Look out—not up—because there’s a new low-rise Rafael Vinoly-designed building coming our way. The architect mastermind behind the city’s tallest residential tower, 432 Park Avenue, has just been chosen to to design a comparatively demure ten-story office-and-retail building in the Meatpacking District, reports The Real Deal. The new addition is being developed by Vornado Realty Trust and Aurora Capital Associates and is located on the former site of Prince Lumber at 61 Ninth Avenue. — 6sqft.com

In response to a freedom of information request I filed with the FBI in June of 2014, the agency has finally released 44 heavily redacted pages. Why would the FBI have a file on Bucky Fuller? Well, for one thing, he was a counterculture icon with unconventional ideas about resource allocation, environmental conservation, and globalization. And as we know, the FBI has historically been rather uncomfortable with counterculture icons. — paleofuture.gizmodo.com

Gehry becomes the first designer or artist to win the award that the Getty launched in 2013. The prize – a bronze medal with a profile portrait of J. Paul Getty – recognizes lifetime contributions in various art-related fields that are part of the Getty’s mission, including philanthropy, art-history research, archeology and conservation of art and architecture, as well as art-making. — The Los Angeles Times

The interior of the Four Seasons restaurant, a vision of Modernist elegance with its French walnut paneling and white marble pool of bubbling water, should not be changed, New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission decided [...].
The decision was a setback to Aby J. Rosen, the owner of the Seagram Building, which is home to the restaurant. Mr. Rosen had proposed what he characterized as minor changes to the interior that was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson in 1958. — nytimes.com

The daughter of the man who was awarded what is considered the most prestigious prize in architecture said her late father was increasingly concerned society was not adequately confronting the looming ecological challenges.

Frei Otto, a German, was named as the winner of the 2015 Pritzker Architecture Prize earlier this year, just days before his death...

The award was received by...the architect’s daughter who...said he had been worried that the concerns he tried to voice were not heard. — independent.co.uk

Thomas V. Vonier, FAIA, from AIA Continental Europe, was elected 2016 AIA First Vice President/2017 President at AIA Convention 2015 in Atlanta. [...]

"Our profession must have unity of purpose and enlarge its constituency. This new era demands fresh ideas and new approaches. We have begun to set new directions for AIA, putting members and components first. We are on a new course." — aia.org

Those images, wrought by a wicked mash-up of the hand, the eye, and the mouse, defy any effort to reverse-engineer their creation. Dot for dot and pixel for pixel they proclaim their origin as documentary evidence. Yet by their implausible point of view, their visceral texture, and their mini-Wagnerian scale, they are more painterly than Maya-ish, far more lavish than Rhino. — archpaper

In the U.S., he isn’t getting asked to compete for new projects at all, he said, amid criticism of the rail project’s delays and costs. [...]

These overruns and years of delay have taken a toll on Mr. Calatrava’s reputation, with local press and some observers painting him as an architect prone to overruns—a point he believes is quite unfair.

“It has not been easy for me,” he said. After living in the city for 12 years and feeling pride in the city, “I have been treated like a dog.” — wsj.com

Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas talks to SPIEGEL about the new Fondazione Prada museum he designed in Milan, the danger of turning cities into historical Disneylands and his desire to raze an entire neighborhood of Paris. [...]

Koolhaas: Before the 1980s, the decisions were made by cities. Since then power has shifted toward private investors. Nothing good has come of this for Holland. [...] I regret that cities no longer have money to even pursue a vision of their ongoing development. — spiegel.de

Chilean architects have begun to exert an influence well beyond the size and scale of their string-bean nation. [...]

“There are enough people working here in a way that shifts the art,” explains Aravena, sitting in the middle of his firm’s buzzing Santiago offices. “There is healthy competition and there is critical mass. When you have a critical mass, you are not alone in trying to push boundaries.”

The result: remarkable buildings all over Chile. — latimes.com

The Pritzker Architecture Prize, undoubtedly the most prestigious architecture award in the world, is having its ceremony in Miami this week. [...]

Otto often questioned how his work could benefit mankind. When speaking with Icon magazine in 2005, he was critical of grandiose structures such as Buckminster Fuller’s vision of an enormous dome over Manhattan, asking to himself: “What does society really need?” — miamiherald.com

The Members' Council of the BNA has elected Nathalie de Vries of MVRDV as the new chair of its board. Nathalie de Vries will take over the position on July 1st from Willem Hein Schenk, architect and partner of architecture firm De Zwarte Hond, which he has held since 2011. — mvrdv.nl

In the 1990s, Frank Gehry pioneered... “smart” digital design in architecture, by using software to optimize designs and translate them directly into a process of fabrication and construction.

Now known in the industry as parametric design and building information modeling, this approach has ushered in a new era of architecture, according to art historian Irene Nero: the era of “technological construction” [...]

How did an architect who doesn’t use computers start a technology company? — Priceonomics