Archinect - News

Tales from a toxic superculture: A closer look at the defining architecture controversies of 2024

2024-12-21T08:00:00-05:00

If there is a lesson to be taken from this year, it is that small evils lead to ever-bigger ones. The wrong behaviors and motivations get rewarded until the process capitalizes into a singular upending spectacle. That reality is just as resurgent in professional spheres and does appear likely to retain its dominance over other civic ones. Unethical practices, the influence (good or bad) of politics and public opinion, removal of history, and a culture of dishonesty coursed, as ever, through the domain of architecture in 2024. Inside its ranks, questions as to why the cycle itself is so prevalent continue to go unsettled.

Here, instead, is an impartial breakdown of the year’s most controversial news headlines in architecture. What can be taken from it is a testimony to the ways moral disintegration is both reflected and can be defeated in our built environment. We’ll start with the biggest stories and slowly narrow into a spotlight on the global salients within more limited constrain...

Philly's infamous police headquarters faces an uncertain future as a symbol of brutality

2023-02-06T18:51:00-05:00

The city of Philadelphia is prepared to release a report detailing a months-long community engagement effort officials say will inform the fate of the Roundhouse, the unusual concrete building that served as police headquarters for more than six decades. Many of the residents who participated in that process said they want to see the shuttered building at 7th and Race streets repurposed as a community hub that recognizes the site’s long history of police abuse.

Philadelphia has a long-frayed relationship between its police department and the community, including most notably the 1985 MOVE Bombing that claimed the lives of 11 activists while displacing another 250 people and destroying 61 homes. The Roundhouse has a central role in this fraught history, and now opinions are split over its proposed future redevelopment.

Robert Geddes, one of the building’s three designers has chimed in to say he feels it should be given a second life as a font for social justice activities and other types of community-based activism. The 125,000-square-foot Brutalist-style structure has also been floated as the potential site of affordable housing, though its layout remains difficult to convert by most estimates.

A final decision on its fate is expected sometime within the calendar year.

OpenSea is now hosting a Nakagin Capsule model NFT auction

2022-08-17T18:29:00-04:00

Tokyo’s beloved Nakagin Capsule Tower may be getting its speculated second digital life after all thanks to a new metaverse project from the firm of its original designer Kisho Kurokawa Architect and Associates (KKAA) and the NFT platform OpenSea.

In an exclusive collaboration with the LAETOLI Corporation’s KABUKI-X venture, the firm is now auctioning off the rights to reconstruct their founder’s most famous Metabolic work in both the physical and digital realms only a few months removed from the neglected tower’s ongoing demolition, which began formally at the end of April. Bidders will have the chance to reconstruct the tower inside the metaverse and at the global site of their choice using CAD data and a digital model of the tower produced in Revit by design partners BDP.

Image courtesy OpenSea

Restrictions are limited to the local zoning laws and regulations of the country the holders of the ‘real space’ rights select to build in. This otherwise allows for the potential resale ...

A landmark designation effort backfires in the push to save one historic Los Angeles restaurant from the wrecking ball

2021-06-18T13:23:00-04:00

LA's famed Taix Restaurant on Sunset Boulevard made headlines earlier this month after a strange ruling by the City Council to designate only certain elements of the century-old establishment a historic landmark in an unprecedented move that could have ramifications for preservation efforts in Los Angeles and across the country for years to come.

The LA Times is reporting that efforts to save Taix from an encroaching redevelopment scheme culminated in a unanimous decision to limit the designation to the restaurant’s signage and cherrywood-topped bar.

The decision is unlike any other in recent history in that it eschews almost the entirety of the Norman Revival building in favor of a plan that recognizes only non-structural components as historic landmarks. By limiting the designations to the bar and advertising, critics say Los Angeles City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell has created a dangerous standard that can be abused by development-hungry business interests where the opportunit...

A new Thompson Center's rezoning proposal pushes plans for a supertall development even closer

2021-06-07T15:07:00-04:00

A path forward in Illinois’ plans for the redevelopment of the Thompson Center has been made a little clearer in Chicago this week, a month after the accidental death of architect Helmut Jahn in a tragic bicycling accident at the age of 83.

A City Council committee approved a proposal from Alderman Brendan Reilly to upzone the troubled building this past Tuesday, doubling the amount of space that can be built on the site and fueling further speculation that the iconic Randolph St. location could be the site of Chicago’s next supertall tower should the measure be approved in a vote that could come as soon as Wednesday.

The change came at the request of Governor J.B. Pritzker, who has been an outspoken proponent of the state’s push to sell the 36-year-old signature building to private developers in an effort to get off the hook for the nearly $17 million in annual costs it takes to maintain the aging property as it currently stands.

Preservationists now face an all-out fight to save J...

"Preserve" is like a guide book to gentrification, demolishment and urban living gold rush

2020-02-13T18:45:00-05:00

Just look at the American Hotel (sold in 2001 and then again in 2013). It is still "preserved," but entirely gentrified. What happens when the suitcase full of money and sleek renderings by a famous architect show up, when demolition is someone's foregone conclusion? This is Los Angeles after all.

Starting with a scene of a fictional computer game called Demolition, Anthony Carfello's investigative article for "Georgia" goes behind the scenes of much touted and celebrated developments taking a place in downtown LA's artsy parts. It is like a guide book to gentrification, demolishment and urban living gold rush.

Georgia looks to both artistic and organizing efforts for suggestions of a way forward, away from the complicities of cultural production and toward greater solidarity with communities in struggle.
Through a series of invitations—in the form of texts, conversations, and republished material—Georgia emphasizes shifting perspectives and historical case studies to localize the pressing conflicts of today and to explore the contested sociopolitical functions of art and its larger reception.

OMA revamps Houston's old post office

2019-07-01T13:18:00-04:00

The Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and developers Lovett Commercial have unveiled plans to transform the 55,000-square-foot Barbara Jordan Post Office in Houston into a mixed-use cultural center and park for the city.

Rendering of proposed atrium located within the renovated post office building. Image courtesy of OMA and Luxigon.

The adaptive reuse project, called POST Houston, will bring a rooftop park, urban agriculture, retail establishments, a market hall, co-working spaces, and other uses to the former post office building with the goal of "balancing preservation with strategic, almost surgical interventions" in order to reposition the post office into a dynamic cultural node.

View of POST Houston's proposed rooftop park. Image courtesy of OMA and Luxigon.

The complex will be topped with a five-acre rooftop park designed by Chicago landscape architects Hoerr Schaudt containing an organic farm and other recreational areas. Hoerr Schaudt is also behind the 2015 desig...

Historic buildings shine as the Los Angeles Conservancy announces its 2019 Preservation Award Winners

2019-05-09T18:08:00-04:00

Los Angeles is a cornucopia of sites and experiences. However, beyond the city's experiential characteristics it's also home to an elaborate collection of historical landmarks and structures. This week the Los Angeles Conservancy announced its 2019 Preservation Award Recipients. The selected projects reflect a wide range of efforts to preserve L.A. County's architectural heritage.

Since 1982, the Los Angeles Conservancy has reviewed and recognized historical structures that represent excellence in the field of historic preservation. A selected jury comprised of experts in architecture, historic preservation, and community development are chosen to award winners in various categories. Some categories include rehabilitation, sensitive restoration, adaptive reuse, as well as special Chair's Award for exceptional contributions.

What started as a nonprofit membership organization in the late 1970s, the Los Angeles Conservancy had dedicated their time and efforts through education and a...

The inspiration for Star Wars' Sandcrawler, Hôtel du Lac, faces imminent demolition

2019-03-27T19:27:00-04:00

"(The hotel) is one of the rare standing testimonies of the brutalist movement in North Africa. [...] Hôtel du Lac was built as an expression of Tunisia's modernity and independence. In contrast to the surrounding architecture, the hotel makes a rebellious statement of departure from both traditional and colonial architectural forms."

This local landmark of Tunis has made quite an impact on the public since its initial opening in 1973. Said to be the inspiration behind a fictional Sandcrawler vehicle in George Lucas' Star Wars films, the Hôtel du Lac also acts as "one of Tunisia's premier brutalist structures" in North Africa. The building was designed by Italian architect Raffaele Contigiani, who was also known for his commissioned works on various pavilions and fairs as well as other hotels around North Africa. The Hôtel du Lac was Contigiani's most known work.

The Sandcrawler vehicle from "Star Wars: A New Hope" Credit: Alamy Stock Photo

The ten-floor hotel features 416 rooms which were known to host high profiled guests and A-List clientele. However, in 2002, the hotel closed its doors to the public. Since its closing, the building has remained empty, slowly deteriorating. The once bustling venue attracts several onlookers due to its interesting upside-down pyramid shape and s...

What will be the fate of Jon Jerde's iconic Horton Plaza?

2019-02-22T14:31:00-05:00

Preservation advocates, including Docomomo US, have come out in strong support of retaining the site's unique postmodern elements, writing letters and urging the new owner, Civic San Deigo, the local economic development entity, and the San Diego Historical Resources Board to evaluate the project further and consider its historic significance.

To some Horton Plaza may appear to be an odd mix match of colors and structural directions, but to others, this postmodern complex is an architectural relic that should be preserved. Opening its doors in 1985, the plaza was designed as a place that would help revitalize San Diego's downtown Gaslamp area during the mid-'80s. Although its overall appearance may not have screamed the traditional shopping center look, the plaza's opening drew in over 30 million visitors in its first year alone. With the success of the plaza's engagement, this allowed for the project's architect Jon Jerde and supergraphic designers Deborah Sussman and Paul Prejza to launch their careers in shopping mall design.

Horton Plaza in San Diego, Image By Sandy Huffaker, Jr. Photography - The Jerde Partnership, Inc., CC BY 3.0

Jon Jerde, a Los Angeles based architect, was commissioned by developer Ernie Hahn to...