A few blocks east of Detroit’s downtown, just across Interstate 375, sits Lafayette Park, an enclave of single- and two-story modernist townhouses set amid a forest of locust trees. Like hundreds of developments nationwide, they were the result of postwar urban renewal; unlike almost all of them, it had a trio of world-class designers behind it: Ludwig Hilbersheimer as urban planner, Alfred Caldwell as landscape designer and Mies van der Rohe as architect. — opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
Internationally acclaimed architect Farshid Moussavi announced today (3 June 2011) the opening of her new practice, Farshid Moussavi Architecture (FMA). Moussavi has founded her new firm as an international practice based in London. FMA is currently working on a number of prestigious commissions... View full entry
On an old thread about saving a series of Walter Gropius buildings from the chopping block in Chicago, trendzetter notifies us that Northwestern University is gearing up to tear down the old Prentice Women's Hospital, designed by Bertrand Goldberg.
News Orhan Ayyüce presented ARCHITECTURE JURY, A Factual and Fictional Manual. In it Orhan subjectively stereotypes "the people who sit in front of the presentations and say 'wise' things about student projects. I hope this will help spectators and students to put a person... View full entry
"It's more about listening to people and hearing what they say is important," Gang said...
"And it's also to say, 'Hey, this is a new day because we are starting this again.' It's not going to be the same building that you saw before that looked like it could be anywhere, Atlanta or wherever," she said.
— Kentucky.com
A block on which several historic buildings were razed for a project that then never happened (with accompanying scandal) has a new opportunity for something special. Gang's plan gets high marks from local critics for her interaction with the community, the attention to the existing urban... View full entry
"It might have been easier to completely rebuild it," Rogers tells me. "It was a very weak structure with very thin walls. We had to shore the facade, then almost completely rebuild it inside. But the thing they insisted on, and I think they were proven right, was keeping the circular form, the historic form. It's not just a building – it's a piece of Barcelona." — Guardian
Steve Rose reviews Las Arenas, Barcelona's former bullring and its newest shopping mall completed in March by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. He finds that the people of Barcelona are now flocking back to this once cherished second bullring. View full entry
Referring to Tom Pritzker, Obama said, "Now, as Tom mentioned, my interest in architecture goes way back. There was a time when I thought I could be an architect, where I expected to be more creative than I turned out, so I had to go into politics instead." — blogs.suntimes.com
My ideal workspace is wherever I am when a thought or an image comes to mind and I can sit with my sketchbook. I have always carried a notebook with me, for at least thirty years. This hand to paper, mediated by my fountain pen or RoTo pencils, switches on my mind and focuses my attention. As I draw or write, all of my senses become more acute—apprehending everything around me more clearly and precisely.
A paradox, but true.
— Lifework - Herman Miller
In San Francisco, you feel like you’re always leaving and going, you go up and down, up and down. You’re always provided with a new view of the city. So we felt we could use that idea to allow people to experience the museum and the city in different ways. We’re creating a lot of variation within the design. So even though the building is relatively compact, you’ll always be able to step into a space and look down or across or up into another space. — Simon Ewings, via fastcodesign.com
Archinect's Building of the Day series is brought to you by our friends at OpenBuildings.com, the web's most comprehensive directory of buildings. During the summer of 2011 (May 28 - Aug 28), de KAdE in Amersfoort will host an extensive overview of the work of Solid Objectives &ndash... View full entry
Whether or not the Whitney was wise to migrate, the design suggests that it has misperceived its future neighborhood, a formerly run-down area where mottled brick, painted iron, and salvaged wood are still pleasingly rough. The district’s architecture of the past decade has put a sophisticated gloss on this neighborhood’s industrial past. — New York
In a essay entitled An Out-of-Tune Piano, Justin Davidson argues that the plans for the Renzo Piano designed, new downtown Whitney is a monumental lost opportunity. He believes that the current proposed design is too uptight and does not fit the spirit of the neighborhood. Davidson... View full entry
Steven Holl Architects in collaboration with BCWH Architects has won the commission for the new Institute for Contemporary Art for Virginia Commonwealth University. The building will create a new forum for the arts on campus and forge new connections to the arts community of the region. — stevenholl.com
The new visitor center is the first park project to be completed as part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Design and Construction Excellence Initiative. By making it easier to get talented architects on the job, the program aims at bringing good design to even the humblest city-funded projects. The Poe Center was designed by Toshiko Mori, an award-winning architect and a former chairman of the department of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. — online.wsj.com
Archinect's Building of the Day series is brought to you by our friends at OpenBuildings.com, the web's most comprehensive directory of buildings. The nursing home in Alcácer do Sal, Portugal, designed by Aires Mateus Arquitectos, aggregates into a unique volume and harmoniously... View full entry
We typically start with a hypothesis about how a particular material could be used to make structure, space, and atmosphere. We then do a lot of research and testing of the material to determine its potential and economic feasibility. Once we believe we can successfully work with the material, we try to get a sense of how a space constructed from it might feel and what it might signify in a particular form. — dossierjournal.com
Dossier Journal interviews Ball-Nogues. View full entry
Just six months after the death of its longtime director, Peter C. Marzio, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has chosen three architects to submit designs for the new building he envisioned and hired a firm to search for his successor. Selected from an international list of 10 candidates, the firms are Morphosis, Snøhetta and Steven Holl Architects. Each will develop a concept for a building to house post-1900 art as well as a parking garage. — chron.com