It would be the decisive moment in Wilcots’ life. By saying yes, he ended up devoting more than 20 years to helping Kahn build the new capital...The meetings would cause him to move to Philadelphia, a place that at the time seemed to him far less welcoming to African Americans than Dhaka. When Kahn suffered a fatal heart attack in 1974...Wilcots would assume the awesome task of finishing a Louis Kahn masterpiece. — Inga Saffron for the Philadelphia Inquirer
This article sheds light on the story of Henry Wilcots (now 89 years old), the much overlooked architect who was responsible for completing Louis Kahn's Dhaka National Assembly masterpiece. Dubbed as the “Kahn whisperer” by fellow colleagues, the calm-and-collected Wilcots was able to have a... View full entry
Construction of the Zaha Hadid Architects-designed Leeza SOHO mixed-use tower in Beijing is making progress as newly released photographs document. Once the 46-story structure reaches its final height of 207 meters (679 feet) in September of this year, it will be home to the world's tallest... View full entry
Gregory Ain, a midcentury champion of modern architecture whose students included Frank Gehry, is virtually unknown outside Los Angeles today. His left-leaning politics made him the object of decades-long F.B.I. surveillance [...]
Even the fate of his most important commission — an exhibition house in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art — is a mystery. That house is now the subject of “This Future Has a Past,” an installation at the Center for Architecture in Greenwich Village.
— The New York Times
This Future Has a Past opened in July at the Center for Architecture in New York and still runs through September 12. The accompanying event Who Was Gregory Ain? on September 7 will feature the installation's producers, Katherine Lambert and Christiane Robbins, as well as other speakers. View full entry
In 2016, 42 percent of new AXP participants and 30 percent of new ARE candidates identified as non-white—up three percentage points for both groups. However, diversity among newly licensed architects and NCARB Certificate holders remained the same. For comparison, 38 percent of the U.S. population identifies as either non-white or Hispanic, according to 2015 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. — NCARB
There are now more women and non-white participants in architecture as of 2016 according to the NCARB, which has just released its 2017 "By the Numbers" report. As NCARB notes in a press release: “While several groups remain underrepresented within the profession, these trends point to growing... View full entry
Hudson Yards has been making headlines in recent months...But immediately to the northwest, another tower that’s been in the making for an equally long period of time may have just received a boost to become the tallest of them all. A new rendering of the Moinian Group’s 3 Hudson Boulevard has surfaced, showing both an updated design for the building itself, as well as the addition of a 300-foot spire, that would make the supertall the tallest in the neighborhood. — New York Yimby
Despite years of vigorous effort in the Hudson Yards, the Related Companies may not have the tallest skyscraper of them all, thanks to FXFOWLE's proposed spire-tastic tower on 3 Hudson Boulevard. Nothing's final as of yet, but as YIMBY notes, "Back in 2012, YIMBY heard speculation that the tower... View full entry
Stately, elegant, reflective: these adjectives have largely described the work of British architect David Chipperfield, whose structures tend to invite contemplation and pause before hot take Instagramming. His selection as the architect of the West Bund Art Museum in the new cultural center... View full entry
The title Clocks and Clouds comes from philosopher Karl Popper’s essay on rationality and freedom, but also describes the dreamy precision, the spirit, and the material of Escher GuneWardena’s art. — UCSB Art, Design & Architecture Museum, Santa Barbara
A gem of an exhibition by Escher GuneWardena whose work meticulously navigates architecture, art and design. The quietly original and meaningful architecture of the firm can be classified as timeless and critical, alluding to philosophy of Karl Popper. The work reflects the best tenets of modern... View full entry
Longtime DTLA developer and landowner Joseph Hellen has released a revised design for a proposed 40-story, 420-foot tall apartment tower at 525 South Spring Street. — Urbanize.LA
What would downtown Los Angeles' historic core look like with a 40-story apartment building with a wavy white exterior? Probably a great deal like the rendering above, which was created by TSK Architects working with Steinberg Architects (who are carrying through to produce the design in an... View full entry
While Tadao Ando has built religious structures before--famously, the Church of the Light--he has rarely worked with figurative icons of religion, preferring a more abstract approach. This has changed with his open-air prayer hall in the Makomanai Takinoreien Cemetery in Sapporo, Japan, where a... View full entry
Constructed by Swissrope/Lauber Seilbahnen AG, Frutigen, this suspension bridge in Switzerland is now the globe's longest (and arguably, most scenic, as it hovers above one of the deepest valleys in the country). The two-foot-wide bridge, which helps connect two mountain towns, has cut the time it... View full entry
The man known for his modern, white, geometrically intricate buildings spends his summers in a simple, cedar-shingled farmhouse built in 1907 that he bought from the family of the original owners in 1984. On a July afternoon, Mr. Meier was in his study there, painting watercolors. — The New York Times
For the 6th consecutive year in a row, Gensler has topped Architectural Record's list of Top 300 firms. Companies are ranked by the total revenue for architectural services performed in 2016—for companies that offer other services as well, such as planning or engineering, earnings acquired... View full entry
For architects, complying with building codes means navigating labyrinthine layers of regulations that vary between municipalities. Sorting through different codes and keeping track of updates is a daunting task and, in a worst-case scenario, a mistake can cost thousands or even millions of dollars to tear out and fix. Firms that can afford it hire building code consultants, but a startup called UpCodes wants to make code compliance easier for all builders. — Tech Crunch
Started by two brothers—one, an architect and the other, a software engineer—UpCodes provides an accessible platform for construction codes and works to consolidate building regulations into a single searchable database. Beyond making codes and regulations easier to navigate, the... View full entry
With a soundtrack that could be described as whimsical and an aesthetic outlook that encompasses both the old and the new, a video preview of 2017's Chicago Architecture Biennial (which will transpire simultaneously with EXPO CHICAGO this year) is now available for your viewing pleasure: View full entry
For designers who love to draw by hand on real paper but want to store those sketches in the cloud, there is now a kind of a refined, tech-savvy etch-o-sketch in the form of the Rocketbook Wave Smart Notebook from self-described "notebook innovators" Joe Lemay and Jake Epstein. Using a special... View full entry