Archinect - News

Groundbreaking conceptual artist Robert Irwin dies at 95

2023-10-26T15:35:00-04:00

Robert Irwin, a pioneering conceptual artist and leading figure of the Light and Space movement whose work had significant influences in architecture, passed away last night in San Diego. He was 95.

Irwin helped push the boundaries of American post-war art with his understanding of the principles of design. Along with a cohort of artists like James Turrell, Richard Serra, Larry Bell, and Donald Judd, Irwin worked to constantly challenge the perception of his viewers. He left behind painting to pursue a “conditional art” that espoused a further shift away from pictorial composition and towards the responsiveness of art objects to the context of a site.

Irwin’s collaborative site-conditioned work with institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Dia Art Foundation, and LACMA set new precedents for the inclusion of living artists in a museum’s program, the influence of which today can be seen in the careers of Marina Abramović and Isaac Julien, among others. Irwin was also ...

'We all did': The Los Angeles Times' Patt Morrison on who authored the fate of LA's long-lost streetcars

2021-11-03T12:01:00-04:00

Red Cars didn’t just get people from Point A to Point B. They helped to create Point A and Point B. Towns like Burbank and Alhambra grew spectacularly once the Red Car reached them. Other sellers of land wised up and made sure their advertising told prospective buyers how to get there by Red Car; so did merchants and amusements. The system made even the farthest towns and neighborhoods feel connected.

The trolley system was not entirely undone in part by the nefarious hand of some elite corporate entities with decided interests in seeing an alternative to the then-burgeoning interstate highway system destroyed. Movies like Clint Eastwood's Changeling (2008) and (my favorite) Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) do a more-than-adequate job presenting the system as a great democratic uniter of Los Angeles’ proletariat, which is how many people view the defunct system correctly or incorrectly six decades after its operation was shut down.

The city is currently working on an expansion of its modern-day equivalent — the Metro — that will vastly increase access to the city’s Westside via a series of new Purple D line stations that will terminate near the campus of UCLA. The present east-to-west commute is considered to be one of the worst in Los Angeles county. The city is expecting 78,000 daily commuters on the line once construction is completed in 2027.

National Trust to show the beauty of Croydon

2016-07-08T03:27:00-04:00

Bowie hated it. Peep Show besmirched it. The London suburb may get a bad rap in popular culture, but now there is the chance to see a different side. [...] Watson is helping to organise tours of Croydon taking in architectural highlights such as NLA House (now No 1 Croydon), sometimes known as the ‘threepenny bit’; [...] The National Trust is turning to Croydon after its successful tours of London’s brutalist concrete buildings, places it argues should be cherished as much as Croydon’s towers.

A. Quincy Jones' LA retrospective at the Hammer Museum

2013-08-16T19:41:00-04:00

"A. Quincy Jones: Building for Better Living" is the LA-based architect's first major museum retrospective happening now until Sept. 8 at the Hammer Museum.

Practicing architecture in Los Angeles from 1939 to his death in 1979, Jones -- or Quincy, as he was known -- is described as a quiet modernist who constantly emphasized the concept of "better living" and collaboration in his work. In addition to Jones' more glamorous projects for higher-status clients like actor Gary Cooper and art collectors Frances and Sidney Brody, Jones also made major contributions to middle-class housing in the post-war period.

A dedicated architecture professor at USC, Jones was just as committed to raising the housing design standards for a growing middle class by implementing cost-effective, sustainable, and inventive methods. He was also the first to see such developments as communal spaces through shared green spaces, non-grid site planning, and various home models.

Jones is credited to ove...