Archinect - News

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...

London's muscular supermarket makes history

2019-07-26T14:29:00-04:00

History has been made in England, where the Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners-designed Sainsbury complex in London has become the country's first historically-recognized supermarket.

Sainsbury’s supermarket in London. Image courtesy of © Historic England DP251196

Built between 1986 and 1988, the muscular complex is designed in the High-Tech style of the time, a mode that combines technological advances in industrial materiality with the formal and structural clarity of Brutalism to create a particularly expressive variant of late modern architecture. The complex was developed by the Sainsbury grocery chain as a mixed-use project that matches a sizable supermarket with a group of row houses and apartments. Both buildings have been recognized as having Grade II significance, the country's third-highest level of significance.

The long, rectangular supermarket is articulated as a series of bays framed by massive structural steel members. The steel, coated in a fire-proof paint typically use...

Can late modernism survive the near future?

2017-01-05T18:32:00-05:00

All across Los Angeles, buildings by the city's most important firms face preservation threats. Rejected and outmoded, can late modernism find love?

What is the value of history in a city known for its ephemerality? (Hint: um, not much, unless everyone agrees it is pretty.) In this piece for the L.A. Weekly, Mimi Zeiger thoroughly investigates the state of late modernist structures in the City of Angels, and how likely it is that many of these often repurposed (and unfortunately altered) buildings will survive changing public tastes. While the LAX theme building has been legally protected from demolition, other notable works--like William L. Pereira's original LACMA buildings--haven't met with the same preservationist zeal.

Modernism, in the news: