I'd love to hear Joshua Prince-Ramus' phone call to Rem asking for his job back.

I haven't heard anything. Their website is still up though.

curious where this came from. the louisville project has had some, um, setbacks, but no mention of any problems at rex when the other issues were in the news this week.

i was just wondering about rex as i hadn't seen any articles, comments, threads about REX. in fact, i havent read anything sinceThIsThReAd! Hi Oana!!!

The story I was told.

A friend of mine has been emailing a friend at REX and all of a sudden his emails were getting bounced back. He ended up calling his friend to hear that they closed their doors last Friday.

Maybe it's a farce and I'm naive enough to believe it, but I figured if someone new the truth they would be on archinect.

their website is still up..but if you look at the projects list it seems awfully light for a legit office...and most of them are from his time at oma.

call em up! theres a phone right there next to your computer...

I would, but I can't decide what billing code this would fit under....hmm

i hope not since we're teamed with them chasing a project right now...

lars - i don't know what you consider 'light' or 'legit', but there's a lot of construction dollar volume in what they're doing. that louisville project, even if they are getting a relatively small percentage fee, could float an office for quite a bit of time.

the rumor is they've been doin rounds of layoffs over the past few months...and they laid off the last round last week.

laru.

you're right..with one good project they could float an office for a while..
there was only 9 projects up there is all i was thinking..and many of them oma related or finished...gugg vegas, seattle library etc.

but if any of those projects are really happening then they'd only need a couple of them to keep going, it's true.

could it be related to this?

i was referring to the construction stop more than any financing issues. that piece just makes it sound like they stopped, but doesn't tell that the driving of piles was rocking office space for blocks and that, since the work had to be stopped due to potential damage to surrounding areas, they've now demobilized all of the cranes and they're doing a major structural redesign of the foundations.

i tried applying there for the summer and they said they werent hiring virtually any position. i dont see why it wouldnt happen really, theyve had nothing built since seattle and a friend of mine who is in with their Museum Plaza building told me that theyre about to get kicked off the job

since seattle?

Maybe their a bunch a jagoffs who cant get anything done so they went out of business - that would be my guess

- that or the laser cutter broke when some jerk used it to pop some popcorn

starting to sound bad. as i was driving home, news on the radio said that museum plaza project is on 'indefinite hold'.

not good news for louisville anyway. whatever you thought of the project, the city and state committed a lot to the project.

I'm keepiny my fingers crossed for the project. I'd love to see it go up.

Joshua lectured at nc state two days ago; It didn't sound like they were going out of business.

yeah, but that guy was born to front.

the lesson here: don't fuck with rem.

here's hoping they're fine.

We've got our fingers crossed. We really want to see this project get realized, for Louisville and for REX! - paul

thanks from louisville, paul. given how much has already happened leading up to this project, i'm not sure louisville wouldn't be pretty damaged if the project stalls long-term. it was easier when we lost the vencor tower in the 90s (pei cobb freed: almost the same site) because little had happened beyond the development of the design and (maybe) some cds. this time our downtown already has roads rerouted, a big hole next to the waterfront, and electrical substations moving.

Steven,

Maybe a few very talented Louisville Architects (I happen to know several) could propose a development of the site that would ultimately contribute more to the city and fit the context on west Main.

I have to say that I never liked the design, its scale, or its statement of ego (or diagrammatically derived theoretical "lack of ego"). I know there are some ego statements in Louisville (the firms I worked for did several of them) but this one seemed all wrong to me from the start. I was fine with the mix of functions and the development of that site but I could never get comfortable with the scale and the expression. Structural gymnastics - why? 60+ stories - why? driven piles rather than auger cast piles - why? Did somebody not read the geotech report? They are building in a giant riverbed that extends into much of downtown.

it was a sales job - the emperor has no clothes...

Wow, REX is closed?

Jesus, they must have really sucked.

I've also heard that REX had several rounds of layoffs in the last few months...sounds like they were already running on a skeleton crew

Absolutely False.

it goes deeper than who the architects are, though, spark. sure, there are plenty of us here who would love to propose something for that site.

but, in this case, the project is largely being developed by one of our city's more impt benefactor families. a LOT of their money is already spent on the design team's and contractor's work (beyond rex, that is). part of my fear is that not only could a collapse of the project affect the investments made on this site, but it could have repercussions on what they are able to do and willing to do for some time in the future. they keep a lot of the arts and design life of our community afloat.

we can talk about what could happen if other architects got involved but this development team chose this architect. their reasons had as much to do with their collecting of contemporary art as it did with their desire for a big building. while i might be a great local architect, i don't get much play on the (inter)national contemporary art/design circuit.

jason, you sound pretty confident in your statement. fingers crossed, you're right!

I would assume that it's relatively easy to keep an office afloat when you have a line of morons out the door that are willing to work for free...

we are designing an alternative for the site just in case. can you say surface parking lot...

sorry, we have plenty of those.

so jason...the substantiated rumors i've heard from people that used to work there aren't true? their friends weren't laid off even though they said they were?

"Lakers trading Kobe"

Probability 1%


"REX 'closing up shop'"

Probability 1%

spark, while I can't disagree with a single thing you've written, and am very concerned about the escalator tube sucking people (and vitality) off Main Street, and doubt that a museum elevated 30 stories above ground will ever feel "public", I still can't help but want to see this building built.

I'm enchanted by the image of it on the skyline, I suppose, and the risky experimentation. Which goes against basically every statement I've ever made on this site.

massive layoffs are pretty common in this industry and the high profile firms tend to do it the most. since they have bankers boxes full of resumes and portfolios its not difficult to ramp the staff back up when the next two hundred story dubai/beijing/singapore skyscraper job comes in...

Dont Forget Abu Dahbi or Doha

or ras al khaimah

so is the recession hitting the midwest?

whats this recession talk? If its news to G.Dub its news to me

we're starting to get a lot of resumes from people who previously worked @ office that only do residential...

I don't think the st. louis thing is an elegant piece of architecture. its massing is clunky as hell, and pretty unoriginal too.

My general impression of REX versus another firm that split off from OMA, WORK_AC, is that WORK does more creative and energetic work, that's not quite so caught up in the egotism of a project like this one.

Good or bad, once a building like this is built it's stuck to that skyline for, like, ever. It becomes the image of St. Louis for the world. It's St. Louis's equivalent of the Eiffel Tower, but ugly.

Regardless of whether or not they're still officially in business, I think everyone was a little underwhelmed by the way REX fizzled out after their dramatic split from OMA. I would say that I think their Museum Plaza would be a positive thing for Louisville.