Archinect - News

Mies van der Rohe's rediscovered early-50s design opens at Indiana University

2022-02-22T16:17:00-05:00

A rediscovered 70-year-old Mies van der Rohe design that was reimagined for the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University has been inaugurated after the six-year-old institution announced the official opening of one of the most interesting pieces of academic architecture in recent memory.

Based on the architect’s abandoned 1952 plans for a fraternity on the Bloomington campus, the team at Thomas Phifer and Partners were able to rework the original design into an expanded home for the school’s faculty and students beginning in the spring semester.

Image © Anna Powell Denton

The process began in 2013 after Sidney Eskenazi, a member of the fraternity that commissioned the design originally, informed IU’s then-president Michael A. McRobbie about drawings that had previously been thought by many to have been lost. A research endeavor thus was conducted with assistance from MoMA and the Art Institute of Chicago that unearthed the additional documentation essential...

An artist is honoring Eileen Gray’s iconic E1027 villa with a new research-intensive exhibition

2021-10-01T19:04:00-04:00

Situated on the French Riviera, about a 30-minute drive east of Nice, the graceful 1929 villa was originally designed by architect Eileen Gray as a retreat for her and her lover, critic Jean Badovici. Over the course of its nearly century-long life, it has borne witness to one naked starchitect vandal, one world war, various drug-fueled orgies and a murder.

The original 1929 villa reopened in August after a five-year-long restoration effort led by the French Association Cap Moderne. The house was the site of a 1996 murder in addition to several other sordid affairs and outré episodes that have helped create a rather useful mythology surrounding Gray’s modernist icon. Artist Kim Schoenstadt incorporated three year’s worth of research into the home and its architect, whom many now count as an unheralded icon of the International Style.

“Gray wasn’t forgotten, but the way she was written about and the way her work was dismissed — that’s an important discussion to have with students,” curator Julie Joyce told the LA Times.

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The exhibition will be on view until February 27th at the ArtCenter College of Design’s Mullin Gallery in Pasadena. The Times’ Carolina Miranda has more on the house’s inspirational backstory here.

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What makes a work of architecture American?

2017-09-11T20:53:00-04:00

“Whether there is or is not a Northwest regional style of architecture is debatable,” said John Yeon in 1986, “but what is certain is that lot of people want to think there is.”

In "A Fortuitous Shadow," Keith Eggener is inspired by the Portland Art Museum's recent exhibition on John Yeon's life and legacy to explore the concept of regionalism in architecture, beginning with the doubts expressed by the architect long associated with Pacific Northwest regional modernism.

Works by Le Corbu and Louis Kahn in Ahmedabad left off historic conservation list

2015-06-16T15:38:00-04:00

The father of modern architecture Le Corbusier and the most influential architects of the 20th century Louis Kahn will not find place in the latest heritage conservation list of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). Ahmedabad happens to be the only place in the world where Le Corbusier had designed four different buildings. Louis Kahn's IIM-A building too does not figure in the list of heritage buildings.

"The list, which consists of 2,247 buildings and havelis in the walled city and 382 buildings outside the walled city area, will be notified in a day or two. Inclusion in the list will mean that the new conservation building bye laws would now be applicable."

Cal Poly Pomona Archives on California Modernism and International Style

2011-04-19T14:33:46-04:00

I recently got acquainted with Cal Poly Pomona's archives of Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Donald Wexler, Garrett Eckbo, Craig Ellwood and others. These archives contain never published before original drawings, photographs, blueprints, and stories. They were given to the College of Environmental Design and they are in care of Dr. Lauren Weiss Bricker. The archives are open to public with an appointment. I have arranged a permission to do an Archinect Feature on them including an interview with Dr. Bricker and others who have many stories about this precious collection. Coming soon...