Archinect - News

Acclaimed Chicago architect Brad Lynch, of Brininstool + Lynch, passes away at 64

2022-09-28T19:08:00-04:00

A beloved figure in Chicago’s architecture community is being mourned this week after the news that Brininstool + Lynch founder Brad Lynch passed away on Monday at the age of 64.

Lynch was known as the designer of seminal works throughout the Midwest region, including the Racine Art Museum, award-winning BARDAVID at the University of Chicago’s new David Rubenstein Forum, and multiple residential projects across his adopted home city.

Mariposa House, Malibu CA, by Brininstool + Lynch. Photo by Christopher Barrett

A model of Lynch's design for the Racine Art Museum in Wisconsin. Image: Christopher Barrett/Hedrich Blessing

“I got to know Brad when he joined Archinect's ski trip in 2020, right before the pandemic hit. I had long been a fan of his design work, and quickly became a fan of him as a person,” Archinect founder Paul Petrunia remembered. “He was so kind and gracious with the group. He exuded excitement whenever talking about architecture and art, and was eager to show us the stu...

Picasso murals removed in Oslo despite protest

2020-07-29T14:29:00-04:00

The legal battle over the Picasso-Nesjar murals removed by the Norwegian government from the Y Block administrative building in Oslo earlier this week is escalating. The Fishermen hung on the brutalist façade while The Seagull was located in the lobby of the building, which was designed by the Norwegian architect Erling Viksjø in 1969.

Norway's controversial decision to demolish the 1960s Y-block building that was damaged by a car bomb explosion in the July 22, 2011 terrorist attack — and with it, to remove two murals created by Pablo Picasso and Carl Nesjar specifically for this building — has been generating a heated debate and legal steps for many years now.

According to The Art Newspaper, both murals are being removed this week.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Adrian Bugge (@yblokkfoto.no) on Jul 28, 2020 at 12:58pm PDT

Picasso's tallest unbuilt concrete sculpture will be recreated in VR

2018-03-06T15:41:00-05:00

Envisioned to reach a height of 100 feet, the piece, titled “Bust of a Woman,” was approved to tower over the campus of the University of South Florida (USF), with its single cutout eye gazing blankly at its surroundings. The project — which also involved construction of a new art center — had an estimated cost of $10 million, however, and university officials ended up killing it due to lack of funding. Picasso passed away in 1973, and his angular, hard-edged figure never came to fruition.

Originally designed for a museum in Sweden, Picasso's "Bust of a Woman" was donated to USF in 1971 and would have been the tallest concrete sculpture in the world at that time.

Visualization of Paul Rudolph’s building with Picasso’s sculpture. Image: USF Special Collection Library.

He agreed to donate the project, which would have been located next to Paul Rudolph's brutalist building on campus. Currently, researchers at the school’s Center for Virtualization and Applied Spatial Technologies are working to recreate the 100-foot-tall sculpture in virtual reality.

Computer visualizations of the Art and Visitor Center with “The Bust of a Woman”. Image: K. Oles, CVAST.

The completed VR program will enable users to digitally walk through the 1970's version of USF's campus and experience Picasso's monumental sculpture in context.

Picasso Museum reopens after five-year renovation

2014-10-28T13:38:00-04:00

One of the most popular museums in Paris, the Picasso Museum, reopens on Saturday after a five-year closure for a costly and controversial renovation. [...] In the run-up to the big day, Lebon has been busy conducting VIP tours. Among his guests: the American architect Frank Gehry, whose monumental Louis Vuitton art foundation has just opened on the other side of Paris. "I am not here to criticise the architecture, but to praise the painting - which is of course phenomenal," says Gehry.

Picasso murals debate divides Norway

2013-08-28T17:22:00-04:00

The fate of five Picasso murals on buildings damaged in the Anders Breivik bombing in Oslo in 2011 has led to a heated debate in Norway. A panel of experts has recommended demolishing the buildings and removing the murals. But art experts say that as the murals were designed by Picasso for those specific buildings, they should remain where they are. The artworks were Picasso's first attempts at concrete murals.

Spirit of Space presents "Art in the City", a short film honoring Chicago's public art

2013-08-21T20:26:00-04:00

The success of a public work of art is measured not merely by aesthetics, but rather, by its magnetic qualities that inspire interaction. The art is a reflection of the City, the art becomes a part of the City, the art is instrumental in making the City.

Acting as poetic translators between cities and their citizens, the creative agency Spirit of Space uses digital media to showcase humanity's built environment, consequently enhancing the citizen's self-awareness and appreciation of architectural space. Their film for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, entitled Art in the City, visits a selection of public art installations in Chicago, presenting the structures within an engaged society, with quotations from their creators superimposed on the footage.

Art in the City's perspective contextualizes the art as truly part of its city, rather than tightly framing it as an isolated portrait. While not an explicit critique of the public art, the film and featured quotations are bold strokes, meant to inspire dialogue and enthused interaction, but not push a specific argument. In line with Spirit of Space's agenda, the film provokes questions of public art's purpose, civic relationship, and whether it "succeeds". Inherent to these questions ...