What impact is all this economic turmoil having on the development of important public architecture?

Unfortunately, I see less and less of it happening. The biggest issue right now is governments — federal, state and city — have depleted resources and therefore the construction process is slowing down. — latimes.com

“It’s never good to have a hurricane two weeks before opening,” Matthew Donham told The Observer. Mr. Donham is the project manager at PWP Landscape Architecture, the firm that helped design the memorial plaza with architect Michael Arad. [...] “We’ll actually fair better than a nearby street tree,” Mr. Donham said. — Observer

Leonardo da Vinci was an architect, painter, musician, and more. Corb was an architect and watchmaker. Recently, we've seen celebrity designers David Rockwell, Santiago Calatrava, and Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron take an interest in set design for theater. And most recently, Rafael Viñoly, one of the world's most renowned architects today, takes center stage, yet again, at Bard SummerScape for the Festival's first fully-staged production of Richard Strauss's opera, Die Liebe der Danae. — huffingtonpost.com

Fallingwater was as handmade as any of the early Modern experimental structures that, while earnestly seeking the hallowed label of prefabrication, were largely handmade, with lumpy (handcrafted!) white stucco that was smooth only if you were two miles away. Like finally seeing a real Mondrian, with all of its beautiful “imperfections,” much of building today still remains “handmade” even when it means the final connections that make a building sing. — Lamprecht archiTEXTural

The inspiring recent release Architects' Sketchbooks celebrates the earliest traces of a building's coming into being, the ideas that pave the way for the precision of engineers' calculations or CAD renderings. Through the book's beautiful reproductions of original blots, jots, and scribbles, we can see that even the most awe-inspiring edifices begin as a line—as reassuring an insight into the creative process as any. — theatlantic.com

At that height, the new tower would become the second tallest building in the city, surpassing the Empire State Building and even 1 World Trade Center, if you don’t count the 400-foot antenna that drives its height to the symbolic reaches of 1,776 feet. — Observer

The career of eminent architect and educator Stanley Tigerman is the subject of a retrospective exhibition opening at the Yale School of Architecture Gallery, in historic Paul Rudolph Hall, on August 22, 2011. Ceci n’est pas une rêverie*: The Architecture of Stanley Tigerman, which remains on view through November 5, 2011... — artdaily.org

There is one – large – detail. Two-thirds of the original 1,000 council flats will, with the help of public subsidy to the development, now be for private sale. The council says that it's better to have a mixture of tenures than to remake a "ghetto" of council tenants. This follows the current orthodoxy and might be entirely reasonable if the homes were being replaced elsewhere in the city. — Guardian

According to those people in the mystical know – how you sign your signature actually does mean something and does provide some insight into the mind behind the name. — lifeofanarchitect.com

For the first time in a long time, the future doesn’t look better than the past. Faced with the prospect of climate change, environmental degradation, economic upheaval and diminished resources, it’s not unexpected that architects such as Susan Fitzgerald have started to look at the world beyond the building. The Halifax practitioner, just announced as the winner of the Canada Council $50,000 Prix de Rome, will spend the next two years figuring out how cities can be made more productive. — thestar.com

It's not just in the eye. So the musical quality of space, a scientific interest that I had, mathematics, geometry and the cosmos and at the same time, of course, the interest in making something, in making, you know, making buildings, architecture. — NPR

The fine craftsmen of Indiana conferencing before the chop down
The yellow poplar tree hanging from the crane
The tree in a horizontal position
The truck is finally loaded
The tree outside Anderson, Indiana, ready to roll
Truck on its way to Indianapolis on narrow roads with police escort
The tree at the 100 acres ready for further refinement. — Visiondivision

The Futuro was designed by the Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in the 1960s for mass production as a kit of prefabricated parts, which can be assembled, taken apart and reassembled anywhere. — NYT