Archinect - News

The Getty Foundation announces new $1.55 million investment in Conserving Black Modernism

2024-11-14T10:15:00-05:00

Good news for preservation advocates! The Getty Foundation is investing an additional $1.55 million in the conserving Black Modernism program managed by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The new contribution follows a $3.1 million gift that was announced in 2022. Money will be put toward preservation and storytelling efforts for eight 2025 grantees who are "continuing to diversify our nation’s architectural history." To date, the Fund has invested $27 million in 304 sites across the country.

Renowned architectural critic and historian Joseph Rykwert passes away aged 98

2024-11-08T10:01:00-05:00

British architectural historian Joseph Rykwert has died. The influential academic and writer who was considered to be a leading critical voice of his generation, taking aim at the banality of modernism and its encroachments on the urban sphere, lived to be 98 according to his New York Times obituary.

Rykwert was the 2014 RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture winner and author of more than a dozen texts on architecture and design. He also enjoyed a long and successful tenure as the Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. His death follows the passing of colleagues Anthony Vidler and Jean-Louis Cohen last year.

10 new minimalist architectural spaces we liked this week

2024-11-02T08:00:00-04:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Minimalism.

Tip: Use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles.

↑ House Noir in Malibu, CA by Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects [LOHA]; Photo: Paul Vu

↑ Warm Nest in Knokke-Heist, Belgium by Ark-shelter; Photo: BoysPlayNice

↑ Lindower Str. in Berlin, Germany by Heim Balp Architekten; Photo: Francesca Ióvene

↑ Chapel of Sound in Chengde, China by OPEN Architecture; Photo: Jonathan Leijonhufvud

↑ Dom in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine by ArchObraz; Photo: Andrey Avdeenko

↑ Liminal House in West Vancouver, Canada by Mcleod Bovell Modern Houses; Photo: Hufton + Crow

↑ Casa Escondida in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico by Studiohuerta

↑ Casa Mirador - Mirador House in Arteaga, Mexico by S-AR; Photo: Ana Cecilia G...

German far-right politicians want to declare Bauhaus led modernism in the 'wrong direction'

2024-10-26T08:00:00-04:00

The German far-right AfD party has attacked the original Bauhaus as a pernicious example of design, saying it led the project of modernism in the "wrong direction." Their statement, which echoes the disdain put forth by Hitler and the Nazi party, comes from an official motion in front of the country’s parliament asking for an official reappraisal of its legacy in advance of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus Dessau in 2025/26.

They say: "The emphasis on sobriety and minimalism often led to impersonal architecture that is perceived as cold, unwelcoming and unattractive." (h/t ARTnews)

The episode brings to mind the outrage of the architecture community in response to then-President Donald Trump's planned executive order in favor of classical architecture, the tenor of which (e.g., that it restores America's grandeur) is akin to the views advanced by Viktor Orban and many other modern adherents to a more discreet form of fascism.

Eileen Gray’s modernist 1934 Tempe à Pailla home is for sale in the French Riviera

2024-10-16T10:47:00-04:00

The second-ever built Eileen Gray home design from 1934 has hit the local real estate market in France’s Côte d'Azur region for €3.5 million ($3.87 million USD).

The home is not far away from Gray’s earlier historic E-1027 villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martim and boasts 8 bedrooms with 5 baths. The property has been restored several times after being looted by Nazis during World War II, according to The Spaces. Gray died in 1976 after designing more than 40 buildings. Only two of which – Tempe à Pailla and E-1027 – were ever constructed.

Image: Courtesy of Engel & Völkers

Inside the new entertainment annex at Hollywood’s iconic Sheats-Goldstein Residence

2024-10-07T08:47:00-04:00

The latest addition to Hollywood’s famous Sheats-Goldstein Residence and Estate has been completed by Los Angeles-based firm Conner + Perry Architects. Named Club James, the new annex was originally envisioned by mid-century architect John Lautner and estate owner James Goldstein.

Image credit: Joe Fletcher Photography

The overall residence continues to be a draw for architecture lovers, serving as one of Los Angeles’ most famous mid-century homes and being featured in many films, television series, fashion locations, and music videos. The home began construction in 1962 as a collaboration between architect Lautner and the Sheats family, and later the current owner James Goldstein. Conner + Perry Architects has overseen the project since 2015.

Image credit: Joe Fletcher Photography

Club James is located adjacent to the original residence. Construction first started in the early 2000s, with the project expandin...

Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s–1970s

2024-08-16T16:13:00-04:00

The story of modern architecture in St. Louis is complex and often contradictory.

Beginning in the 1930s, internationally known architects such as Eric Mendelsohn, Eero Saarinen and Minoru Yamasaki — alongside important regional and national figures like Harris Armstrong, Charles Fleming, Joseph Murphy and Gyo Obata — created iconic structures that embodied new ideas about form and, in many cases, democratic social organization. Yet the period also was marked by racial segregation and by large-scale demolitions throughout the urban core.

This fall, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present “Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s–1970s.” With nearly 300 architectural drawings, models, photographs, films, digital maps and artworks, “Design Agendas” is the first major exhibition to examine how interlocking civic, cultural and racial histories, as well as conflicting ideological aims, reshaped the city.

“I lived in Pruitt-Ig...

These are the eight historic sites receiving Conserving Black Modernism grants today

2024-07-18T12:07:00-04:00

A group of eight important Black modernist sites across the country has been selected for a round of grants worth a total of $1.2 million by the Getty Foundation in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

They were part of the Conserving Black Modernism program that is being directed by the Trust's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. Grants ranging up to $150,000 were awarded in four categories. Each joins almost two dozen other heritage sites connected to Black history as part of the larger $3 million initiative, which now means 304 grantees have been awarded $140 million nationwide through the fund since 2017.

Brent Leggs, the Fund's Executive Director, said, "The National Grant Program represents the Action Fund's enduring commitment to telling the full American story — one that makes room for Black resilience, creativity, and achievement. History is crucial to our nation's understanding of where we've come from, who we are today, and how we en...

Marcel Breuer's 1950 Marshad House is on the market for $1.8 million

2024-05-01T12:23:00-04:00

Marcel Breuer’s restored 1950 Marshad House in the Hudson Valley has been listed with an asking price of $1.8 million. The residence at 204 Cleveland Street in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, is a three-bedroom design with 1.5 bathrooms and has an interesting history from the original owner's affiliation with Look magazine and relation to the influential sculpture garden installation that was exhibited 75 years ago at MoMA.

Image: Dot Record Media/Julia B. for Sotheby’s International Realty

Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing. Galerie noted it includes a 290-square-foot converted art studio in the former garage.

Image: Dot Record Media/Julia B. for Sotheby’s International Realty

Sotheby’s (the art auctioneers) recently bought Breuer’s brutalist landmark Whitney Museum of American Art building in Manhattan for $100 million.

Image: Dot Record Media/Julia B. for Sotheby’s International Realty

MoMA exhibition on 20th-century Latin American design is a 'gem' says Michael Kimmelman

2024-04-05T13:31:00-04:00

The show is a gem. It focuses on domestic design from six countries (Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Venezuela), produced between 1940 and 1980. Latin America had entered a period of transformation, industrial expansion and creativity. Across the region, design was becoming institutionalized as a profession, opening up new avenues, especially for women.

Critic Michael Kimmelman has heaped praise on the 'Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940–1980' MoMA exhibition in a new piece for The New York Times. As we reported in December of last year, the show looks at the growth of modernism through an industrial and entrepreneurial lens, using a selection of examples from well-known and revered architects and designers such as Joaquim Tenreiro, Lina Bo Bardi, and Oscar Niemeyer.

"The role that women and immigrants played in shaping professional design and developing a national design vocabulary in Latin America will be emphasized, including the work of designers such as Clara Porset in Mexico, Cornelis Zitman in Venezuela, and Susi Aczel in Argentina," MoMA said about their exhibition at the time.

Sam Lubell on what's new at Lautner's Sheats-Goldstein House

2024-03-27T17:04:00-04:00

Goldstein and his team of architects, builders, engineers and landscape designers have been working on the Lautner house addition since 2003, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Goldstein’s property, which he has been tinkering with for more than 50 years. [...] “The purpose of all of this was to make the inside feel like it was outside,” said Goldstein, who describes a very collaborative working relationship with Lautner until the architect’s death, at 83, in 1994.

Sam Lubell examines half a century of renovations of and recent additions to James Goldstein's compound surrounding the famed John Lautner-designed Sheats-Goldstein Residence in Los Angeles.

Big kudos to the Times for referencing Lautner’s 1960 (now-demolished) Concannon House with a link to our 2012 feature story "Lautner's Concannon Residence, from Dust to Dust" by Archinect senior contributing writer Orhan Ayyüce.

OMA overhauls 1970s modernist building for Singapore cooking club and campus

2024-03-06T10:47:00-05:00

OMA has completed the AIR CIrcular Campus and Cooking Club in Dempsey Hill, Singapore. The scheme saw the overhaul of an existing modernist building and surrounding green space into what the team calls “a place for novel dining experiences, inviting broader thinking and discussions about food and the environment.”

Image credit: Kris Provoost

Designed in collaboration with entrepreneur Ronald Akili, and chefs Matt Orlando of Amass and Will Goldfarb of Room4Dessert, the scheme includes open kitchens, research space, and a cooking school for visitors.

Image credit: Kris Provoost

“It has been an inspiring journey to join Ronald, Will, and Matt on this platform to address the topic of sustainable hospitality from different perspectives,” said OMA managing partner David Gianotten about the project. “We are convinced that architecture and design can maximize impact through active engagement with different disciplines.”

Image credit: Kris ...

Pierre Koenig’s last completed project, the Schwartz House, listed for over $4 million

2023-12-21T11:48:00-05:00

Pierre Koenig’s Schwartz House has been listed for sale in Rustic Canyon, Los Angeles. Built in 1994, the home is the last project Koenig completed, uniquely built on four structural steel beams.

Image credit: Cameron Carothers

Externally, the home takes the form of a steel cube held aloft by four 40-foot-tall structural steel columns. The cube is rotated 30 degrees on an axis to face the canyon and ocean and clad in bright steel with a blend of full-length and half-length windows. By contrast, the four columns and external staircase are finished in black paint.

Image credit: Cameron Carothers

Inside, the four-bedroom home features two main levels floating above a garage and sheltered courtyard. The upper and lower levels are connected by a yellow spiral staircase wrapping around one of the structural steel columns, offering a colorful departure from a pure material palette of hardwood and glass.

Image credit: Cameron Carot...

Marcel Breuer's Wellfleet Cottage is at the center of a preservation battle on Cape Cod

2023-08-24T12:12:00-04:00

Campaigners seeking to save Marcel Breuer’s 1949 Wellfleet Cottage residence on Cape Cod have launched a $1.4 million fundraising effort aimed at saving the home from an expected demolition that’s likely to come in the next few years.

The Cape Cod Modern House Trust is spearheading the effort and says the home they have agreed to purchase from Breuer’s son is in danger adding to the tally of historic designs in the area they have been unable to save through preservation since 2016.

The house was at one time a haven and meeting place for Bauhaus alumni and intellectuals associated with Breuer and his wife Connie. The architect himself designed a large art studio addition in 1961 before adding another apartment and darkroom for his photographer son Tamas in 1968. The Trust says its sale will include all of the home's original furnishings (including pieces from the Eames' and Eero Saarinen), art collection, and private library, which will all be made available to public view after the ...

Nordic 'citizen design critics' are gaining influence thanks to their online popularity

2023-08-07T18:07:00-04:00

Founded in Sweden in 2014 as a public Facebook group, [Architectural Uprising] is a collective of citizen design critics who object to what organizers call the “continued uglification” of developments in Nordic cities, and push for a return to classically informed design. [...] The movement’s size and persistence, however, has earned it a seat in the discourse. “When [historians] talk about architecture during these years, [the Architectural Uprising] will be part of that history”

A new report in Bloomberg tells of the staying power of social media-driven architectural criticism. Projects lambasted by the popular (mostly) Scandinavian group include Oslo’s new National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design by architect Klaus Schuwerk and estudio Herreros’ Munch Museum, which Oliver Wainwright also panned.

Its presence has apparently spurred Norwegian firm MAD Arkitektur’s concessions on the Sandakerveien 58 B/C renovation and other projects. Politicians in Norway have even begun reaching out for tacit endorsements in a turn mirroring the "ugly" debate in America concerning the design of federal buildings that has become a charge of late for Republicans in love with the concept of classicism in spite of its racist underpinnings and widely-critiqued past.

Architects comment on Le Corbusier's 100-year legacy

2023-06-26T15:36:00-04:00

Le Corbusier was to architecture what Picasso was to painting, a towering and egomaniacal creative force who transformed his discipline for ever. His buildings have inspired admiration, sometimes devotion. He is an icon, granted the nickname “Corb” or “Corbu” by architects. He has also been vigorously attacked, as a mechanistic fanatic whose ideas inspired inhumane tower blocks and concrete jungles.

In his latest Guardian piece, critic Rowan Moore remembers the 100-year anniversary of the seminal modernist manifesto Toward an Architecture by one of the profession's most revered and controversial figures, Le Corbusier.

Acknowledging that the book's thoughts about the future were now "firmly in the past," Moore asked acclaimed present-day architects about the impact Le Corbusier's work has had on them and which of his buildings was most relevant in their view.

Among the respondees are Pritzker Prize and Gold Medal winners Frank Gehry, Denise Scott Brown, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron's founding partner Jacques Herzog, Grafton Architects' Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell, Yasmeen Lari, Kate Macintosh, as well as contemporary architects and designers Jayden Ali and Adam Nathaniel Furman.

African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund announces $3.8 million in 2023 grants to preserve 40 historic sites

2023-06-13T17:43:00-04:00

The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund has announced $3.8 million in 2023 grant funding to protect and preserve 40 sites representing African American history. Established in 2017, the Action Fund, which has raised more than $95 million, is the largest U.S. fund dedicated to preserving historic African American sites.

Since its inception, the Action Fund has received a total of 5,638 funding proposals requesting $655 million. The program has been able to support 242 grantee projects through its investment of $20 million.

2023 grant site: Morgan State University’s Jenkins Hall in Baltimore, Maryland. Photo: Troy Pumphrey Jr., image courtesy National Trust for Historic Preservation.

“The Action Fund’s investment in and celebration of 40 historic African American places illustrates our belief that historic preservation plays an important role in American society,” said Brent Leggs, African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund exe...

Kenzo Tange's 'Boat Gymnasium' in Japan faces demolition

2023-02-21T14:52:00-05:00

An important Kenzo Tange design is facing an uncertain future in Japan’s Kagawa Prefecture after reports that authorities there are moving forward with the demolition of his 1964 “Boat Gymnasium” over disrepair and an apparent inability to fund seismic structural upgrades.

The Brutalist structure in Takamatsu was first shuttered in 2014 and has since been the subject of preservation pushes that unsuccessfully pressured the government to save the building, which shares many of the same stylistic elements as his masterwork Yoyogi National Gymnasium built the same year for the Olympic games in Tokyo.

The news comes almost a year removed from the final fate of the Kisho Kurokawa-designed Nakagin Capsule Tower, which is now being disbursed piecemeal to private enthusiasts and public collections after a long back-and-forth came to a close with preservationists on the losing end.

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons user Bigjap (CC0 1.0)

The local Board of Education, which manages the gymnasi...

Hood Century's solitary quest to preserve Black modernist heritage is spurring social media users to action

2023-01-18T13:20:00-05:00

Jerald Cooper, who lives in Cincinnati, wants to recognize and help preserve modern architecture and interior design that have added to the aesthetic and culture of many Black communities. His aim is to make architecture and design more accessible by using layman’s language to break down barriers typically set up by white academics with advanced degrees, and educate more people who are now empowered through social media to comment on the structural beauty of a modernist tower.

The music industry marketing consultant started the passion project after a treasured local West End church was demolished in order to make room for Populous’ $250 million new Cincinnati F.C. stadium in 2019, an act which he calls “infrastructural trauma.” Since then, he has grown an online audience of more than 83,000 followers with his Instagram account Hood Century, offering analysis that breaks down Black modernism into three categories: made for, handed down, and claimed.

The effort places him in line with others, such as the newly-funded Conserving Black Modernism project from the Getty and National Trust for Historic Preservation. Jerald Cooper represents the potential for social media adept architecture aficionados to combat what he called a “lack of knowing” in their own communities. As the former USC architecture dean Milton Curry says, “the complex story of Modernism cannot be fully revealed without new research on its impacts in and on the Black communities that it has t...

Trailblazing French social housing pioneer Renée Gailhoustet passes away aged 93

2023-01-10T18:31:00-05:00

Noted French modernist and social housing pioneer Renée Gailhoustet passed away on January 4th at her home outside of Paris, the nation’s largest newspaper, Le Monde, reported earlier on Tuesday.

Known for creating the master plan for Ivry-sur-Seine; the 1972 Cité Spinoza housing complex in the same town; Le Liégat (where she also resided); and the La Maladrerie development in the suburb of Aubervilliers, Gailhoustet’s designs in the typology were critically important in their divergence from the Corbusian model of planning that predominated in the country in the decades following World War II.

After attending the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Gailhoustet began her own practice in the French capital in 1964. From there, she gained recognition for her innovative, socially-conscious contributions to urban renewal projects in Ivry-sur-Seine, Villejuif, and Saint-Denis that mirrored approaches later taken up by architects like Moshe Safdie in their insistence upon more humane...

New $3.1 million Conserving Black Modernism grant program announced by the Getty Foundation and National Trust for Historic Preservation

2022-09-19T14:37:00-04:00

The Getty Foundation together with the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund has announced the commitment of $3.1 million in the form of institutional grants to individuals and organizations that are working to preserve the legacy of historic modern architecture designed by Black architects nationwide.

Under the title Conserving Black Modernism, the two-year grant program, part of a larger $80 million effort overseen by the Action Fund, will support the documentation of 16 overlooked sites across the country while providing useful preservation training and storytelling resources to their future stewards.

The Getty says they are remiss at not including any works by one of America’s many underappreciated Black designers in its otherwise successful Keeping It Modern initiative and will look to address this absence with a new program that helps enshrine their contributions to what became the most defining architectural movement of the ...

Richard Neutra-designed Oregon home hits the market at $3,750,000

2022-05-23T14:26:00-04:00

A Portland house with a provenance like no other is for sale. The revolutionary dwelling was designed 82 years ago by modernist architect Richard Neutra for lily hybridizer Jan de Graaff and his wife, Peggy, heir to the Macy’s department store owner who died on the Titanic.

The home, originally constructed in 1941, is located at 1901 South Comus Street. It was listed on Thursday, May 19th through Oregon-based real estate company The Hasson Company with an asking price of $3,750,000.

The three-level residence is celebrated for its embodiment of Neutra’s International style with its floor-to-ceiling windows and custom wood built-ins. It is one of only two Oregon homes designed by Neutra, who was commissioned by the de Graaffs to design a house for their modern furniture and art collection.

The house spans 6,887 square feet and sits on a 0.85-acre lot, offering unobstructed mountain, city, and river views. It features five bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms.

The 11 most threatened modern sites across the U.S.

2022-04-29T15:44:00-04:00

In response to the recent surprise demolition of Marcel Breuer’s Geller I house on Long Island, modernist conservation group Docomomo US has released its first-ever list of the 11 most threatened modern sites in the United States.

Working on the advice of its chapter members, the group selected 11 sites across the country in danger of seeing the same fate as Breuer’s first post-war residential project beginning with Miami’s Marine Stadium, which is still currently awaiting word on a publicly-funded restoration effort.

Washington state was a popular location, with Space Needle architect John Graham Jr.’s Lloyd Center and the Weyerhaeuser International Headquarters both making the list.

Massachusetts is also well-represented with the “Long House” prototype cotta...

Paul Rudolph-designed First Church in Boston prepares for 50th-anniversary celebrations

2022-04-25T19:20:00-04:00

Dedicated in 1972, plans are underway to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Paul Rudolph’s design for the First Church in Boston. In 1967, a fire destroyed most of the original 1867 gothic revival church by William Ware and Henry Van Brunt. The congregation considered proposals from Marcel Breuer, Joseph Schiffer, Joseph Eldridge, and Paul Rudolph. They voted in favor of Rudolph’s design [...]

In celebration of the anniversary, several events are scheduled at the church building for this weekend, April 30th and May 1st, including an Architects Panel on Sunday from 2–4 pm.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by @docomomous

The Guardian picks up on the contentious debate surrounding modernist preservation in the UK

2022-04-04T18:44:00-04:00

A trio of concerned letter writers replied to a March 31st opinion piece by The Guardian’s Owen Hatherley in which the critic declared that “hardline modern architecture is now something of a cult.”

“A living city has to strike some sort of balance between avoiding the strangulation and depopulation that happens when you conserve everything, and the visual slurry that occurs if you let developers do what they like,” Hatherley wrote. “The result has been a new tension between different notions of conservation. This is a tension that serves mainly to benefit property developers, who can make money both from new buildings, and as 'saviors' of great modern buildings at the cost of destroying their original purely social purpose, as has happened in the privatisation of London’s Keeling House or Sheffield’s Park Hill.”

The Twentieth Century Society’s London Director Catherine ...

Progressive modernist Jerome Markson has been awarded the 2022 RAIC Gold Medal

2022-04-01T20:22:00-04:00

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada has announced Jerome Markson as its 2022 Gold Medal Winner. The Toronto-based modernist is well known throughout Canada for his award-winning designs and contributions to the fields of architectural education and design theory.

Markson’s social housing projects are often considered to be the basis for the development of what is now considered to be one of the most diverse cities in the world. His designs for healthcare facilities as well as cultural centers and further civic projects contributed a considerable amount to the visual language of his native country throughout his vaunted six-decade career.

Markson's Market Square Condominiums in Toronto. Image copyright Fiona Smith via RAIC.

Writing on the RAIC’s website, the jury commended Markson for his “lifelong commitment to humanism, inclusivity and generosity, teaching us valuable lessons about urban housing and its critical relationship to city building.”

“His work epitomizes a deep c...

Marcel Breuer's first binuclear house has been demolished in Long Island

2022-01-26T18:23:00-05:00

Marcel Breuer's first binuclear house, Geller I in Lawrence, New York has been demolished in the dead of night. Geller I is largely considered the project that propelled Breuer to private practice in New York and prompted the Museum of Modern Art to commission Breuer to design an exhibition house in the museum’s courtyard entitled The House in the Museum Garden in 1949.

The conservation advocacy organization chalked up the loss to a combination of changing local property dynamics and the inability of the town of Hempstead’s planning laws to prevent the destruction of a structure it says would have claims to both the New York State and National Register of Historic Places.

“Late last year, Docomomo US was alerted to plans to demolish the house for a larger project combing multiple lots. Docomomo US and our colleagues at Docomomo US NY/Tri-State, the Preservation League of New York State, Preservation Long Island and Caroline Rob Zaleski author of Long Island Modernism formed a coalition to work for a better preservation outcome,” the group’s statement explained.

A photo of the demolition underway this morning, January 26. Image courtesy of the Town of Hempstead, Landmarks Preservation Commission.

“In December, an application for local landmark status was submitted to the Town of Hempstead and enthusiastically received and supported by the Hempstead...

Buffalo’s Great Northern Grain Elevator and the fight to preserve local architectural history

2022-01-25T18:13:00-05:00

The building’s current owner — Archer Daniels Midland Milling Co., part of the farm and food products giant — has been pushing to demolish the Great Northern, setting off a furious fight between preservationists and the company.

The 125-year-old building has been credited with inspiring a host of modernist architects like Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. The building’s facade was gashed open by a windstorm that has left its empty interior partially exposed since December 12th. At least three previous owners have attempted to demolish the beloved historic building that was for a long time operated by the Pillsbury company, which sold the building to its current owners in the early 1990s.

Archer Daniels Midland Milling Co. has been seeking an emergency petition to raze the building that was granted a stay by an appellate judge in state supreme court earlier this month. The judge has called for mediation sessions this week between the company and conservationists who want to save the damaged structure that they say will leave a massive void on the city’s visual imagination.

“These were the kind of cathedrals of the modern age,” Gregory Delaney, an assistant professor of architecture at the University at Buff...

The Weitzman School of Design's latest exhibition offers a look at the impact its alumni had in making China modern

2022-01-18T13:03:00-05:00

What can a western architectural education do in a developing country? The legacy of one of the leading design colleges in America is being examined as such in a new exhibition called Building in China: A Century of Dialogues on Modern Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design in Philadelphia.

The exhibition is presented in unison with Southeast University School of Architecture and the Tongji University College of Architecture and Urban Planning and features a two-part format that looks first at the historical impacts the university has had on the development of architecture in the country after 1920.

Peace Hotel of Beijing, designed by Tingbao Yang. Image courtesy University of Pennsylvania.

Penn educated a number of prominent Chinese architects during those years, and many went on to successful architectural careers that were heavily influenced by the proximity to the international movement of modernism which began at the university. The fi...

Balkrishna Doshi awarded the Royal Gold Medal 2022 by the RIBA

2021-12-09T15:32:00-05:00

Renowned Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi has been announced as the recipient of the Royal Gold Medal 2022 by the RIBA, one of the highest architectural honors in the world. By receiving the award, Doshi joins past winners including Sir David Adjaye (2021), Grafton Architects (2020), and Sir Nicholas Grimshaw (2019). Doshi is also the 2018 recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

RIBA President Simon Alford described Doshi as an individual who was “influenced generations of architects through his delightfully purposeful architecture.” The ninety-four-year-old architect has seen over 100 built projects throughout his 70-year career, influencing the direction of architecture in India and adjacent regions through both his practice and teaching.

Aranya Low-Cost Housing, Indore, India. Photographer: John Panicker (c) Vastushilpa Foundation

Born in 1927 in Pune, India, Doshi studied at the J J School of Architecture, Bombay, before working for four years with Le Corbusier as Seni...

Archinect - News

The Getty Foundation announces new $1.55 million investment in Conserving Black Modernism

Renowned architectural critic and historian Joseph Rykwert​​ passes away aged 98

10 new minimalist architectural spaces we liked this week

German far-right politicians want to declare Bauhaus led modernism in the 'wrong direction'

Eileen Gray’s modernist 1934 Tempe à Pailla home is for sale in the French Riviera

Inside the new entertainment annex at Hollywood’s iconic Sheats-Goldstein Residence

Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s–1970s

These are the eight historic sites receiving Conserving Black Modernism grants today

Marcel Breuer's 1950 Marshad House is on the market for $1.8 million

MoMA exhibition on 20th-century Latin American design is a 'gem' says Michael Kimmelman

Sam Lubell on what's new at Lautner's Sheats-Goldstein House

OMA overhauls 1970s modernist building for Singapore cooking club and campus

Pierre Koenig’s last completed project, the Schwartz House, listed for over $4 million

Marcel Breuer's Wellfleet Cottage is at the center of a preservation battle on Cape Cod

Nordic 'citizen design critics' are gaining influence thanks to their online popularity

Architects comment on Le Corbusier's 100-year legacy

African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund announces $3.8 million in 2023 grants to preserve 40 historic sites

Kenzo Tange's 'Boat Gymnasium' in Japan faces demolition

Hood Century's solitary quest to preserve Black modernist heritage is spurring social media users to action

Trailblazing French social housing pioneer Renée Gailhoustet passes away aged 93

New $3.1 million Conserving Black Modernism grant program announced by the Getty Foundation and National Trust for Historic Preservation

Richard Neutra-designed Oregon home hits the market at $3,750,000

The 11 most threatened modern sites across the U.S.

Paul Rudolph-designed First Church in Boston prepares for 50th-anniversary celebrations

The Guardian picks up on the contentious debate surrounding modernist preservation in the UK

Progressive modernist Jerome Markson has been awarded the 2022 RAIC Gold Medal

Marcel Breuer's first binuclear house has been demolished in Long Island

Buffalo’s Great Northern Grain Elevator and the fight to preserve local architectural history

The Weitzman School of Design's latest exhibition offers a look at the impact its alumni had in making China modern

Balkrishna Doshi awarded the Royal Gold Medal 2022 by the RIBA

Renowned architectural critic and historian Joseph Rykwert passes away aged 98