I saw him a week ago [Tuesday], and he was sitting at his desk going through some of the thousands of letters and notes that people have sent to him wishing him well. He just had this incredible spirit about him, this attitude that everything was going to be all right. He was amazing.” — Artinfo
Massimo Vignelli, the award-winning designer whose influential signature minimalist style balanced architecture and graphic design in the later half of the 20th century, has died at the age of 83 after a long-term illness. Born in Milan on Jan. 10, 1931 and inspired by Mies van der Rohe and Le... View full entry
For the latest edition of The Deans List, Archinect spoke with Chris Knapp, Discipline Leader of Bond University's Abedian School of Architecture in Queensland, Australia.Therein he argues "Investigating things materially is something very, very important for us, and engendered in the philosophy... View full entry
Last week, the Van Alen Institute hosted an interdisciplinary event relating brain activity, new technology and our response to the built environment. The event included a tech demo of brain computer interfaces and a conversation involving architects, neuroscientists, psychologists and... View full entry
I am young man of 71 years old. I am a visual man. A man working working with eyes and hands.
Super-starchitect Lord Norman Foster and his friends at the European Space Agency stunned the world last year with a plan to build a lunar base by 3D-printing it with moon dust. But what happens when you try something like that on Earth? How is 3D printing changing the way we build cities?
I got the chance to ask Foster just that question at the Center for Architecture in New York City last night.
— gizmodo.com
Previously on Archinect: Foster + Partners works with European Space Agency to 3D print structures on the moon View full entry
The trend began a decade ago, when apartments in two towers on New York's Perry Street were snapped up by buyers like Calvin Klein and Martha Stewart.
"When Perry Street was sold, your name was kind of on the marquee," said Mason.
"That's right, for better or worse," laughed Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier. He is now working on a new high-end project on the ocean in Miami Beach.
— CBS News
Diane Daniel calls attention to the fact that Glass House in New Canaan, Conn., will now have a twice-monthly option of taking a self-guided tour. Previously View full entry
We are receiving breaking news from Valencia, Spain where a court just ruled in favor of Santiago Calatrava, closing his recent slander case against Spanish political party EUPV. This is legal victory #1 for Calatrava, but more law suits are piling up.Here's the statement in full:"Santiago... View full entry
Though Piano has taken several passes at the sphere, it hasn't coalesced into a convincing set of architectural ideas. The theater design remains gimmicky, alienated rather than emerging confidently from its site, as Piano's best museum projects do.
By refusing to budge on its construction timeline, the academy is doubling down on the least-promising elements of the design. Sure, some refinements might smooth out some of its more obvious wrinkles. What they won't do is salvage the design...
— latimes.com
She explains "Our role then, in Shenzhen, wasn’t to play cultural ambassador or artistic exposition-ers, but to effectively perform the moods of Los Angeles from a distance, through whatever interpretative media each individual deemed to be most fit"...
Amelia published What is the Los Angeles Biennale of Architecture / Urbanism? She explains "Our role then, in Shenzhen, wasn’t to play cultural ambassador or artistic exposition-ers, but to effectively perform the moods of Los Angeles from a distance, through whatever interpretative media each... View full entry
“I never heard anybody say it was ugly or weird, I had reached universal beauty and Rosario Murillo sadistically destroyed that beauty. How sad and senseless.” - Glen Small — The Nicaragua Dispatch
Concha Acústica (demolished this week)Glen Small designed iconic "Concha Acústica" in Managua is demolished by the orders of an interior decorator, Rosario Murillo, who designs with nature in the form of yellow painted tree cut-outs framing the portraits of late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez... View full entry
A special construction material keeps concrete whiter than white. — CNN
The first application was on Richard Meier's Jubilee Church in Rome. View full entry
The Competition, which has its UK premiere at the Barbican tonight, follows the trials and tribulations of five stellar practices competing in a doomed bid to build a new national museum for Andorra, back in 2009. As the global financial crisis hit rock-bottom, no job was too small for architects whose dreams of dotting Middle Eastern deserts with their snazzy signatures had been revealed as a hopeless mirage. — theguardian.com
Lewis Mumford wrote that, in a city, “time becomes visible.” Not, it would appear, in Raleigh, North Carolina, where a city board has just decided that a rather discreet and understated modern house might need to be torn down because it damages the ambience of a historic district, which is to say it destroys the illusion that the neighborhood is a place in which time has stopped. — Vanity Fair
A battle of bureaucracy and "historic preservation" is playing out in a Raleigh, NC neighborhood. Louis Cherry, FAIA, is building his own home in the Oakwood neighborhood of Raleigh. After having received approval for his design by relevant city agencies, including the Raleigh Historic Development... View full entry