Archinect - News

Robert Adam awarded 15th Richard H. Driehaus Prize

2017-01-19T15:20:00-05:00

Robert Adam, founder of ADAM Architecture, has been named the recipient of the 15th Richard H. Driehaus Prize, an award given each year to an architect "whose work has had positive cultural, environmental and artistic impact in keeping with the highest ideals of classical architecture in contemporary society." Alongside a bronze miniature of the Choregic Monument of Lysikrates, the award comes with a $200,000 prize.

“Robert Adam has made seminal and sustained contributions to his discipline by establishing a dialogue between the traditional and modern modes of architecture,” states Richard H. Driehaus, founder, chairman and chief investment officer of Chicago-based Driehaus Capital Management LLC. “He has had tremendous success by experimenting with contemporary materials and methods within the context of local and regional traditions.”

Adam was educated at Westminster University and was a Rome Scholar in the early '70s. In 1977, he founded ADAM Architecture. In addition to his design...

British transport minister decries "cult of ugliness" in brutalism, modernism

2016-11-02T19:09:00-04:00

A Government minister has declared war on “brutalist” architecture, arguing that it is “aesthetically worthless” and embodies a “cult of ugliness”. John Hayes, a transport minister, said in a speech that the Government would be the “vanguard of a renaissance” in architecture by rebuilding a Doric arch that stood outside London’s Euston station before it was demolished in 1962.

"Politicians speak a lot and sometimes they speak sense," the British Minister for Transport John Hayes states at the beginning of a speech that makes a case for a return to "beauty" in public architecture. Specifically, he takes aim at brutalist transit stations and promises to rebuild the Euston Arch, an 1837 Doric arch. "What a statement it will be of the revolt against the Cult of Ugliness, of our new orthodoxy," Mr. Hayes contends.

I highly recommend reading the speech. It's pretty out there (and a bit chilling to tell you the truth):

"My certain conviction is unwavering. We will beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly to new elegance, style and beauty."

Sure, you may very well agree with his sentiments, but can you really defend a public transport minister invoking the most cliché line in the Great Gatsby to make his point? Also, it should be noted that, when first erected, the Euston Arch was called by critics "gigantic and absurd", among other things.

More reports ...

Long derided by architects, Prince Charles' model town Poundbury might not be all that bad after all

2016-10-27T13:22:00-04:00

If Poundbury is a game, it is one that has become a good deal more convincing over time. For years derided as a feudal Disneyland, where Prince Charles could play at being planner like Marie Antoinette with her toy hamlet in Versailles, this supposed ghost town feels increasingly like a real place...[Strip] away the fancy dress and you find a plan that far exceeds the sophistication achieved by any modern housebuilder.

“We are engaged in creating a convincing fake,” [Ben Pentreath, an architect who has worked in Poundbury] says. “All architecture is essentially wallpaper: underneath, it’s all the same stuff.”

More New Urbanism:

Robert Venturi, Prince Charles & that false Corinthian column

2015-05-05T13:53:00-04:00

Today it houses one of London’s best permanent collection displays, but the 1991 Sainsbury Wing extension to the National Gallery in London was almost scuppered when Prince Charles and the other trustees opposed the architect of the new building, Robert Venturi. The row was over a false Corinthian column that the US architect wanted as a decorative feature on the Trafalgar Square façade of the new extension.

Editor's Picks #377

2014-07-22T20:36:00-04:00

New to Archinect, Julia Ingalls penned an essay, titled Material Witness: Insanity in the walls of '"True Detective" and "Twin Peaks".

Olaf Design Ninja_ offered a complement "A good visceral read like a true detective watch...This would almost suggest the inert quality of this line between sanity and insanity material be abandonment. Been working on a large abandoned hospital to rental project for a few years now and…"

Plus, Nicholas Korody snagged an interview with Lagos documentary filmmaker Bregtje van der Haak.

News

R.I.P. Randall Stout, who has died at 56

Tim Fernholz looked at how retail/consumer giants, trademark their retail layouts. raj wanted some clarification "This is just a crazy thing....Who owns the copyright? AIA docs says the Architect. Did they sell that?"

Alexander Walter noted Martino Stierli has been named the new chief curator of MoMA Architecture and Design. darkman was disappointed "Another European academic. Shocking choice, Lowry".

Baltimore Business Journal ...