[...] British architect Sir David Chipperfield has said that he regards private investment’s hold over new architecture in London as an “absolutely terrible” means of building a city.

In Berlin, where he employs an office of 90, “there is still an idea of the public realm. We have given that up in London. We have declared the public realm dead; the question is how to get stuff out of the private sector. We are unbelievably sophisticated at that.” — theguardian.com

Back in 2008, architect Santiago Calatrava placed an $11.34M lien on the Chicago Spire in the hope of being paid for his work on the project, which officially died in November, having never amounted to anything more than a hole in the ground. Now, Crain's Chicago reports that Calatrava may have missed the two-year window he had to file a lawsuit to enforce his claim. — curbed.com

Bridging the aspirations of developers and the firm’s architects, Mr. Katz negotiated into existence some of the tallest mixed-use buildings in the world, among them the Shanghai World Financial Center and the International Commerce Centre in HK.

His other projects for KPF included Roppongi Hills, a huge complex in Tokyo encompassing an office tower, apartments, shops and restaurants, movie theaters, a museum, a hotel, a television studio, parks and an outdoor amphitheater. — nytimes.com

A modern masterpiece of glass and redwood, the home of architect Ray Kappe is often referenced as one of the greatest residences in Southern California, looks much the same today as it did a half-century ago—a contemporary extension of the early SoCal glass-house tradition, begun decades earlier by architects like Rudolph Schindler, Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, and Harwell Hamilton Harris.​ — nowness

Landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson of Seattle-based Gustafson Guthrie Nichol and London's Gustafson Porter recently received the eighth annual Obayashi Prize in Tokyo. Established by the Obayashi Foundation, the prize is awarded to a recipient whose work is in tune with the Foundation's mission of supporting interdisciplinary design research in relation to cities and urbanism. — bustler.net

The rhetoric of smart cities would be more persuasive if the environment that the technology companies create was actually a compelling one that offered models for what the city can be. But if you look at Silicon Valley you see that the greatest innovators in the digital field have created a bland suburban environment that is becoming increasingly exclusive — European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda for Europe

Renzo Piano Building Workshop will be the design architect for the new corporate headquarters of Midwest convenience retailer chain Kum & Go. The 120,000 sq.foot building will be located at the Pappajohn Sculpture Park in downtown Des Moines, Iowa.
After competing teams submitted written proposals, six finalists were interviewed last month before RPBW won the project. In the next few months, a local architect and general contractor will be chosen as the design process begins. — bustler.net

The Whitney Museum of American Art announced today that it will open its new home in Chelsea on 1 May 2015. With double the exhibition space of its "old" Marcel Breuer-designed building, the museum will be able to show far more of its collection of Modern and contemporary American art in its Renzo Piano-designed new space in the Meatpacking District. [...]

Weinberg told us that Piano saved the institution from making one decision that it would have lived to regret. — theartnewspaper.com

The great limestone slabs of Valletta's modern entrance give out on to two broad new monumental stairways leading up to the ancient fortifications....This is certainly statement architecture - and that is exactly what former prime minister, and driving force behind the project, Lawrence Gonzi intended. — BBC News

Amid politically charged scenes, Paris city council has narrowly rejected a plan to build the historic city's first skyscraper since a height restriction was imposed in the 1970s.

But Mayor Anne Hidalgo said [...] she would fight the Triangle tower vote. [...]

The architects, Herzog and de Meuron, proposed to build the 180m (590ft) tower in the south-west Porte de Versailles area of the city, after then-Mayor Bertrand Delanoe proposed an end to the 37m limit in parts of the capital. — bbc.com

How did we come to live in an insular tribal sphere where unwritten rules and rigid moralities — about whom to like and dislike, what is permissible to say and what must remain unsaid — are strictly enforced via social media and online disapproval, much of it anonymous? When did this band of gypsies and relentless radicals get so conservative? — vulture

“I am excited by being an architect now,” she says. “We are in a world where ideas are shared and migrate. There is no going back, so let’s go beyond. Let’s look at what really are the differences between, for example, two housing projects that both have curved balconies. Architecture makes a difference. Let’s discuss what difference it makes.” — theguardian.com