Archinect - News

Influential GSA chief architect Ed Feiner passes away aged 75

2022-08-03T13:29:00-04:00

The world of public design is mourning the loss of an influential figure at the news that former General Services Administration chief architect Ed Feiner passed away on July 1st at his home in suburban D.C. Feiner was known as the GSA’s first chief architect and a “driving force” behind some of its most successful programs, including his spearheading of the acclaimed Design Excellence Program, which is now in its 28th year.

"He changed the design and construction of public buildings," Feiner’s former colleague Leslie L. Shepherd remembered last month in the Engineering News-Record.

Among the GSA projects Feiner’s influence was cast over were Thom Mayne’s Wayne Lyman Morse United States Courthouse and San Francisco Federal Building; the Oklahoma City National Memorial design and subsequent Carol Ross Barney-designed Federal Building; and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners pot-stirring John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston. The list of architects he worked directly with inclu...

Read the draft text of President Trump’s classical architecture executive order

2020-02-06T00:34:00-05:00

In a seven-page draft executive order obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, Trump declares that the federal government since the 1950s has “largely stopped building beautiful buildings that the American people want to look at or work in.” Future federal government buildings, he decrees, should look like those of ancient Rome, Greece and Europe. “Classical architectural style shall be the preferred and default style,” he states.

The Chicago Sun-Times has published the draft text of President Donald Trump’s proposed “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again” executive order that seeks to impose a classically-inspired architectural style on the nation’s federal buildings.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has voiced opposition to the measure.

Better than ever: Mackintosh Building will reopen in 2018 along with campus expansion

2016-04-22T12:55:00-04:00

Two years ago, a disastrous fire broke out in the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Building, the jewel of the Glasgow School of Art’s campus. Now, after sifting through the damage, outlining a careful restoration plan and finding the funds, the Glasgow School of Art has announced that the building will not only be back in operation for the 2018 - 2019 academic year, but will also be part of a campus expansion plan that includes upgrading the Mac’s east wing, and adding a former Stow College building for studio/workshop space.

Just as it was before the fire, when it reopens The Mac will be at the center of the campus circulation, and serve as the home-base for first year students. The new Stow College site will be refurbished by BDP beginning this summer, with plans for the School of Fine Arts to move in the fall of 2017.

Page\Park, the architects appointed to restore the Mac and expand its east wing, started work in March 2015. Total costs are rounding out to £51m (about two-thirds for the r...