Archinect - News

The Influence of Robert Venturi on Louis Kahn

2013-06-18T17:03:00-04:00

This study considers the question of how Louis Kahn’s development as an architect was shaped by the influences of Robert Venturi. The personal and professional interaction between these two historically significant architects began late in Kahn’s career and early in Venturi’s.

If my friend Kurt Dillon has not sent me the link for this significant thesis by then Master of Science in Architecture candidate Sam Rodell in Washington State University in 2008, I would have my suspicions hanging in the air without proper documentation. It is a great reading for folks who are ready to trash Robert Venturi at all times and treating Kahn as Zeus from the top of the hill. I have learned from and a fan of both, btw.

"This study considers the question of how Louis Kahn’s development as an architect was shaped by the influences of Robert Venturi. The personal and professional interaction between these two historically significant architects began late in Kahn’s career and early in Venturi’s.

Starting with Venturi’s master’s thesis in 1950, the relationship continued past the seminal publication of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture sixteen years later. Some historical accounts portray Kahn as mentor to Venturi over this period of time. It was in fact a ...

Starchitect Trio: The Men Behind Germany's Building Debacles

2013-06-17T16:43:00-04:00

SPIEGEL: Mr. de Meuron, Mr. von Gerkan and Mr. Ingenhoven, architecture's reputation in this country is worse than ever. How much of the blame do you bear?

Stuttgart's train station, Hamburg's concert house and Berlin's airport: Three projects in Germany are currently competing to be seen as the country's most disastrous. SPIEGEL spoke to the star architects behind the construction sites.

Kazy Varnelis says, "Good riddance, Pritzker"

2013-06-15T14:12:00-04:00

The sort of patronizing language used in the letter by Lord Palumbo is all too familiar. It is the voice of money and authority, the same sort of voice that spoke out against the rights of the women, the poor, and minorities. It is, alas, the voice of what Brown describes as the "sad white men's award."

Pritzker jury will not revisit decision to exclude Denise Scott Brown

2013-06-14T19:28:00-04:00

“Insofar as you have in mind a retroactive award of the prize to Ms. Scott Brown, the present jury cannot do so” -Peter Palumbo, the Pritzker chairman

No Pritzker Prize for Denise Scott Brown and no more pretzels for you guys! Boooooooo!

Wang Shu, China's Champion of Slow Architecture

2013-06-14T13:57:00-04:00

The day after Chinese architect Wang Shu was awarded the $100,000 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the field’s equivalent of a Nobel, in May 2012, he returned to the old Beijing neighborhood where he grew up and found it in the process of being demolished. The hutong, with its maze of narrow streets and traditional courtyard houses, was being sacrificed to make room for a new philosophy center.

Related Blog post on Archinect: Beijing Rising - Of Walls and Walkways

AIA National Convention 2013 Comes to You

2013-06-13T19:06:00-04:00

For the 145th consecutive year, the American Institute of Architects is holding its annual convention this week, June 20-23. It is the biggest gathering of Architects and designers each year, and it is always held different host cities. This year, Denver is the location.

Traveling to the convention has generally been a challenge for many architects who are not within driving distance, but with increasingly more robust internet capabilities, it is now possible for architects, non-architects, AIA Members and non-members to take in the convention experience from their home, office, library, coffee shop or any other location with hi-speed internet access.

The 2013 AIA National Convention will provide the most real-time access to online participants ever as the AIA will host the 2013 AIA Virtual Convention over the same days as the event in Denver. Eager participants can join the experience with live streaming of content from the convention via computer (Windows and Mac OS platform...

Editor's Picks # 319

2013-06-11T11:52:00-04:00

Paul Petrunia spoke with Ali Jeevanjee and Ben Anderson from the Flux Foundation, an Oakland based organization dedicated to producing large scale public art via a collaborative process. To this end they installed Sidewalk's End at this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, California, back in April 2013.

News
Over at the LA Times Christopher Hawthorne reported on LACMA's unfurled Peter Zumthor's design. Mr. Hawthorne wrote "Still a work in progress, the design is full of gestures that are more speculative, even searching, than fully formed. One crucial element that remains under-developed is how it will feel to walk beneath the museum's raised main floor — and how the underside of the building will be clad or look as seen from the ground. (In such a large, dark piece of architecture it will be important to keep that space from feeling cave-like.) The plan so far has little to say about landscape architecture". Gregory Walker had a few questions "is this really any ...

Filling the Gap: New Architecture Discourse in Rio de Janeiro

2013-06-11T11:45:00-04:00

Since 2011, Studio-X Rio has been bringing together professionals, academics, decision makers, students, and the general public to confront the city’s most pressing challenges.

Andrew Rice shines a spotlight on Michael Kimmelman's war on Madison Square Garden

2013-06-10T15:43:00-04:00

It might seem like a mismatch: the Dolans, veterans of many public brawls, against Kimmelman, an urbane trained pianist who previously wrote primarily about art. But such is the power of the Times when it’s given to a crusading voice.

More details of Zumthor's LACMA redesign

2013-06-06T19:19:00-04:00

Here is your first look at models and details of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor's proposed new building for LACMA. See these for yourself, along with a look at LACMA's architectural history and an overview of other Zumthor projects, in THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST: PETER ZUMTHOR RECONSIDERS LACMA, on view July 9-September 15, 2013

For more information, visit lacma.org/zumthor.

See the MOCA U-Hauls Full of Ingenious Architectural Solutions - LA Architects Making the World a Better Place

2013-06-06T18:58:00-04:00

A squadron of U-Hauls descended on the parking lot in front of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA last weekend, setting up a pop-up architecture exhibition in the first in a series of events called On the Road. The U-Hauls served as temporary displays for the work of up-and-coming, experimental architecture practices here in Los Angeles--where architecture businesses are known for being experimental, even if they don't often get a chance to deploy those innovations in Los Angeles.

5468796 Architecture wins one of five WAN 21 FOR 21 Awards

2013-06-05T20:22:00-04:00

Canadian firm 5468796 Architecture has been selected for the WAN 21 FOR 21 Award by World Architecture News in London, UK. 5468796 was one of five emerging architectural practices chosen from over 150 entries and a longlist of 50 firms from around the world.

Editor's Picks #318

2013-06-05T01:58:00-04:00

Evan Chakroff penned Art Basel comes to Hong Kong a report wherein Mr. Chakroff analyzed "During the yearly art fair in Basel, Switzerland, the city is activated and reconfigured, and art is brought to the forefront of civic discourse. What, if any, impact could the fair have on daily life in a city of 7 million? How would this art world mega-event translate to the Hong Kong context?"...

News
Orhan Ayyüce drew our attention to #occupygezi in Istanbul where mass protests and battles are still raging over the government plans to build a "Shopping Mall” on the site of an historic civic park.

Parad0xx86 shared "I was in Besiktas and Taksim today. Taksim is like a total war zone with windows smashed, cars turned upside down, beer cans all over the streets..All the buildings have anti-Tayyip graffitis. There are thousands of people in Taksim right now and they aren't going anywhere". mantaray pointed out "that NPR interviewed protesters today, and one of them turned out to be an a...

Facebook's positive experience with Gehry in California leads to commission to design new NYC office

2013-06-04T11:52:00-04:00

The company will be moving all of its teams from its current office near Grand Central to two floors at the new office, the interior of which architect Frank Gehry has agreed to design. Gehry is already leading the expansion of Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, CA. A source familiar with Facebook's plans said the company is "extraordinarily pleased with [Gehry's] ability to delivery an incredible quality of design at a remarkably efficient price"...

Unforgetting Women Architects

2013-06-03T17:15:00-04:00

A historian might spend decades undertaking research in archives and writing up discoveries in scholarly journals, but if the work does not have a presence online — and, specifically, a presence that is not behind a paywall — it is all but invisible outside academia. As Ridge states, “If it’s not Googleable, it doesn’t exist.”

Over the decades women architects have received scant attention from historians and prize juries. On Places, Despina Stratigakos writes, "The painful cancellation of Denise Scott Brown in the awarding of the Pritzker Prize solely to her husband and collaborator, Robert Venturi, is an important but hardly exceptional example of how female partners are written out of history by a profession suffering from Star Architect Disorder, or SAD." Stratigakos argues that it's time to write women back into history — and that the place to start is Wikipedia.

Frank Gehry back in MOCA architecture show, coaxed by Thom Mayne

2013-06-01T09:48:00-04:00

With his fellow Pritzker Prize-winning L.A. architect, Thom Mayne, playing the self-described role of “ombudsman” and “facilitator,” Frank Gehry is back in the fold for a major exhibition on Los Angeles architects that will open June 16 at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Toyo Ito’s Pritzker Prize Acceptance Speech

2013-05-30T21:18:00-04:00

Earlier this year in March, it was announced that Japanese architect Toyo Ito would join the ranks of the architecture Gods and be honored with the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize. Last night now at a festive ceremony in Boston's John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, he finally received his coveted medal and $100,000 grant from Thomas J. Pritzker, chairman of The Hyatt Foundation which has sponsored the prize since its founding in 1979.

Following is Ito's full acceptance speech in English:

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen! I am thrilled and honored to be awarded the Pritzker Prize in the presence of so many dear friends and distinguished architects from around the world. It is also a special pleasure to be here, in the John F. Kennedy Library, on the birthday of John F. Kennedy, the 35th President. I do believe this is the best day of my life so far!

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude first to the Pritzker Family: Mrs. Cindy Pritzker, Mr. Thomas J. Pritzker, and Mrs. Margaret Pritzker. I also thank the jury members, Lord Peter Palumbo, Mr. Alejandro Aravena, Mr. Juhani Pallasmaa, Mr. Glenn Murcutt, Mr. Stephen Breyer, Mr. Yung Ho Chang, and Ms. Martha Thorne.

At the same time, being here in Boston, I cannot help but think of the bombing that happened here last month. Please allow me to offer my condolences to the victims and to all of those whose lives were affected by those horrific events.

...

Architects take rare dive into politics

2013-05-30T20:25:00-04:00

After dabbling at the edges for political discourse for several years, the AIA's New York chapter has jumped in with both feet by releasing this week its first-ever mayoral platform. "We just felt these issues were too important to stand on the sidelines anymore," said Jill Lerner, a principal KPF and the chapter's president. "Whether it's zoning and building codes or sustainability issues or climate change and Sandy, politicians set the agenda for how the city gets built."

School at Sea

2013-05-30T14:10:00-04:00

In Makoko, a sprawling slum on the waterfront of Lagos, Nigeria, tens of thousands of people live in rickety wood houses teetering above the fetid lagoon. It’s an old fishing village on stilts, increasingly battered by floods from heavy rains and rising seas. Because the settlement was becoming dangerous, the government forcibly cleared part of it last year.

Kunle Adeyemi, a Nigerian architect, had a better idea. He and his team asked what the community wanted, and with its help and money from the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the United Nations, he devised a floating school: a low-cost three-story A-frame, buoyed by about 250 plastic barrels, with a 1,000-square-foot play area, classrooms, rainwater collection and composting toilets. Made to serve 100 elementary-school children, the building provides a flexible and robust prototype for housing and other potential structures. In Iwan Baan’s mystical photographs, Makoko emerges as a kind of crazy-quilt grid. The school, just opened, stands apart, its peak rising above the rest of the settlement, like a lighthouse.

Michael Kimmelman, NYT

uncube converses with UNStudio's Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos

2013-05-29T19:13:00-04:00

In contrast to postmodernism – to Krier but also to Tschumi and Koolhaas, who tended more toward approaching architecture through the political issues of that time – we started solely from architectural issues. We also wrote our first book about that, about how architecture itself can again be a source of fascination.

Thinking Big - Four Visions of a New Penn Station

2013-05-29T15:00:00-04:00

The Municipal Art Society asked four design firms to draw big: Reimagine the ideal Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden. The proposals — by Diller Scofidio & Renfro, SHoP Architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture — will be introduced on Wednesday at the TimesCenter. All plans expect the new station to include high-speed rail.

SHoP ARCHITECTS Expands the existing site with a lightweight concrete structure that is meant to evoke the old Penn Station and seeks to make the station a social meeting spot. “When’s the last time you heard someone say, ‘Let’s meet for a drink at Penn Station?'” asked Vishaan Chakrabarti, a principal. “People say that about Grand Central all the time.”

SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL Moves Madison Square Garden off site and expands the station to four city blocks from two. Above ground: green space four times the size of Bryant Park; housing twice the size of Tudor City; more offices than Rockefeller Center; and more cultural spaces than Lincoln Center. “We saw Madison Square Garden as a sideshow,” said Roger Duffy, a design partner. “The primary purpose of the site is for the public and transportation.”

DILLER SCOFIDIO & RENFRO Moves Madison Square Garden across Eighth Avenue next to the James A. Farley Post Office building; Penn Station becomes a multilevel publi...

Editor's Picks #317

2013-05-28T19:03:00-04:00

In the latest edition of Working out of the Box: Archinect interviewed Larraine Henning who is currently seeking funding for A Practical Guide to Squatting on Indiegogo. @bawshaw commented "@LandMass - agreed. although the thesis is interesting, this is not out of the box in terms of a career"...Yet Connely Farr disagreed "@ LandMass - yep. you sound like an ass".

In the latest edition of Working out of the Box: Archinect interviewed Larraine Henning who is currently seeking funding for A Practical Guide to Squatting on Indiegogo. Buy a copy of the book “A Practical Guide to Squatting”, and help support independent art and promote the squatting movement! During the interview, she reflected "I think the most valuable thing architecture school bestowed upon me was tolerance and persistence...School taught me to bear conviction and purpose with whatever project I take on, to be earnest and to take judgement in stride"...

@bawshaw commented "@LandMass - agreed. although the thesis is interesting, this is not out of the box in terms of a career. half of my graduating class ended up taking similar paths; more as a product of the recession than anything else. these paths may be alternative to the modern career, but not to architecture specifically. i do applaud her for doing what she believes in".

Yet Connely Farr disagreed "@ LandMass - yep. ...

Pure Hardcore Icons Manifesto Book by WAI Think Tank

2013-05-28T18:58:00-04:00

WAI Architecture Think Tank upcoming publication Pure Hardcore Icons: A Manifesto on Pure Form in Architecture (August 2013) is featured on Artifice Books on Architecture Autumn 2013 Catalog.

The Catalog can be downloaded here.

Pure Hardcore Icons summary:

In the kingdom of architecture the shape reigns supreme. Ever since the beginning of history, pure geometric form has been one of architecture’s recurrent obsessions. A genealogy of buildings shaped as pyramids, spheres, and cubes can be traced back to ancient times, while contemporary projects, either as poured concrete or virtual bytes, often resemble stacked boxes and looping skyscrapers.

Despite torrents of pure shapes flooding with evidence magazine pages and computer screens around the world, architecture lacks a written work to declare its intentions. Pure Hardcore Icons is the first manifesto on pure form in architecture.

WAI Architecture Think Tank, directed by authors Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz Garcia,...

Win a FREE Full Pass to the 2013 AIA National Convention from reThink Wood

2013-05-28T15:20:00-04:00

reThink Wood Wants to get you into the 2013 AIA National Convention in Denver for FREE!
reThink Wood is offering a full pass to one lucky Archinect respondent!
http://www.aia.org/CONVENTION
Denver, CO | June 20-22

Contest closes June 6, 2013

The AIA National Convention provides architects an opportunity to network, learn about growing trends and gain new resources, and reThink Wood’s attendance at the 2013 AIA National Convention offers just that. This June, reThink Wood will be on site at the AIA National Convention in Denver, Colorado providing education sessions on innovative wood design, resources for designing with wood and on-site advisors who can speak to the benefits of wood building systems and specific product applications.

In celebration of their attendance at the architectural event of the year, reThink Wood is offering a full pass to the AIA National Convention ($860 value) to one lucky Archinect respondent!

reThink Wood events taking place at its booth (#154...

Help fund "Women in Architecture"

2013-05-24T19:03:00-04:00

How would the design of the built environment, the process and practice of architecture change if women were leading and equally represented?

Nina Freedman and Lori Brown are seeking funding for "Women in Architecture", an initiative to transform leadership for women in architecture by bridging academy and practice.

L.A. artists, architects' effect on each other at MAK Center exhibit

2013-05-24T18:49:00-04:00

The exhibition at the MAK Center in West Hollywood, curated by UCLA architectural historian and critic Sylvia Lavin, is a wry study of the ways Los Angeles artists and architects worked with, leaned on, stole from and influenced one another in the 1970s. In a larger sense, it charts the way Southern California architects threw off the influence of establishmen Modernism and helped remake the profession in that decade.

Packed with mostly small-scale work by artists Judy Chicago, Billy Al Bengston, Robert Smithson, Ed Moses and architects Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Charles Moore, Cesar Pelli and Frank Gehry, among many others, it is easily the most surprising and opinionated of the exhibitions to open as part of the Getty L.A. architecture series "Pacific Standard Time Presents."

Jorge Pardo & Oscar Tuazon, in conversation

2013-05-23T18:22:00-04:00

Though indebted to conventional artistic methodologies, the vibrant, playful works of Jorge Prado lack traditional notions of artistic autonomy, with multiple uses straddling sculpture, furniture and architecture. Over espresso and a cigarette in the kitchen of his Los Angeles home, Pardo shares with Oscar Tuazon his processes of transforming built environments into functionally fluid sites designed to facilitate a diversity of experience.

Zaha Hadid beyond buildings: architect launches new design gallery

2013-05-23T13:01:00-04:00

She has become a global brand so desirable that her buildings in China are now being pirated – before they are even finished. So what territory is left to conquer? The answer might be found by peering through the windows of an innocuous looking building on Clerkenwell Road in east London, which opened this week as the Zaha Hadid Design Gallery, part of Clerkenwell Design Week.

Donate to Architecture for Humanity to help rebuild Moore, Oklahoma

2013-05-22T13:52:00-04:00

Architecture for Humanity is working with local and regional construction professionals to begin assessments and support rebuilding work after an F-4 tornado ripped through the heart of Moore, OK and surrounding communities.

Architecture for Humanity focuses on helping communities beyond the relief phase of disaster. The agency is currently working on rebuilding efforts post Superstorm Sandy and rebuilt in communities affected by Hurricane Katrina. Architecture for Humanity is mobilizing to assist in long term-reconstruction to help rebuild Moore and the surrounding communities. The agency works to incorporate resiliency and disaster mitigation strategies, leaving communities safer and stronger than before.

“After the Haiti earthquake students from Moore West Junior High raised funds for the organization to help rebuild schools for displaced students. Our thoughts are with the entire community of Moore, OK and those affected,” said Cameron Sinclair, Co-founder, Architecture for Humanity.

Editor's Picks #316

2013-05-22T11:11:00-04:00

Beth Mosenthal penned a thoughtful Op-Ed titled The Ego and the Architect. Therein, she briefly examined "the idea of ‘leadership’ in an architectural office".

News
Celebrating the fact that "the Museum of Modern Art blinked" Michael Kimmelman wrote an article Defending the Former American Folk Art Museum Building. Donna Sink commented "A lovely, calm argument and well- written article. Fingers crossed that MOMA's less egotisticsl and more community-focused board members will listen".

Archinect talked to Ivan Blanco, designer of the competition-winning entry in the LA Film Festival Director's Lounge Design Competition. Ivan heads LA-based multi-disciplinary design studio Blnko Design Labs. Eric Chavkin enjoyed the interview but had a couple of thoughts "The scheme is, well, kind of typical but does address the very important IMHO the after film-aspect of going to a screening. The 'windows frame' metaphor is just weak".

Following the release of CLOG: Brutalism—the NYC-...