Archinect - News

Henry Hope Reed, Architecture Historian, Dies at 97

2013-05-03T13:38:00-04:00

Henry Hope Reed, an architecture critic and historian whose ardent opposition to modernism was purveyed in books, walking tours of New York City and a host of curmudgeonly barbs directed at advocates of the austere, the functional and unornamented in public buildings and spaces, died Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 97.

The Condition of Chinese Architecture; Elaboration of a critical approach

2013-04-24T18:58:00-04:00

As it was Manhattan in New York nearly a century ago, China turns into a new stage in world architecture.

The facts and figures behind Asian urban growth compared to Europe are incredible: it is five times faster, what took 100 years to happen in Europe has taken place here in just 20; it is also 8 times bigger, 23 cities in China have populations of over 5 million whereas there are only 3 in the whole of Europe, and all this concerns an overall population that is twice as big, 731 million in Europe compared to 1,342 million in China. At the moment, the urban population is bigger than the rural population, accounting for 51% of the total. It is estimated that this will rise to 83% in 2035, when the process will eventually stabilize. The urban population requires services and infrastructures that call for a design approach based around big numbers.

The physical appearance of Chinese cities is strongly influenced by demolition: “Only 10% of historical buildings in China ha...

Traditional news outlets recruit architecture critics Lamster, Saffron and Sorkin

2013-04-22T16:45:00-04:00

The shrinkage of daily newspapers and news and culture magazines has thinned the already slim ranks of architecture critics. While blogs and social media proliferate debate about architecture and design, many have fretted about the lack of a common dialogue around architecture and urbanism as defined by the work of leading critics. It turns out that architecture criticism is far from dead, however, as three established voices are finding new outlets with newspapers and national magazines.

Mark Lamster has been appointed architecture critic of the Dallas Morning News. Inga Saffron has begun writing a monthly column on urbanism for the website of the newly re-launched New Republic. Michael Sorkin is slated to begin writing for the left-leaning Nation magazine.

Dreams Built and Broken...

2013-04-22T15:00:00-04:00

Analysis, rather than the promotion of starchitects, was her aim, and a prodigious amount of research underlies her early, punchy pronouncements as well as her late, magisterial style...Her death removes a passionate and particular voice from the shrinking ranks of full-time architecture critics, but also represents a loss of institutional memory for architecture culture...She didn’t offer compromise positions

In the May 6th edition of magazine Alexandra Lange authored a paean, in which she explores the legacy of Ada Louise Huxtable. Ms. Lange identifies how Ada Louise Huxtable's life and career make the case for architecture criticism "as an essential beat for a metropolitan newspaper" as well as for an appreciation of architecture.

Image via Laurie Olin's tribute to Ada Louise Huxtable here

Art/Architecture critic Philip Kennicott wins Pulitzer Prize for criticism

2013-04-17T19:42:00-04:00

Kennicott’s entry included several pieces published in the Style section last year. One was a review in June of an exhibit of creations by the architect Kevin Roche at the National Building Museum.

Assessing Roche’s work, Kennicott wrote, “In the end, Roche’s reputation will rise or fall depending on what becomes of the corporate world he served. If the end of corporate America is a dystopian hell of environmental catastrophe, vast economic inequity and social instability, the corporate architects of our age will not be remembered fondly. But if our age yields to a better one, just as the tyrannies and kleptocracies of past centuries sometimes yielded (perhaps temporarily) to more enlightened, democratic societies, then Roche’s work might have the charm of baroque palaces, Egyptian pyramids and Parisian avenues.”

Editor's Picks #309

2013-04-02T11:00:00-04:00

Archinect was excited to announce a competition we're co-hosting with Designer Pages and the LA Film Festival. This competition seeks proposals for the interior design/layout of the VIP Director's Lounge for this year's LA Film Festival. The winner will have their design executed, with a cash prize and an "Industry Badge" pass to the LA Film Festival in June. The winner's designs will also be on display in the director's lounge throughout the festival.

News
The Architect’s Journal reported that Denise Scott Brown has called for her role in Robert Venturi’s 1991 win to be acknowledged retrospectively as a salute to "the notion of joint creativity" and retrospectively acknowledge her role in Robert Venturi’s 1991 Pritzker Prize during an AJ Women in Architecture luncheon in late March. Since, nearly 2,000 advocates have passionately rallied in Brown’s support by signing an online petition created by Harvard’s GSD Woman in Design Group. Among the signatures include architects Zaha...

The LA Time's Christopher Hawthorne holds no punches in his review of Morphosis' Perot Museum

2013-03-26T19:47:00-04:00

It is a thoroughly cynical piece of work, a building that uses a frenzy of architectural forms to endorse the idea that architecture, in the end, is mere decoration. Mayne's design appears to put innovative architecture on a literal pedestal — or a plinth, to be exact — while actually allowing it to become peripheral, noticeably separate from the heart of the museum and its galleries.

Mariana Van Rensselaer, Founding Mother of Architecture Criticism

2013-03-01T19:18:00-05:00

Whatever you want, then, go to an architect for it; not to a carpenter, or a mason, or your own still more profound incompetence. Tell him all your practical, material desires, and insist that they shall be respected... Settle your practical desires and state them clearly; and, if you will, pour out your vague aesthetic wishes; try to explain those crude artistic preferences, those misty, formless visions which you are pleased to call “my own ideas.”

Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer, though little known today, was not only a leading architecture critic of her day but also one of the pioneers of the field in the late 19th century. On Places, Alexandra Lange analyzes her writings and her influence. As she writes, "Mariana Van Rensselaer worked out the ground rules of the fledgling profession, struggling to be a critic of greater conscientiousness, while calling upon her players — architects, clients, public — to do their jobs properly."

In a related features, Places has republished Van Rensselaer's 1890 essay, "Client and Architect."

Better technology does not equal better architecture

2013-01-23T18:05:00-05:00

How can we let geriatrics design the future? There is a creeping conservatism in old age, Rogers and Piano’s Pompidou was genuinely revolutionary, but that was in 1977, ever since then they've been riffing off the same ideas, with decreasing vitality...They are past retirement age and yet they march on, pulling out the same ideas over and over again, while the planet fawns obsequiously at their feet.

As part of Vice Future Week, Eddie Blake pens a critique of the current geriatric state of architecture. He believes that we must move beyond the tired designs of the past and embrace a new emerging architecture. The future of architecture is more co-operative, varied, often temporary and emphasizes "the evolution of a building, rather than how it looks as a finished piece".

H/T sevensixfive

Architecture Critic Ada Louise Huxtable Dies

2013-01-07T19:22:00-05:00

Ada Louise Huxtable, the dean of American architecture critics, died Monday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. She was 91.

Louvre-Lens: helping a mining town shed its image

2012-12-05T15:01:00-05:00

The €150m satellite of Paris's Louvre museum shimmers like an apparition on the raised plane of the former coalmine, looking down over streets of pitch-roofed miners' houses, dotted with the occasional chip shop. The building is formed from a series of long, low-slung walls that fade in and out of view as the changing light dances over its surface – or as clouds of drizzle engulf it entirely in the wintry gloom.

Editor's Picks #292

2012-12-04T11:42:00-05:00

b3tadine[sutures] concurred "i love it. that work of this complexity and beauty is being built in Dallas, let alone the US, is testament to Mayne and Morphosis being one of the premiere firms in the world”. However, some like accesskb argued "beautiful forms and spaces... ugly and cold choice of materials and colours".

News
The post announcing the opening of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, designed by Morphosis Architects and which opened this past Saturday in Dallas, featured some great photos by the photographer Iwan Baan. Cosmos commented "Everything about this building is great. Function, construct-ability, massing, circulation, materials, contextual awareness, technology, aesthetics/ design sensibility, etc...” and b3tadine[sutures] concurred "i love it. that work of this complexity and beauty is being built in Dallas, let alone the US, is testament to Mayne and Morphosis being one of the premiere firms in the world”.

However, some like accesskb argued "beautiful forms and spaces... ugly and cold choice of materials and colours". Thayer-D also believed “This type of ‘throw it on the wall and see if it sticks’ type of builidng is so common that it makes me wonder why this one should elicit so much commentary...Some of their earlier work was truly sensuous and warm, but this bu...

In a state that resembles wonder

2012-12-03T13:42:00-05:00

The building is alluring but unsettling. Is the museum’s 10-story concrete cube splitting apart or being pieced together? Is it being held intact by an enormous brace — a transparent protrusion on the cube’s side containing a 54-foot-long escalator — or is that a destabilizing gash that pierces the building’s body?

Edward Rothstein visited the Perot Museum of Nature and Science and while his review focuses on the contents of the building, he also touches on it's architecture. Rothstein argues that the museum is an example of a not so recent trend wherein science museums as Wunderkammer (their goal being simply to present a collections of objects) have been replaced by science museums as “science center" (which is less about objects and more about advocacy).

First showing of new arena design not exactly a slam-dunk

2012-12-01T12:37:00-05:00

The initial responses of some local architects to the arena drawings were underwhelming. While cautioning that the renderings are preliminary, Seattle architect and critic Mark Hinshaw said some of the views of the proposed arena seem like "boxes with a tight lid" that could be any number of public buildings. "One thing that seems missing is any kind of dramatic roof expression that we have seen with a number of landmark buildings — particularly ones that involve large audiences.

Goldberger on Architectural Criticism in the Age of Twitter

2012-11-29T14:56:00-05:00

Goldberger addressed the disappearance of journalistic hegemony and the advent of electronic media. While mainstream publications with an ongoing commitment to architecture criticism continue to possess a degree of authority, they are struggling to make themselves heard in this noise. It is clear to Goldberger that “the playing field may be level, but the players are not equal.”

Architecture in China: Big, Bold and Shoddy

2012-11-06T12:56:00-05:00

The people of Beijing seem excited about how their city is being shaped. And so they should be. Architecture in China today is bold and unapologetic. But it embodies China’s rapid growth in less positive ways, too. Although the industry is buoyant these days, its long-term benefits for the people who live here are questionable. Too often, form trumps function.

Also see: Zaha Hadid opens Galaxy SoHo in Beijing

No more noddy boxes! Design judges' dismay at British buildings

2012-10-13T17:30:00-04:00

"There is a lack of feeling and lack of care for quality of design in retail parks and many dispiriting residential and office developments." In particular, he said he was concerned that architectural education is becoming "over theorised" and lacking in practical experience. The quality of architecture in Britain is falling behind that of continental rivals, particularly Scandinavia and the Netherlands, he said.

Stedelijk Museum's 'bathtub' awash in awkwardness: Review - latimes.com

2012-09-28T19:57:00-04:00

An overscaled monument flagrantly aloof from its surroundings, the addition is a laggard symbol of an era when the Netherlands, like this country, was awash in capital for boldly sculptural new projects. As such it's a reminder of how slow architecture can be. The $159-million extension is the architectural personification of boom-time thinking.

The Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, Reviewed by Alexandra Lange

2012-09-26T19:31:00-04:00

The arena was always a Trojan horse: its stars (Jay-Z), its original starchitect (Frank Gehry), and its semi-public function (bringing pro basketball to Brooklyn) have been used to make the development of the Vanderbilt rail yard seem like a reward rather than an imposition. In 2009, Gehry left the project, adding his arena and tower designs to the long list of New York’s famous unrealized buildings.

A huge frog has landed in Brooklyn

2012-09-26T14:56:00-04:00

Brooklynites might consider themselves lucky. In Manhattan, Madison Square Garden’s owners are renovating, spending nearly $1 billion. Judging from results so far, it won’t be enough. The Barclays Center is no Garden disaster, just an extraordinarily expensive lost opportunity.

Editor's Picks #281

2012-09-11T12:33:00-04:00

For the latest Student Works feature Elif Erdine a PhD in Architectural Design Candidate at the AA, researching on ‘Generative Processes in Tower Design: Algorithms for the Integration of Tower Subsystems’, profiled Fallen Star an installation set between biomimetics, interaction, and perception.The project led drewjmcnamara to think "I am always amazed at the resources available to students at some schools. And then to see those resources actually being put to good use".

For the latest Student Works feature Elif Erdine a PhD in Architectural Design Candidate at the AA, researching on ‘Generative Processes in Tower Design: Algorithms for the Integration of Tower Subsystems’, profiled Fallen Star an installation set between biomimetics, interaction, and perception.The project led drewjmcnamara to think "I am always amazed at the resources available to students at some schools. And then to see those resources actually being put to good use".

News
Last weekend Michael Graves penned an opinion piece for the NYT on Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing. Graves categorizes three types of architectural drawing and argues that while at least 1 of them (the 'definitive' drawing) have moved with good reason to digital, the other other two ('referential sketch' and the 'preparatory study') are perhaps better suited to paper/hand...

Chris Moody basically agreed commenting "Regarding speed ,accuracy,and the ability to edit quickly, yes computer-aided dr...

National Building Museum Names Paul Goldberger as the Fourteenth Laureate of the Vincent Scully Prize

2012-08-29T20:54:00-04:00

The National Building Museum presents its fourteenth Vincent Scully Prize to Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger, for his lifetime work of encouraging thoughtful discourse and debate about the importance of design.

An urban affairs position that coincides with architectural criticism....

2012-07-18T10:45:00-04:00

Mr. Landman views these attempts at defining the critic’s frame of reference — Kimmelman-style and Scott-style — as entirely appropriate. Critics, he said, are not supposed to be objective; they are free to champion certain kinds of work. They are “free to like or dislike anyone or anything.”

Arthur S. Brisbane, (the Public Editor) provides some insight into the workings of the NYT Arts section. He spoke with Jonathan Landman, The Times’s culture editor, in an effort to better understand the rules that The Times plays by. Specifically, when it comes to the New York Times’s many cultural critics. They discuss the purpose of reviews and how Michael Kimmelman, The Times’s recently minted architecture critic has been given "perhaps the widest latitude" with regards to coverage.

A New Belle-Lettrism and the Future of Criticism

2012-06-21T18:11:00-04:00

But despite the many and varied predictions of the death of criticism — of architecture as well as other forms of culture — it seems to me that a radical rethinking of critical practice might be prompted by the potentials of writing for online media, and that this rethinking might result in a new belle-lettrism.

How will the accelerating transition from print to digital publishing affect the practice of architecture criticism? On Places, Naomi Stead surveys the scene and is optimistic about the possibilities.

(Architectural) Komplaint Dept

2012-05-21T11:35:00-04:00

I remember Poly Styrene, the singer from X-Ray Spex, and all her prophetic songs from the late 70s: "I Am A Poser," "Germ-Free Adolescents," "Prefabricated Icon," "Genetic Engineering." Take a look at architecture and people today and you realize that it all came true.

A candid conversation on the horrendous state of new construction in New York, with the crankiest of architecture critics, Ivana Force-Majeure, and Vice Magazine's Bob Nickas.

Bold, frank criticism can only nourish architecture

2012-05-10T11:07:54-04:00

Architecture critics are in a particular bind. Like art critics but unlike, say, those of film, they must swim in the same social sea as their targets. Further, because useful architectural criticism requires experience of the design process, they must also be prepared to offend those by whom they might otherwise be employed.

Criticism on Criticism: Reflecting on a Year of Michael Kimmelman

2012-05-07T18:32:00-04:00

It is easy to see how Kimmelman’s resistance to conventional criticism can open the discussion of architecture to those outside of the field. But perhaps more importantly, it prompts critics, readers and architects who look to the Times to consider architecture as both a large-scale work of art, deserving of lofty theoretical contemplation, and an equally large-scale social intervention, deserving of anyone’s comments.

Which is it, both? Meanwhile...

2012-04-09T21:30:00-04:00

It is still far and away the greatest memorial of modern times—the most beautiful, the most heart-wrenching, the most subtle, and the most powerful. It’s also the most abstract, which makes it even more miraculous that it was built in a nation that generally prefers symbols more along the lines of the Lincoln Memorial.

Reacting to the news that The New Yorker's influential architecture critic Paul Goldberger, was moving to another magazine (although both are owned by Condé Nast) Vanity Fair, some have wondered whether Eulogies For Architecture Criticism (are) Not Far Behind. Meanwhile, others have seen it as a sign The Architect Critic Is Dead and confirmation that in this era of digital abundance, in which the profession has witnessed a "'sea change' in the conception of architecture", the new critic "must be a reporter. And an activist one at that."

Meanwhile, Paul Goldberger found the time to contribute a short and thoughtful piece on the Reflected Grief of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial, for the April 2012 Issue of Vanity Fair.

Previously on Archinect: Paul Goldberger Leaves New Yorker for Vanity Fair, Will Not Be Replaced

Paul Goldberger Leaves New Yorker for Vanity Fair, Will Not Be Replaced

2012-04-02T12:33:00-04:00

But like so many landmarks, from the Parthenon to Penn Station, few endure. Starting today, Mr. Goldberger will board the notorious Condé Nast elevator, but instead of getting off on the 20th floor, he will report to work two floors up, where Graydon Carter has finally poached Mr. Goldberger for Vanity Fair.

Paul Goldberger leaves The New Yorker, partly to have more time to work on a biography of Frank Gehry, partly because he was not given enough chances to write for the magazine anymore. At Vanity Fair, he won't just be writing on architecture, but also "design-related" stories, too.

Reyner Banham on the Road

2012-03-19T16:44:00-04:00

If you drove far enough, from Maine to Georgia, from the Midwest to Southern California, or simply from one end of Los Angeles to the other, you would start to notice that there were different ecologies, and that some were geographical and some were cultural, but that they intersected and collaged to form a vast, sprawling, layered network whose patterns were discernible only if you took the long view and just kept driving.

In an essay for Places, Gabrielle Esperdy (of American Road Trip) follows architectural critic Reyner Banham out of Los Angeles and out onto the open road, placing him in the tradition of European travelers, from de Tocqueville and Dickens to Alistair Cooke and Stephen Fry, whose observations tell us Americans "something important about ourselves."