Archinect - News

Gehry Partners and Mark Cavagnero Associates named to design proposed Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall renovation in San Francisco

2023-10-13T18:29:00-04:00

A plan from Gehry Partners, LLP. and Mark Cavagnero Associates to renovate the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra’s 43-year-old Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall building is moving forward after a proposal was made public for the first time.

In September, the client submitted a proposal to begin the entitlement process for renovations to the SOM and Pietro Belluschi-designed structure. The goal is to make the Symphony “publicly accessible, transparent, and inviting,” according to its press release. The institution says it is still in the exploratory phase of the process and cautions it has yet to commit to a project or submitted any other permits as the concepts are explored further.

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. Image by Drew Altizer/Courtesy of San Francisco Symphony Hall.

Gehry, whose longstanding collaboration with noted acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota will again take centerstage when the expanded Colburn School of Music campus project breaks ground in ...

“We never could design a building as beautiful as the trees,” Oregon celebrates the legacy of architect Pietro Belluschi

2019-08-11T07:00:00-04:00

Every day, people work, live and pray inside Pietro Belluschi’s light-filled, modern creations. The legendary architect shaped Portland’s skyline with revolutionary structures like the Commonwealth Building, which generated tinted glass-and-aluminum lookalikes across the globe. In August and September, educational and celebratory events spotlighting Belluschi’s impact will take place in Portland to honor the 120th anniversary of his birth.

Eye candy: enjoy these freshly digitized, gorgeous contemporary photos of Southern California's finest midcentury modern architecture

2016-03-25T18:29:00-04:00

No longer confined to collecting dust in storage rooms, over a thousand slides documenting modern architecture's emergence in Southern California have been digitized by the USC Library, and are now available to view for free online.

The approximately 1300 slides were culled from the collections of Fritz Block and Pierre Koenig, which both belong to the USC Libraries. Koenig himself chose which slides he wanted digitized in the late 1990s, for a project that never fully came to pass, but from which a delightfully dated prototype website is still accessible. The slides feature work by various architects, mostly within Southern California.

Check out the full collection here, and a few select images below:

↑ John Lautner's Foster Residence in Sherman Oaks, from Pierre Koenig's collection.

↑ Frank Lloyd Wright's Millard Residence in Pasadena, from Fritz Block's collection.

↑ Pierre Koenig's Schwartz residence in Santa Monica (1996), from Pierre Koenig's collection.

↑ Albert Frey's Frey Residen...