Archinect - News

$150,000 Jane & Kevin Roche Scholarship Fund launched to support architecture students

2022-07-11T18:33:00-04:00

A scholarship fund honoring the legacy of the late Kevin Roche has been established by the Connecticut Architecture Foundation (CAF) in coordination with the local firm Svigals + Partners and in time for what would have been the Pritzker winner’s 100th birthday this year. Roche’s children, who were behind the decision to repurpose their father’s heirlooms, said the establishment’s purpose was to “[make] the Pritzker work for the betterment of architecture in a new way, refocusing its lens from the most heralded to the least.”

The fund will begin rewarding money to students with at least two years of completed study in an undergraduate architecture program, or to those holding acceptance letters from accredited graduate programs in the subject, starting next year.

In a live event hosted in New Haven at Yale School of Architecture by Dean Deborah Berke, recent Pritzker laureates Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Ireland-based Grafton Architects presented a short video tribute, a...

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...

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...

Frida Escobedo has replaced David Chipperfield on the Met's $500 million modern and contemporary wing expansion

2022-03-14T14:56:00-04:00

Change at the top of the museum world as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced Mexican architect Frida Escobedo as its new designer of the forthcoming Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art.

Escobedo now officially replaces David Chipperfield, who had been selected by then-director Thomas Campbell in 2015. An announcement from the museum noted that the new wing will encompass some 80,000 square feet of more accessible galleries and public space all made possible by the Tang’s contribution to the nearly $500 million total cost.

The 42-year-old’s work has thus far been defined most notably by her 2018 design for the Serpentine Pavilion and through her eponymous Mexico City-based practice, which has authored a wide range of projects that include everything from historic renovation of an iconic hotel in Acapulco to investigations into the lives of domestic workers in Mexico City, among other standout projects. Escobedo has held teaching ...

Kevin Roche dies at age 96

2019-03-02T17:42:00-05:00

Kevin Roche (1922-2019) had a lasting influence on the American architecture scene. After moving here from his native Ireland in 1948, Roche studied under Mies van Der Rohe, another significant European emigré, and quickly found his footing in the country's largest cities, producing numerous designs for New York City, New Haven and Indianapolis.

The Ford Foundation headquarters in Manhattan, by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates

In 2015, we spoke with Roche about his life-long career as an architect. As Amelia Taylor-Hochberg wrote at the time, "Roche is a hero of the long-game – during his sixty-five year career in the U.S. (and counting), he has trained or worked alongside seminal architectural vanguards Charles and Ray Eames, Mies van der Rohe and Eero Saarinen, and on projects for such heavyweight clients as the Federal Reserve, MIT, Ford, Deutsche Bank and IBM. Still practicing today at age 92, Roche is a force to be reckoned with, thanks to an unflagging work ethic and re...

The Ford Foundation's impressive (and much needed) renovation

2018-12-30T16:01:00-05:00

Astonishingly, the feel of the original emerged largely intact. [Darren] Walker, an aficionado of mid-century design with an eye for detail, spent serious money to salvage whatever was salvageable. Hanging brass lighting fixtures, door handles, granite-topped credenzas (some with embedded hot plates), Platner tables and chairs, black walnut bookshelves, bronze trim — 1,500 items in all — were given back their mid-century gleam. The Ford Foundation Building has become a museum of itself.

After many years of detailed renovation, the Ford Foundation has been successfully renovated and is ready to house 2,000 occupants. According to New York Magazine, "[the Ford Foundation] has withdrawn into a fraction of its previous space, halving the size of the president’s once imperial, now merely princely, suite. That shrinkage frees up space for three other nonprofit groups to rent, plus an art gallery and an abundance of meeting rooms."

Photo: Richard Barnes/Ford Foundation

Built in 1967 in Manhattan, New York, the Ford Foundation was designed by Dan Kiley and Roche-Dinkeloo Architects as a 160-foot “corporate greenhouse.” In his book, Manhattan Atmospheres (2014), the historian David Gissen argued that the Ford Foundation was a significant project in the history of environmental design for its ability to marry the image of botanical conservation with burgeoning practices in worker productivity, allowing the building to receive generous funding in its production of a building h...

55 Hudson Yards completes construction in Manhattan

2018-10-31T14:19:00-04:00

Mitsui Fudosan has built a 51-story office building in New York, demonstrating Japanese developers' strong appetite for overseas investment as their home market shrinks. The company announced Friday that it has completed 55 Hudson Yards in the heart of Manhattan. Next door, construction continues on another 58-story office development at 50 Hudson Yards.

55 Hudson Yards, facade details. Photo: ACME/Flickr.

The 51-story office tower 55 Hudson Yards (originally known as One Hudson Yards) has recently wrapped up construction. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, the high-rise stands 780 feet tall and offers a total floor area of 1,265,700 square feet.

Building upgrades proposed for Roche + Dinkeloo's Ford Foundation Building

2016-04-21T14:10:00-04:00

The Landmarks Preservation Commission is set to consider a proposed $190 million renovation to the Ford Foundation...Although many aspects of the building have long been outdated...it is health and safety, not aesthetics or technology, that initially drove the foundation’s plans. The city has given Ford until 2019 to bring the building up to code for fire safety and handicapped accessibility...

“...But since they had to scratch the building’s surfaces, Ford Foundation president Darren Walker and his staff decided to go further, upgrading not just by adding sprinklers to the ceilings and greater access to the atrium, but new security, new lighting and mechanicals, and a new spatial organization.”

Shohei Shigematsu of OMA transforms the Met for the spring Costume Institute exhibit

2016-04-19T12:58:00-04:00

NOT MANY ARCHITECTS get to reshape a wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But Shohei Shigematsu, who runs the New York branch of Rem Koolhaas’s Rotterdam-based firm, OMA, has done precisely that. This month he converts a skylit, double-height section of the museum—the 1970s Robert Lehman Wing—into a graceful, cathedral-like setting for Manus x Machina, the Costume Institute’s spring show, opening May 5.

The exhibit, curated by Andrew Bolton, considers "the founding of the haute couture in the 19th century, when the sewing machine was invented, and the emergence of a distinction between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) at the onset of industrialization and mass production."

Accordingly, the organizers wanted an exhibition design that blends the analog and the mechanical. Shigematsu's intervention is intended to "soften" the existing brick-and-stone of the 1970's-era Robert Lehman wing, which was designed by Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo and Associates.

Interested in other collaborations between the sartorial world and architecture? Check out these links:

"Stop the unpermitted demolition": Roche Dinkeloo's shiny UN Plaza Hotel lobby might be remodeled

2016-01-21T14:35:00-05:00

The more period commentary on these spaces you read...the more you see the hotel's owners are falling into the very trap the interiors were engineered to escape: banality, anywhere-ness, the flimsiness of changing fashion...Are the current going to rip out the mirror and replace it with barn wood and mason jars? Just wait. Stop the unpermitted demolition. Landmark this interior and, in doing so, remind people of its undated and undateable wonder.

Alexandra Lange writes about the Ambassador Grill & Lounge and Hotel Lobby at the United Nations Plaza Hotel (now known as ONE UN New York), which is currently planned for reconstruction and where illegal exploratory demolition has reportedly begun. The remodeling plan has sparked outcry from advocates, who recently filed a Request for Evaluation with the Landmarks Preservation Commission to grant landmark status to the iconic Roche Dinkeloo-designed interior.

"Kevin Roche: The Quiet Architect" documentary announced for 2016

2015-08-14T12:22:00-04:00

Wavelength Pictures, a London-based production company, has been awarded grant funding by the Graham Foundation to put out "Kevin Roche: The Quiet Architect", a feature-length documentary about the eponymous, Pritzker Prize-winning Irish-American architect. Wavelength has previously produced features profiling architects Oscar Niemeyer and Rem Koolhaas, among other artists, but this will be its first documentary.

Roche's career has been a long and storied one – at 93, he is still working at Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates LLC, the firm he founded out of Eero Saarinen's office after his death. Roche first moved from Ireland to study architecture with Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and has since compiled an impressive portfolio of institutional and corporate projects, spanning over the past half-century.

The film uses Roche's lengthy career to discuss many issues contemporary to architecture in the 20th century and its development into the 21st. Fitt...

Exclusive: Graham Foundation announces winners of 2015 Grants to Organizations

2015-08-11T09:01:00-04:00

From Kiev to Los Angeles, from mind-bending artist Dan Graham to stately architect Kevin Roche, the Graham Foundation has announced the 49 international winners of its 2015 Grants to Organizations. Each year, the Foundation gives out two sets of grants: one for individuals including architects, writers, and artists, and one specifically for organizations, such as museums, universities, publishers, and trusts. The grant categories include film, exhibitions, public programs, and publications. This year, $496,500 was awarded to 49 winners from a competitive pool of 200 entries featuring both emerging and established organizations.

In keeping with the Graham Foundation's mission to foster innovative explorations of architecture and art, the winning projects encompass a variety of perceptual and investigative terrain, from the MoMA's exploratory exhibition on Toyo Ito, SANAA and other Japanese architectural firms, to the creation of several new projects for this fall's Chicago Architectur...

Editor's Picks #420

2015-06-17T13:37:00-04:00

Amelia Taylor-Hochberg presented Curated thoughts from an earlier (Archinect Sessions Episode #24 and #25) conversation with Kevin Roche, "a hero of the long-game". snooker-doodle-dandy noted "I have always liked Kevin and his work. He was one of the people whom drove me to the profession...have never had the good fortune to bump into him. It is on my bucket list!"

Plus, Julia Ingalls explored how Twitter and other "social media has oddly become a kind of virtual worker’s union, helping to expose unethical hiring practices".

News
Next September, the historic Neutra Institute and Museum in Silverlake will host a new play by Tom Lazarus entitled ‘The Princes of Kings Road'. eric chavkin "used to live there. Right after Pauline Schindler died. Some of the stories I heard made Kings Road house look like a real party palace. When I was there lots of architects would drop by….I hope they get this play right. The tales are true, the names famous."

Episode 33 of Archinect Sessions, which fea...

Editor's Picks #412

2015-04-21T12:20:00-04:00

For the latest edition of Deans List; Amelia Taylor-Hochberg profiled Michael Speaks, the Dean at Syracuse Architecture.

Ken Koense commented "The SU Architecture program stands in stark contrast to what is happening, and has recently occurred at NJIT. Credible, steady leadership at Syracuse, instability in the leadership at NJIT." Jolanda Morkel felt the piece was "Wwll worth a read".

News

The roster of over 60 architecture firms and artists who will exhibit their work at the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial, was announced. jla-x proposed "Archinect field trip anyone"? Meanwhile Lightperson tried not to get his hopes up "I'm excited to see the new crop of architecture ideas but also get the feeling this will be another Tactical Urbanism show from the usual suspects, the cool European curators".

Denver Post Fine Arts Critic, Ray Mark Rinaldi explained why locals should listen to Jeffrey Sheppard’s (co-founder and design principal for Roth Sheppard Architects in Denver) criticism...

"Clarity and Contradiction": Part II of our conversation with Kevin Roche, and a discussion about Patrik Schumacher's latest Facebook rant on Archinect Sessions #25

2015-04-16T18:30:00-04:00

Paul's back from Peru, just in time for our 25th episode! And thanks to Patrik Schumacher, it's mostly about criticism. We respond to a polemic/rant left by Schumacher on his Facebook page, "In Defense of Stars and Icons", and consider not simply his argument, but its presentation – how publishing these ideas on a personal Facebook page ultimately says more about celebrity and criticism than Schumacher's exorbitant word count can. In the end, we applaud Schumacher – not for his argument necessarily, but for his performative act of posting such. Now, more than ever in the saturated critical sphere of new media, the medium is the message.

We also finish up the interview Amelia did with Pritzker Prize winner Kevin Roche, and hear his thoughts on sprawl and the undeniable human instinct to gather. Roche is a quiet heavyweight in architecture, amassing an incredible extent of work across multiple eras of architectural history, all without paying any heed to "starchitecture", in any form....

"American Disruption, at Home and Abroad": Gehry's Facebook HQ opens and Airbnb comes to Cuba on Archinect Sessions Episode #24

2015-04-09T17:39:00-04:00

Whatever becomes of Facebook’s corporate future – and therefore the consequential Internet – will play out in the world of Frank Gehry. The architect’s new HQ for Facebook in Menlo Park, MPK20, opened earlier this week with plentiful Instagrammed fanfare, and Facebook recently submitted plans to build two more Gehry buildings in the area. As we discuss on this week’s podcast, MPK20 is refreshingly old-school FOG, designed to embrace Facebook's “work in progress” feel that Gehry’s rougher materiality embraces. It’s Facebook’s and FOG’s world; we’re just living in it.

This episode, we also discuss the arrival of Airbnb in Cuba – whether this style of tourism could encourage architectural preservation, and what the company’s disruptive cachet means when there’s no status quo to disrupt. We’re also featuring part 1 of an interview I did with Kevin Roche, the Pritzker Prize winning architect who got his start over sixty years ago, working with Mies van der Rohe and Eero Saarinen. The 92-y...

55 Hudson Yards breaks ground in Manhattan

2015-01-21T14:47:00-05:00

Mitsui Fudosan Co. (8801), Japan’s biggest developer, is building an office tower on Manhattan’s far west side at a cost of about $1.4 billion [...]. Construction has started on the skyscraper in New York’s Hudson Yards development zone in partnership with Related Cos., the area’s principal developer, and Canadian pension investor Oxford Properties. [...] The project, known as 55 Hudson Yards, is at the north end of the site, at the southeast corner of 34th Street and 11th Avenue.

More Hudson Yards coverage on Archinect

Kevin Roche in His Own Words

2012-06-07T13:09:00-04:00

In 2008, while conducting research on the work of celebrated modernist Kevin Roche (b. 1922), Yale School of Architecture associate professor Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen conducted a series of interviews with the architect in his Hamden, Connecticut, home. She included selections from the interviews in Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment (Yale University Press, 2011), the monograph published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name.

Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment: Yale Press

2011-05-16T20:41:24-04:00

Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo met in the Saarinen office, where Roche was Saarinen's indispensible lead designer and Dinkeloo directed the firm's production. Upon Saarinen's sudden death in 1961 the pair assumed control of the firm, completing a series of highly significant projects then in construction or on the boards (including Dulles Airport, the CBS Building, Bell Labs and the St. Louis Arch) after which, in 1966, they seamlessly transitioned into their own independent practice.