Archinect - News

Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger demolish Craig Ellwood's 1950 Zimmerman House, raising ire online

2024-04-22T18:12:00-04:00

Chris Pratt has drawn ire from architecture aficionados after news broke that the actor and his wife, Katherine Schwarzenegger, had razed a historic, mid-century modern home to make way for a sprawling 15,000-sq-ft mansion. Architect Ken Ungar, whose portfolio largely features high-end modern farmhouse-style residences, will design a home for the couple, Architectural Digest reported. The property [...] will also feature a three-car garage and a secondary unit near the pool.

As The Guardian reported, plans for a demolition went mostly under the radar until the Los Angeles Conservancy issued a warning last January. Actor Chris Pratt and his wife Katherine Schwarzenegger purchased the home later with the apparent intention of replacing it with an oft-reviled “modern farmhouse” design and have yet to respond to any other news outlets or critics, who are framing this as a loss tantamount to the destruction of Marcel Breuer's binuclear Geller I house on Long Island in January of 2022.

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Judge rules that architect Valerio Olgiati’s social media comment about project was not defamation

2024-02-02T11:23:00-05:00

A judge in Virginia has dismissed a defamation counterclaim in a case involving two architects. The case involves Swiss architect Valerio Olgiati versus Markus Breitschmid, an architect and architecture professor at Virginia Tech, and is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia. As we previously reported, Olgiati has served as Kenzo Tange Chair at the Harvard GSD.

The origins of the case stem from a dispute between Olgiati and Breitschmid over a house designed and built in Virginia. The two architects have known each other since 2006 and have collaborated on several projects, including co-publishing books.

Related on Archinect: California passes new copyright protection law for publicly-available architectural drawings. Image: Evgeniy Surzhan/Unsplash

Having previously discussed the prospect of designing a house together, Breitschmid contacted Olgiati in 2020 about his intention to build a house on a property in Riner, Virginia. According to court ...

Plans for London’s Sphere are no more as developers abandon project

2024-01-09T11:29:00-05:00

The developers behind the proposed MSG Sphere in London have withdrawn plans for the project. In a letter to the UK government’s Planning Inspectorate, developers Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSG) said that the scheme had become “merely a political football between rival parties.”

Plans for the Sphere first emerged in 2018, with planning permission filed in March 2019. London’s mayor Sadiq Khan was originally supportive of the scheme upon its announcement, but a combination of negative feedback in planning officer reports and backlash from locals saw Khan refuse the project permission in November 2023.

The saga continued in December when the UK’s Housing Secretary, Michael Gove, asked for the plans to be personally reviewed by the Planning Inspectorate, which falls under his department. With both a UK-wide general election and London mayoral election set to take place in the country later this year, the project was set to become a major campaign issue between Gove’s ruling C...

Architecture and its many discontents: Looking back at some of the most controversial stories of 2023

2023-12-21T08:00:00-05:00

Coverage of the architecture industry and its (very) many discontents often delves into conflicts that reflect movements for change in the arts, law, academia, and business culture. The value of focusing on these stories at year's end extends beyond their subjects and results in a critical analysis of how far we still have to go in each area. Once again, the past year of news has provided us with a useful mix of lessons that help define the current state of architecture. Below is a look at some of the biggest controversies of 2023.

What would ordinarily be the year’s biggest architectural media event, the 2023 Venice Biennale, unfolded with nearly as many critiques and false starts concerned with its execution and curators as it had compelling artistic feats and worthy demonstrations of the power of design.

Patrik Schumacher’s wrought Facebook invective decrying a supposed lack of architecture at the exhibition had too many constituent parts and counterarguments (for example, the in...

UK Housing Secretary Gove will re-review London Sphere planning permission after Mayor's refusal

2023-12-02T03:00:00-05:00

Two weeks after London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced his refusal of planning permissions for the controversial MSG Sphere development planned in East London, the UK’s housing chief has issued a rebuke that may leave some glimmer of hope for the project’s eventual realization.

Several UK-based outlets are now reporting that Housing Secretary Michael Gove has asked the London Legacy Development Corporation to have the plans reviewed personally by his office before a final decision can be made. The countermand means another six week’s wait for the project, which has caused a torrent of backlash from critics and local residents since first being introduced in January of 2018.

James Dolan, Executive Chairman of the Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp., however, told the Evening Standard that Khan’s decision represented the “end of the line” for his company’s pursuit of the project in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Previously on Archinect: So much for the controversial London Sphere afte...

Charles Munger makes devaluing comment on the architecture of windowless dorms

2023-11-07T17:25:00-05:00

Charles Munger is back in the news after some insensitive comments made over the weekend re-entered the debate over windowless dormitories and student housing scarcity nationwide.

Yahoo! Finance is reporting on comments the would-be billionaire designer of the derided and then dropped megadormitory project at the University of California, Santa Barbara had in a podcast conversation hosted by MarketWatch.

“The world of architecture is a game of trade-offs,” Munger told the outlet. “You’ve got to get used to the fact that billionaires aren’t the most popular people in our society. I’d rather be a billionaire and not be loved by everybody than not have any money.”

Munger’s cynicism is certainly evocative of many insiders’ takes on the industry in its current state. The comments also betray a troublesome societal trend regarding the mental well-being of young people, especially as it relates to college life.

A previous attempt at designing windowless student housing at the Universit...

NEOM draws a Line in the sand: Adjaye now off the project

2023-08-15T18:29:00-04:00

David Adjaye’s public reckoning over sexual misconduct allegations launched by three former employees has now reportedly cost him his seat on one of recent history’s most-publicized architecture projects, as the Architects’ Journal is revealing that Adjaye Associates is no longer involved in NEOM’s controversial The Line megacity development in Saudi Arabia.

The news broke Tuesday in the wake of several other public institutions’ decisions regarding his status on projects worldwide. The AJ reported officials as saying his inclusion was only for a preliminary "pre-concept" design consultation and that the project's "third and final" design phase would be announced in September sans his participation.

Earlier today, we reported on Adjaye’s dismissal from the International Slavery Museum renovation project in Liverpool. With the move, his firm has now officially been taken off of Vermont’s Shelburne Museum extension, the planned waterfront redevelopment in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Sh...

Liverpool's International Slavery Museum cuts ties with Adjaye over misconduct allegations

2023-08-15T10:49:00-04:00

The forthcoming International Slavery Museum in Liverpool, England has formally terminated their contract with Adjaye Associates over allegations involving its director’s misconduct with women first surfaced in a Financial Times report in the first week of July.

Adjaye had already left the larger Canning Dock redevelopment project over a year ago, though his design (with Ralph Appelbaum Associates) for the remade museum was still in tow and worth a reported £57 million (or about $72 million USD). The design, which calls for an overhaul of the existing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. building, will still be pursued by National Museums Liverpool (NML), albeit with a different architect they will select following the rewarding of a new tender that was announced along with the cancellation.

With the announcement, the NLM joins a growing list of other entities to have split with Adjaye that includes the UK Holocaust Memorial team, Vermont's Shelburne Museum, the City of Cleveland, and the A...

Adjaye Associates' Cleveland waterfront master plan is now being 'evaluated' as other clients cut ties

2023-07-06T20:36:00-04:00

The fallout from David Adjaye’s sexual misconduct scandal is beginning to be felt by his firm, as now the New York Times and other national outlets are beginning to report on clients who have cut ties with the architect in light of this week’s allegations.

The city of Cleveland’s 35-acre waterfront development to which Adjaye Associates was attached in April of 2022 is the largest project to appear to be in jeopardy following the publication of the Financial Times' piece Saturday. Cleveland.com reported earlier today that Bedrock, the developer behind the plan, is now “evaluating” its “business association” with the firm going forward.

Adjaye’s design, which was finally unveiled in December, would radically alter the city’s once-faltering downtown area with 2,000 residential units, 850,000 square feet of office space, and a brand new Tower City Center anchoring its "central spine."

Add...

Sir David Adjaye accused of sexual misconduct by three former employees

2023-07-04T10:58:00-04:00

The prominent architect Sir David Adjaye has been accused of sexual misconduct by three former employees. The claims were reported first by the Financial Times, in which the three women accuse Adjaye and his firm, Adjaye Associates, of “different forms of exploitation — from alleged sexual assault and sexual harassment by him to a toxic work culture — that have gone unchecked for years.”

In response, the architect has denied the claims of sexual misconduct, abuse, or criminal wrongdoing, while stating that he was “ashamed” to have entered into relationships that “though entirely consensual, blurred the boundaries between my professional and personal lives.”

The three women, whose names are changed by the Financial Times to protect their identities, told the paper they came forward in order to “prevent other women from encountering similar abuse and to make public the architect’s private behavior.” To corroborate their accounts, the Financial Times interviewed colleagues, family mem...

Cooper Union's Vkhutemas exhibition to open April 25th, with an expanded study of historical and political context

2023-04-18T11:15:00-04:00

The Cooper Union’s controversial Vkhutemas: Laboratory of Modernism, 1920–1930 has set an opening date months after being postponed and then remounted following backlash over censorship claims and its appropriateness in light of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

April 25th is the new public opening for the exhibition, which will run through May 5th in the school’s Arthur J. Houghton Jr. Gallery.

The move was announced Monday by President Laura Sparks, who said: “The Cooper Union has always been a forum for courageous public discourse, a place where new ideas, as well as opposing viewpoints, are expressed and explored to advance a just and thriving world. Since the 19th century, the institution has served as a center of learning and civic engagement to address the critical challenges and opportunities of the day. There is value in examining the teachings of Vkhutemas, and it is critical that we expanded the study to probe and learn from the broader geopolitical circumstances surrounding th...

Acting Architect of the Capitol fires key former Blanton era staffers

2023-04-07T17:56:00-04:00

Several members of the Architect of the Capitol’s leadership team were fired Thursday, according to an internal email obtained by CQ Roll Call and two aides familiar with the matter, in a further shakeup at the agency after the February removal of its head, J. Brett Blanton. The AOC’s general counsel, chief financial officer, chief administrative officer, CEO for visitor services and chief of staff were removed Thursday, one senior congressional aide said Friday.

Each staffer had been overseen by the now-former disgraced Architect of the Capitol Brett Blanton, who was finally fired in early February after being accused of using his office inappropriately. The new Acting Architect of the Capitol Chere Rexroat was immediately appointed in his absence. She holds a bachelor's degree in Environmental Design and Architecture from Texas A&M University and is a licensed Architect in California.

According to Roll Call, the employees cited were named in a follow-up Inspector General's report that outlined their apparent failures to act on tips alerting them to Blanton's abuse of privileges while in office.

Editors Note, April 8, 2023: An earlier version of this article misstated the number of fired staffers. This has been corrected.

Cooper Union will remount Vkhutemas exhibition following internal review and outside criticism

2023-02-07T11:30:00-05:00

The Cooper Union has announced it will remount its Vkhutemas exhibition in a reversal apparently brought on by discussions with students, co-organizers, curators Anna Bokov and Steven Hillyer, and members of the school’s Ukrainian community.

In a letter dated February 6, the school’s President Laura Sparks, Acting Dean Hayley Eber, and Exhibitions Committee Chair Alexander Tochilovsky explained their reasoning as the following:

“Leadership also carefully reviewed letters and fielded outreach from colleagues, peers, and individuals from throughout our community. These conversations have been important and instructive, and have underscored both the significance of this exhibition and the need to frame this work within the broader geopolitical context, both then and now.”

“At its core, The Cooper Union has always been a forum for public discourse and dialogue addressing the challenges and opportunities of our time. The School of Architecture encourages students to investigate the rol...

Cooper Union postpones Vkhutemas exhibition in light of the ongoing war in Ukraine

2023-01-26T17:11:00-05:00

An exhibition at The Cooper Union examining Vkhutemas has been postponed by the institution amidst criticisms relating to the ongoing war in Ukraine. Vkhutemas was a Soviet art and technical school that existed from 1920 to 1930. It was a pioneer in the field of art and design education in the Soviet Union, playing a significant role in shaping the aesthetic of early Soviet art and architecture.

In an op-ed published on Archinect last week, Peder Anker, a Professor in History at NYU, outlined his opposition to the show, which was to be staged in the Houghton Gallery, just steps away from the Ukrainian Village and several important cultural sites associated with the large Ukrainian diaspora group that resides in New York City.

Previously on Archinect: The Cooper Union Promotes Russian Architecture. Why?

The op-ed originally suggested that Anna Bokov, the show's curator, is engaging in Russian propaganda, with direct ties to Vladimir Putin through her father, Andrey Bokov, the Nationa...

Architecture's controversies in 2022: The industry continued to be scarred by strife and scandal

2022-12-21T08:00:00-05:00

The year’s end brings the chance to survey architecture’s progression and social impact through salient entryways that include labor, activism, and the development of topical building trends.

Another way of recapping things is by looking at the varied rows, discord, stories of ill-treatment, and critical reactions to certain projects that shape the way the architecture progresses and is viewed by the broader public. With everything from conflict to college dorms domineering the news cycle, our coverage has been as influenced by current events as it was by goings-on inside halls of higher learning and professional practice.

Previously on Archinect: Updated Munger Hall images show two floors removed as controversial project seeks approval

Twelve months ago, we documented what happened once the industry began to recover from a years-long pandemic-plagued economy. What followed was a year marked by new pinnacles and uncertainty within the industry. With an eye for the murkiness that ha...

Denise Scott Brown says she's not pleased with Selldorf Architects' Sainsbury Wing redesign

2022-11-28T15:19:00-05:00

A considerable row has sprung up concerning Selldorf Architects' controversial revamp of the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing after one of its original co-designers, Denise Scott Brown, made comments over the weekend indicating a disagreement and lack of support for the currently under-review proposal.

"She’s making our building look like a circus clown," Scott Brown told The Guardian's James Tapper without elaborating on which specific elements the already widely-opposed plans she has an issue with. "There are elements of tragedy – circus clowns are made up to look happy, but they’re not. This is a circus clown wearing a tutu."

Selldorf had previously mentioned in an April New York Times preview of her MOCA San Diego makeover and in another Architects Journal update from August that she had spoken with Scott Brown about both projects. During our coverage of the Sainsbury Wing in October, Seldorf said, "she has been counseled by the wing's original co-architect Denise Scott Brown ...

UK architect banned after making antisemitic comments towards colleagues

2022-11-10T14:16:00-05:00

The UK’s Architects Registration Board (ARB) has found a British architect guilty of unacceptable professional conduct after the architect made “a series of offensive and antisemitic comments and gestures.” The architect, Justin Rooney, was also found guilty of making “a series of inappropriate and offensive and antisemitic public posts on his Instagram profile.”

Rooney stood accused of the charges while employed at London-based GRID Architects in 2021, where he was recruited as a temporary architect through an agency. A complaint was submitted by GRID to ARB’s Professional Conduct Committee in December 2021 in relation to Rooney’s comments.

The committee accepted evidence from two witnesses who claimed Rooney said he had “joined a practice of f*cking Jews” and that he had been placed within the office “with f*cking Jewish freaks.” Colleagues also accused Rooney of telling on...

Updated Munger Hall images show two floors removed as controversial project seeks approval

2022-10-21T12:18:00-04:00

New details have emerged of the controversial Munger Hall student accommodation planned for the University of California, Santa Barbara. The updated scheme has seen two levels removed from the original design, from eleven to nine stories.

The changes come as UCSB prepares to submit an Environmental Impact Report for the development before approval is sought from the University of California Board of Regents and the California Coastal Commission.

Video footage extract courtesy of UCSB

As reported by The Daily Nexus, UCSB’s student-run newspaper, the university’s initial plan to commence construction on the project in late 2023 has now been removed. If construction were to begin in 2023, a projected 40-month construction program would see the building open in 2026.

Video footage extract courtesy of UCSB

“We do not have a target to start construction at this time,” a UCSB representative told the newspaper. “It will all depend on the ongoing process, including filing the EIR and other ne...

Criticism around U.S. News Best College rankings targets a culture of deception at the top of higher education

2022-09-12T16:16:00-04:00

The annual U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges list has just been released, opening up a fresh channel for the ongoing debate over the value of and methodologies used in ranking institutions of higher education.

A focal point of the 2022 rankings is Columbia University, which dropped from 2nd to 18th place after being a mainstay in the top ten for several decades. The decision by U.S. News to demote the Ivy League institution came after the publication of a damning investigation from mathematics professor Michael Thaddeus wherein he outlined a deliberate fabrication of statistics meant to game the already flawed and disputed methodology. The scandal is notably the second in recent memory after a 2012 investigation uncovered similar tactics at George Washington University that went on for a period of decades.

A look at the other top-ranked schools in the 2022–2023 National Universities list with academic degrees in architecture offers a reflection of similar rankings, such as Bes...

Carolina A. Miranda thinks Tom Wiscombe's new billboard should prompt a 'reckoning in architecture'

2022-08-25T17:09:00-04:00

Formally known as the Sunset Spectacular, it consists of a trio of massive steel panels that converge at a height of 67 feet, two of their surfaces draped in irregularly shaped digital screens bearing ads for tech overlords Amazon and Meta. If a game designer for “Halo” were to imagine a billboard, this is probably what it would look like. [...] There is an important story embedded in the design of the Sunset Spectacular. It has nothing to do with its forms.

Responding to the New York Times’ recent “puff piece” on embattled SCI-Arc professor Tom Wiscombe’s long-awaited Sunset Spectacular billboard in West Hollywood, critic Carolina A. Miranda offered a rather cutting take on Joseph Giovannini‘s “extra curious” failure to mention what has become a rather viral academic and professional controversy.

Previously on Archinect: Controversy at SCI-Arc over labor practices leads to faculty members placed on leave. Isolated incident or a wake-up call for the industry at large?

Wiscombe was the centerpiece of the recent investigation into student intern labor abuse at SCI-Arc and has been placed on administrative leave as a result of his alleged actions. “To many skeptics, it seemed as if the architectural establishment were intent on scrubbing the record clean,” Miranda wrote, citing the chorus of derision that has swelled on social media. “This whole episode also calls into question how critics (myself included) write about architecture.”

...

LA's divisive Dodger Stadium Gondola proposal gets new management and an updated look

2022-08-11T14:10:00-04:00

The group behind LA's proposed gondola project that would run from Union Station downtown and terminate at Dodger Stadium has revealed new images and a strategic partnership for a project many in the area fear could be used as a tool for gentrification.

Earlier in the week, the Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit (or LA ART) made an announcement that the scheme would be handed over to the local non-profit Climate Resolve and their newly-formed subsidiary called Zero Emissions Transit, which claims to deliver “emissions-free public transit solutions in the Los Angeles region.”

Proposed Union Station/El Pueblo station. Image courtesy LA ART

The group’s announcement included a new batch of updated renderings of the cable cars, station entrances, and elevated platform structures. Their update comes in the face of continued local opposition and the installation of a mockup cabin in the stadium’s parking lot G last week.

Mockup cabin of the proposed gondola. Image courtesy Climate Resolve.

“Be...

More accusations of bullying at The Bartlett plague UCL ahead of leadership transition

2022-08-09T13:37:00-04:00

Weeks before its next Director steps into office, another faculty at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture has fallen into scandal after The Guardian recently leaked new accusations of bullying and harassment from within the School of Sustainable Construction.

A group of nine school faculty members was reportedly the signatories of the damning letter, which includes accusations of nepotism in addition to further complaints about the same kinds of harassment, age-based discrimination, racism, bullying of older staffers, and other tactics that have embroiled The Bartlett since last summer.

“We have seen our own academic careers and lives and those of our colleagues destroyed through bullying, harassment and other predatory practices and know that any effort to raise the issues of misconduct or fraudulent behaviour would lead to retaliation endangering our own careers and lives,” a portion of their statement reads.

Earlier on Archinect: UCL issues an apology and published report on the...

Adjaye may be asked to repay National Cathedral fees as Ghanaian political campaign turns ugly

2022-06-24T18:55:00-04:00

A homegrown dispute in Sir David Adjaye’s native Ghana is boiling over after news that the architect could be asked to repay some $21.3 million in fees associated with the firm’s National Cathedral design, which politicians from the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) party claim is part of a sole-sourced tender process that has favored the architect for a number of years.

The online news site GhanaWeb has reported several stories recently in relation to the efforts of MP Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, a member of the NDC, who is insisting that the 10.5% design fee asked by Adjaye Associates at the project’s inception in 2018 was never formally approved by the governing body. The politician also claims the Cathedral will not be completed by its originally planned 2024 date – the same year the country is set to hold a presidential election upon which, he says, the project's status most likely relies on.

UCL issues an apology and published report on the decades-long investigation of misconduct at the Bartlett School of Architecture

2022-06-09T19:09:00-04:00

A resolution has been provided in the saga at the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture that has made waves in the press since first coming to light last year.

The institution has now issued a formal apology in response to the independent investigation into educational practices and environment that permeated at the school for decades.

UCL says it is also in receipt of the recommendations for improvement put forth in a recent investigative report created by independent consultancy Howlett Brown using a survey of more than 300 former faculty and students. As was expected based on previous reporting of first-hand accounts, the respondents in their survey detailed a frightening and toxic culture of abuse, racism, bullying, and even sexual harassment occurring at every level. Accordingly, the school has announced it will be removing several faculty members from student-facing administrative duties in addition to setting up a new working group that will help further adapt the recommended ...

The high-priced plan to replace the Royal British Columbia Museum is meeting backlash

2022-05-24T18:04:00-04:00

The momentum behind the proposed new Royal British Columbia Museum project said to be Canada’s most expensive in modern history appears to be slowing after Premier John Horgan’s recent announcement “landed with a thud” in political circles and the news media.

The Art Newspaper is reporting that the government’s updated plans to demolish the existing 1968 structure and replace it with a brand new design has levied a considerable amount of backlash in Victoria, British Columbia, where critics are taking a stand against the enormous costs of the project now five years in the making.

Labeled a “billion-dollar vanity project” by local Liberal Party leader Kevin Falcon, the currently $789 million CAD ($615.8 million USD) would author a full-scale modernization of the 135-year-old institution that would leave its doors closed until the year 2030. Horgan has said he laments the project’s newfound status as a “political football,” pointing desperately to its mass timber construction and new ...

RIBA sparks outcry from activists by tightening election voting rules for new members

2022-05-12T11:48:00-04:00

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has changed its election rules for the 2022 Presidential election, meaning those who joined the institute after April 23rd are not able to vote. The move, first reported by the Architects' Journal this week, has sparked outrage from a grassroots campaign to elect an architectural worker to the role, who describe the move as an exclusionary tactic.

In the previous RIBA Presidential election, held in 2020, the election rules stated that “the electorate shall comprise the current Members of the RIBA in all categories (save for Honorary Fellows).”

This therefore allowed RIBA chartered members (qualified architects), RIBA associate members (with a Masters qualification in the UK or EU), RIBA affiliate members (with an Undergraduate qualification in the UK), and RIBA student members (currently studying at university), to all cast a vote.

UK court blocks Adjaye’s controversial Holocaust Memorial

2022-04-08T11:44:00-04:00

David Adjaye and Ron Arad’s design for a UK Holocaust Memorial has been halted by the country’s High Court following a legal challenge. As reported by UK outlet Building Design, the £100 million ($130 million) proposal was ruled to have been in breach of a one-hundred-year-old law which protected the site from development.

The case was brought to court by the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust, who appealed a previous decision by the UK government that the project could proceed. Opponents of the scheme included senior religious figures, local community groups, and some Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors.

The scheme was due to be constructed in London’s Victoria Tower Gardens. Those who filed the legal challenge claimed that the plans did not comply with the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900, which prohibited Victoria Tower Gardens from containing an...

Opponents of Dodger Stadium's gondola project see it as a tool of gentrification, allege inside pitch

2022-03-25T08:30:00-04:00

“It’s just another way that we can’t own our neighborhood and feel safe and quiet here because literally you have something flying over your house all day long, forever, I guess.” said Tany Ling, a singer who offers private lessons at the home she and her sister bought in 2012. McCourt entities are buying up properties in the neighborhood, but the Lings don’t want to move. They started StoptheGondola.org to fight the project.

Frank McCourt, who owned the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2004 to 2011, began proposing the $125 million project back in 2018. The initiative has come up against stiff resistance, especially from those associated with the Los Angeles National Historic Park, which abuts Chinatown.

Previously on Archinect: Plans announced for a gondola to connect LA's Dodger Stadium with Union Station

Their side got help recently from a nonprofit called The California Endowment after it filed a writ of mandate in county superior court this week alleging that the Metropolitan Transit Authority chief Phil Washington had cut a sweetheart deal with McCourt’s LA ART company while acting as a lone intermediary. McCourt has maintained from the get-go that its plan is meant to reduce the legendary traffic caused by Dodger home games, but opponents say the overall effect will only wind up crippling the neighborhood while “[reaping] profit through the occupation on public land.”

Previously on Archinect: LA's propos...

The University of Manchester has forced out Whitworth Gallery director Alistair Hudson over his pro-Palestine Forensic Architecture show

2022-02-24T17:39:00-05:00

A legal smear campaign has ousted a museum director over the inclusion of a pro-Palestinian statement in an exhibition examining the work of Forensic Architecture at the University of Manchester.

Artnet News is reporting the forced resignation of Alistair Hudson following a concerted lobbying effort on the part of several prominent local barristers who form the group U.K. Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).

Hudson has been the director of the university’s Whitworth Art Gallery since 2017 and became the target of the pro-Israel group’s effort after allowing the statement as part of a show called Cloud Studies that focused in part on the activist group’s study of poor air quality and human rights in areas that included the occupied territories as well as Louisiana and Beirut.

In a statement, Forensic Architecture’s founder Eyal Weizman said the saga “makes clear yet again that the anti-colonial struggle in support of Palestine and elsewhere has to be fought within and sometimes against our ...

People over mountain lions; California town is dropping its attempt to avert the state’s new housing laws

2022-02-09T10:51:00-05:00

Following four days of widespread scorn after attempting to block a new state law allowing duplexes on single-family lots by declaring itself a “mountain-lion habitat,” the wealthy Silicon Valley enclave of Woodside has backed down. At the end of a town emergency Town Council meeting Sunday night, almost all of which was held in closed session to discuss potential litigation, city officials announced they would begin accepting applications for new duplexes.

Woodside’s tired attempt at circumventing two of the most important and proactive laws in favor of affordable housing in recent memory drew an incredible amount of ire online before being withdrawn Sunday night following a letter from Attorney General Rob Bonta warning the town that “there is no valid basis” to its broadly disproven claims as an animal sanctuary.

The scheme was first exposed in a local newspaper and then picked up by the LA Times in addition to several additional national outlets, which amplified the pressure on the town. Woodside is an 11-square-mile showcase for luxury architecture, frequently listing noteworthy real estate for top-of-market prices while playing host to the dream homes of tech titans like Google CEO Larry Ellison, whose 23-acre replica Japanese emperor’s palace complex was completed in 1999 at a cost of $200 million (or about $340 million today).