Archinect - News

Is Tim Burton's Beetlejuice the best Halloween movie for design students to watch?

2022-10-29T09:00:00-04:00

Every season has its own set of iconic movies, and within that set, there are those that stick out for their portrayal and elevation of architectural issues. Tim Burton’s 1988 classic, Beetlejuice, is perhaps the fall’s best example — an ever-trendy classic Halloween tale that showcases and offers some critique of the period’s salient design trends. Even the scale model of the town has some architectural qualities, and its central star — a shopworn Victorian-style home — has become an inspiration to aspiring designers around the world.

The conceit of Beetlejuice has essential elements that design students would be well-served to evaluate. Two families fighting for the creative control of a structure with radically different agendas. Its conflict is based on a disagreement about preferences in residential architecture: The “good, sturdy country craftsmanship” of a rural Victorian run up against a vacuous amalgam of 80s high design.

Opening title sequence from the film. Image courtes...

KPF renovation of Roche-Dinkeloo's 60 Wall Street comes under landmarks preservation review

2022-06-27T17:47:00-04:00

A key building feature on one of Kevin Roche’s most ingenious New York City designs is under threat of being erased, according to the preservation group Docomomo US.

The late Pritzker winner’s 60 Wall Street building is undergoing renovation by Kohn Pedersen Fox this summer, and the group says it includes the removal of the facade’s characteristic chamfered design elements and changes to the atrium that will alter its unique lobby space “beyond recognition.”

The atrium of 60 Wall Street. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons user Matthew G. Bisanz (CC BY 3.0)

A rendering of the proposed changes to the atrium. Image courtesy Paramount Group

Completed in 1989, the postmodern office design was included in Docomomo’s list of 11 endangered historical places earlier this year and is, per the air rights transfer agreement that was signed when the property was sold a few years ago, legally required to be redeveloped in “harmonious relationship” to the Greek revival former National City Bank Buildi...

Preservationists are trying to save a piece of Polish Postmodernist Architecture

2021-08-13T11:05:00-04:00

In a last-ditch effort to save an iconic piece of postmodern architecture from its looming demolition, preservationists in Wrocław, Poland have taken an unconventional, yet jovial approach to protesting. Dancing to hits from the 1990s, clad in that era’s attire, in which there was an accompanying fashion show, protestors are paying homage to the Solpol department store.

Built in 1993 and designed by Wojciech Jarząbek, the structure has become one of the most notable examples of Polish postmodernist architecture, reflecting the country’s seismic transformation following the fall of the Iron Curtain. The building broke away from the grey, uniform aesthetics of its built surroundings with its exuberant façade in violet, pink, and green and unique geometric form. While polarizing due to its unique design, Solpol stood out with its modernity compared to other commercial facilities of its type in Wrocław, attracting both locals and tourists.

Photo: Zofia Banaś

However, at the turn of the...

Major Aldo Rossi retrospective to open at MAXXI

2020-11-30T14:25:00-05:00

The work of architect and designer Aldo Rossi, the first Italian winner of the Pritzker Prize in 1990, will be the star of the new major exhibition Aldo Rossi. The architect and the cities opening on March 10 at MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome.

The retrospective features a selection of more than 800 drawings, sketches, models, letters, notes, photographs, and documents produced during Rossi's career that was cut short when he died following a car accident in 1997 at the age of 66.

Aldo Rossi: Architettura con santo. Image courtesy of MAXXI.

"Together with other architects of his generation, Rossi was an interpreter of the fundamental necessity of cultural reconstruction, taking place during the thrust of post-war responsibilities and owing to his extraordinary ability to 'gather' and attract the best of the international culture of his time," explains the museum's event description.

"Taking place more than 20 years after his death and since the last major mo...

Former Longaberger 'The Big Basket' building to reopen as luxury hotel

2019-10-25T15:02:00-04:00

The former Longaberger basket building on the eastern edge of Newark will be open for business again, although it will be a place to spend the night instead of work in an office. In a couple years, the seven-story basket building will open as a luxury hotel with 150 rooms, a restaurant and indoor pool.

Formerly the quirky headquarters of The Longaberger Company in Newark, Ohio, the building has been sitting empty since 2016 and was eventually sold to developers in late 2017 (previously on Archinect).

Cleveland-based Sandvick Architects will be designing the landmark's transformation into a luxury hotel.

Arquitectonica's Babylon in Miami to be demolished

2019-06-13T15:38:00-04:00

Fifteen months ago the Miami City Commission shot down a recommendation to make the Babylon, the first multifamily building designed by renowned Miami firm Arquitectonica (and its second project ever), a historically protected building. As a result, the 37-year-old Babylon [...] will be demolished sometime before July.

Telling the history of the building and Miami's Brickell neighborhood, Biscayne Times senior writer Erik Bojnansky explains that "in 1978, Arquitectonica was still an up-and-coming Coral Gables firm. Babylon was its second building, the first being the 6900-square-foot single-family home known as Pink House, on the Miami Shores waterfront, created for Spear’s parents. Even before Babylon was completed in 1982, Progressive Architecture, a respected architecture and design magazine, bestowed an award on the design renderings, which alluded to the ancient Hanging Gardens of Babylon."

Preservation groups urge to save Venturi, Rauch, and Scott Brown-designed postmodern Abrams House from demolition

2018-09-07T15:36:00-04:00

With more and more buildings of the postmodern school regaining media attention—either by entering the realm of heritage protection or by getting contemporary makeovers (essentially taking the Po out of PoMo)—we've now learned about another threatened structure, designed in the late 1970s by Venturi, Rauch, and Scott Brown (DSB was awarded the 2018 Soane Medal earlier this week).

The Society of Architectural Historians and Docomomo US have issued a joint statement calling for the protection of the Abrams House in Pittsburgh, calling it a "landmark of American architecture" and a "significant example" of American postmodern architecture on a par with the AT&T Building and the Portland Municipal Services Building.

Image: realtor.com, via docomomo-us.org.

Here's an excerpt of the statement:

The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) and Docomomo US express strong opposition to the demolition of the Venturi, Rauch, and Scott Brown-designed Abrams House, 118A Woodland Road, Pittsburgh...

PoMo yay, Brutalism nay?

2018-05-21T14:56:00-04:00

That we are now starting to get to grips with PoMo architecture’s controversial legacy is welcome, not least because other important buildings have already been destroyed, and others are threatened. [...] Today the worlds of design and conservation are more closely allied than before. But even as this latest batch of postmodern buildings has won protected status, it is worth noting that important brutalist buildings are still excluded from the roster.

Commentary by Catherine Croft for The Guardian on Historic England's recent selection of 17 postmodern buildings to be listed as heritage without extending the same love to important examples of the brutalist school.

Recently received Grade II listed status: Judge Business School, University of Cambridge by John Outram. Photo: inkelv1122/Flickr.

Longaberger "The Big Basket" building sold to developer; reconstruction announced

2018-01-04T20:00:00-05:00

The Longaberger basket building has been sold. The iconic seven-story office building at 1500 E. Main St. in Newark has been sold to Coon Restoration of Louisville, which is near Canton. The developer has an eye toward converting the building and its 21-acre site to a new use, the company said in a release.

Developer Steve Coon, the landmark building's new owner, hasn't revealed specific details about his redevelopment plans for the property but announced Cleveland-based Sandvick Architects as the designers for the job.

The '80s strike back: Memphis and the rebirth of postmodernism

2016-04-18T13:13:00-04:00

postmodernism can be summed up in a single word: Memphis. Although architectural incarnations such as Graves’s Portland Building in Oregon and Philip Johnson’s Chippendale-topped AT&T Building (now the Sony Tower) in New York generated heated discussion, it was the spectacle of Memphis objects that catapulted postmodern design into the public eye. [...] postmodern designs, most often from Memphis affiliated names, are gaining market momentum

The cycle continues.

Related on Archinect:

"It’s almost as if they were getting revenge for what MoMA did to their Folk Art Museum" — TWBTA take on Charles Moore's Hood Museum

2016-03-29T13:36:00-04:00

To those concerned about the renovation of the Hood Museum of Art, the situation is charged with paradox: The architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, who protested the Museum of Modern Art’s dismantling of the Folk Art Museum they designed in Manhattan, are now transforming the Hood, an award-winning museum designed by Charles Moore [...]. “It’s almost as if they were getting revenge for what MoMA did to their Folk Art Museum [...] It’s totally insensitive to the Moore building.”

Tod Williams and Billie Tsien previously in the Archinect news:

8 Reasons You Will Also Like Postmodern Architecture In 2016

2015-12-23T11:38:00-05:00

There is no way back, we are all Postmodern now. Can you stay behind? Do you really care that Postmodernism destroyed the ideals of Modernism? Come on,

"If you are reading this, you probably already have a certain interest in architecture, but chances are that you never warmed up to those kinds of buildings from the late 70s, 80s and early 90s, generally classified as ‘Postmodern’. The architecture of these buildings is often based on a loose set of ideas that gained importance when Modernist architecture failed to reinvent itself in the 70s. Their designs often show a preference for fragmentation, provocation, irony and distorted references to historical styles. According to Sam Jacob, Postmodern architecture can also be ‘mean, sarcastic, blank, difficult, challenging, yet somehow simultaneously psychedelically positive’. And finally, its individualistic tendencies are often associated with the neoliberal, corporate turn in spatial production during the 80s.

In short, it is often difficult to like. But soon you will, for the following reasons. "

Can you handle it? It is like.., "they will come." Could this time, though, pomo push re...

Can Helmut Jahn's Thompson Center be saved?

2015-10-19T13:56:00-04:00

I confess that I feel the sort of ambivalence toward the James R. Thompson Center as I did toward Prentice Women's Hospital: I do understand why people want to raze it, I don't find it pretty, I understand the functional problems. But all the same, I believe the Thompson Center should be saved. [...] Chicago remains full of examples of money and vision coming together to create wonderful buildings.

Approaching a multilayered death at Aldo Rossi’s cemetery

2015-09-17T13:37:00-04:00

Aldo Rossi’s addition to the San Cataldo Cemetery is a paragon of postmodern architecture, seeing the cemetery up close exposes some of the style’s major shortcomings. [...] all you’ve got left is a half-empty, unfinished cemetery with assorted maintenance equipment left lying around. Perhaps you can keep drawing meaning from this decay. But lord knows it’s difficult to sustain a deep engagement with life and death after you’ve tripped over a garden hose.

Related on Archinect:

Postmodern No 1 Poultry divides architects in debate over recent heritage

2015-07-14T15:09:00-04:00

It might be the City’s most contested site. A new call to list No 1 Poultry, designed by architect Sir James Stirling and one of the last monuments of postmodernism, has revived a debate about the position and the protection of recent heritage. A proposal by Perella Weinberg [...] to make changes to an imperfect building has provoked the Twentieth Century Society to call for its listing at Grade II*, the second highest status available (and the highest possible for such a recent structure).

Editor's Picks #408

2015-03-16T11:50:00-04:00

Nicholas Korody profiled the Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND). jla-x was excited as has "been looking for a way to get involved with something like this".

News

- The world lost visionary Frei Otto and his death moved up the announcement of his winning the 2015 Pritzker Prize. Plus, the renowned Michael Graves died and his firm promised to "continue to honor Michael’s humanistic design philosophy".

While EKE thought Otto was "a spectacular choice. Bravo.", Eric Chavkin noted "Frei Otto's work inspired Glen Small's BIOMORPHIC BIOSPHERE and much of early SCI_Arc student work". RJ Magoon also opined "No matter your opinion on the man or his work, it's hard to deny Graves' enormous influence on the practice and education in the last quarter of the Twentieth Century".

Ayesha Ghosh reported in from the first of the Architectural League of New York 2015 Emerging Voices lecture series, with firms Aranda\Lasch and MANUEL CERVANTES CESPEDES / CC ARQUITECTOS. There Aranda claimed "we like th...

How a postmodernist department store is trying to become the youngest monument in Poland

2015-03-05T14:40:00-05:00

As buildings from the postmodern eon continue to age with their residents, questions about historic significance and aesthetic relevance start to surface, leading to often heated debates whether the structures we used to love so much already merit magisterial protection or should give way for the new "now" architecture.

The case of the Solpol department store in Wrocław, Poland is only the latest in a list of soon to be decided PoMo fates: Built in the early 90s, the color- and shapeful structure embodies Poland's violent optimism of that time, when the tristesse of decades of communism was replaced with capitalism's promise of opportunity over night.

Hailed as "one of the best examples of postmodern architecture in Poland," the Society for Beautifying the City of Wrocław (TUMW) and Fundacja Transformator have now filed a motion to the Lower Silesian Monument Conservation Officer to include Solpol on the list of protected monuments.

Should everything go as planned, this PoMo gem would ...

More is more: the gaudy genius of the late Deborah Sussman

2014-08-27T13:57:00-04:00

“More is more,” was the motto of Deborah Sussman, the graphic designer behind this brilliant visual riot, who died last week at the age of 82. Trained in the office of Charles and Ray Eames, she took their love of colour and pattern to new heights, establishing a studio with her husband, Paul Prejza, that would tackle everything from shop fit-outs to city wayfinding, sprinkling her distinctive brand, like sugary confetti, from Philadelphia to Santa Monica.

One week ago: Deborah Sussman, designer, has died at age 83

Portland Building still controversial after 30 years

2012-02-22T22:20:00-05:00

“It had such a low budget. I was criticized for putting the windows in too small, but it got more expensive the more glass I had. I wasn’t the one who put the workers near the windows, limiting the light let in. Most people don’t realize I didn’t design the interior.” Despite proceeding to design award-winning buildings and products worldwide, Graves holds the Portland Building as one of his greatest achievements. He still enjoys talking about the sculpture that sits in front, Portlandia.

Bye bye to Eighties architecture?

2011-08-31T12:28:02-04:00

Designed by developer/architect Ian Pollard, it's a brash, grandiose office building on Queenstown Road facing Battersea Park that was completed in 1987... In short, it's an architectural dog's dinner, one of a very few buildings that can actually make me laugh out loud on the rare occasion I pass it on the bus.

Cesar Pelli's that 70's dream is about to come true

2011-05-07T14:56:00-04:00

When architect Cesar Pelli built his aka 'Blue Whale' Pacific Design Center in 1975, the West Coast officially declared it was going to be the center of the decorating universe. Almost forty years later, and with the addition of green and red compartments, that primary-shaped colorful dream is nearly and retroactively fulfilled. One potential problem is, centrally located design showrooms are also so yesterday, and there are floors of vacant office spaces everywhere in the city.