Chicago architect Gene Summers, the former dean of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the chief designer of the muscular McCormick Place convention hall, died Monday. Summers also served as a right-hand man for Mies van der Rohe, working on such significant projects as the Seagram Building in New York. — featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com
The new Rush hospital is already a major success as a work of architecture and urban design. It reminds us that a hospital needs to be designed for two sets of clients: Those who use it and those who simply pass by. The best-designed hospitals heal scars in the cityscape as well as patients. We'll know next year if the new Rush does both. — Blair Kamin
We brought together five you firms of note - architects who've turned formative experiences with leading architecture practices into promising studios - together at the V&A+RIBA Architecture Gallery in London, asking them to reveal how they got started. — wallpaper.com
The Royal Institute of British Architects named internationally acclaimed Dutch architect Herman Hertzberger as the recipient of the 2012 Royal Gold Medal. Aaron Lim griped "@Orhan, I completely agree. A lifetime's work of innovative social ideas remains largely unrecognized by the architectural establishment today: his work remains fresh after all these years."
In the latest installment of Archinect’s Contours feature EDD DE 1101 I - Part 2, Guy Horton claims "Unemployment is one of the worst things that can happen to you in a society that places so much emphasis on career and financial advancement. The unemployed are so stigmatized in our... View full entry
A real media storm has started and we receive threatening emails and calls of angry people calling us Al Qaeda lovers or worse.
MVRDV regrets deeply any connotations The Cloud projects evokes regarding 9/11, it was not our intention.
— MVRDV, facebook.com
The Cloud was designed based on parameters such as sunlight, outside spaces, living quality for inhabitants and the city. It is one of many projects in which MVRDV experiments with a raised city level to reinvent the often solitary typology of the skyscraper. It was not our intention to create an... View full entry
The Board of Directors of The American Institute of Architects (AIA) voted yesterday to award the 2012 AIA Gold Medal, considered to be the profession's highest honor that an individual can receive, to Steven Holl, FAIA. [...] The 2012 AIA Architecture Firm Award, the highest honor the AIA bestows on an architecture firm, went to VJAA, the Minneapolis-based firm, noted for its consistently rigorous approach to research-driven form-making. — bustler.net
The 2012 recipient of the Whitney M. Young Jr. Award is Mortimer Marshall, Jr., FAIA, and the AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education was given to Canadian architect George Baird, Intl. Assoc. AIA. View full entry
It was a year without theme or focus, haunted by financial and political anxieties, but culturally diffuse. Which is to say, a year like most others in this age of no discernible isms or movements, no dominant ideologies, no marching to a single manifesto. — washingtonpost.com
It was, on the whole, a quiet year for architecture, the lack of widespread construction activity reflecting the lingering impact of the 2008 financial crisis. But there were still new buildings to celebrate, along with rare victories for historic preservationists and an even rarer accolade for Chicago architect Jeanne Gang. — featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com
A-cero's villas, which seem to combine the geometric flow of early Le Corbusier with the textural flourish of his later work, also demonstrate a keen eye for the simple grandeur of expensive materials, like stone, that characterizes the early work of Mies van der Rohe. — online.wsj.com
Rafael Llamazares and Mr. Torres (right) View full entry
The Recording Academy has announced its selection of world-famous architect and multitalented artist Frank Gehry to create the official artwork for the 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards. The work integrates traditional GRAMMY iconography with Gehry's unique architectural style in a piece that mirrors The Recording Academy's commitment to celebrating excellence and diversity in art and culture year-round. — grammy.com
It will be used as the official artwork for the world's premier music event and will grace the cover of the GRAMMY Awards program book, telecast tickets and promotional poster. "We are thrilled to announce our collaboration with world-renowned architect Frank Gehry on our official artwork for the... View full entry
As we approach the end of 2011, more and more attention will be applied towards answering the profound question: why is this year different than any other year (or why was it the same)? To facilitate this scrutiny, I've called upon Architecture Research Office (ARO) and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN), the recently announced Architecture Design and Landscape Architecture winners, respectively, of Cooper Hewitt's National Design Awards. — huffingtonpost.com
Architects, your lesson is simple: you have nothing to lose. But don’t expect to gain much on the royalty end unless you’re a one-in-a-million talent or a household name. In any case, get as big an up-front payment as you can for your ideas. — smartplanet.com
In the late ’80s, before he became famous as a member of the Compton, Calif., gangsta-rap group N.W.A., Ice Cube studied architectural drafting at a trade school in Arizona. This biographical detail makes the rapper’s appearance in a new video celebrating midcentury design icons Charles and Ray Eames only slightly less incongruous. — NYT
Related View full entry
United States Artists has honored the USA Fellows for 2011 at a festive event earlier this week in Santa Monica, CA. Fellowship grants of $50,000 each were awarded to fifty outstanding performing, visual, media, and literary artists or artist teams. USA Fellowships are presented annually in the disciplines Architecture & Design, Crafts & Traditional Arts, Dance, Literature, Media, Music, Theater Arts, and Visual Arts. — bustler.net
The five fellows in the Architecture & Design category are Ada Tolla & Giuseppe Lignano, Elena Manferdini , J. Morgan Puett, Jenny E. Sabin, and Mabel O. Wilson. View full entry
Gov. Jerry Brown has appointed a Los Angeles architect and former president of the American Institute of Architects to be state architect, the governor's office announced this afternoon.
Chester "Chet" Widom, 71, was a partner at the firm Widom Wein Cohen O'Leary Terasawa from 1964 to 2008 and advised the Los Angeles Community College District on construction projects from 2009 to 2011.
— blogs.sacbee.com