News
Christopher Gray reviewed John Hill’s book A Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture, reflected on the current revival of traditional architecture in the United States, and asked Mr. Hill if he has "a bias against the neo-traditional movement?”.

SDR complained "The Saratoga Community Center is ‘traditional’ ?  Really ?  Brickwork with masonry or ceramic trim is no longer a viable architectural material ?  What'll be declared dead, next -- the rectangle ?...I don't defend the example above as  a work of architecture.  I know nothing about it.  But it's a surprising contender for 'traditional'--- isn't it ?)".

observant summarized Mr. Gray’s argument "Ok, so the world is getting tired of peeling Gehry's buildings and the odd cowlicks in Morphosis's buildings, and we're headed back to another swat at post-modern, except that this one is Prairie School revival.  I would not have been able to deduce that very easily.  It's really watered down.  And if the people in the Prairie School's focal area of influence probably wouldn't 'get it,' would they get it in Brooklyn NY?".

The Architectural League called on MoMA to reconsider the Folk Art Museum Demolition. Bill Rabinovitch shared his proposal for a new MoMA Hybrid 04-23-13, while STUDIOTJOA voiced their support "We support all of those who take this stand to see to it that this building and buildings in similar situations remain standing. If MoMA does doom this building then the public should call on MoMA to allow the systematic dismantling of the building rather than the complete demolition of it. Then the building itself may be gone but the components and materials can live in on in other works of architecture or art".

Pier Alessio Rizzardi penned an essay titled The Condition of Chinese Architecture; Elaboration of a critical approach. Therein, he contends "Chinese architects need to be much more efficient than their western colleagues in order to find work. China uses 33% of the world’s overall consumption of reinforced concrete. Chinese architects account for 1% of the world total, but the turnover from building work is 1/10 of the world total. In other words, one hundredth of the world’s architects must design of 33% of all buildings and they must do this for just 1/10 of the profit. This constitutes the theoretical state of Chinese architecture".

hchung was super offended "especially the collages of ‘Chinese-y’ artifacts - tofu?  And what is up with the scantily clad Asian woman?  These collages do not demonstrate a point, but rather are images to shock and amuse - except they disgust and annoy.  Archinect needs a better editorial board if this is what they are labeling as ‘News’ worthy".

However, Evan Chakroff pointed out "Though the collages may demonstrate questionable taste, it's no secret that Chinese developers often turn to facile metaphors to sell architectural projects...If there's anything offensive about this essay, it's the suggestion that Chinese architecture has somehow to contend with the influence of ‘western’ culture - as if this is a new phenomenon. ...While China faces a 'crisis of modernity' of sorts, it's reductive to compare this directly to postwar Europe...I find the idea that there's no 'theory' in China laughable. Of course there is architectural theory - but it's in Chinese and thus inaccessible to us armchair critics (of which I am one, for sure)...This should come as no surprise".

Christopher Hawthorne reviewed the "fittingly blunt" Bush presidential library for the LA Times. Donna Sink offered her take "surprised that the proportions seem off: the horizontal fascia supporting the words seems to thin in comparison to the mass of stone above the windows on the second floor.  Then the pergola on top is a different vertical/horizontal proportion yet again.  I'm actually a big fan of this kind of stripped-down super-modern fascist-looking architecture (not the philosophy, just the appearance) but the proportions have to be *perfect* and in this photo they aren't".

EKE argued "The larger second story windows in the entry arcade dwarf the first story door and window below - it seems weirdly top heavy.  Not my favorite RAMSA building, that's for sure. I'm also a fan of that kind of stripped down classicism, but I personally wish we'd stop referring to it as fascist.  Paul Cret was a real master of that style, and his architecture had no connection to fascism whatsoever.  It's too bad that that genre has been tarnished by political history".

For his part Darkman hated to admit "this building is growing on me. It feels dirty to say so..... haha...s far as the entrances go--it's nice. But that brick modernism in the rest of the building is where it goes wrong for me. It screams ‘my 1950s high school’."

Firms/Blogs/Work Updates

Jobie L. Martin Classroom Building designed by architecture firm Duvall Decker Architects, P.A.,  sited on the Jackson Campus of Hinds Community College has been recognized with an AIA Committee on Architecture for Education (CAE) Award of Excellence.

Jesse Anderson started a blog Brutal Me, which he promised would be "Mainly a brutalist architecture blog but also a outlet and petri dish for my bottled up architectural thoughts". His first post featured Habitat 67. observant responded "I love this structure (or collection of structures).  It may be ‘brutalist,’ but the amount of variety in the massing makes it easy on the eyes... It is definitely iconic”.

Recently Vira Kravtsova worked on her Resume in infographics.

Kelvin Bwamu intends to use his blog Cedar Sketch book to demystify the architectural process by educating people of the role of an Architect. Mr. Bwamu is an architect and designer in Nairobi, Kenya.

Southampton House in Southampton, NY by Alexander Gorlin Architects and Caribou County Guest Compound in Caribou County, ID by Bogue Trondowski Architects; were just two of the projects featured in the latest post Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Wood" Pinterest Board.

Thomas Wensing requested a small correction "Hi guys, I noticed that you list me as the project architect for the Caribou County Project in Idaho. However flattering this is, I specifically stated that I was 'assistant architect', Bogue Trondowski himself was the project architect. Would you please be so kind to correct this".        

Schools/Blogs

Lian Chikako Chang Harvard GSD live-blogger extraordinaire, covered last weeks 2013 Walter Gropius Lecture, delivered by Chair of Architecture, Preston Scott Cohen. Lian bolded one quote in particular "The argument here is that vertical succession is one of the primary protagonists of the architectural medium of our time". After the talk her classmates Fareez Giga and Hal Wuertz took the podium to present a roast of the outgoing chair,  as well as selections of some more heartfelt reflections from students about Scott's impact on our education and relationship with architecture.

Team A (aka "Cold Pop") working on a pavilion for the 2013 Prague ReSITE Festival, at Architectural Institute in Prague (ARCHIP) decided to make a partial 1:1 scale model and learned some lessons namely; "1. We really need Grasshopper to speed this whole process of calculations 2. Stitching looks bad  3. Petals look neat 4. We are far from being done".

Meanwhile AD.IV announced the decision had been made to go with the name PARESITE (parametric parasite pavilion for reSITE), for the final design.

Justin Wang posted a photographic look into Iowa State's B.Arch. and M.Arch. programs NAAB accreditation process. For a few months, the College of Design was packed with models, drawings, and presentation boards. The process led Mr. Wang to ask "How important is code compliance in academic projects?”.

Peter Normand believed "Codes are important and if NAAB is hung up on that one issue, then I think the program is doing well this is a simple thing to fix...ADA and life safety do shape design in huge and small ways...Most architecture students should know how to do this kind of code research by their third year in college”.
 

Discussions
cmrhm wanted to know if any Archinecters had heard about any large US firms bought by chinese firm recently? Given didn’t see why anyone would "If you buy out a huge western firm you still have to deal with their razor thin profit margins... I just dont see the rationale. Maybe someone else has some more interesting thoughts on this though" med. commented definitively "'I heared either SOM or KPF is the target? Rumor?’ No way that would ever happen"...

kenpcho was happy to see that Tadao Ando has released designs for the "Dream Chair". Miles Jaffe was critical "Some obvious problems here. ..Aesthetically it's pretty awful. The only reason this got produced was Ando's name...As far as great architects making timeless chair designs, that is a short list and doesn't include very many in the past 50 years...    The old school furniture architects (Mies, Breuer, Aalto, Corbu, Hoffman, etc.) were Bauhaus trained or Bauhaus era with the sensibilities of the times". A number of commentators were expecting "some bad ass concrete dealy” as b3tadine[sutures] wrote.

Will Galloway added "it looks a bit like the floor chairs they use in japan to sit on tatami (just seats, no legs).  maybe that is where he started...a few years back i went to an exhibit of 100 awesome chairs by architects, and we could sit in them to check out the functional side of things with some personal experimentation.  wright sucked.  mackintosh was wobbly.  gaudi was uncomfortable.  saarinen was awesome and charles eames was seriously comfy if stodgy.  gehry's chairs were also comfy, and my favorite still".

Finally, langealexandra started a thread because she is "writing a story about the broader questions for the profession raised by the Denise Scott Brown/Pritzker petition. I am wondering if there are any deans or architecture department chairs that have been tackling this issue all along? It's been noted that now there are quite a number of female deans -- not that they are the only ones who can or should discuss roles for women. Would love to hear about any discussion in schools".

3tk shared "I recall a former chair at my alma mater discussing with our studio at length about the increasing role of women in the profession...With the school's graduate student body being predominantly female, the result was pretty evident.  The influence of this conversation was  also evident in the dialogue among all faculty there, so I'd say the topic was fairly present".

Additionally
On April 16th 2013, Honor Harger, gave a talk titled Unmanned Aerial Ecologies: proto-drones, airspace and canaries in the mine in Brussels at the seminar, Look Up in the Sky!.