Winners of the 15th annual BERKELEY PRIZE competition have been announced. The 2013 prize program focuses on the topic: 'The Architect and the Accessible City.' 152 architecture students from 26 countries responded to this year’s question: "Provide us with an overview of what is being done in your city to make it accessible to people who have physical disabilities. In your opinion as an architect, what more can be done?" — bustler.net
An almost uncomfortable but intensely fascinating account of how some of the best architects in the world, design giants like Jean Nouvel or Frank Gehry, toil, struggle and strategize to beat the competition. — vimeo.com
The film is scheduled for release in late 2013. View full entry
How should we live together? is the central question of this 18th issue of MONU on the topic of "Communal Urbanism", focusing on contemporary communal living in cities.
(Bernd Upmeyer, Editor-in-Chief, April 2013)
— MONU
How should we live together? is the central question of this 18th issue of MONU on the topic of "Communal Urbanism", focusing on contemporary communal living in cities. According to Martin Abbott's contribution "Learning to Live Together", this is a question often discussed among the housemates... View full entry
The LA Times reported that Renzo Piano, Los Angeles architect Zoltan Pali and officials from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled preliminary designs for a $300-million film museum. Eric Chavkin concluded "A toy chest of architectures related only by location. From the Bruce Goff Japanese Pavilion to the black box Mies bookstore to Hugh Hardy's disco streamlined moderne to Luckmans sorry start. Renzo Piano's 'back-to-the-future cinema spheres just continues the trajectory"
In an essay titled UNEXPECTED COSTS ~ Big ticket design software versus alternate methodologies, Ann Lui a designer and freelance writer reflected on the fact that "Not twenty years ago, if you wanted to start your own firm, you could do so on a Mayline drafting board in your basement...Today, my... View full entry
The American Academy of Arts and Letters has announced the recipients of its 2013 architecture awards. Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza was awarded the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture in recognition of significant contributions to architecture as an art. American architects Teddy Cruz, Thomas Phifer, Barry Bergdoll, and Sanford Kwinter each won the academy's Arts and Letters Awards in Architecture. — bustler.net
In its 100 list, Time describes Wang, 49, as "the rare architect who has successfully blended China's quest for novel and eye-catching architecture with respect for traditional aesthetics." — latimes.com
The Architectural League calls on the Museum of Modern Art to reconsider its decision to demolish the American Folk Art Museum. The Museum of Modern Art—the first museum with a permanent curatorial department of architecture and design—should provide more information about why it... View full entry
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Rick Mather on Saturday 20 April 2013 after a short illness. — rickmather.com
Among civic leaders here there is a strong sense that Poland will never fully recover from its 20th-century traumas until it recognizes its Jewish past, and the museum is seen as a major step. “Jewish memory is becoming part of Polish memory,” the chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich — NYT
Recently at the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Poland’s chief rabbi unveiled an unusual sculpture. Nicholas Kulish, later interviewed Rabbi Schudrich about the meaning and importance of the museum's existence. Reflecting on the building (designed by Finnish... View full entry
The American Academy in Rome yesterday announced the winners of the 117th annual Rome Prize Competition. Winners of the prestigious prize are provided with a fellowship that includes a stipend, a study or studio, and room and board for a period of six months to two years in Rome. — bustler.net
Among many other fields, these are the two 2013-14 Rome Prize winners in the field of Architecture: Thomas Kelley (James R. Lamantia, Jr. Rome Prize) Visiting Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, University of Illinois at Chicago Partner, Norman Kelley, LLC, Chicago, IL and New York... View full entry
Over the last week, the architectural community has been all aflutter over the fate of the former American Folk Museum Building. A 12-year-old building that was opened just after 9/11, MoMA snatched it up for $23 million in 2011 and is planning to raze its critically acclaimed sculptural bronze facade. It's inevitable, the modern art juggernaut shrugs, because the floors of the adjacent buildings, plus the rest of MoMA uses lots of glass as its primary material rather than metal. — ny.curbed.com
Over the last week, the architectural community has been all aflutter—and, okay, intensely divided—over the fate of the former American Folk Museum Building. A 12-year-old building that was opened just after 9/11 at 45 West 53rd Street, MoMA snatched it up for $23 million in 2011 and... View full entry
Come to think of it, however, here’s another idea for the folk-art-museum building: maybe it should be used to display a small selection of MoMA’s extraordinary collection, so that people can experience some of its great works in a small-scaled space and have a tiny hint of the intimate, enticing museum that MoMA once was. — vanityfair.com
Come to think of it, however, here’s another idea for the folk-art-museum building: maybe it should be used to display a small selection of MoMA’s extraordinary collection, so that people can experience some of its great works in a small-scaled space and have a tiny hint of the... View full entry
Robert A. M. Stern, the dean of Yale’s Architecture School, said he declined to sign the petition because he objected to its use of the word “demand,” but that he backed it in principle. “It would be wonderful for the Pritzker committee to review the situation and to offer her the prize,” Mr. Stern said. “The nature of the collaboration was so intense on every level.” — nytimes.com
A dozen years after Calatrava built the spectacular Ysios winery in the rainy Alava region of northern Spain, the building's dramatic, undulating roof continues to let in the damp.
Now Domecq, the owner of the winery, has said it is fed up with the botched attempts of Calatrava's original builders at fixing the roof and wants money from them so that it can bring in fresh architects and engineers to design a new one.
— guardian.co.uk
Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, the architect who led many of Mexico’s landmark Modernist construction projects of the mid-20th century, including museums, the country’s largest sports stadium and the shrine that attracts its most important religious pilgrimage, died on Tuesday, his 94th birthday, in Mexico City. — nytimes.com
