The Fox River has shown little respect for Mies' brilliant juxtaposition of the natural and the man-made. In the past 18 years, the river has inundated the [Farnsworth] house three times. [...]
Confronted with the prospect of more flooding, the house's owner is carefully weighing how to preserve and protect the house, two goals that potentially conflict... Such are the choices in an era when disastrous "100-year floods" seem to occur every few years.
— The Chicago Tribune
Hans-Ulrich Obrist: The accompanying "Instagram" photos were sent to me from world-renowned architect Frank Gehry. I asked him, like I’ve asked many other artists, simply to write something in his or her own handwriting –- a disappearing art in the digital age. — huffingtonpost.com
As announced yesterday on Archinect, the Vancouver Art Gallery has selected the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron to design their new building. The new museum’s site will double the footprint of the old neoclassical building, and relocate the museum to a newly densifying area of Vancouver’s... View full entry
Esteemed English architect Norman Foster and contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto will be honored with the inaugural Isamu Noguchi Award this May.
The award acknowledges individuals whose work relates to renowned landscape architect and artist Isamu Noguchi. Noguchi's work exhibited a multi-disciplinary, collaborative approach to the arts as well as promoted the value of innovation, global consciousness, and Japanese/American exchange.
— bustler.net
Norman Foster and Hiroshi Sugimoto will formally accept the award during the Noguchi Museum's Spring Benefit on May 13 in New York, NY. "The evening will include a silent auction of a black and white photograph from Hiroshi Sugimoto’s series titled “Conceptual Forms.” He created this series... View full entry
The Swiss architect Gion A Caminada is something of a cult figure. Now in his 50s, he's spent much of his working life since the late 1970s practising out of a small village called Vrin in the canton of Graubünden. [...]
Caminada's idea was to boost the place with a collection of well-designed and functional private and communal buildings, among them the Aussichtsturm Reussdelta, an ornithologists' observation tower, and Waldhuette, a woodland cabin containing a school classroom.
— Phaidon
Austrian architect and designer Hans Hollein, a winner of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize whose work ranged from big museums through tiny shops to furniture and sunglasses, has died. He was 80. [...]
He won the 1985 Pritzker Prize for his work, which often included touches of fancy, such as bronze-clad palm trees in a Vienna travel agency.
— washingtonpost.com
RIP Hans Hollein (1934 - 2014), independent architect, artist and professor.From 1976-2002, Hollein served as a professor at the University of Applied Art in Vienna, where he was also Dean of the Architecture department. He also held professorships at Yale University, Washington University in St... View full entry
Philip Johnson was a terrible, hateful human being. And he wasn't just some casual Nazi sympathizer whispering, "maybe Hitler has some good ideas" in shadowy bars, either. He actively campaigned for Nazi causes in the U.S. and around the world.
Johnson visited Germany in the 1930s at the invitation of the government's Propaganda Ministry. He wrote numerous articles for far right publications. He started a fascist organization called the Gray Shirts in the United States...
— paleofuture.gizmodo.com
For the latest edition of the Working out of the Box feature Archinect talked with Emily Fischer, Founder of Haptic Lab. In the interview she explains how she started "The very first quilted map I made was designed to be a wayfinding tool for the visually impaired; my mother was diagnosed with... View full entry
Two years after the 2011 earthquake destroyed Christchurch's neo-Gothic cathedral, the building has been resurrected. It has also undergone something of a public transfiguration. [...]
In the past few years cardboard has also become increasingly popular in small-scale design. Hipster boutiques, museum gift shops and high profile public events such as the State of Design Festival now stock cardboard lighting, storage units, stools and kids' toys.
— Sydney Morning Herald
The NYPD said the balloon would remain aloft for about nine hours Sunday in lower Manhattan and more than 13 hours Monday in Midtown.
Police said the balloon will be about 800 feet in the air as it collects data for a private architecture firm conducting height surveys of Manhattan buildings.
— nydailynews.com
Inga Saffron, who writes the "Changing Skyline" column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism this week.
She talks with Dave Heller about the state of criticism today, and the changing attitudes towards cities.
— newsworks.org
Previously: Inquirer's architecture critic Inga Saffron wins Pulitzer Prize for criticism View full entry
The telling details are two walls of red granite at the entrance, as well as the tiered reflecting pools in back. The first was Mr. Conforti’s idea and the second, Mr. Ando’s. — NYT
Ted Loos provides a status update for the dozen-year $145 million expansion of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, which is finally scheduled to open in July.Previously on Archinect here and here View full entry
This past Tuesday, The Architectural League of New York hosted a lecture at Cooper Union by architect Sou Fujimoto, entitled “Between Nature and Architecture”. Despite the great number of practitioners and students in attendance (almost a full-house), the event felt more like an intimate... View full entry
He’s waited until his ninth decade, but Frank Gehry is turning his attention to the London skyline, starting with Battersea Power Station, where he will draw on the capital’s sweeping crescents and stucco terraces as part of its £8bn redevelopment. He tells Harry Mount about courting controversy, banter with Norman Foster and working for Mark Zuckerberg — standard.co.uk
[...] Zaha Hadid took to Milan Design Week’s Salone del Mobile to unveil a series of brand new series of furniture. Created for Italian interior design firm CITCO, the series consists of three distinct pieces: a shelving unit, table, and fireplace. — emag.co.uk
