Tim Maly reviewed Google Engineering's new London offices designed by PENSON., which he finds to be a "giddy exercise in science fiction set decoration". Eric Chavkin, commented "The Kubrick set design allusion is to his long time collaborator Ken Adams (Dr. Strangelove, etc)...Adams declined to work on 2001but his influence here is clear. The interior design references watered down NASA enlivened with 60's disco sci-fi camp. This has all the warmth of a sperm-donor clinic."
For Archinect’s latest In Focus feature we talked to Australian photo artist Ward Roberts. He noted that a lot of his own work "is photographed in Hong Kong as the colors and repletion in architecture has always fascinated me." Also, Sherin Wing dissected the reasons why there are... View full entry
We were able to meet the Grimms’ strict design requirements by employing a slender tower design of vertical cylindrical stems that are joined by intermittent outrigger beams with a reinforced space at the very top for Rapunzel’s long captivity. — Places Journal
This week, Places has a holiday series on fairy tale architecture. Participating firms — Bernheimer Architecture, Leven Betts, and Guy Nordenson and Associates — have selected favorite tales and produced works exploring the intimate relationship between the domestic structures of... View full entry
Doug Garofalo, who died at age 52 in July, five years after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, belonged to a new generation of architects who injected fresh energy into Chicago’s architectural scene. — featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com
Koolhaas, who once proposed his own unrealized plans for the Secretariat building decades ago, will be joining 3-D designer Hella Jongerius, graphic designer Irma Boom, and artist Gabriel Lester on a team selected by the Dutch government to redesign the North Delegates' Lounge, an informal meeting space where major policymakers and representatives go for a drink at the end of the day. — artinfo.com
Mr. Summers “was Mies’s absolute right-hand man, always,” said Phyllis Lambert...
Asked in 1987 why he and Mies got along so well, Mr. Summers speculated that, as a Texan, he talked so slowly that Mies, a German émigré with halting English, could understand him.
— nytimes.com
RIP Gene Summers, 'modernist', architect of McCormick Place, and Mies' lieutenant for the Seagrams Building has died. Oh, he turned down pursuing the design of the WTC and was dean of IIT among other storied accomplishments. Previously: Chicago architect Gene Summers dies also: LAtimes View full entry
Renowned architect Rem Koolhaas is viewed as one of the most important theoreticians of his trade. In an interview with SPIEGEL, he discusses soulless cities, the failings of Europe's largest urban redevelopment project in Hamburg and the problems with SPIEGEL's brand-new headquarters. — spiegel.de
Snøhetta has released a virtual tour exploring their proposed expansion/redesign for SFMOMA. SUVERK noted that he spends a lot of time walking through that hood and argues "the new Snohetta design is very stealthy...The surrounding towers St. Regis(SOM) and the W Hotel(Hornberger and Worstell) dominate the skyline to the point that one would not right away notice the SFMOMA expansion- (which is the same size as Botta's).- It will sneak up on you and then you will be curious -WTF is that?
Archinect’s most recent ShowCase feature highlights VLP Chapel in Grand-Bigard, by tcct, a firm based in Bruges, Belgium. News Portuguese collective DOSE sent us images and a fascinating time-lapse video of their project BLUETUBE BAR, a temporary bar to operate at the annual... View full entry
Esther McCoy is having a moment. The architecture critic and historian, who died in 1989 at age 85, is the subject of a smart Pacific Standard Time exhibition at the Schindler House in West Hollywood, building on McCoy's deep connections with Rudolph Schindler himself. The show is accompanied by a Getty-funded catalog, and early next year East of Borneo Press will publish "Piecing Together Los Angeles," an anthology of McCoy's essays on architecture. — Christopher Hawthorne, latimes.com
As Cube would say, "today was a good day". Not only does Oscar Niemeyer turn an astounding 104 years old today, but the late/great Ray Eames was also born 99 years ago today. Somebody get my credit card, I need to buy some candles. View full entry
A certain flintiness, an inability to keep from commenting on the settings of movies, sensitivity to bright lights and impatience with the ordinary are common side-effects of architecture education and practice. These quirks can mean real headaches for those who, already under the pressure of finding good and appropriate gifts for normal people, are met with the challenge of finding a good gift for an architect... — mattersoftaste.wordpress.com
The man who was awarded the 1988 Pritzker Prize continues to devote his afternoons to working on new projects, including a theatre with a capacity for 2 500 people on Flamengo Park, near Rio's Sugarloaf Mountain.
"I came up with a solution that is capable of prompting surprise and attracting the public: a magnificent dome which would be built before the Sugarloaf Mountain," he recently wrote.
— timeslive.co.za
A fusion of traditional Islamic architecture and modern sustainable design, Gaza’s new green schools will cost the same to build as their less-sustainable counterparts. — Green Prophet
The UNRWA is partnering with architect Mario Cucinella to build up to 20 “zero impact” schools in the Gaza Strip. The schools will include room for 800 students and will rely completely on renewable energy sources. Specifically, solar panels will be strategically placed and geothermal... View full entry
Having been given a prized collection of contemporary American art earlier this year, Stanford University on Wednesday announced plans for a new $30.5-million museum to house it.
New York-based Ennead Architects will design a 30,000-square-foot building devoted to the Anderson Collection –- 121 works by 86 artists collected by a Bay Area family...
— latimesblogs.latimes.com
American architect Michael Graves has been named the recipient of the 2012 Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame. Winner of the university's 2012 Henry Hope Reed Award is writer and landscape preservationist Elizabeth Barlow Rogers. — bustler.net
Artists and designer Michael Jantzen has shared with us his latest utopian pavilion concept, The Transmutation Pavilion. Read more about Jantzen in his insightful 2009 interview with Archinect writer Katya Tylevich. Project Description: The Transmutation Pavilion is a design proposal for a large... View full entry