Archinect - News

Toyo Ito donates early-career archive to the Canadian Centre for Architecture

2023-12-06T17:21:00-05:00

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) has just announced its acquisition of architect Toyo Ito’s early-career archive.

The trove entails drawings, models, and sketches related to his practice Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects (founded as Urban Robot) from 1971 until 1989. The CCA says the donation will help researchers establish a better through line from the 2013 Pritzker Prize winner's early-career work in dialogue with its other archival holdings. The decision was made in September after 82-year-old Ito apparently determined he could not find an “appropriate place” in his home country in which to store the collection, according to The Yomiuri Shimbun.

In a press announcement, Ito said: “The CCA is an architectural museum and research center I have the utmost trust in. Upon this donation, I received requests from many Japanese architects and researchers, asking if it is possible to keep those archives in Japan. However, I have the confidence that CCA offers unparalleled ac...

Tim Disney's $1 million donation boosts SCI-Arc's DEI scholarship program

2023-03-21T17:51:00-04:00

SCI-Arc recently announced a new $1 million scholarship fund dedicated to the school’s efforts to advance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion interests in the architectural field.

Former trustee Tim Disney established the fund in order to augment the school’s growing Equity + Inclusion Scholarship and Mentorship program, which pairs students from underrepresented backgrounds with mentors while providing fully-funded tuition.

The current E+1 cohort is 16 students. Disney said, “I am very grateful to be able to support this work, and very proud that SCI-Arc has made equity and inclusion scholarships a top priority.”

Other DEI initiatives adjacent to the program will also be pursued along a five-year strategic plan as part of the gift. The school has continually expanded its Structural Actions to Promote Access, Inclusion, and Equity in Architecture over the past two and a half years, hiring new faculty and bolstering the liberal arts curricula and Kappe Library collection in addition ...

M+ museum receives donations from Herzog & de Meuron including Bird's Nest stadium model

2023-03-21T13:51:00-04:00

Hong Kong's M+ museum of contemporary visual culture has announced a two-phase donation by Herzog & de Meuron, the firm behind its design.

The first phase of the donation consists of a section model of the Herzog & de Meuron-designed Beijing National Stadium (in collaboration with artist Ai Weiwei), known as the “Bird’s Nest”, which was the main site at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.

Installation view of the National Stadium section model at the M+. Photo: Lok Cheng. Courtesy of M+, Hong Kong.

The second phase will include a selection of process materials from the firm’s key projects in Asia and elsewhere. This donation makes M+ the first museum in Asia to boast a significant holding of materials related to the work of Herzog & de Meuron.

Detail of the National Stadium section model. © Herzog & de Meuron. Photo: Lok Cheng. Courtesy of M+, Hong Kong.

The “Bird’s Nest” model is currently on display in M+’s East Galleries as part of an ongoing exhibition titled Things, Spaces, Interac...

A new gift will keep the legacy of the American School alive at the University of Oklahoma's College of Architecture

2023-02-28T13:53:00-05:00

A new landmark donation to the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma will help preserve the legacy of the American School, one of the most important movements within midcentury modernism, thanks to the generosity of legendary professor Bob Faust’s widow Sherry.

The multimillion gift will go towards maintaining the school’s archive, hiring a curator to oversee the collection and coordinate exhibition programming around it, creating a permanent exhibition space in the lobby of Gould Hall, an annual fellowship, and a four-year funded professorship for special research projects related to design topics.

The college’s Division of Architecture director Stephanie Pilat said the professorship is designed in a “flexible way,” adding it would come with a salary stipend and a budget to pursue projects related to the American School. “It will provide support for that library which supports this important history, and it will provide funding for a curator of ...

Pope Francis announces return of Parthenon fragments in a potential precedent-setter

2022-12-20T18:39:00-05:00

Pope Francis will send back to Greece the three fragments of the Parthenon Sculptures that the Vatican Museums have held for two centuries, in the latest case of a Western museum bowing to demands for restitution of artifacts to their countries of origin.

The bequest was labeled a “donation” from the Vatican by Pope Francis, who also called it “a concrete sign of [his] sincere desire to follow in the ecumenical path of truth.”

The British Museum, meanwhile, is also reportedly in talks with Greece to return parts of its argued-over trove of Elgin Marbles as early as next year. A timeline for the Vatican's return to the Acropolis Museum has not yet been verified by either party.

Previously on Archinect: The British Museum is under fire after refusing Parthenon Marbles 3D scan

UNC Charlotte’s architecture school to be renamed following alumnus donation

2022-11-28T13:11:00-05:00

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s School of Architecture is to be renamed the David R. Ravin School of Architecture following a donation from the school’s alumnus David Ravin. The donation, whose amount has not been disclosed, will be used to support students, pay for international studies, and finance university initiatives.

Ravin graduated from the school in 1994 with a BA in Architecture before attending the University of Michigan and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Today, he is the president and CEO of Northwood Ravin, a development, construction, and property management firm.

The new David R. Ravin School of Architecture sign. Image © Jacob Scannell/Courtesy of UNC and David R. Ravin School of Architecture.

David Ravin photographed during the Ravin School of Architecture Announcement Ceremony (2022). Image © Jacob Scannell/Courtesy of UNC and David R. Ravin School of Architecture.

"There is no right answer in architecture,” Ravin remarked at a ceremony ...

Gensler and Amazon among $4.7 million donors to California College of the Arts supporting diversity and innovation

2022-10-28T11:22:00-04:00

Gensler and Amazon are among the donors who have gifted $4.7 million to the California College of the Arts (CCA). The funds will be used to support diversity, equity, and innovation in the arts and design field.

CCA received a $1 million gift from the Gensler family and an additional $1 million gift from Gensler as a practice; donations which will establish the M. Arthur Gensler Jr. Center for Design Excellence. According to the college, the newly-established center will “support and enrich learning, teaching, and research in CCA’s Architecture Division” with a focus on supporting students from diverse backgrounds through “tuition scholarships, mentoring, and career development support.”

The donation will extend over ten years, with the first cohort of Gensler Center scholarship recipients set to receive awards this year.

The remaining $2.7 million in donations to the CCA was received from Amazon ...

Moshe Safdie donates entire archive to McGill University

2022-08-23T14:42:00-04:00

The professional archive of renowned Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie will now be housed at his alma mater McGill University, the school announced today.

The Habitat 67 designer will also donate his restored private apartment in the famed modular housing complex, along with the undergraduate thesis titled “A Case for City Living” that led to its inception as part of the Expo 67 exhibition in Montreal 55 years ago.

The apartment (which was not previously managed by the university) and thesis are just two of the more than 100,000 total pieces included in the donation. McGill says the archive “represents one of the most extensive and thorough individual collections of architectural documentation in Canada” and that it expects the gift to provide “an abundance of opportunity for exploration” to the university and design-minded community writ large.

Special announcement ceremony of Moshe Safdie's archive donation at McGill University. Video via McGill University on YouTube.

At th...

Snapchat co-founder offers to repay student loans for Otis 2022 grads

2022-05-18T14:47:00-04:00

Otis College of Art and Design has received a significant donation that will allow for the payment of student loans of students in the graduating Class of 2022. The money comes from Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel and his wife Miranda Kerr, KORA Organics CEO and model, through their philanthropic foundation, the Spiegel Family Fund. This is the largest single gift in the history of the school.

“Student debt weighs heavily on our diverse and talented graduates,” said Otis College of Art and Design President Charles Hirschhorn. “We hope this donation will provide much-deserved relief and empower them to pursue their aspirations and careers, pay this generosity forward, and become the next leaders of our community.”

The donation was announced during Otis College’s 2022 Commencement, where Spiegel, Kerr, and interior designer and Queer Eye host Bobby Berk received honorary degrees. Spiegel attended a high school summer program at Otis College when he was 15 prior to attending Stanford Univer...

$1 million donated to UT Austin School of Architecture honoring John S. Chase, their first Black graduate

2022-02-28T12:12:00-05:00

The University of Texas at Austin’s School of Architecture has received a $1 million donation honoring John S. Chase, the first Black graduate of the school and the first Black licensed architect in the state of Texas. The donation has been provided by Tony Chase and his wife Dr. Dina Alsowayel. An entrepreneur, law professor, and civic leader based in Houston, Tony Chase is also the son of John S. Chase.

The $1 million donation will create two new permanent endowments. The first, named the John S. Chase Family Endowed Graduate Fellowship, will be used primarily to increase diversity and representation in the profession by recruiting graduates of historically Black colleges and universities. Meanwhile, the John S. Chase Family Endowed Professorship in Architecture will help recruit and retain outstanding faculty and support their research of the built environment.

Archinect Feature: Architecture Gets Psychosocial, Socioracial & Sociospatial: A Conversation with Todd Brown, UT Au...

A Canadian homebuilder's $100 million gift brought HdM's Vancouver Art Gallery expansion project back from the dead

2022-01-31T13:58:00-05:00

After years of stops and starts, triumphant announcements and long silences – there is finally momentum, once again. Gallery officials are meeting regularly with the city, city hall is re-examining the term of the lease agreement, a public open house is scheduled for March, and shovels could be in the ground next year. All it took was a single private donation – of $100-million.

The firm’s repeatedly revised design was originally set to be its first commission in the country for an expansion effort that has been mulled since first being announced in 2014. Vancouver Art Gallery has been balking at the effort since the early 2000s without naming a winner. Herzog & de Meuron's latest version includes a new woven copper facade and was developed with input from four Indigenous artist design consultants representing the native communities of Vancouver.

The gift from philanthropist home building magnate Michael Audain was announced on November 4th and came with quite a few of his own design “suggestions” that reportedly touched on the vertical orientation of the floor plan and the original martial of the now-remade facade. The museum is still looking for about $160 million (CAD) in funding to complete the $400 million capital project, but supporters are optimistic that Audain’s gift has steered the project back on track for a 2023 groundbreaking and realization s...

World Monuments Fund receives $1m grant to protect eight threatened watchlist sites

2018-06-14T13:47:00-04:00

The World Monuments Fund (WMF) received $1m from American Express to conserve eight of the 25 threatened cultural heritage sites on their watchlist. The awards range from $25,000 to $225,000 and many will be used to respond to damage inflicted by climate change. [...] The WMF has also received funding from a private donor and the Friends of Heritage Preservation for the Alabama Civil Rights Sites. The 14 other threatened monuments on the group’s list are still seeking support.

Cranbrook receives Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Smith House as donation

2018-04-23T13:25:00-04:00

Cranbrook, known worldwide as an architectural set piece, is getting a new gem in its diadem — a Frank Lloyd Wright house. The house was built in 1950 by Sara and Melvyn Maxwell Smith. The donation came from the Towbes Foundation. “The Smith family always said they didn’t want this to just pass to another set of homeowners,” said Gregory Wittkopp, director of the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research. “The phrase they used was they wanted it to be ‘an educational resource.’ ”

The donation by the Towbes Foundation was a gift "that other design schools would kill for," The Detroit News reports and tells the legendary tale of A. Alfred Taubman donating a substantial portion of the windows to the cash-strapped Smith family to get the FLW-designed house finished before the winter of 1949.

Antoine Predock donates property and archives to University of New Mexico

2017-12-06T15:17:00-05:00

A renowned architect and longtime Albuquerque dweller, Predock recently donated the Downtown property where he once lived and practiced to UNM – the school that helped turn the once-budding engineer into an artist. In the more than 60 years since he matriculated at UNM, Predock has designed projects all over the world [...]. But he has maintained ties to UNM, even designing the building that houses its School of Architecture and Planning.

Grounded Visionaries takes off with $15 million gift from Ronald M. Druker

2017-12-04T14:22:00-05:00

As a part of the Harvard Graduate School of Design's, Grounded Visionaries campaign, it has been announced that the school has received a $15 million gift from Ronald M. Druker (Loeb Fellow ’76) and the Bertram A. and Ronald M. Druker Charitable Foundation — the largest single gift in the school’s history.

Druker’s long-standing involvement in the development of the school goes back to him being one of the early inductees into the school’s prestigious Loeb Fellowship program, a time during which he first articulated many of the principles that define not only his projects but also his perspective on urban planning and design across the region.

Continuing from 1975 to 1983, Druker taught as a member of the school’s faculty in urban design. Cherishing his growing connection to the GSD, Druker established an endowment creating the Druker Traveling Fellowship in 1986. More recently, Druker has served on the school’s Visiting Committee, on the Dean’s Advisory Council, and as Chair of ...

A war-torn Syrian's home, IKEA-style

2016-11-08T14:22:00-05:00

Living in a war-torn country isn't easy, which is why the idea to display a Syrian home in the comfort-addled environs of an IKEA store is remarkable. Shoppers can tour a 25 square meter mock-up that is modeled after a real Damascus-adjacent home that functions as living quarters for a family of nine (!) and then donate funds to those in need via special versions of IKEA's signature product tags. This video explains it all:

Old Royal Naval College aims to restore 40,000 sq.ft of its Painted Hall, plan to be unveiled in NYC next month

2015-04-28T19:44:00-04:00

Arts patrons continue to support the restoration of the Painted Hall at the Christopher Wren-designed Old Royal Naval College at the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site in Greenwich, London. Over the next three years, the ORNC's three-stage conservation project would clean and restore the remaining 3,700 sq.m. (approx. 40,000 sq.ft) of the Painted Hall, sometimes dubbed "the Sistine Chapel of the U.K." The first phase restored 560 sq.m. of paintings in the Upper Hall back in 2013. The second phase focuses on the Lower Hall, the Vestibule, and the semi-underground King William Undercroft directly beneath the Painted Hall.

Housed inside King William Court, the Painted Hall was originally built as a dining hall for British naval veterans who lived at the Royal Hospital for Seamen. Once the hall was built, English painter James Thornhill began his 19-year endeavor of painting the interior from 1708 to 1727. As instructed, Thornhill's paintings largely pay tribute to the British Navy a...

Álvaro Siza donates his architectural archives to institutions in Portugal and Canada

2014-07-24T18:53:00-04:00

Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza this week announced to donate his architectural archive to public architectural institutions in Portugal and Canada. The decision was motivated by Siza's desire of fostering discussion and dialogue in a research-oriented context.

One part of the archive will be donated to the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal, and the other part will be given to two Portuguese institutions, the Fundação Gulbenkian in Lisbon and the Fundação de Serralves in Porto.

“The CCA is thrilled to accept this generous donation," remarked CCA Director Mirko Zardini. "I have known Álvaro Siza and followed his work closely for several decades. His architecture escapes easy classification, but always offers a lesson – a new way of seeing the world around us. His buildings have a distinct character and particular relationship to their urban or natural settings, always born from the desire to participate in the world. Siza’s drawings and sketches reflect his ability to...

“Creatives Unite for Japan” Relief Effort

2011-05-19T13:33:24-04:00

The Art Directors Club and One Club, in partnership with AKQA, have joined together to form Creatives Unite for Japan, a new charitable program that provides the creative community with a direct way to help victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Creatives Unite for Japan is strictly a donation program, with each organization featuring a banner on their home pages with program information and PayPal link. One hundred percent of donations will go to fund The Ashinaga Foundation, a non-profit organization formed in 1963 that provides aid to children who have lost parents due to hardship, economic or natural disasters.

“This is not a call for entries, it’s a call for a cause,” said Rei Inamoto, chief creative officer, AKQA and ADC board member who developed the program mission and logo design. “Because right now, Japan does not need ideas that win gold, silver or bronze Cubes or Pencils, they need our support. We urge fellow creatives around the world to un...