Archinect - News

WSJ names Diller Scofidio + Renfro their 2017 Architectural Innovator of the Year

2017-11-03T13:02:00-04:00

As part of their yearly innovators issue, which will hit newsstands tomorrow Nov. 4th, the Wall Street Journal has named Diller Scofidio + Renfro their 2017 Architectural Innovator of the Year.

The 36 year old firm has "gone from downtown phenomenon to international powerhouse" the magazine proclaimed. Already known for high profile projects such as New York's High Line and the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, the firm led by Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro and Benjamin Gilmartin currently has four major works under construction in New York alone, including the highly anticipated Shed at Hudson Yards.

Lunch pails 50 stories over Manhattan

2016-12-22T16:25:00-05:00

"The gallery captures the exuberance with which the U.S. trumpeted its industrial progress."

Metcalfe (with Art Guild Museums + Environments and Drexel University's Center for Cultural Partnerships) designed the exhibits for the 13,000 square foot National Museum of Industrial History that are housed in its 100 year-old former Bethlehem Steel facility.

The first Smithsonian Museum Affiliate, it tells the story of the American industrial powerhouse of steel, silk, and propane from the 19th through the 20th centuries. Centered on the Pennsylvania Lehigh Valley, the museum's story is international in scope.

Rem Koolhaas and Dasha Zhukova share what's in store for the new Garage Museum

2015-01-19T18:09:00-05:00

In The Wall Street Journal Magazine's upcoming February issue, writer Tony Perrottet tells the history and potential of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art and its location in Moscow's Gorky Park, as he visits the site to meet with art philanthropist Dasha Zhukova and Rem Koolhaas. Founded by Zhukova in 2008, the Garage will move from its current location in a Shigeru Ban-designed pavilion to the former Soviet-era Vremena Goda that Koolhaas is converting into the new 58,000 sq.foot Garage Museum, set to open this June. Zhukova invested in the renovation project aiming to connect Moscow to the international art scene.

In conversation, Zhukova talks about the interests and knowledge of global culture in Moscow's youth, and their influence in shaping the Garage. Koolhaas talks about his design approach in restoring the decaying Vremena Goda amidst current museum-design trends. He also looks back to the time he spent in the U.S.S.R during the 1960s.

Sifang Art Museum - designed by 22 architects including Wang Shu, SANAA, Adjaye, Holl - opens its first exhibition

2013-11-06T19:12:00-05:00

China's wealthy patrons like Mr. Lu's family are underwriting a major cultural boom, spending billions of yuan on grand buildings to showcase impressive collections of art, antiques and other cultural rarities. Their largesse and ambitions echo American industrialists who sponsored the arts in the early years of the 20th century...

Recently in The Wall Street Journal, reporter Jason Chow interviewed real-estate developer Lu Jun and his son Lu Xun who finally opened the Sifang Art Museum for its first exhibition this past weekend in Nanjing, China after 10 years of construction.

Spearheaded by Lu Jun and curated by architects Liu Jiakun and Arato Isozaki, the $164 million project consists of 11 mixed-use buildings designed by an international mix of well-known architects including Wang Shu, SANAA, David Adjaye, Mathias Klotz, Steven Holl, and artist Ai Weiwei (the only non-architect). Three more buildings are expected to be completed within the next year.

During a rising cultural trend of private museums owned by China's wealthiest patrons, Lu Jun, his son, and some of the museum's architects describe the doubts, challenges, and hopes in the construction and operation of the ambitious project.

You can read the entire article here or the multimedia website.

Photos by Qilai Shen. "Light Box" photo co...

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.