“I give it two years, max [...] It will be US business interests that finally push congress into lifting the embargo – they’re all going crazy being shut out of this market.” American architects and developers are already queuing up to be first in line, ready to pounce on investment opportunities when the embargo drops. Frank Gehry sailed into Havana in December, aboard a streamlined yacht he designed for himself, here to “offer his expertise to Cuba” according to a government statement. — theguardian.com

Gone is the “Art Bay,” with a glass garage-like door that would have allowed visitors to enter galleries straight from the street.

Gone, too, is the fourth-floor “Gray Box,” with acoustic absorption panels through which passers-by could have peered up at performance art in progress.

And there will be no new public entrance to the sculpture garden on 54th Street.

The Museum of Modern Art has eliminated these polarizing elements of its sweeping redesign, museum officials said on Tuesday... — the New York Times

The biggest names impacting New York’s skyline come together to discuss the projects that now epitomize the city, the ever-evolving real estate market and what’s next for New York’s neighborhoods. — 92Y

To understand how strange this pairing of client and architect is, you have to contemplate two things: the deeply embedded social progressivism that has become the standard worldview of international architectural firms such as BIG; and organizations such as the NFL, a private club for 1 percenters that bullies municipalities and treats its own players’ health with indifference. Can this marriage last? Is BIG motivated by naivete or cynicism? — The Washington Post

Why build a straightforward bridge for an unremarkable sum when the same bridge could be built as a circle for vast amounts of money?

A new bridge spanning (or circumnavigating) Laguna Garzón, a coastal lagoon in southeastern Uruguay, poses just that question. [...] At a glance, it’s the sort of ridiculousness that you might expect of a bridge in London.

In fact, there’s a perfectly good functional explanation for it. — citylab.com

Derek Sugden, the dean of acoustic engineers, who has died at the age of 91, remained perpetually surprised that architects could be so concerned with every aspect of the building they were designing ‘but not really with what it sounded like’. According to Sugden, ‘the sound is as important as the surface and the feel. It’s important because our ears define for me the nature of space.’ — London Review of Books

Scott Merrill, an architect known for his originality and creative application of architectural precedents, has been named the recipient of the 2016 Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame. Merrill, the 14th Driehaus Prize laureate, will be awarded the $200,000 prize and a bronze miniature of the Choregic Monument of Lysikrates during a ceremony on March 19 (Saturday) in Chicago. — University of Notre Dame School of Architecture

“In the design, I would like to say there are no similarities at all,” Kuma told reporters when asked about Hadid’s claims. [...]

“The conditions set for the competition mean that automatically some similarities emerge ... the concept is completely different, so it is absolutely a different building, despite the similarities”. [...]

Hadid’s office is reportedly consulting lawyers, and said it would “take legal action if our concerns are not promptly addressed to our satisfaction”. — theguardian.com

Congratulations are due to Olafur Eliasson who's just been given a Crystal Award for his "exemplary commitment to improving the state of the world". 

Ahead of the World Economic Forum, which takes place later this week in Davos, Eliasson was singled out for particular praise major works including The New York City Waterfalls, Ice Watch, The Weather Project, and Riverbed. — phaidon.com

For 45 years, Iran's most famous modern monument, the Azadi (Freedom) Tower in Tehran, has been the backdrop to every major news story coming out of the country...Hossein Amanat was a rising star in Iran's architectural scene when, in 1966, he won a national competition to design the monument...Its historical pull, he believes, lies in the tower's evolution as a 'symbol of Iran'...that is both intensely Iranian and Islamic at the same time. — BBC

The organisers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games are refusing to pay a British architect for her designs for its main stadium unless she gives up the copyright and signs what amounts to a gagging order, it has been claimed.

Zaha Hadid Architects, which won the original contract to build a state-of-the-art national stadium in the Japanese capital, has reacted angrily to the attempt by the Japan Sports Council to effectively seize ownership of the copyrighted designs. — the Telegraph