In the late 1950s, some of the world's most prominent architects gathered in Berkeley, California, to take part in a landmark psychological experiment on creativity and personality. Eero Saarinen, Philip Johnson, Richard Neutra, William Pereira and dozens of other architects were put through a... View full entry
No one benefits from continuing their seemingly unending litigation to protect a parking lot — Chicago Tribune
It's like these cities think that he's building a Death Star..... View full entry
A spec office is not how a superstar usually makes a debut. [...]
Ingels hasn't reinvented the form with 1200 Intrepid, but he does manage to inject it with an impressive level of pizzazz, imagination, and even refinement. [...]
The optical effects are mesmerizing. If you stand at the corner and look across the breadth of the facade, the front wall appears to be tumbling to the ground like a collapsing row of dominos. The curves are reminiscent of a Richard Serra sculpture.
— philly.com
Related on Archinect:Inside Bjarke Ingels' Serpentine Pavilion: "The work becomes a pure manifestation of that architect."Bjarke Ingels Group + AECOM join forces with Hyperloop"The first major architect who disconnected the profession completely from angst": Rem on BjarkeBIG unveils moat-encircled... View full entry
RIBA President Jane Duncan said:“The RIBA is a global organisation that supports its members, validates schools of architecture and champions the importance of a quality built environment around the world. UK architecture talent is incredibly resilient and we will continue to ensure that our... View full entry
All the progress we have made will now be put on hold and the government’s attention will be diverted while we try and work out how to deal with Brexit. - Rob Naybour, Weston Williamson + Partners
Today marks a historic turning point for the UK and European Union - the UK has voted to quit the EU. What lays ahead no one is really sure; Cameron has already resigned this morning and discussions for a second Scottish referendum have begun. The majority within the architecture industry... View full entry
What should a National Veterans Resource Complex look like, exactly? SHOP Architects has been given the official opportunity to find out, courtesy of Syracuse University. The early renderings for this project, which the school in a release is careful to note "are conceptual in nature and may not... View full entry
..We must expose rather than mask the institutional mechanisms driving uneven urban development. Such a revelation requires a corresponding expansion of our understanding of the scope of architecture itself—can we design human rights, for example? Can social justice become an architectural protocol? In other words, the most important materials with which architects must learn to work are not steel and concrete but critical knowledge of the underlying conditions that produce today’s urban crises. — Art Forum
The article makes reference to the controversy generated a few months ago over a competition to design Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's proposed border wall between the US and Mexico. The editors of Bustler, Archinect's sister site, decided not to host the competition due... View full entry
While pronounced ocular structural features are not unheard of (consider the exterior of DS+R's Broad Museum) Winy Maas, co-founder of MVRDV, is drawing attention to his firm's mirrored spherical auditorium sited in the almost complete 34,200 square meter Tianjin Library. “The Eye is the... View full entry
Saarinen’s work for the spy agency mostly involved designing models of buildings and weapons that had yet to be built. He even worked on designs for the original war room in the White House. And the people at OSS claimed that he was so good at his job that he could not be replaced. — Gizmodo
It's lucky for architecture that Eero Saarinen, who was known in the CIA as "Architectural Designer (Chief, Special Exhibits Division)" wasn't so successful at his work for the agency that he couldn't be replaced, although one wonders how much of that top secret work rubbed off on his later... View full entry
“It’s about architecture, but also about memory and history,” Adjaye says when we meet at the site on a cloudy afternoon in mid-May. “I got exactly what I wanted on the exterior, which was a dark, brooding, bronzelike building.” Before going inside, he points out what he calls the “oculus,” a circular raised platform at the west entrance through whose glass windows you can see the room below. “We found out that this spot was once a slave market, right on the Mall,” he says. — Vogue
“The oculus is like a slave pedestal, levitated off the ground. I’ve tried to make every decision here have some history.”For more on the British-Ghanaian architect, check out past Archinect coverage:David Adjaye is releasing a vinyl record with his brother"Quintessential... View full entry
Brookfield is to build a new 700,000 ft2, 37-storey tower in the City of London - and work could begin as early as 2018.
Designed by architect Make the plans for the proposed office tower at 1 Leadenhall feature a 9,600 ft2 public terrace with winter garden overlooking the historic Leadenhall Market.
The tower will provide 538,000 ft2 of office space plus 51,500 ft2 of retail space on the first three floors.
— building.co.uk
Read more UK news:A look around the new Tate Modern extensionHow elevators could fix the affordable housing crisisWith EU Referendum fast approaching, Rem Koolhaas speaks out against 'Brexit'"So much more than an engineer": Ove Arup gets his first museum retrospective View full entry
The Iraqi postal service has issued new postage stamps honoring two of the country's beloved architects: Zaha Hadid, who died in March, and Mohamed Makiya, who died last year at the age of 101.
Hadid and Makiya both changed the perception of architecture in the Arab world and introduced some of the aesthetics of Arabic-inspired architecture in projects around the world.
— albawaba.com
A small selection of Archinect news posts covering ZHA's winning/not winning Tokyo Olympic Stadium bid: Zaha's Tokyo Olympic Stadium cancelled – Abe calls for a redesign from scratchTokyo Olympics refusing to pay Zaha Hadid for work on the national stadiumZaha Hadid issues disappointed statement... View full entry
River LA is less interested in giving a clear picture of what Gehry’s plan eventually may include than in tamping down charges that it has been born of secrecy — and worries that it may operate as a Trojan horse, a kind of high-design architectural cover, for rampant real-estate speculation [...]
A central goal of this master plan... will be to strike an effective balance between maintaining flood-control measures while opening up the river to new kinds of public access.
The two designers from Gehry's office leading research on the River's masterplan, Tensho Takemori and Anand Devarajan, emphasize that the approach now is about learning, not designing: “This is just meant to be information,” said Takemori. “There’s no designs, no proposals or anything... View full entry
Architecture writer and historian Hugh Howard has written many books on American architecture, telling stories that meld design and cultural history together in highly accessible and humanistic ways.His latest book, Architecture's Odd Couple: Frank Lloyd Wright and Philip Johnson, tracks the... View full entry
The original Tate Modern redevelopment was started in 1995 and since opening in 2000 has become the most popular gallery in the world. It made sense then for Herzog and De Meuron to return and finish the job. Their architectural evolution and legacy is now embedded in the London skyline, as is... View full entry