Archinect - News

Ai Weiwei’s Music Video, Recreating His Detention

2013-05-22T11:48:00-04:00

Now Mr. Ai is answering the guards’ request in a different key. He is presenting them, and the world, with his first heavy-metal music video, one with detailed re-creations of scenes from his 81 days of detention. He also portrays fantasies he imagines flitting through the guards’ minds. Mr. Ai posted the video on a Web site, aiweiwei.com, on Wednesday morning, Beijing time.

Libeskind's design selected for Columbus Holocaust memorial

2013-05-08T17:58:00-04:00

The specially appointed Holocaust Memorial Artist Selection Committee overwhelmingly favored Daniel Libeskind’s design for an 18-foot tall brushed stainless-steel memorial accompanied by a 40-foot walkway and memorial words etched in limestone.

After a daylong meeting in which the panel heard extensive presentations from all three artists, Richard H. Finan, chairman of the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board, which will make the final decision on the design, strongly opposed Libeskind’s proposal. He said a memorial with a Jewish religious symbol would immediately open the state to legal challenges from the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations because of the separation of church and state.

Hitler's Words Into Stone. Can architecture itself be fascist?

2013-04-28T00:06:00-04:00

Rather elegant," intoned the white-haired figure at the podium. He was speaking of Adolf Hitler's Reich Chancellery, designed in 1938 by Albert Speer. Up next on the screen was the Nuremberg Party Rally Grounds where brown-shirted Nazis paraded en masse. "I think it is really great architecture," said the lecturer. "You take off the swastikas, and you can admire it without feeling guilty."

As you might expect, "Audience members shifted awkwardly in their seats, and a few walked out to protest the remarks by Léon Krier, opening a conference on Berlin at the Yale School of Architecture in February." Anyone manage to actually be there for this, or have any follow-up?

Aleppo landmark Mosque, a Unesco world heritage site, has been destroyed

2013-04-26T12:48:00-04:00

The mosque, which is a Unesco world heritage site, has been in rebel hands since earlier this year but the area around it is still contested.

Both the state news agency and footage uploaded on YouTube show the 'disappearance' of Aleppo's Umayyad Mosque. The mosque is a Unesco world heritage site but has been at the heart of bitter fighting for several months as rebels try to oust President Bashar al-Assad. In photos published by AP on April 16th it was battered but still standing.

Ghazni's undiscovered Afghan architectural treasure trove

2013-04-15T12:08:00-04:00

The ancient Afghan city of Ghazni has been designated an Asian city of Islamic Culture by the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation. But outsiders will find it difficult to see the city's famous Islamic and pre-Islamic architectural wonders because of the Taliban insurgency.

Architects split over Thatcher's legacy: 'Right person' or 'mostly detrimental'?

2013-04-09T18:27:00-04:00

Ex-RIBA president Owen Luder described Thatcher, who died earlier today, as the ‘right person’ to lead the country during the early 80s recession – while Alfred Munkenbeck of Munkenbeck + Partners said her impact on the profession had been ‘mostly detrimental’.

An open letter to Milan's Mayor about his dismissal of Stefano Boeri

2013-03-27T12:06:00-04:00

Open letter to Giuliano Pisapia, Mayor of Milan, from the international community of arts & culture...

Dear Mayor Pisapia,

It is with regret and disappointment that we learn that Stefano Boeri was dismissed from his position as Councillor for Design, Fashion and Culture for the city of Milan.

Thanks to the energy and commitment of Boeri, and despite the deepening of the gravest crisis to have faced Italy since the postwar years, since 2011 Milan has succeded in projecting an image of renewed cultural vibrancy and dynamism onto the international stage. Thanks to Boeri's many initiatives—citywide events such as Book City and Piano City, or international exhibitions of internationally renowned artists such as the Marina Abramovic, Picasso, Bramantino, Alberto Garutti and Jeff Wall—Milan had finally succeeded in reaffirming itself forcefully on the international stage as an epicentre of art, design, fashion and culture.

Mayor Giuliano Pisapia

This unmotivated dismissal de...

Architects Issue Statement Opposing House Bill Eliminating Funding for Eisenhower Memorial

2013-03-15T13:32:00-04:00

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) today issued the following statement in opposition to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Completion Act, introduced Wednesday by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah). Among other things, the legislation would mandate an alternative to architect Frank Gehry's design for the Eisenhower Memorial and would eliminate further federal funding for the project.

Ohio Tax Proposal Would Extend Sales Tax to Architectural Services

2013-03-06T15:00:00-05:00

While architects and small firms would undoubtedly benefit from the income tax cuts and deduction, the sales tax on services is problematic for the architectural profession. If the tax plan is approved, architects may find themselves at a distinct disadvantage to out of state firms.

via David Cole in the Forum

Daniel Libeskind: 'Building gleaming streets for despots is morally wrong'

2013-02-25T14:43:00-05:00

Daniel Libeskind, who has built a reputation working on historically and culturally sensitive projects such as the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the reconstruction of New York’s World Trade Center site, said beautiful architecture was no excuse for working with “morally questionable” clients. “Even if they produce gleaming towers, if they are morally questionable, I’m not interested,” he said in the interview with The Architects’ Journal.

R.I.P. - Rajib Haider

2013-02-22T01:01:00-05:00

Tens of thousands of people resumed mass demonstrations in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, on Saturday, intensifying their demands for more severe punishment for war criminals from the country’s 1971 liberation war, while also demanding justice for the slaying of Rajib Haider, an architect and blogger, who had been a leading organizer of the protests.

President Obama Appoints Michael Graves to Key Administration Post

2013-02-04T13:52:00-05:00

President Obama said, “These fine public servants both bring a depth of experience and tremendous dedication to their new roles. Our nation will be well-served by these individuals, and I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come.”

President Barack Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key Administration posts:

Vinton G. Cerf – Member, National Science Board, National Science Foundation
Marta Araoz de la Torre – Member, Cultural Property Advisory Committee
Michael Graves – Member, Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board
Laurie Leshin – Member, Advisory Board of the National Air and Space Museum
Lynne Sebastian – Member, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

Hillary Clinton uses Frank Gehry's architecture as an analogy for how to restructure world policies

2013-02-01T12:15:00-05:00

“We need a new architecture for this new world, more Frank Gehry than formal Greek,” Clinton said... “Some of his work at first might appear haphazard, but in fact, it’s highly intentional and sophisticated. Where once a few strong columns could hold up the weight of the world, today we need a dynamic mix of materials and structures.”

As discovered in the Forum, via oe.

Drone City - An Architectural Defense From Drones

2013-01-31T13:20:00-05:00

The idea for my final project, an architectural defense against drone warfare, came from the realization that law had no response to drone warfare. My own understanding of the ongoing [War on Terror pseudonym] as a civil rights issue is irrelevant, we only learn civil rights as a historical happening, not a current struggle. But architecture has a proud anti-legal tradition. Architecture is a way to protect people when law chooses not to.

Ai Weiwei is featured on CBS News

2013-01-28T14:12:00-05:00

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has faced censorship and imprisonment by China's government. Rita Braver reports on a U.S. exhibit of the dissident's creations.

Climate Change and Public Works

2013-01-21T17:24:00-05:00

We seem to have lost the political capacity to grapple with the big picture, the long range, the global scale. To a degree we've even lost the vocabulary. In design circles it's as if the perceived failures of mid 20th-century planning — exemplified by top-down urban renewal and personified by the power-brokering Robert Moses — have induced a kind of conceptual paralysis, an inability to formulate the public sector, or public works, in terms not beholden to a discredited history.

On Places, editor Nancy Levinson argues for an intensified political agenda for designers.

As Barack Obama takes the oath of office for his second term, the longstanding tension between the pressing need for public action and the tenacious culture of privatization remains the critical dilemma of U.S. politics. Nothing underscores the need to resolve this tension — and to commit once again to the ideals of collective purpose and common good — than the accelerating crisis of climate change.

Bristol's architect mayor wants the city to be a 'laboratory for change'

2013-01-21T14:11:00-05:00

"I'm going to be intolerant of bad architecture," he says, describing how the former head of planning was a highways engineer who "let anything and everything through – including office blocks stacked on top of multistorey car parks. "My idea of good architecture is about creating place. It's not about providing glitzy iconic buildings, competing one against the other, but how we use the best of what we've got."

Glenn Beck unveils his plans for Crazy Town, USA (actually "Independence, USA")

2013-01-16T18:31:00-05:00

The main purpose of this community would be to isolate its residents from the propaganda that Beck believes Americans are exposed to in their current society, as well as provide them with freedom and a place to live that doesn’t discriminate based on income. “Before you send your kids to college, you spend a week with us. We’re gonna tell them exactly, we will show them the truth, we will tell them what they’re going to try to do, and we will deprogram them every summer, if you care.”

Kingdom of Kitsch

2012-12-31T12:12:00-05:00

The oversize public monuments and buildings in the capital of North Korea confirm the subservience of the citizen to the state and display the ghastly aesthetic imperatives of totalitarian art.

The WSJ's Eric Gibson reviews the book "Architectural and Cultural Guide: Pyongyang," edited by Philipp Meuser, a German architect and architectural historian.

Initial Design Team Shortlist Announced for Worldwide New Construction A/E Design Services

2012-12-07T12:30:00-05:00

The Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has shortlisted eleven design firms for the Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Worldwide New Construction A/E Design Services solicitation.

The shortlisted firms are:

BNIM Architects
Ennead Architects
Mack Scogin / Merrill Elam Architects
Miller Hull Partnership
Moore Ruble Yudell
Richard + Bauer Architecture
Shop Architects
Skidmore Owings & Merrill
Steven Holl Architects
Studio-Gang Architects
Weiss/Manfredi Architects

Approval for Eisenhower Memorial planned for Washington likely delayed into 2013 amid dispute

2012-11-19T20:24:00-05:00

“I would hate to stop the process and lose the momentum, especially since a lot of time, money, and effort has been expended on this memorial,” he wrote. “However, given the continued opposition with the Eisenhower family, I question whether we can ever resolve the differences ... and whether it would be in our best interest to continue to move forward.”

Abandoned Monuments of the Socialist Republic

2012-11-07T12:39:00-05:00

These structures were commissioned by former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito in the 1960s and 70s to commemorate sites where WWII battles took place, or where concentration camps stood (like Jasenovac and Niš). They were designed by different sculptors (Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakić, Miodrag Živković, Jordan and Iskra Grabul, to name a few) and architects (Bogdan Bogdanović, Gradimir Medaković…), conveying powerful visual impact to show the confidence and strength of the Socialist Republic.

The Post-War Ghost Towns of Foreign Aid

2012-10-08T20:20:00-04:00

Originally a low income neighborhood of informal, mud brick housing, Sher-Pur was subject to government land grabs around 2004 and is now Kabul's wealthiest neighborhood. Built up using mashup of imported architectural designs from Dubai, the neighborhood is full of massive poppy palaces and narco palaces... as the international community pulls out ahead of the 2014 NATO withdrawal deadline, many of these elaborate mansions are sitting empty. Sher-Pur is becoming a ghost town of opulence.

Scarcity contra Austerity

2012-10-08T19:37:00-04:00

Conditions of scarcity demand new ways of thinking, an expansion of the role of the architect and designer outwards in order to function more broadly and imaginatively as spatial agents. In contrast to the regimes of austerity ... the territory of processes and networks opened up by scarcity is far more conducive to creative intervention. It is here that scarcity — which can seem at first a bleak prospect — can become the inspiration and context for constructive and transformative action.

What is the difference between scarcity and austerity? On Places, Jeremy Till contrasts the political ideology of austerity — imposed reductions of public services and social benefits — with the physical condition of scarcity — the measureable dwindling of finite resources — and explores how this distinction might enable designers to grapple with big-scale challenges. A keener understanding of scarcity, he argues, "might inspire us to widen the field of practice and allow us to operate more creatively."

Beyond Zuccotti Park: Making the Public

2012-09-24T19:08:00-04:00

The root cause of diminishing public resources and the privatization of urban public space today is precisely the privatization of our political system — a crisis that cannot be addressed simply by creating more public spaces or by making these public spaces more inclusive and accessible. This deeper crisis requires the attention and intervention of a much more active and engaged public, a public willing and capable of speaking up and mobilizing politically to change the system.

The recent wave of citizen protests — from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park to the streets of Athens — has brought renewed attention to the role of public space in democratic society. In an essay on Places (excerpted from the new book Beyond Zuccotti Park, by New Village Press) Jeffrey Hou shifts the emphasis from physical space to citizen action. We need to focus not just on ensuring the right to public assembly, he writes, but also on "the making and mobilization of the public as an actively engaged citizenry."

Foreign Policy: Bunker Mentality

2012-09-17T19:37:00-04:00

Over the last three decades, the design of U.S. embassies has been a balancing act between the need to protect diplomats and staff and the desire to project a positive image of the United States: welcoming buildings that showcase transparency and openness versus imposing and intimidating fortresses. But attacks on U.S. facilities, especially in the post-9/11 era, have tended to tilt the conversation toward the latter...

Robert Peck, ousted head of Public Buildings Commission at the General Services Administration, is hired by Gensler

2012-08-28T17:02:00-04:00

What constitutes a modern professional workplace is changing rapidly, and Gensler, the San Francisco design and architecture firm, is betting those changes will factor more heavily not only into clients’ interior design decisions, but every single real estate decision they make. That bet led Gensler to hire a well-known name locally in both design and real estate circles: Robert A. Peck.

Santa Barbara Architectural Board of Review Majority Abstains from Chick-fil-A Vote

2012-08-10T11:40:00-04:00

The project received approval from the Architectural Board of Review (ABR) last year, but this week, with the plan returning for final sign-off on some late-hour landscaping tweaks, the board majority, for what appeared to be political reasons stemming from the gay-marriage flap, opted to abstain from voting on Monday.

Helene Schneider, the mayor of SB, and a proponent of marriage rights, says Chick-fil-A’s Architectural Approval Shouldn’t Hinge on Owner’s Politics.

Territory Jam: Tehran

2012-07-09T15:51:00-04:00

Revolutionary guards who are denied entry to an apartment have been known to scale a building’s walls with grappling hooks to dismantle receivers. It may seem like something out of a spy novel, but this cat-and-mouse game tells the deeper story of a complex exchange between the Islamic Republic and citizens of Tehran. In the absence of legitimate public space for discourse or demonstration, the satellite receiver opens a space for political dissent and cultural protest.

In contemporary Tehran, where the city's parks and plazas have been delegitimized by censorship and surveillance, the true public realm is inside the home. On Places, architect Rudabeh Pakravan examines the spatial politics of satellite television in Iran, with a close look at "the satellite man" as an agent of change.

Gov. Brown gives fast-track status to Apple headquarters

2012-07-03T17:26:00-04:00

"Apple's state-of-the art campus brings at least $100 million dollars in investment to California and generates no additional greenhouse gas emissions," Brown said in a statement to this newspaper, listing two of the requirements Apple had met to qualify under the law. "On-site fuel cells and 650,000 square feet of solar panels will provide clean, renewable energy for more than 12,000 Apple employees on the new campus."