Archinect - News

Getty awards over $1.75 million to fix crappy concrete in "Important Modern Buildings"

2015-06-24T13:58:00-04:00

"Modern architecture is a defining artistic form of the 20th century at considerable risk, often due to the cutting-edge building materials that characterized the movement." -Deborah Marrow

In news that will surely make Prince Charles sigh with displeasure, the Getty Foundation announced it is awarding $1.75 million of grants to help preserve 14 structures in the modern style, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple, Walter Gropius’ residence ‘The Gropius House,’ and the Rietveld Schröder House. This is the second year the foundation has awarded the grants, and has chosen the buildings because (ironically) concrete as a building material has proven to be less than solid. “The use of concrete, while visually striking and radical for its time, has created a unique set of challenges for conserving some of the world’s most important modernist structures,” noted Antoine Wilmering, a senior program officer at the Getty Foundation. “Our new grants offer an excellent opportunity to advance research and conservation practices for this material. The accumulated knowledge that will result from the projects will be of tremendous benefit to the field.”

While the first year's gra...

Van Gogh Museum gets multicoloured make-over

2014-12-01T14:10:00-05:00

Until now the Amsterdam museum has usually presented its Van Goghs in a simple chronological sequence, set against white walls. This display originally seemed appropriate for the building’s architecture, a series of stark white galleries designed by Gerrit Rietveld, the leading Modernist architect of the De Stijl movement. The white-cube spaces have now been transformed by coloured walls, varying according to the artist's different periods [...].

Edwin Heathcote compares the Schröder House and Eames House

2013-04-08T19:33:00-04:00

Unlike Rietveld’s complex interplay of layered planes, the Eameses, looking towards more commercial approaches to middle-class housing, created something more like the box that Rietveld was trying to escape.