After having to relocate its facilities due to seismic issues, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives, collectively known as BAM/PFA, will open its new home on January 31, 2016 in Downtown Berkeley. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the $112M project integrates a preexisting art... View full entry
Here's a line I never thought I'd have the pleasure of writing:
Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez is sparring with elderly Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary over the pending sale of the nuns' former convent in Los Feliz to international superstar singer Katy Perry.
— latimes.com
North Korea's propaganda machine has spent days promoting a new airport in Pyongyang, showcasing the building's sleek glass walls and espresso stations. But the images, which feature Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, fail to mention that the building's principal designer was likely executed last year because Kim was unhappy with the design. — ibtimes.com
While the starving population of North Korea will likely never going to enjoy the airport's amenities (under the current circumstances), it has shown more direct feedback to other key-interest projects of the supreme despot, like the 46-story Taedong River Apartment Towers which remain... View full entry
The house Kellogg built for the Doolittles on the edge of Joshua Tree National Park, an hour from Palm Springs, is arguably his apotheosis: a nearly 5,000-square-foot marvel of engineering in which every inch, inside and out, including the furnishings, is hand-hewn from natural materials using soaring, twisting, curvilinear forms that are at once trippy and ambitious and — perhaps surprisingly — serene. — NYT T Magazine
Nancy Hass profiles the work of American architect Kendrick Bangs Kellogg. View full entry
'Recently, people were more worried about preserving their jobs, not preserving their history...Now a new generation is aware there was a history that came before them...Not a lot of our history has been preserved. People without a history can be erased.' — Mark Meinke, co-founder of the Rainbow Heritage Network — Curbed
History was made today in American civil rights with the Supreme Court ruling that legalizes same-sex marriage across all 50 states. The ruling is a major push toward marriage equality in the U.S., but like several historically marginalized communities, one giant obstacle that the LGBTQ community... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
These are strange days in San Francisco, where the clamor to build needed housing — especially at affordable levels — is matched only by the self-righteous vigor with which actual proposals for that housing tend to be opposed...But if we want a well-planned city with distinctive new buildings for all its citizens, projects like this show that good design and good policy can go hand in hand. — San Francisco Chronicle
Developer Tishman Speyer's nearly one-year-old proposal for a 400-foot-tall residential tower, which Jeanne Gang designed, at 160 Folsom St. is suddenly facing opposition from local groups. With former mayor Art Agnos at the forefront of the opposition, the groups argue that the building promotes... View full entry
Two massive arches that form the backbone of the stadium's roof, a feature that critics blamed for raising construction costs, will remain part of the design. — usatoday.com
When confronted with Zaha Hadid's too-big and too-costly design for the 2020 Olympic National Stadium, Tokyo officials decided to go ahead with the designs anyway – or else, add "too late" to that list of descriptors. Any additional major changes to the design (Hadid already scaled back the... View full entry
Builders pulled back from Mauna Kea as hundreds of protesters set up roadblocks to oppose construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on top of Hawaii’s sacred mountain. State and local police arrested a dozen demonstrators. — RT
"Protesters say they are taking a stand to defend Mauna Kea, sacred to native Hawaiians, from the international conglomerate attempting to build the mega-telescope, also known as the TMT. They say the 18-story building represents an unacceptable desecration of the mountain."The Thirty Meter... View full entry
This year’s list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places is our most diverse list ever. Several of the places on the 2015 list focus on chapters in our history that have sometimes been overlooked, reinforcing the message that preserving the full American experience means everyone has a seat at the table and that all voices are heard. — preservationnation.org
The 2015 List of America's Most Endangered Historic Places, compiled by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, comprises: A.G. Gaston Motel, AlabamaCarrollton Courthouse, LouisianaChautauqua Amphitheater, New YorkEast Point Historic Civic Block, GeorgiaFort Worth Stockyards, TexasGrand... View full entry
I must ask myself if we want to design buildings for people to fit some preconceived idea of a glass world. Is this really the future of cities?" – Minoru Yamasaki — businessinsider.com
While the critical response to the new 1WTC has been, at best, one of resigned acceptance, the original Twin Towers didn't receive much fanfare either when they first opened in 1973. Ada Louise Huxtable, then architecture critic for The New York Times, wasn't much of a fan of Minoru Yamasaki's... View full entry
On Tuesday, the City of Los Angeles announced that the team of Populous and HMC Architects had been selected to design the $350 million expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center, beating out other proposals from teams lead by Gensler and AC Martin. — urbanize.la
LA Mayor Eric Garceitti's office recently also released a set of renderings of the recommended new design by Populous & HMC Architects.All images via Mayor Eric Garcetti's Facebook. View full entry
Herzog & de Meuron, the Basel-based architecture studio that designed London’s Tate Modern, is due to redevelop Berlin’s famous art squat Tacheles. The massive warehouse, in the now fashionable Mitte district, was occupied by artists after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. A symbol of the city’s subculture, Tacheles became a major tourist attraction. In 2012, the authorities closed the art centre amid widespread protests by artists and anti-gentrification campaigners. — theartnewspaper.com
"Modern architecture is a defining artistic form of the 20th century at considerable risk, often due to the cutting-edge building materials that characterized the movement." -Deborah Marrow
In news that will surely make Prince Charles sigh with displeasure, the Getty Foundation announced it is awarding $1.75 million of grants to help preserve 14 structures in the modern style, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple, Walter Gropius’ residence ‘The Gropius House,’ and... View full entry
Amelia Taylor-Hochberg penned What makes an artless museum?, which reviewed the February Sky-lit event/preview of the new Broad Museum. Therein she argues that it provided "an opportunity for the architecture to be treated as a relational art object, but not so it could be handled with velvet... View full entry