Archinect - News

Flashback: Floyd McKissick's unfinished “Soul City” suburb in NC

2016-05-13T13:13:00-04:00

There would be homes and industry surrounded by trees, hills and lakes. Above all, there would be no prejudice, poverty or slums, according to a Soul City brochure...Despite its name, Soul City was never intended to be an all-black town, but rather, a multi-racial community built and managed by black people. [But] Portions of the area resemble a ghost town, rotting – or perhaps waiting. Could Soul City ever be resurrected?

Read up on the rise and halt of Soul City, a suburb that attorney and civil rights activist Floyd McKissick envisioned for North Carolina's Warren County in the late 1960s-70s.

Unfolding southamerican utopias: the Clip/Stamp/Fold in Santiago.

2013-06-25T14:35:00-04:00

Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X – 197X takes stock of seventy little magazines from this period, which were published in over a dozen cities. Coined in the early twentieth century to designate progressive literary journals, the term “little magazine” was remobilized during the 1960s to grapple with the contemporary proliferation of independent architectural periodicals.

This month the boundary has been finally crossed. It is because the exhibition and ongoing research project Clip/Stamp/Fold has landed in the south hemisphere by this month until July 2013. Santiago has had the chance for this first landing. The local version of the project became real due to the remarkable work of Fernando Portal, Pablo Brugnoli and Andrea Lathrop, whom gave shape to the Chilean participation on the architectural radical magazines of the 60’s and 70’s.

The selected local magazines were proposed according to the main outline: “radical architecture of little magazines”. In this regard, AUCA was immediately considered as one of the first ones due to its invaluable role as one of the bravest publication according to the social impact in the hard days Chile was facing. Architecture, Urbanism, Construction and Arts configure its name as well as the matching with the aboriginal (mapuche) word, which means Rebel. Also AUCA bore a respectable name because it born in t...

The "new" model of privatized infrastructure

2012-07-09T19:22:00-04:00

all are really just a smoke screen for a much deeper set of political and even philosophical issues that will impact urban dwellers in the near future, especially as more than half’s the world’s population will soon be living in cities. That set of issues centers around the delicate dance between public and private ownership of space, both in the cloud and on the ground.

Earlier this year Jan Chipchase, Executive Creative Director of Global Insights at frog – the global design and innovation company, wrote "The Networked Urban Environment" which explored a contemporary-future of cloud-urban infrastructures such as; “smart” car, “smart” parking and payment systems, and “smart” cities. While in these days of austerity, recession and crisis public/private partnerships promise, business-efficiencies, they bring possible pitfalls.

Editor's Picks #232

2011-10-09T12:52:59-04:00

Orhan Ayyüce, alerts Archinect to the fact that recently LADOT “erected traffic signal in front of historically significant Neutra VDL House in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. No notification was ever sent to institutions, individuals and organizations in charge of the house which is open to public.” Janosh believes “That's so audacious that it's the perfect example of LADOT's total detachment from the world outside of traffic engineering. Cars, after all, can't appreciate architecture.”

Guy Horton, author of Contours, Archinect's featured series on the business, politics, and culture of architecture, gets real regarding our current economic situation. He states "discussions about the recession in the architecture field have been less than up-front and honest. Much of this is related to the need for firms to do internal damage-control while continuing to project a positive brand out into the marketplace. Media permeates every aspect of the business now...Very little about the reality of the current economy makes it through the firewall."

News
Hungarian architect Imre Makovecz, died at age 75. As chicagoski commented “Makovecz showed that you don't need a computer to get away from the orthogonal”.

The world also lost Steve Jobs this week. Paul Petrunia, thinks the “The world is a little less interesting now” In response to which Gregory Walker, said “less interesting and less imaginary. ..and apple can leave the best legacy simply by continuing to dare to fai...