Archinect - News

Influential urban theorist Christopher Alexander has passed away at 85

2022-03-21T17:46:00-04:00

The world of architectural theory is in mourning after news that architect, urbanist, AIA Gold Medalist, and former UC Berkeley professor Christopher Alexander passed away peacefully in his home in the south of England Thursday following a long illness.

Alexander was a pioneering theorist and early proponent of the New Urbanism movement who authored several crucial texts including The Timeless Way of Building and 1973’s seminal A Pattern Language.

Born in Austria in 1936, Alexander read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge before immigrating to the United States to attend both MIT and Harvard in 1958. Alexander joined the faculty as Professor of Architecture at Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design in 1963.

As a theorist, he was instrumental in developing still-used planning methods first published in The Oregon Experiment in 1975 and known for influencing the development of a software engineering concept that eventually led to Wikipedia. As an architect, he demonstrated ...

Snøhetta to develop a new visual identity for the Wikimedia Foundation

2020-01-17T15:46:00-05:00

The Wikimedia Foundation has partnered with Snøhetta to create a new visual identity. The collaboration will examine how strategic branding and digital design can influence engagement and promote cross-cultural knowledge sharing.

Snøhetta & Wikimedia Foundation Branding Partnership

“Snøhetta has a long-standing commitment to developing socially sustainable design solutions that promote a sense of collective ownership and engagement with civic life. We chose Snøhetta as our strategic design partner for their demonstrated ability to develop strong, visual brand identities that transcend geographical boarders and bring people together. Snøhetta’s commitment to working creatively, openly, and together was the perfect fit for the project, and we’re thrilled to be working with them”, said Heather Walls, Chief Creative Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation in a statement.

As the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, one of the world's largest website, the Wikimedia Foundation's aim is to furth...

Un-Forgetting Influential Voices: Women in Architecture #wikiD Writing Workshop

2015-11-12T12:51:00-05:00

“History is not a simple meritocracy: it is a narrative of the past written and revised - or not written at all - by people with agendas.” - Despina Stratigakos, "Unforgetting Women Architects: From the Pritzker to Wikipedia", Places Journal, June 2013

In 2007, in the nascent days of Wikipedia, Archinecter Quilian Riano posted a call for ‘necters to join in a group online effort to edit the Wikipedia page on Architecture to improve what had been a minimally considered – and minimally accurate – entry.

Now editing has become a social act: on 21 November 2015, you can join the Women In Architecture #wikiD Writing Workshop at the SCI-Arc Kappe Library to engage in the act of “unforgetting women architects”. You can even write about the woman architects you most want the world to know about – just bring some biographical information and enthusiasm for spreading the word. The jointly-sponsored Association for Women in Architecture + Design event will provide Wikipedia editing training d...

Unforgetting Women Architects

2013-06-03T17:15:00-04:00

A historian might spend decades undertaking research in archives and writing up discoveries in scholarly journals, but if the work does not have a presence online — and, specifically, a presence that is not behind a paywall — it is all but invisible outside academia. As Ridge states, “If it’s not Googleable, it doesn’t exist.”

Over the decades women architects have received scant attention from historians and prize juries. On Places, Despina Stratigakos writes, "The painful cancellation of Denise Scott Brown in the awarding of the Pritzker Prize solely to her husband and collaborator, Robert Venturi, is an important but hardly exceptional example of how female partners are written out of history by a profession suffering from Star Architect Disorder, or SAD." Stratigakos argues that it's time to write women back into history — and that the place to start is Wikipedia.