Robert Urquhart’s first piece for Archinect, was a report from the front lines of the London Design Festival. Plus, Julia Ingalls talked with Guggenheim Fellow and Los Angeles Times book critic David Ulin about his book ‘Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles’. News Over at The... View full entry
"You repress almost everything to produce a building," states Daniel Libeskind during a long and wide-ranging conversation with the architectural historian Gillian Darley in the context of the exhibition Childhood ReCollections: Memory in Design at the Roca London Gallery."Everything is repressed... View full entry
A meandering urban flow lies at the heart of BIG's master plan for Pittsburgh, which is appropriate since the plan's primary function is to connect the Hill District to the city's downtown core. Collaborating with West 8 (landscape architecture) and Atelier Ten (sustainability), BIG's master plan... View full entry
In a typical year, [Humphreys & Partners] designs between 12 and 15 percent of all apartments built in the United States. [...]
Instead of starting from scratch on every project, he came up with the idea of “commoditizing” the process. He’d have a base product, like The Big House, that could be tweaked to fit in various markets throughout the country. It simplified things and kept costs down, giving Humphreys & Partners a competitive advantage.
— dmagazine.com
Although Steven Holl Architects' design for Copenhagen harbor's pedestrian bridge linking twin skyscrapers won the city's competition back in 2008 and has already been honored with a 2010 Progressive Architecture Award, the rather tight-lipped global economy delayed its construction. However, the... View full entry
But Bickels’s lasting legacy was more technical...For those who care about spaces — like Hultén, Piano and countless other international visitors over the decades — the combination of intimate, varied rooms and light sources make for a kind of ur-museum, not grand but perfectly executed. — NYT
James McAuley explains how Mishkan Le’Omanut (designed by Samuel Bickels) in Ein Harod, has inspired some of the 20th century’s most iconic buildings. Especially, with regards to the use of natural light within museum architecture. View full entry
By now, everyone is aware that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau comes from a solid political lineage and is relatively young, but what are his policies on architecture? During the election, The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) polled Trudeau's Liberal Party of Canada on its... View full entry
“History is not a simple meritocracy: it is a narrative of the past written and revised - or not written at all - by people with agendas.” - Despina Stratigakos, "Unforgetting Women Architects: From the Pritzker to Wikipedia", Places Journal, June 2013In 2007, in the nascent days of Wikipedia... View full entry
Swiss architect Christian Kerez, born 1962 in Maracaibo (Venezuela), will be responsible for creating the exhibition at the Swiss Pavilion for the 15th edition of the Architecture Biennale in Venice.
Kerez studied at ETH Zürich and has been teaching there as Professor of Architecture and Design since 2009.
— Pro Helvetia
Pro Helvetia, the Swiss arts council that has been responsible for the country's contributions to the Venice Biennale since 2012, announced the other day that Christian Kerez will create the exhibition for next year's Biennale. Kerez is best known for a commercial tower project in Zhengzhou... View full entry
Foster + Partners has won a competition to redesign the area around the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) headquarters in Cairo’s Maspero area, according to an announcement made yesterday by the Egyptian Ministry of State for Urban Renewal and Informal Settlements (MURIS).“On the... View full entry
“The thing about Thomas is that every project seems to come out of a completely different burst of imagination,” says media mogul Barry Diller [...] “Nothing looks similar—there’s no linkage. I think he’s the most creative, interesting architect—other than Frank Gehry, whom I adore—alive. They share a kind of genius for imagination in its purest form.” — wsj.com
The six other creatives that were – along with Heatherwick – awarded the title of WSJ. Magazine's 2015 Innovators of the Year are:Richard Serra (Art)Angelina Jolie Pitt (Entertainment/Film)Karl Ove Knausgaard (Literature)Miuccia Prada (Fashion)Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Slack... View full entry
Held at the Grand Hyatt from October 26 to 30, the conference theme was The Resurgence of the Skyscraper City. A series of case studies presented by leading visionaries in the industry showcased building technologies, new landmark developments around the world, and where the capital to finance these developments is coming from. — SkyriseCities
At a CTBUH conference held in New York City last month, well known architects including Daniel Libeskind, Bjarke Ingels, Moshe Safdie, Adrian Smith and Rafael Viñoly joined planners and developers to discuss the future of skyscraper design and construction around the world. Many of their... View full entry
Looking back at the Season 1 finale of Archinect Sessions this past summer — featuring Thom Mayne and Eui-Sung Yi, our listeners had the chance to win a copy of "Haiti Now". The book is a visual almanac of the "Haiti Now" project from the NOW Institute. Founded by Thom Mayne, the Now Institute... View full entry
Our new podcast, Archinect Sessions: One-to-One is an interview show, straight-up. Each episode features a single interview with a notable figure in contemporary architecture – it's that simple. Usually, One-to-One will be led by me or Paul Petrunia, while occasionally others will serve as... View full entry
Besides the thing itself, architecture concerns itself with two kinds of sign about it: iconic signs and symbols. Iconic signs resemble the thing itself. They are the plans and elevations and isometrics. The more symbolic architecture is that of language, the word, the logo and so forth. The postmodern turn shifted the emphasis from the iconic to the symbolic.
I think [Eyal] Weizman has created an architecture about a whole other kind of sign – the index.
— Public Seminar
"Indexical signs are traces of events: where there is smoke there is fire. The smoke does not resemble the fire. It is not an icon. Nor does it have a code like a symbolic sign system. Forensics is a matter of working backwards from the index to the event of which it is the sign, like in a... View full entry
