Archinect - News

Johnston Marklee completes renovation of Roy Lichtenstein's studio into a new home for the Whitney Independent Study Program

2023-10-27T17:37:00-04:00

The Whitney Museum of American Art has shared news of a recently completed conversion project from Johnston Marklee in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan.

The former studio and home of famed New York School painter Roy Lichtenstein at 741/745 Washington Street is now the new permanent home for the Whitney’s 55-year-old Independent Study Program (ISP), which counts Donald Judd and Jenny Holzer among its many alumni.

Image courtesy Max Touhey

A new third level was added to the existing structure to accommodate the year-round slate of activities, creating an 11,000-square-foot space. The building also doubles as a host for the museum’s Education department in the summer when the ISP is out of session.

Image courtesy Filip Wolak

“Thanks to Roy, this building has been the site for artistic and intellectual endeavors, both for himself and for the people who have long gathered here. I can’t think of a more meaningful use for the studio than for the Whitney to carry his legacy f...

Meet acclaimed LA practice Johnston Marklee: Your Next Employer?

2023-06-05T15:37:00-04:00

Following last week’s visit to Culver City-based ShubinDonaldson, we are keeping our Meet Your Next Employer series in California today to explore the work of Johnston Marklee.

Founded in 1998 and led by Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, the firm has amassed a diverse portfolio unified by a common exploration of “the relationship between design and building technology.” As we will see below, the firm’s work has been featured heavily in our editorial across recent years, including the completion of their Menil Drawing Institute in 2018 and the appearance of Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee on an episode of Archinect Sessions, also in 2018.

Over on Archinect Jobs, the firm is currently hiring an Executive Coordinator to join their Los Angeles office.

For candidates interested in applying for the position, or anybody interested in learning more about the studio, we have looked back on Archinect’s previous coverage of Johnston Marklee to chart a timeline of the firm’s recent developments.

The ...

“Quietly innovative”: A closer look at the new Menil Drawing Institute by Johnston Marklee

2018-11-08T18:08:00-05:00

Placed at the heart of the historic Menil Collection in Houston, Johnston Marklee's long-anticipated Menil Drawing Institute opened to the public last Saturday. As the fifth art building to be constructed on the iconic 30-acre campus, the approximately 30,000 square-foot Menil Drawing Institute showcases the expansive drawing collection of Dominique and John Menil. Johnston Marklee collaborated with landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates on the $40 million project.

The Menil Drawing Institute is the first facility of its kind to be dedicated to the acquisition, study, exhibition, conservation, and storage of modern and contemporary drawings. Designed at an intimate scale, the MDI has a low-lying, elongated form that not only complements its park-like surroundings and nearby historic structures, but also signals potential future growth.

Open for less than a week, the MDI has received generally positive reactions so far. “[Johnston Marklee has] succeeded brilliantly, ...

First look at Johnston Marklee's Menil Drawing Institute, due to open next month

2018-10-11T18:15:00-04:00

Slated to open next month, Houston's new Menil Drawing Institute will become the country's first art institution dedicated solely to drawing. “For many artists, historically, drawing was an end in and of itself. To have an entire building devoted to [drawing] says something to the general public," Menil director Rebecca Rabinow told the Wall Street Journal Magazine, which will be featuring an exclusive first look at the building in its October issue.

Plans for the new museum building, designed by Johnston Marklee, were announced back in 2012 to coincide with the collection's 25th anniversary. The Los Angeles based architecture firm beat out David Chipperfield, SANAA and Tatiana Bilbao to receive the hotly sought-after commission.

Jonston and Lee's new building sits on the 30-acre campus, meant to house the large drawing collection Dominique and John Menil have amassed over several decades. The new Drawing Institute will accompany the original Renzo Piano-designed museum, which rec...

Johnston Marklee, Live from the LA Design Festival

2018-07-27T12:58:00-04:00

Earlier this summer I sat down with Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee to discuss their practice, Johnston Marklee, in front of a live audience at this year's LA Design Festival. We discuss the origin of their practice, their relationship to LA, the eclectic group of collaborators they have worked with over the years, and their unique approach to telling the story of their work in their recently published monograph.

Listen to episode 126 of Archinect Sessions, “Johnston Marklee, Live from the LA Design Festival”.

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Johnston Marklee's Mark Lee appointed to Chair of the Department of Architecture at Harvard GSD

2018-03-22T13:49:00-04:00

Harvard University's Graduate School of Design has appointed Mark Lee as Chair of the Department of Architecture, effective July 1, 2018. Lee has taught at the school since 2013 and was recently named Professor in Practice of Architecture, also going into effect July 1, 2018. He will be succeeding K. Michael Hays, who has served as Interim Chair of the Department since 2016.

“I am honored to be entrusted with the chairmanship of the Department of Architecture at the GSD,” Lee says. “In advancing both the discipline and the profession of architecture, the Department has been without parallel; I look forward to building upon the formidable achievements of my predecessors and this deeply-rooted tradition of excellence. We stand on the threshold of a very challenging, but exciting, future. I feel confident that architecture’s best days lie ahead.”

Lee is a principal and founding partner of the Los Angeles-based Johnston Marklee, an internationally recognized firm with over 30 major awar...

Over a half million visitors attended the second Chicago Architecture Biennial

2018-01-17T14:06:00-05:00

The recently concluded 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial saw over 550,000 visitors. Artistic Directors Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, of the LA-based firm Johnston Marklee, selected 140 architects and designers from 20 countries to participate. Among the vast number of attendees the biennial also boasts engagement of more than 10,000 students.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced, "The second Chicago Architecture Biennial reinforced Chicago's reputation as the vanguard of architectural, art and design innovation on the national and international stage".

Offering over 273 public programs, the event featured exhibitions by the Alphawood Foundation, Graham Foundation, Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The Biennial will return September 19, 2019 and run through January 5, 2020, again in line with EXPO CHICAGO.

Harvard GSD appoints Jeanne Gang, Sharon Johnston, and Mark Lee to the positions of Professors in Practice of Architecture

2018-01-16T13:56:00-05:00

The Harvard University Graduate School of Design has announced three appointments to the position of Professor in Practice of Architecture: Jeanne Gang (MArch ’93), Sharon Johnston (MArch ’95), and Mark Lee (MArch ’95), effective July 1, 2018. All three will also be, prior to their faculty appointments, teaching studios at GSD this spring.

“We are incredibly pleased to welcome Jeanne, Sharon, and Mark, who will make a great contribution not only to the Department of Architecture, but also to the whole School, with the vast wealth of experience, leadership, and vision they bring" said Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at the GSD. “Students in particular will benefit from the opportunity to learn from architects whose practices are at the same time thriving and operating globally at a very high level” he added.

Are you bored yet?

2017-11-17T15:10:00-05:00

Its forms are basic, totemic: Euclidean shapes dredged from the long memory of the field. It sometimes relies on modules or grids. It’s often monochromatic. It’s post-digital, which means it rejects the compulsion to push form-making to its absolute limits that overtook architecture at the turn of the century. As a result, it sometimes looks ancient or even primordial. It never looks futuristic.

Famed LA Times architectural critic, Christopher Hawthorne, released his view of contemporary architecture that culminates in it being classified as boring, and yet, that might be exactly what the architectural discipline ordered. As a reaction to 'hyperactive form-making,' Hawthorne argues that contemporary architects are getting 'boring.'

One could understand that as an insult or derivative comment, but Hawthorne states that their work is well considered and measured and that the 'Room Temperature' of the work is just right but is also aware of the viability of such a project to be under question and scrutiny.

Johnston Marklee: Newness becomes a disease

2017-09-21T15:18:00-04:00

Christopher Hawthorne interviews Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee about this year's Chicago Architecture Biennial. The two reflect on the theme of the biennial—'Make New History'—and their role as curators.

Hawthorne: What attracted you to history as a guiding idea for this biennial?

Lee: We’re at a moment when we’re just coming out of this fascination with the new. I remember Rem Koolhaas, in [an interview] in the ’90s, somebody asked him, “Where do you think we are now?” And he said, “I think we’re waking up from the semantic nightmare of the ’80s.” So I was thinking, “What is the nightmare that we’re waking up from, if we had to think of the equivalent?” And at least from our point of view, being in L.A., in the schools, there has been a complete fascination with newness — new for new’s sake. To the point where there are architects who do really interesting projects and I would say, “You should also look at [German architect Erich] Mendelsohn,” suggesting it’s something they would b...

A survey of architecture's new leadership, from Johnston Marklee to Bjarke Ingels

2017-09-13T09:49:00-04:00

They are in that fertile period — agewise, it typically runs from the mid-40s to mid-50s in architecture — when the profession’s next generation of leadership begins to make its mark.

NADAAA, Atelier TAG, SHoP Architects, Oyler Wu Collaborative: these are among the firms highlighted in this piece in the New York Times, which surveys the architects who are currently primed to "lead" the profession. Los Angeles-based pair and married couple Johnston Marklee, who are heading up this year's Chicago Architecture Biennial with a theme of "make new history," are included alongside relative youngster Bjarke Ingels of BIG, who champions his self-described "hedonistic sustainability."

Rendering of the Menil Drawing Institute, designed by Johnston Marklee. Image: Johnston Marklee/Nephew

2017's 10 best gas stations, worldwide, as ranked by Design Curial

2017-05-18T15:58:00-04:00

Angelenos may be mildly alarmed to learn that local favorites Johnston Marklee Architects's striking Helios House (co-designed with Office dA) has slipped two spots to eighth place from its ranking on last year's top ten global filling stations as assembled by Design Curial. However, it's for a good cause: new entrants are fueling some alternative aesthetic takes on the usually quotidian gas station. Here are the winners:

FIRST PLACE: REST AREA NIEMENHARJU, by Studio Puisto Architects, in Niemenharju, Finland

SECOND PLACE: POPS ARCADIA ROUTE 66, by Elliott + Associates Architects, in Oklahoma, USA

THIRD PLACE: BATUMI PETROL STATION, by Giorgi Khmaladze, in Batumi, Georgia

FOURTH PLACE: NP GAS STATION, by Moneo Brock Studio, in Madrid, Spain

FIFTH PLACE: ORIVAL GAS STATION, by Samyn and Partners, in Orival, Belgium

SIXTH PLACE: ESSO MOBIL STATION, by Eliot Noyes, in Leicestershire, UK

SEVENTH PLACE: HOUTEN SERVICE STATION, by Samyn and Partners, in Houten, Netherlands

EIGHTH PL...

Johnston Marklee announced as the artistic director of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial

2016-09-21T12:46:00-04:00

The Chicago Architecture Biennial and Mayor Rahm Emmanel announced the curators of the second iteration of the Biennial: the Los Angeles-based firm Johnston Marklee. The studio, which comprises Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, will be assisted by Todd Palmer of the National Public Housing Museum, who has been named Executive Director.

The second edition of the Biennial will take place from September 16-December 31, 2017. The two major supporters of the last Biennial will continue their patronage of the event. SC Johnson will provide $2.5 million, while BP will give $1 million. Like last year, the Biennial will be centered in the Chicago Cultural Center in downtown Chicago.

"The Chicago Architecture Biennial's return in 2017 confirms Chicago as an architectural hub," states Mayor Emanuel in the press release. "Last year's edition was a resounding success, and I'm pleased to see the great planning and support for the second Biennial, which will be even better. Not only is the Biennial's r...

Review: Menil design by L.A.'s Johnston Marklee is deceptively simple

2014-02-20T17:10:00-05:00

Sharon Johnston, who runs the Los Angeles firm Johnston Marklee & Associates with her husband Mark Lee, told me a couple of years ago that there was one key difference between their work and the mannered, loosely flamboyant designs of Thom Mayne, Frank Gehry, Eric Owen Moss and other famous L.A. architects a generation or two older [...] Now that the firm’s design for a new building on the campus of the Menil Collection art museum in Houston has been unveiled, it’s easier to see what she meant.

Previously: In 25th anniversary year, Menil Collection names architect for initial expansion into neighborhood

In 25th anniversary year, Menil Collection names architect for initial expansion into neighborhood

2012-06-11T15:20:00-04:00

Almost twenty-five years to the day after Dominique de Menil and architect Renzo Piano celebrated the opening of the central museum building of the Menil Collection, Director Josef Helfenstein announced that the Board of Trustees has unanimously chosen the Los Angeles -based architecture firm Johnston Marklee to design the Menil Drawing Institute, the first major building project to be initiated under an ambitious plan for the institution’s future.

UPDATE: Review: Menil design by L.A.'s Johnston Marklee is deceptively simple

Menil Collection plans new building for Drawing Institute; four architecture firms named as finalists

2012-04-13T15:47:00-04:00

Four finalists have emerged from the Menil Collection's extensive international search to select an architect to design its Menil Drawing Institute (MDI), the first major project to be built as a part of the museum's long-range master plan.

After several years of site visits, careful research and thoughtful interviews, the Menil's architecture selection committee has announced a short list of long-established and newly-emerging architectural firms:

Tatiana Bilbao — up-and-coming Mexico City architect with a number of high-profile projects under her belt, including a building co-designed with artist Gabriel Orozco
David Chipperfield Architects — renowned London-based firm behind the Menil's 2009 master plan as well as the stunning Figge Art Museum in Iowa
Johnston Marklee — design duo from Los Angeles known for its ultramodern nods to architectural history
SANAA — Tokyo-based designers behind the Toledo Museum of Art's Glass Pavilion and winners of the 2010 Pritzker Prize