Archinect - News

Skate park within former church burns down in St. Louis

2023-07-04T10:00:00-04:00

A four-alarm fire late Wednesday engulfed a towering historic church that had been converted into an indoor skatepark north of downtown St. Louis. No injuries were reported in the blaze at S, near Hogan and North Market streets. The cause of the fire remained under investigation as of 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

The fire is believed to have started in the church rectory before it spread to where the skatepark is. The German Gothic church at the St. Liborius Parish Complex in the city’s St. Louis Place neighborhood was originally constructed in 1889. The building was declared a city landmark in 1975 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 before it closed in 1992. The current owner of the church, Dave Blum, purchased it in 2012, which was followed by its renovation into a skate park named Sk8 Liborius in 2016.

Video courtesy SK8 Liborius/YouTube

The former church had become a sanctuary for St. Louis’ skater community as one of the few dedicated skating locations in the city. Skate ramps, notably a 40-foot miniature ramp in the center, graffiti, and murals replaced what were once pews.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sk8 Liborius / The LUAS 501c3 (@sk8liborius)

It remains unclear what the cause of the blaze was. Blum is working with fir...

Frank Lloyd Wright’s stately Westhope home lists for $8 million in Oklahoma

2023-04-21T12:56:00-04:00

Frank Lloyd Wright's historic 1929 Westhope home has just hit the market in Oklahoma.

Sage Sotheby’s has the property listed for $8 million in Tulsa, with local real estate investor Stuart Price as the seller.

According to the listing, the 5-bed, 4.5-bath home is 10,405 square feet, making it one of the largest residential projects designed by the architect. It joins two other in Carmel, California and the Phoenix area as Wright designs to have come on the market since the new year. The home is one of only three Wright commissions in Oklahoma between 1929 and the Price Tower in 1956 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 following a 1965 renovation.

Image: Sarah Strunk Photography/Sage Sotheby’s International Realty

Local publishing magnate Richard Lloyd Jones envisioned the home as a “symbol of Tulsa’s future.” The structure features the same “textile blocks” system seen earlier in the Enni...

Iconic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed oceanfront home sells for $22 million in California

2023-02-27T17:05:00-05:00

Frank Lloyd Wright’s California seaside project, Mrs. Clinton Walker House, has sold for $22 million after being listed on the market in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The 1,400-square-foot home was completed in 1952 for a wealthy widower residing in one of California's sought-after surf meccas.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2016 and features a copper-shingled roof with the home's shape designed to resemble a ship’s bow breaking the waves overlooking the point towards nearby Pebble Beach. Thomas Church was also responsible for the landscaping at the site in his pioneering California Style.

The Journal quoted a 1948 letter from homeowner Della Walker to Wright (in which she reportedly references Fallingwater as an inspiration) as saying: “I am a woman living alone. I wish protection from the wind and privacy from the road and a house as enduring as the rocks but as transparent and charming as the waves and delicate ...

Examining the history and importance of four LGBTQ sites newly listed by the National Trust for Historic Places

2022-06-17T18:13:00-04:00

Preserving spaces are integral to maintaining America's gay communities and keeping the memory of their members' hard work in establishing physical sites of resistance in the face of legal repression, violence, and generational intolerance. Terms like "Gay power" convey the desire for visibility in those spaces that have evolved due to their hard-fought existence. Today they serve as a rallying cry for different scholarly interventions initiated to protect the important story of queer history in the United States.

In honor of the slate of Pride celebrations taking place in June, the National Trust for Historic Preservation continues to expand on the documentary research of these sites. Thanks to the National Park Service's influential 2016 Theme Study that identified several new locations for nomination to join the group's two official heritage designations, four new sites have been added to the list since its original publication.

The cover of the publication LGBTQ America. Design...

Take a virtual look at the Tenement Museum thanks to this new photogrammetric tour from The Washington Post

2021-12-09T17:14:00-05:00

Step into its cramped spaces to follow this brick structure along the y-axis of time, as landlords and residents grappled with such diseases as tuberculosis, cholera and influenza, — and as the fear of fire and bad air, even immigrants themselves, left indelible marks on its design and structure.

New York City's Tenement Museum itself has undergone severe financial strain dating back before the pandemic and was rumored to be closing its doors permanently after 33 years in operation before reopening to tourists again in mid-June.

Located at the edge of the Bowery along Orchard Street, the two buildings were home to at least 15,000 mostly immigrant inhabitants before 1935. The fascinating tour is the vision of the Washington Post’s new Lede Lab and their own Pulitizer-winning art and architecture critic Philip Kennicott.

“At The Post we are constantly experimenting with the latest innovative technology to help enrich The Post’s storytelling,” Jenna Pirog, deputy editor of strategic initiatives, said in an update. “How 3D immersive spaces can be presented on the web continues to evolve, and this project was a great way to use this tool to let readers see and explore the Tenement Museum space from their homes.”

Minoru Yamasaki’s Michigan State Medical Society building hits the market for $4.3 million

2021-11-18T15:37:00-05:00

An excellent example of the New Formalist style is now available for the relatively low price of $4.3 million.

Local news outlets are reporting the recent addition of Minoru Yamasaki’s Michigan State Medical Society to the real estate market in East Lansing.

Image courtesy Michigan State Historic Preservation Office via Flickr

The architect of the World Trade Center received the commission for the building in 1959, marking his first major project outside of Metro Detroit. It was given a two-story extension in 1979 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

Yamasaki’s design features a column-lined exterior connected by 31 cast-concrete arches which form a profile later repeated in the Trade Center’s podium and characterized by an internal collaborative office plan and vaulted ceilings.

Image courtesy Michigan State Historic Preservation Office via Flickr

“The intent was to build a serene and inviting building to express the idealism and humanity of the medical pro...

Goff Fest kicks off in Tulsa honoring the life of its late architectural native son

2021-11-04T08:58:00-04:00

The living memory of one of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s biggest drivers of the city’s noteworthy contributions to the visual landscape of 20th-century America is getting its due this weekend in an awesome way.

Goff Fest is about to descend on one of the city’s most important historic landmarks. The Tulsa Club Hotel will host the inaugural edition of a four-day festival honoring the life, work, and legacy of its architect, the late Bruce Goff.

Goff was an architectural prodigy who went on to become one of the Midwest’s most prominent practitioners of Modernism. Most of his extant early buildings were realized in the Tulsa metropolitan area, including the Boston Avenue Methodist Church and Riverside Studio, which are both on the National Register of Historic Places.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by GOFF FEST (@goff_fest)

Organized by Tulsa’s Goff Center of the Continuous Present (GCCP), the festival is the brainchild of Brooklyn-based artist Karl Jones. Jones was...

Signal's makeover of historic Fort Worden offers Puget Sound a new arts center

2021-10-13T18:14:00-04:00

Whence a military installation, now an art gallery. A new adaptive reuse project from Signal Architecture + Research has transformed a one-time coastal artillery fortification in Port Townsend, Washington into an eight-acre arts compound with accommodations for studios, exhibition space, and a new artist residency called Makers Square.

Image courtesy SIGNAL

The project took three of Fort Worden’s warehouse buildings currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places and remade what began a harbinger of violence into a historically sensitive space for creative expression.

Image courtesy Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission

The old quartermasters’ warehouse is now a gallery space complete with new double-height ceilings and a gabled roofline. Two writers’ studios occupy an expanded attic area, and the basement has been transformed into a headquarters for the local station KPTZ with the help of engineering partner Arup. The two remaining buildings became ideal canva...

Historic New Orleans jazz destination that helped launch Louis Armstrong to fame destroyed by Hurricane Ida

2021-08-30T17:41:00-04:00

Video shot Monday morning shows New Orleans’ historic Karnofsky Shop was destroyed by Hurricane Ida Sunday. [...] The site, located on South Rampart Street, is where Louis Armstrong played jazz music and briefly worked. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The two-story brick building in New Orleans’ Central Business District has stood vacant for decades and was considered a hallmark of both Jazz history and Jewish culture within the Crescent City. The Karnofsky family, which purportedly loaned Louis Armstrong the money to buy his first cornet, later converted the one-time tailor shop into the city’s first jazz record store thanks to Armstrong’s childhood friend Morris Karnofsky. The building has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2002.

This is the Karnofsky Shop - a historic place. Louis Armstrong worked here and bought his first trumpet here. Collapsed during #HurricaneIda. pic.twitter.com/FsL4B1LbI8
— Jack Royer (@JackRoyer) August 30, 2021

Previous attempts had been made to convert the disused building into a nightclub. The 400 block of South Rampart street also houses historic sites like the former Eagle Saloon and Iroquois Theatre. USA Today has more on the destroyed landmark here.

Why the National Register of Historic Places lacks a diverse history

2021-01-08T14:04:00-05:00

Less than 8% of sites on the National Register are associated with women, Latinos, African Americans or other minorities. [...] The reason for this underrepresentation is an overly technical, legalistic approach to determining what merits designation.

Sara Bronin, a University of Connecticut Law School professor specializing in historic preservation law, penned an LA Times op-ed about the technical hurdles that have hindered many non-white historic sites to be designated for the National Register of Historic Places.

"Preservationists have started to see past the formalities that have too long prevented us from recognizing diverse histories," writes Bronin. "But we must go further to tackle the legal structures that devalue the stories we all need to hear."

Read also V. Mitch McEwen's latest op-ed on Archinect: Form Follows Fascism Redux.

Richard Neutra's Lovell Health House still for sale

2020-12-29T13:50:00-05:00

If you're shopping for a modernist architectural landmark to kick off the new year, you might be in luck: the Richard Neutra-designed Lovell Health House in the Los Feliz hills of Los Angeles is still available after hitting the market back in February.

Featured in several Hollywood movies, the expansive 4,807-square-foot home was completed in 1929 and quickly became an icon of the International Style.

Previously on Archinect: Neutra's Lovell Health House is heading for sale. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user MichaelJLocke.

"Without question, this house together with Schindler’s Lovell Beach House in Newport Beach are the greatest monuments of the International Style in Southern California," wrote historians David Gebhard and Robert Winter. "The Lovell House…firmly established Neutra’s world reputation."

In late January, Archinect reported on the current owner's intention to list the property.

The current asking price for the expansive five-bedroom, four-bathroom property is...

Neutra's Lovell Health House is heading for sale

2020-01-28T15:50:00-05:00

Richard Neutra's Lovell Health House in the hills above Los Angeles is reportedly going up for sale.

According to a recent report in The Real Deal, the current owner of the 4,807-square-foot cliffside, International Style home is currently working to build buzz around the house in advance of a potential sale.

The owner, Ken Topper, grew up in the home, which was owned previously by his parents Betty and Morton Topper. Morton, who purchased the house back in 1960 for $60,000, passed away in 1971, while Betty continued to live in the home until last August when she herself passed away.

An as-built drawing of the home created for the Historic American Building Survey. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Now, the aging home is in need of a slate of repairs, including structural upgrades, though it is largely intact. The Mortons purchased the home from the original owners, Morris and Leah Lovell. The home features off-the-shelf factory windows that wrap around the exterior walls...