their energy needs. Various European architects are now investigating towers that accelerate wind past or through them to drive turbines and towers big enough for water- and waste-recycling systems, with “gray” water from hand-washing use to flush toilet, and even “living machines” processing sewage on site."

Good news, bad news:
Modern structures fall outside city safeguards

Chicago Tribune August 10

"The latest developments on the preservation front are a case in point: Last week, officials from the city's Department of Planning and Development called to announce that they would support a city subsidy of several million dollars to a developer who plans to restore the extraordinary ornamental ironwork at the base of the old Carson Pirie Scott & Co. State Street store designed by the late, great architect Louis Sullivan. That was the good news.
As the officials were waxing about Sullivan's century-old ironwork, wrecking crews were tearing into a little-noticed modernist gem in Pilsen: the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church at 1850 S. Racine Ave., designed by the late architect Edward Dart, whose firm's credits include Water Tower Place. The 42-year-old church graced its neighborhood with an angled brick exterior that captured the morning light and flung it across the church's worship space, creating a spiritual haven amid its hard-edged neighborhood. Now it's gone, and who knows what will replace it."

Click here for a very detailed, zoomable image of the Carson Pirie Scott entrance.
SketchUp model of CPS.

Anti-Starchitecture Chic

Metropolis

"Consider for a moment the plight of the stars. You do some work, you work the press, you aspire and achieve, the world embraces you—you’ve arrived!—and then, as surely as a pendulum swings, the environment around you changes. First there’s just a hint, an inkling of a shift. No more, it seems, are your projects and pronouncements guaranteed to resonate. Attention wavers; you find fewer column inches devoted to your genius. There’s more dissent (those pesky blogs!)—there’s even evidence of a subtle mainstream impatience with the starchitect model itself.
Are we ready for something new? Starchitecture culture in its current form—characterized by the premature coronation of designers based on flashy forms and blowout press coverage, the infection of schools with the idea of fame as a career objective and, as I wrote last month, a certain enabling complicity by the leading lights of our critical establishment—may be only about 20 years old. And it has certainly only reached current levels of saturation in the last ten."

Forever Eames

Los Angles Times June 28

"A hundred years ago, a Modernist icon was born. Charles Eames went on to craft the new California home with wife Ray. Their 1949 house is the blueprint for 21st century L.A. living.

About 200 Eames devotees gathered at the house recently for brunch, cookies and cocktails, and a game of musical chairs ensued, with grown-ups scampering around like children. Hosted by three generations of Eames descendants, the June 17 picnic celebrated what would have been Charles' 100th birthday and marked the formal dedication of the Eames House as a national historic landmark.

"California has always attracted people of imagination who felt free to express themselves," said Bill Stern, founder of the California Museum of Design, who was on hand for the event. "The Eames House eschewed traditional materials like bricks and sticks, and used glass and steel in fresh ways to create a new understanding of how people can live." Anybody thinking of building a house should "come here and take notes," added film producer and Eames scholar Daniel Ostroff.

Arguably the father of American midcentury modernism, Charles Eames was a design polyglot, fluent in the languages of architecture, industrial engineering, photography, graphic arts and filmmaking. His wife and design partner Ray was a painter who had studied with famed Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann. As designers, the couple exuded an optimism about new materials and technology. Being newcomers to Los Angeles, they embraced the expansive physical and psychological landscape.

The Eames House referenced Bauhaus design but was a major departure from the austerity of that movement. Composed of dual two-story rectangular boxes bathed in California sunshine, the form followed its intended function: to provide shelter from the elements while living among them.

"They were good at solving problems and working within challenging constraints," Demetrios said. "They treated it [the house] like a big pile of Legos." Though it has been suggested that Charles was responsible for the hard, masculine edges and Ray did the soft interiors, Demetrios said the partnership wasn't that simple."

Timeline highlights:
"1907: Charles Ormand Eames born in St. Louis.
1912: Alexandra "Ray" Kaiser born in Sacramento.
1925: Charles starts at Washington University in St. Louis on an architecture scholarship but is later thrown out for advocating work of Frank Lloyd Wright.
1938: Charles becomes a fellow at Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit. Studies with architect Eliel Saarinen and his son, Eero.
1942: Navy adopts the Eameses' molded plywood leg splints.
1947: Herman Miller Co. begins manufacturing Eames furniture.
1949: Eames House, made of a steel frame assembled in two days, completed in Pacific Palisades as Case Study House No. 8.
2000: Herman Miller reintroduces the Shell and Arm chairs in plastic instead of original nonbiodegradable fiberglass. The chairs average sales of 100,000 units per year.
2002: Eames Demetrios, grandson of Charles, publishes "An Eames Primer."
2004: The Eames Foundation is created to preserve the Eames House."

All can look inside the Glass House

New Canaan Advertiser June 28

"Philip Johnson bequeathed the property decades before his passing in 2005, knowing perhaps, that as he stepped out of his Glass House, his footsteps would be traced by curious enthusiasts enthralled by the luxury in the simple geometric details of the home and buildings on the property.

The opening also signifies a new preservation effort. Many of the modern homes that existed in New Canaan have been demolished. Paul Goldberger, architectural critic for the New Yorker, said Thursday, we are “losing powerful examples of living in a reasonable and sustainable way.” Mr. Johnson and his forward-thinking colleagues, Mr. Goldberg said, didn’t know then, that a family would need 15,000 square-feet of living space. Far more than how the Glass House appears, is how it disappears into the landscape. “There is more land here than architecture,” Mr. Goldberg said."

Extending the Legacy

Metropolis

Huge Egos, Tiny Architecture at U.K. Royal Academy Summer Show

Bloomberg News June 27

"There is also a wonderful example of Hadid's tendency toward megalomania, a silver-painted resin model entitled 'Forest of Towers' that just makes the casual visitor wonder if architects have learned anything from the public concern about the social consequences of high-density urban living.

An appalling housing plan for Madrid designed by Peter Cook suggests he believes that by using bright colors he has somehow humanized the inhuman piles of cells that masquerade as homes.

Richard Rogers shows a striking model and presentation drawings for the recently completed Madrid airport at Barajas. The cardboard, wood and plastic model of the elegant roof structure is both beautiful and informative.

Grimshaw is represented by two sides of his international practice working together. An animation called Eco-Rainforest links its thinking to the energy-saving design for a transport interchange, the Southern Cross Station in Melbourne.

Always at the Royal Academy, older traditions cling on and it is a relief to see the humane work of architects like Ted Cullinan and Richard MacCormac. MacCormac's design for a cancer treatment center in Cheltenham, and the pleasing design for a new Herbarium at Kew Gardens by Cullinan, both show a sympathetic understanding of their clients' needs and suppress any hint of egomania."

Show websites: Summer Exhibition 2007 , Architecture at the Summer Exhibition

Library Repair Causes a Plea to the Pope

New York Times June 23

"Mr. Piazzoni said the library had sought in recent years to relieve some of the structural stresses — for example, by removing about 400,000 books to lighten the load on floors that had begun to sag — without inconveniencing scholars.

When other major libraries have shown signs of strain, they have received modern makeovers or moved to new sites. In 1996 the National Library of France moved to four 24-story towers in an unfashionable Left Bank neighborhood in Paris. The Vatican says it does not have a comparable option. “We can’t build a tower in the middle of the Vatican gardens and just move the books,” Mr. Piazzoni said."

Safety Group Proposes 3rd Stairwell in High Rises

New York Times June 23

"Skyscraper safety requirements proposed after the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11 have been adopted by the pre-eminent building code group. That means tall buildings nationwide could soon be required to be designed with an extra emergency stairwell and more robust fireproofing.

Some building owners and designers are already protesting, saying the measures would unnecessarily add millions of dollars in costs. “This is redundant and excessive,” said David Collins, an architect in Cincinnati who is a consultant to the American Institute of Architects on building codes and standards.

The changes were approved by the International Code Council late last month as part its so-called model building code. These model codes do not have the force of law, but they are the blueprint that building officials in 47 states use to formulate their own codes.

The most significant change would be requiring a third stairwell in buildings taller than 420 feet, or about 35 stories. At least one elevator in buildings at least 120 feet tall would also have to be specially built with backup power systems and fire-resistant wiring so firefighters could use it reliably in emergencies. Fireproofing for steel columns, to prevent a structural collapse, would have to be nearly three times stronger in high rises up to 35 stories and seven times stronger for even taller towers, making it less likely to fall off.

The changes were recommended by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which spent three years studying the World Trade Center collapse. The lead investigator, S. Shyam Sunder, said if the proposed measures had been in place, the twin towers, which already had three stairwells each, would have probably still collapsed. But they might have stood longer, allowing more occupants or rescue workers to leave. Mr. Collins and Jon Magnusson, a structural engineer from Seattle, said the code improvements were unnecessary, as the two stairwells in most modern skyscrapers were sufficient."

The text below and image at left are from Page 15 of a 190 page 935KB pdf file at the International Code Council "2007 Supplement" webpage.

"2007 SUPPLEMENT TO THE IBC

Section 403.17 Add new section to read as shown: (G71-06/07)

403.17 Additional exit stairway. For buildings other than Group R-2 that are more than 420 feet (128 m) in height, one additional exit stairway meeting the requirements of Sections 1009 and 1020 shall be provided in addition to the minimum number of exits required by Section 1019.1. The total width of any combination of remaining stairways with one stairway removed shall not be less than the total width required by Section 1005.1. Scissor stairs shall not be considered the additional exit stair required by this section."

Architecture, Taken Apart With Pen and Ink

New York Times June 23

"David Macaulay could be called the Mr. Wizard of architectural history. In 23 books over three decades, his arresting pen-and-ink illustrations have explored everything from the construction of ancient pyramids to the subterranean systems that support a modern metropolis. Often marketed to children, these books are equally popular with adults, who appreciate their ability to use a primarily visual language to make history, architecture and engineering clear to laymen. The first major retrospective of the 60-year-old Mr. Macaulay’s work opens on Saturday at the National Building Museum here: “David Macaulay: The Art of Drawing Architecture,” a tour of his work and his methods.

In a world of computer-aided design, he continues to do all his drawings by hand, in pen and ink. For this book he also built and photographed a paper architectural model to capture more effectively various angles of the mosque’s interior. Mr. Macaulay is known for selecting surprising points of view, and this aspect is highlighted in a section of the show called “Playing With Perspective.” Here you find his pioneering “worm’s eye” depictions of building foundations and city traffic from “Underground”; his fish-eye view of a medieval hall from “Castle”; and his pigeon’s-eye panoramas of Rome from his fable of love, “Rome Antics.” To reinforce the theme, the curators have blown up some of Mr. Macaulay’s sketches and affixed them to the floor, suspended them from the ceiling or transferred them to glass panes, forcing the viewer to engage in the action — looking down, up or through — suggested by the illustration’s perspective."

iPods to blame for total eclipse of the art, says Hockney

Sydney Morning Herald June 14

"The artist David Hockney believes the ubiquitous music player is contributing to a decline in visual awareness that is damaging art and painting in particular. It even makes people dress badly.

"I think we are not in a very visual age... They have no interest in mass or line or things like that." "

A Vision Rises

Columbia Daily Tribune June 10

"On the east lawn of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, five white pavilions emerge from the cascading landscape. The faces of the buildings are translucent white, unadorned with the pattern of vertical bars broken only occasionally to reveal a picture window or two. In the daytime, the structures are unremarkable, resembling oversized corrugated plastic postal service bins or some kind of warehouse structure rather than having any resemblance to a museum that contains precious and priceless collections of art. But that is the mystique of the Bloch Building, the new addition to the Nelson that opened to the public yesterday. The building is full of surprises, most notably at night, when it seems to transform from a cold, blank canvas to an entrancing alien compound that emits a radiant glow from within."

"Although the structure itself appears simple, its approach is carefully thought out to fulfill both functional and artistic directives. It needed to expand the current museum while being its own distinctly modern structure.

“How do you make a relationship between the new and the old where you’re making a new architecture, a new kind of museum, transforming the notion of museum away from a ‘temple of art’ to something that’s more open to the city?” said Chris McVoy, senior partner of Stephen Holl Architects, who worked alongside Holl on the Bloch Building. Holl’s answer was what he called “complementary contrast,” the idea that two distinct objects could serve to enhance each other’s attributes through strong differences, like a stone and a feather."

Art Museum's Modern Addition Gets Mixed Response

National Public Radio June 9

5min 25 sec audio

"The new addition to Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art opens Saturday. It's a complex of five rectangular, milky white glass structures built into the hillside. Some are calling it the best new art museum in a generation. But the contemporary addition to this Kansas City landmark is raising some hackles."

A Translucent and Radiant Partner With the Past

New York Times June 6

"Working on theoretical proposals and the occasional house commission, Steven Holl emerged as a rare, original talent in the 1980s. The strength of his vision was rooted in a desire to reconnect architecture to the physical world — the shifting nature of light, the reflective surfaces of water, the texture of materials — and an atavistic love of craft. He went on to design plenty of good buildings, like Simmons Hall, with its porous steel-grid facade, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the angular forms of the art school at the University of Iowa. But missing was the kind of project that cements an architect’s place in the pantheon: a building in which his special gifts, the full support of a client and the qualities of a site magically fuse into a near-perfect work. The waiting is over. Mr. Holl’s breathtaking addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, opening here on June 9, is his most mature work to date, a perfect synthesis of ideas that he has been refining for more than a decade. By subtly interweaving his building with the museum’s historic fabric and the surrounding landscape, he has produced a work of haunting power."

The Global Warming Survival Guide: What You Can Do
Get Blueprints For a Green House

Time Magazine Special June

"If you begin thinking green at the blueprint stage, however, low-tech, pragmatic techniques will maximize your new home's efficiency. Installing those systems from the ground up is cheaper than retrofitting. "Doing simple things could drastically reduce your energy costs, by 40%," says Oru Bose, a sustainable-design architect in Santa Fe, N.M. For example, control heat, air and moisture leakage by sealing windows and doors. Insulate the garage, attic and basement with natural, nontoxic materials like reclaimed blue jeans. Protect windows from sunrays with large overhangs and double-pane glass. Emphasize natural cross ventilation."

"You don't need to have 24th century solutions to solve 18th century problems," Bose says.

First zero-emission home unveiled

BBC June 11

"The two-bedroom house is insulated to lose 60% less heat than a normal home. It also features solar panels, a biomass boiler and water efficiency devices such as rainwater harvesting.

The design, unveiled at the Offsite 2007 exhibition in Watford, meets rules to be applied in 2016 that aim to make UK homes more energy-efficient. The Kingspan Off-Site's Lighthouse design [Sheppard Robson] is the first to achieve level six of the Code for Sustainable Homes - which means the house is carbon neutral."

Barcelona Warning: Trains Coming. Church at Risk.

New York Times June 10

"With its soaring but impossibly slender columns and masonry that resembles heavy frosting, Antonio Gaudí’s unfinished masterwork La Sagrada Familia seems as if it might suddenly collapse on itself, like a surreal cake. But the architect in charge of efforts to complete the church, one of the most visited monuments in Spain, says the building is indeed threatened — by a train tunnel that, if built as planned, would be dug within a few feet of its foundations. “The project could cause irreparable damage to the Sagrada Familia,” said the architect, Jordi Bonet, 81, who leads a group of 20 architects. “The slightest shift could cause ceramics to fall from the vaults. It could provoke cracks. What would possess someone to build a tunnel like this next to the heaviest building in Barcelona, the most visited monument in Spain?” he asked. In a workshop below the building, he paused next to a plaster model of the unbuilt facade and whipped out a tape measure to show how the tunnel, for a high-speed rail line, and a protective outer wall would pass about five feet from the church’s foundations.

Gaudí began work on La Sagrada Familia, or the Holy Family, in 1883 and only 15 percent of it was complete when he was killed in a streetcar accident in 1926. It was eventually decided that the master had left sufficient plans to compete the church. But in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, an anticlerical mob set fire to Gaudí’s workshop, destroying blueprints and breaking hundreds of plaster models. Mr. Bonet’s father helped salvage the models and became one of Gaudí’s successors on the project. Work finally resumed in 1952, but financing depended largely on donations, and progress has often been slowed by a lack of money."

Behind the Glass Wall

New York Times June 7

William McDonough: Architect

TED Talks

"A tireless proponent of absolute sustainability (with a deadpan sense of humor), he explains his philosophy of "cradle to cradle" design, which bridge the needs of ecology and economics. He also shares some of his most inspiring work, including the world's largest green roof (at the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan), and the entire sustainable cities he's designing in China. Architect William McDonough believes that green design can prevent environmental disaster -- while also driving economic growth. He champions “cradle to cradle” design that considers the full life cycle of a product, from its creation with sustainable materials to a recycled afterlife. "

William McDonough: The wisdom of designing Cradle to Cradle

20min 11sec video

Vatican to build solar panel roof

BBC June 5

"The deteriorating cement roof tiles of the Paul VI auditorium will be replaced next year with photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity. The cells will generate enough power to light, heat or cool the hall, the Vatican engineers say.

The Paul VI auditorium was designed by architect Pier Luigi Nervi and built in 1969."

British Architect Receives Top Honor in Field

PBS NewsHour June 5

"The Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest medal, was awarded Monday in London to Richard Rogers. The NewsHour shares highlights of an interview with the winning architect."

8min 32sec video or downloadable MP3audio

"JEFFREY BROWN: Richard Rogers heads an architecture firm in London and joins us now from New York. First, congratulations to you. Why don't you tell us, what was the idea in the Pompidou and Lloyd's and other works of showing the components and the structure of the building?

RICHARD ROGERS, Architect: There are a number of different reasons. One was to get real flexibility within the floors, to have no vertical interruptions. And, therefore, we put all the things that are usually inside a building on the outside; in other words, the elevators, the structure, the mechanical services are all on the outside so that you could use the building for different types of uses over a long period. Secondly, it was a way to have a play of light and shadow on the mass, which is what architecture is about, and also to have a scale that you could understand, not just a big box, but something which is articulated. These were all reasons for having that form of architecture, but perhaps the most important thing, as far as the building is concerned, to draw people. And the success of the building has been that it's the most visited building in Europe. It has 7 million people a year. And it's very much a people's palace. It's a place for all people, all ages, all creeds; that was the first line in the competition brief which we wrote."

Also see these two articles from the RIBA Journal:

30 years on from the completion of the Pompidou Centre at Beaubourg, how does it all seem now for Richard Rogers, newly-crowned Pritzker laureate and ultimate home-loving Brit Abroad?

When Piano and Rogers’ Pompidou Centre opened 30 years ago, it ushered in a new era, and a new type, of architecture. How much of that original spirit has survived?

Professor Jim White presented Leslie Shepherd, AIA, with a commemorative crystal. Les Shepherd received a BArch from TTU in 1983. Currently he serves as Chief Architect of the U.S. General Services Administration.

Professor John White chats with Les Shepherd and alumni at the Texas Tech University College of Architecture Alumni Reception at the AIA Convention in San Antonio.  The May 3 gathering provided many (re)connection opportunities for alumni, faculty and current students.

Baghdad embassy plans turn up online

Yahoo News May 31

"Detailed plans for the new U.S. Embassy under construction in Baghdad appeared online Thursday in a breach of the tight security surrounding the sensitive project. Computer-generated projections of the soon-to-be completed, heavily fortified compound were posted on the Web site of the Kansas City, Mo.-based architectural firm that was contracted to design the massive facility in the Iraqi capital. The images were removed by Berger Devine Yaeger Inc. shortly after the company was contacted by the State Department. "We work very hard to ensure the safety and security of our employees overseas," said Gonzalo Gallegos, a department spokesman. "This kind of information out in the public domain detracts from that effort."

The 10 images included a scheme of the overall layout of the compound, plus depictions of individual buildings including the embassy itself, office annexes, the Marine Corps security post, swimming pool, recreation center and the ambassador's and deputy ambassador's residences. U.S. officials said the posted plans conformed at least roughly to conceptual drawings for the new embassy, which is being built on the banks of the Tigris River behind huge fences due to concerns about insurgents' attacks. Dan Sreebny, a spokesman for the embassy in Baghdad, declined to discuss the accuracy of the posted images. "In terms of commenting whether they're accurate, obviously we wouldn't be commenting on that because we don't want people to know whether they're accurate or not for security reasons," he said. Berger Devine Yaeger's parent company, the giant contractor Louis Berger Group, said the plans had been very preliminary and would not be of help to potential U.S. enemies. "The actual information that was up there was purely conjectural and conceptual in nature," said company spokesman Jeffrey Willis. "Google Earth could give you a better snapshot of what the site looks like on the ground." Some U.S. officials acknowledged that damage may have been done by the postings and used expletives to describe their personal reactions. Still, they downplayed the overall risk."

U.S. Embassy in Iraq to be biggest ever

Yahoo News May 19

"The $592 million embassy occupies a chunk of prime real estate two-thirds the size of Washington's National Mall, with desk space for about 1,000 people behind high, blast-resistant walls. The compound is a symbol both of how much the United States has invested in Iraq and how the circumstances of its involvement are changing."

Baghdad US Embassy

"Following successful completion of the preliminary concept plans and the full embassy master plan, Berger was commissioned to prepare the design-build “bridging documents” (based on 35% design) for construction of the self-contained embassy compound. Berger Devine Yaeger, Inc. (BDY) was the architect for this work. The construction (currently underway) is being executed in four concurrent packages...

In total, the 104 acre compound will include over twenty buildings including one classified secure structure and housing for over 380 families."

Frank Gehry’s buildings seem to be from another planet

Times UK May 29

"What’s the most difficult and stressful task that a human being can perform? Brain surgery on the President of the United States maybe, or reentering the Earth’s atmosphere in a malfunctioning Space Shuttle? Or perhaps it would it be the task of designing a Frank Gehry building: a several-hundred-million-dollar landmark that appears to be engaged in an inadvisable late-night dare with gravity; a building that, when you get down to it, has no real business being a building at all. Something like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, which resembles a giant extraterrestrial insect perched for a while on the bank of the Nervion River, ready to flutter back into deep space at any moment.

It’s hard not to feel daunted by the prospect of interacting with the brain responsible for Bilbao’s how-in-the-name-of-God-did-they-build-that curves, not to mention the wildly implausible lines of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Gehry’s reputation doesn’t help: he is described to me by one of his close friends as “quiet and difficult”. But then, what do you expect? Gehry is no mere architect; he is a “starchitect”, and the object of adulation by culture junkies across the world..."

Vinos Herederos del Marques de Riscal ^

Five minute film about Gehry's landmark Guggenheim Bilbao, shot by Ultan Gulifoyle

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision

"Inside the building that tranquility gives way to a comic-book version of Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” with strict divisions between various worlds. Visitors enter via an internal bridge that crosses over an underground atrium. From here, a vast hall conceived on the scale of a piazza leads to a cafeteria overlooking the calm surface of a reflecting pool. On one side of the hall looms the ziggurat form of the museum; on the other, a wall of glass-enclosed offices. Here the spectral glow of the interior of the cast-glass skin evokes the stained-glass windows of a medieval cathedral. It’s a stunning space whose power lies in the contrast between the various architectural experiences within. Clad in cold gray slate, for instance, the underground atrium is a striking counterpoint to the heavenly glass walls above."

Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, Encased in Glass

New York Times May 26

The Helvetica Hegemony

Slate May 25

"This year is the 50th anniversary of Helvetica, the ubiquitous sans-serif font that some have called the official typeface of the 20th century. Even if you don't know its name, you'll probably recognize its face. Helvetica is everywhere. It's been used in countless corporate logos, including those of American Airlines, Sears, Target, Toyota, BMW, Tupperware, Nestlé, ConEd, Verizon, North Face, Staples, Panasonic, Evian, Crate and Barrel, and the Gap. You can spot it on billboards, album covers, and directional signs, including all the signage in the New York City subway system. Even the IRS uses Helvetica for its income tax forms.

Now, the typeface is the subject of a small exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art centering around an original set of Helvetica lead type donated to the museum by Lars Müller, designer and publisher of the 2005 book Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface. And a new feature-length documentary, Helvetica (2007), directed by Gary Hustwit, has been playing to sold-out houses at film festivals and art schools since March. So, why is this 50-year-old font still so successful?" Not ARCHITECTURE and not NEWS, but it sure is DESIGN and a classic - RDP

House of the Month

Architectural Record May

"When many people hire an architect to renovate or add on to an existing house, they put a substantial amount of thought into resale value—how many bedrooms and bathrooms to add for a future owner, what kind of amenities a family would need to make the house a solid investment, etc. For Kathy Kich, who hired San Antonio–based Sprinkle Robey Architects to renovate and expand her 2,178-square-foot, one-bedroom, gabled-roof house on a deep, narrow 2.25-acre site in the hills near San Antonio, she was only thinking about how to make this home perfect for herself, and then, later, her husband. With starts and stops along the four-year design phase the 1960s bachelorette-pad was remade into a 3,440-square foot nest for two, with a boxlike addition to the north (a media room/study that doubles as a second bedroom when needed) and one to the south (the master bedroom suite that doubles as Kich’s office)."

Davis Sprinkle received a BArch from TTU in 1982.

Why Are They Greener Than We Are?

"When it comes to designing buildings that are good for the environment, Europe gets it."

The Native Builder

"In near isolation in Australia, Glenn Murcutt is designing houses that reimagine the woolshed."

An Eco-House for the Future

"Diller Scofidio + Renfro show how sustainability can have style."

The Accidental Environmentalist

"Whether with paper, old containers, glass or steel, Shigeru Ban makes buildings that waste nothing. Just don’t call him green."

The Road to Curitiba

"For 40 years, a medium-sized Brazilian city has set the international standard for environmentally conscious urban planning. But can it grow and remain green?"

Eco-tecture

New York Times Magazine May 20

Calling Mr. Green

New York Times May 20

"Q: As an architect and designer who helped pioneer environmentally sustainable buildings in the ’80s and was nicknamed the Green Dean during your tenure at the University of Virginia in the ’90s, what is your top priority these days?

William Mcdonough: I am very focused on large-scale deployments of renewable power and how we’re going to get this done. Imagine our military bases covered with solar thermal collectors that could generate steam and electricity.

That seems a little organic for the military. Do real men use solar power? William Mcdonough: Absolutely. It’s terrorist-proof — solar power is inherently local, so you can’t blow it up; it’s too dispersed."

Mies Van Der Rohe

YouTube

Two minute 48 second MTV-like, new wave-ish, kinda Kraftwerk-y, music video.

(Above links for those unaware of late 1970s, early 1980s popular culture.)

CAUTION: Song may annoy those nearby and/or get stuck in your head! -RDP

Philip Johnson's Glass House Opens to the Public

Preservation Online May 17

"Last month, a few quiet groups began arriving in New Canaan, Conn., to tour Philip Johnson's modernist home, the Glass House–the first official tours of the property in more than 50 years. On June 23, however, the Glass House will be anything but quiet. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, its new owner, will host an inaugural gala picnic, kicking off the official opening of the Glass House to the public.

Twenty-six different projects were completed to prepare for the opening, including replacing the roof of the Glass House and creating a museum shop. A "visitor experience center" was also organized in downtown New Canaan, where tourists can learn about Johnson's work and the history of the Glass House via a multimedia exhibition. Once visitors arrive at the Glass House site, they will walk a half-mile route around the 47-acre property, visiting the Glass House [pdf presskit], its companion Brick House, and the painting and sculpture galleries."

"I have
very
expensive
wallpaper"

"Mr. Prouvé, who died in 1984, was a pioneer of prefabrication and was one of the first to make use of folded sheet steel and other experimental materials."

From Africa to Queens Waterfront, a Modernist Gem for Sale to the Highest Bidder

New York Times May 16

"The Maison Tropicale, a small aluminum-paneled house built in 1951 by Jean Prouvé, a French designer and the current court favorite of well-heeled contemporary art and design collectors internationally, is being opened to the public for preview in Long Island City. Christie’s, the auction house, will offer it for sale on June 5. The presale estimate is $4 million to $6 million. It’s cash and carry. The structure is a kit of metal parts, like an Ikea piece, but bigger. It was conceived by Prouvé as a utopian prototype for prefabricated housing for French colonial officials working in Africa."

Twirling, Wind-Power Tower

Inhabitat May 16

"While David Fisher’s Twirling Tower is not the first rotating tower we’ve spotted (Dubai Tower Clocks the Sun), and not the first that generates power from the wind (Wind Shaped Kinetic Pavilion), it’s definitely the first to pack this type of power. Designer David Fisher claims his Twirling Tower can not only generate enough energy to power itself, but it will also generate enough energy to power ten additional buildings similarly sized. While details on the tower’s true ability to generate electricity have not been proven, we are definitely a fan of those willing to search out new ideas. What differentiates David’s Tower from other moving towers is the integration of a large wind turbine sandwiched between each floor giving the tower its potential for energy. Inserted at every other floor, the turbines alone might be enough of an energy generator to stop residences heads from spinning, giving the penthouse owners at the top of the building the ability to control their view rotating to their hearts content."

Dubai Puts a New Spin on Skyscrapers

Wall Street Journal

"Some see outlandish designs like these as a sign of an architectural apocalypse. "It makes me ill," says Eugene Kohn, principal at New York-based Kohn Pedersen Fox, a firm recognized for handsome, modernist -- albeit stationary -- designs. "Some of these buildings are going to the absurd." "

Tower twirls and debate starts to swirl

Chicago Tribune

""He's nuts," said Chicago architect George Schipporeit, co-designer of the undulating Lake Point Tower and a faculty member at the Illinois Institute of Technology's architecture school."

Built to Last, and Lasting

New York Times May 12

"The studio has not altered its core mandate: to produce socially conscious, environmentally sensitive designs for the rural poor in an area about 50 miles south of Tuscaloosa that was made famous by James Agee and Walker Evans’s Depression-era account, “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” And the program is determined to retain its scrappy Southern spirit.

But change is inevitable: Long associated with Mr. Mockbee, a fifth-generation Mississippian, Rural Studio is now run by Andrew Freear, 41, a wisecracking architect from Yorkshire, England, who left his practice in Chicago seven years ago to work with Mr. Mockbee and took over for him after his death.

Known for using unorthodox found objects like car windshields and bottles, the studio now focuses on getting donations of more conventional (and perhaps lasting) building materials. Outside engineering experts now consult on a regular basis, and an advisory board meets twice a year. A scholarship has been created to send a local student to college, and the studio is trying to build an endowment. Auburn University now underwrites the studio’s annual operating budget of $400,000."

 Texas Tech University  College of Architecture  Robert D. Perl 

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