For the next round of discussion I’d like to shift the subject to the physical environment, posing the question, Is architecture rational? — guggenheim.org

At university, students from other courses felt that we in architecture weren’t really studying at all; to them the studio seemed like some kind of uber-kindergarten, legitimated for academic credit.... The architecture profession seemed from the outside, and perhaps even to us on the inside, to promise an idyllic eternal childhood of balsa and glue and gee-whiz drawings on computers. — Places Journal

UC Davis today announced that it has selected an emerging New York-based design firm, SO – IL, to design the campus’s planned art museum, envisioned as a regional center of experimentation, participation and learning. The firm will work with team members Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, a prominent architectural firm with offices in San Francisco, Seattle and Pennsylvania, and contractor Whiting-Turner, a national construction firm... — news.ucdavis.edu

Three of the most important modernist houses in the Northeast, including the 1964 house Robert Venturi designed for his mother, have been (or will soon be) put up for sale by their long-time owners, two of them without covenants that would ensure their preservation. — archrecord.construction.com

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, an acclaimed Swiss architect is hoping to pull off what an acclaimed Dutch one could not.

Next month LACMA will publicly unveil a $650-million plan by Pritzker Prize winner Peter Zumthor for a dramatic new museum building along Wilshire Boulevard. — latimes.com

It may seem surprising that a Canadian was chosen to design a Russian state-funded match for the historic Mariinsky Theatre. Gergiev, general and artistic director of the theatre, visited Diamond’s Four Seasons Centre, home of the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, and was wowed. When Gergiev and Diamond met for dinner the following year, the two saw eye to eye on everything from acoustics to street continuity. — music.cbc.ca

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 ?)".

After extensive discussions, the panel decided to recommend the Swiss office of Herzog & de Meuron to be the architects for the National Library of Israel. The panel, which was already aware of the many significant works of these Pritzker prize laureates, was extraordinarily impressed by the commitment shown by Jacques Herzog & Pierre de Meuron, as well as by the strengths and promise of their architectural approach... — web.nli.org.il

If you live in any large ‘rustbelt’ city in the Midwest, and St. Louis in particular, you’re probably all too familiar with the site of vacant lots. Empty land where homes and businesses used to be present a tough challenge for cities.

This weekend, ground will be broken on several projects which aim to change the way neighborhoods and cities deal with vacant property.

The Washington University Sustainable Land Lab Competition chose five winning designs from 48 design submissions. — marketplace.org

Before Mr. Phifer, the architect, began designing the new building, he used a stack of about 80 flash cards or “inspiration boards,” as he called them, to get a sense of the Rales’s tastes and vision. There were pictures of Shaker villages and ancient art, rock gardens and a floor sculpture by Carl Andre. — NYT

Rather elegant," intoned the white-haired figure at the podium. He was speaking of Adolf Hitler's Reich Chancellery, designed in 1938 by Albert Speer. Up next on the screen was the Nuremberg Party Rally Grounds where brown-shirted Nazis paraded en masse. "I think it is really great architecture," said the lecturer. "You take off the swastikas, and you can admire it without feeling guilty." — Wall Street Journal

It's easier to conceive of creating such schemes for an un-built structure on a computer screen. But as we try to re-purpose an aging building stock in our cities – not just treasured cathedrals, but also old offices and unremarkable apartments – we're going to need new ways of documenting and thinking about the buildings we already have. Historically, this has been a tedious process, but technology (albeit currently costly) means that we might be able to appraise an old building in hours. — theatlanticcities.com

The mosque, which is a Unesco world heritage site, has been in rebel hands since earlier this year but the area around it is still contested. — BBC News

A new apartment complex in Hamburg, Germany, intends to generate heat, as well as revenue, from growing the micro-organism. The five-story Bio Intelligent Quotient (B.I.Q.) building, which was expected to become fully operational on Wednesday, has a high-tech facade that looks like a cross between a Mondrian painting and a terrarium but is actually a vertical algae farm. — nytimes.com