Archinect - News

Justin Davidson scorches Rem's "Countryside"

2020-02-25T14:36:00-05:00

Welcome to “Countryside, the Future”: This is what you might get if you asked a celebrated European philosopher-architect to reinvent the Iowa State Fair. No mess, no smells, just acres of color printouts, cryptic homilies about nature, and a couple of pesticide-spraying drones. Did you know that agriculture is increasingly computerized?

New York Magazine's architecture critic, Justin Davidson, takes a no-holds-barred look at the Countryside, The Future exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The exhibition, developed by a research and exhibition team led by OMA/AMO and Rem Koolhaas, explores "radical changes in the rural, remote, and wild territories [...] or the 98% of the earth’s surface not occupied by cities."

Regarding the exhibition, Davidson writes, "Given that the countryside is a site of radical reinvention, how is it possible that there are, as one wall text suggests, virtually no books about it? That’s a profound mystery, or would be if you ignored the tens of thousands of volumes published in recent years about, say, wilderness, farming, fishing, nature, the environment, small towns, communes, rural populism, folk cultures, indigenous peoples, land management, wildlife management, hunting, water, winemaking, and deserts … not to mention suburbs."

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Highlights from Justin Davidson's candid interview with Frank Gehry

2020-02-03T17:27:00-05:00

In a recent interview for New York magazine, architecture critic Justin Davidson interviews Frank Gehry on his work past, present, and future, highlighting the nearly 91-year-old architect's unwavering penchant for working through complex design and aesthetic ideas while still being able to deliver projects for clients, often on surprisingly tight budgets.

Previously on Archinect: An Interview with Frank Gehry, Who Turns 90 Today, Upon Receiving the Neutra Award for Professional Excellence. Photo: Exterior model view of the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center @ Inglewood, interior concert configuration. Photo courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP.

In the wide-ranging interview, Gehry also dishes on his reluctance to work for oppressive regimes like China and Saudi Arabia, his distaste for publicity, and his ongoing efforts to build complex and intriguing buildings.

A few of Gehry's choice comments follow below.

Previously on Archinect: 1991 Frank Gehry on being at the right place at...

Latest plan to revamp New York's Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center is unveiled

2019-12-05T13:00:00-05:00

A project team led by Diamond Schmitt Architects and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects has been tapped to transform David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City, home of the New York Philharmonic.

According to a press release, the $550 million project aims to revitalize the performance hall into a venue that "will bring everyone closer to the music" while also allowing patrons to "feel closer to one another." The scheme doubles the size of the hall's lobby, creating a new welcome center while also adding "more places to meet, work, drink, and hang out." The facilities are set to include interior visualization walls designed to receive musical projections, including concert livestreams that will be made free to the public. The proposal would also reconfigure an exterior facade that will serve as a "canvas for artists to create site-specific works to bring the building alive."

Rendering of the proposed performance hall. Image courtesy of Lincoln Center.

The proposal is the...

Is New York's Hudson Yards a playground for billionaires or a budding new urban landscape?

2019-02-25T21:16:00-05:00

On March 15, after 12 years of planning and six of construction, the Related Companies will open the gates to its new $25 billion enclave [...] Besides being big, Hudson Yards represents something fundamentally new to New York. It’s a one-shot, supersized virtual city-state, plugged into a global metropolis but crafted to the specifications of a single boss: Related’s chairman, Stephen Ross

New York's new Hudson Yards is a preview of what major cities may look like in the next few years. Upon first glance, the new complex oozes a distinct look. Some might call it progressive luxury design, others may think otherwise. However, the 12 year project has several people looking to stake a claim at the chance to live in new development. The complex is said to be a one-stop shop of amenities and luxury living, however, does the new complex belong in New York's urban landscape of historic grit?

Hudson Yards, Image by Timothy Schenck for Related-Oxford Source: Business Insider

According to New York Magazine's Justin Davidson, his feelings towards to the new structure is a response many are probably thinking. "I can't help feeling like an alien here, as though I've crossed from real New York, with all its jangling mess, into a movie studio's back-lot version. Everything is too clean, too flat, too art-directed." It goes without saying that since the project's announcement many hav...

"Unfashionably Fashionable" - Justin Davidson on Robert A.M. Stern’s Buildings

2013-11-04T19:11:00-05:00

Stern has been called the Martha Stewart of architecture, a comparison suggesting that he’s selling a lifestyle rather than making art.

Justin Davidson on MoMA’s Departing Barry Bergdoll

2013-08-01T19:41:00-04:00

When MoMA’s chief curator of architecture and design Barry Bergdoll gives up his post at the end of the summer and returns to his tenured lair at Columbia University, the museum will lose a quiet crusader. MoMA can feel corporate and aloof, but in his domain, Bergdoll has displayed an uncanny sense of timing, using each exhibition to set a real-world agenda that frequently outlasts its run.

Kids: Architecture is Good for You

2012-10-23T14:55:00-04:00

After seeing “Best School in the World,” a Center for Architecture exhibition on the progressive learning environments where Finnish students to the top of world rankings, New York’s Justin Davidson aligned the layout of these schools more with tech company offices. We’ve rounded up a few of the design perks that your middle-school self never dreamed of.

The Best School in the World exhibition explores this question from an architectural perspective: in what types of environments does learning take place today, and what kinds of physical settings are the most conducive to successful learning?

Justin Davidson on MoMA's Architectural Response to the Financial Crisis

2012-02-13T14:14:00-05:00

Who needs a fancy designer when builders all over the country know how to construct a peaked-roof single-family house? The Museum of Modern Art’s small but magnificently ambitious new show “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” makes an overwhelming case that the two camps need each other now. Today’s suburb has little to do with the outwardly tidy, seething, monochrome world of Updike or Revolutionary Road.