Archinect - News

Kengo Kuma's Seattle tower dabbles in façadism

2019-07-24T15:11:00-04:00

A quasi-Gothic, Kengo Kuma and Associates-designed 40-story mixed-use skyscraper could be headed to downtown Seattle's Belltown neighborhood.

The project, developed in collaboration with architects Ankrom Moisan, landscape architects Berger Partnership, and developer Pacific Virginia, will not only preserve the facade of the historic Bebb & Gould's Terminal Sales Annex building from 1915, but will also work to use the tower's massing, exterior treatments, and vertically-oriented "regulating lines" to "reinforce the strong Gothic and art deco heritage of Seattle’s downtown."

Massing diagram showing how the new building's geometries relate to the historic building. Images courtesy of City of Seattle, Kengo Kuma & Associates/Ankrom Moisan

A design review submittal to the City of Seattle runs through a variety of options for how the tower's massing might shift to highlight and relate to the Annex. The proposals all share a common trait: The five-story Gothic Revival commercial structure...

Why a house in Manhattan Beach is covered in a family's memories

2016-02-10T12:33:00-05:00

After Feb. 29, when he packs the plywood portraits back into the truck and heads back to Texas, the house will be demolished and replaced by a pair of three-story condos. "It's not going to be fun when I drive off," he says, "but this is always going to be my hometown."

"Six years ago, when developers offered artist Gary Sweeney "an armored truck full of money" for his childhood home in Manhattan Beach, he turned them down. Sweeney, who currently lives in San Antonio, Texas, was content renting out the old wood-paneled beach house to surfers and letting a management company deal with repairs.

But then the airline where Sweeney worked a day job as a baggage handler offered him cash to retire. He's in his 60s now, with no children and a wife whose job as a flight attendant would make traveling the world easy and affordable. On top of that, tree roots in the yard of the house at 320 35th St. were constantly mucking up the plumbing and maintenance costs were piling high. It was time to sell. Time to retire. Time to travel and make art full-time.

Eventually the developers came knocking again and offered Sweeney "two armored trucks full of money" for the property his parents purchased for $5,400 in 1945. He accepted on one condition: He would maintain occu...

The Folly of Saving What You Kill

2014-04-24T13:12:00-04:00

[...] MoMA has said it would detach and preserve the facade’s 63 textured copper-bronze panels. One might suppose that salvage is preferable to annihilation, but before we get too comfortable with such piecemeal preservation, it is worth noting that the panel-by-panel disassembly and storage of an architectural treasure’s metal facade has been tried before in New York City, with comically disastrous results. Who around here remembers the Laing Stores?

As demolition of Folk Art Museum begins, Archinect reflects on historical implications

2014-04-16T13:15:00-04:00

The axe is set to fall on the American Folk Art Museum -- after months of controversy and protest, MoMA initiated its expansion and began preparing the FAM for demolition this past Monday. As per prior concessions by MoMA, the museum's distinctive façade will be preserved, but it's unlikely to abate the sour feelings of those who oppose both the loss of the FAM, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro's expansion designs.

When MoMA first announced it would raze the FAM in April of 2013, the news resonated not only as a blow to preservationism and sustainability, but as an issue of architectural ethics and institutional monopolies. #folkmoma became a rallying post for protest and alternative proposals, and the widespread news coverage brought architectural drama to the front page.

But pro-con feuding aside, the Folk/MoMA issue implicates difficult questions of architecture's responsibilities -- to preservation, sustainability, other architects, and the public’s opinion. Architects and Archinect c...

MoMA will preserve Folk Art Museum's facade

2014-02-12T14:32:00-05:00

Contrary to what you may have read lately, the Museum of Modern Art is intent on carefully preserving the former American Folk Art Museum next door. At least, the part of it that is most recognizable to the public: an 82-foot-high sculptural ensemble of 63 panels, cast in a gorgeous copper-bronze alloy [...] “We will take the facade down, piece by piece, and we will store it,” Glenn D. Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, said in an interview last week.