I’m extremely concerned that if you leave Gaza in the state it’s currently in, you’ll have another eruption, and violence, and then we’re back in a further catastrophe, so we’ve got to stop that,-Tony Blair — +972
Even a hawk like Tony is worried."The scope of destruction in Gaza remains enormous. According to the UN, over 96,000 homes were either damaged or destroyed by Israeli air strikes. The donor states that have pledged to transfer money have yet to do so, re-building is going nowhere, many are... View full entry
The UNESCO Office in Afghanistan announced today the grand prize winner and four runner-up teams in the Bamiyan Cultural Centre Design Competition. Launched last November, the single-stage competition invited architects worldwide to propose designs for a cultural center in the Bamiyan Valley of... View full entry
A cash shortage in Rome could see the city’s fascist-era Square Colosseum sold to the fashion house Fendi, despite calls in the Italian capital to keep the building in state hands.
More than 70 years after the Palazzo della Civiltà del Lavoro was built under the orders of Benito Mussolini it could soon be reinvented as a home for luxury goods.
— theguardian.com
A legal challenge is being launched in the High Court against plans to build a garden bridge over the River Thames in central London.
A south London resident claims Lambeth Council unlawfully granted planning permission for the £175m bridge.
Michael Ball, from Tulse Hill in Lambeth, fears its impact will be "devastating".
Lambeth Council said the bridge would potentially benefit "both the local and wider London economy".
— bbc.com
Previously View full entry
Using new international measurement standards and technology not available in the past, NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey has calculated the official architectural height of the Washington Monument to be 554 feet 7 11/32 inches [...].
Although the newly established architectural height differs from the historical height of 555 feet 5⅛ inches, neither the starting point nor the so-called “standard deviation” used for the original 1884 measurement is known [...].
— noaa.gov
Architect Elizabeth Diller [...] stood on the Grand Avenue sidewalk Friday morning in front of the Broad museum, which she designed with her New York firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and is set to open Sept. 20.
Was she giving an architectural preview? Doing damage control? Trying to regain some influence over the narrative of the museum’s construction, which has been beset by delays, fabrication problems and legal wrangling?
The answer seemed to be some combination of the three.
— latimes.com
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As Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s drawings go on display at the RIBA, the search is on for the architect who might best restore the glory of his fire-damaged masterpiece, the Glasgow School of Art. [...]
But the list seems to have been compiled too much on the basis of who has been there and done what when it comes to restoring historic buildings, rather than a real desire to find architects with the right sensitivity for the job.
— theguardian.com
Previously: Five firms shortlisted for Mackintosh Library renovation after devastating fire View full entry
Increasingly, in the US at least, central cities are all becoming more or less the same...Meanwhile, the suburbs are becoming more diverse. Not just in terms of ethnicity as growing numbers of blacks, Asians, and Hispanics pour into the suburbs from central cities and abroad. But also in terms of winners and losers — csen
Last year following visits to Chattanooga, Knoxville, Lexington, Cincinnati, Columbus, csen proposed four basic city/neighborhood archetypes for thinking about a non-dystopic 2030. He also wrote about Central City Homogenization and Suburban Diversification and argued for why The Sun Belt... 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
For months, three architects would meet at the waterfront of Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city. [...] Eventually it came to them – if you really wanted to bring people in Izmir together, transform the waterfront. But the very idea was daunting: Turkey’s bureaucracy is infamous, and a large-scale project to redevelop the waterfront seemed impossible.
So the friends [...] built eight floating docks out of plywood.
— theguardian.com
Julia Ingalls argued for The Genius of David Byrne who she likens to "the deadpan docent of the infrastructural realm". vado retro dropped by and chimed in "most of these lyrics were written before i ever attended architecture school and that was a very long time ago. i read a similar essay... View full entry
Princeton University’s campus is, in Rick Joy’s words, “a beautiful sculpture garden of famous architects’ buildings.” Now Joy, the Tucson-based architect, has added his own sculpture to that garden, in the form of a train station made of blackened stainless steel and precast concrete. — Architectural Record
Renown critic and photographer Fred Bernstein and Jeff Goldberg tag-team a first look at Rick Joy's built foray into public architecture and it's a real treat. View full entry
The neoclassical monument designed by Henry Bacon has become an iconic piece of architecture, but had one of the designs from the other competing architect been selected, the familiar Lincoln Memorial would have looked jarringly different—perhaps in the form of a ziggurat, Mayan temple or Egyptian pyramid. — history.com
Construction work on 'Aladdin City', a project inspired by the tales of Aladdin and Sindbad, will start next year, Dubai Municipality chief told Emirates 24|7. [...]
The project, which was announced in April 2014, will have three towers, comprising commercial and hotel space, with the towers spread over a distance of 450 metres on Dubai Creek. The total cost has not been revealed.
— emirates247.com
Gimme Shelter has learned exclusively that developer The Related Companies has hired Rem Koolhaas to design their new High Line project on W. 18th St. — nypost.com
Thirty-seven years after Delirious New York, Koolhaas may finally have a building in New York City. While OMA has worked on a variety of commercial interiors in NYC before, as well as being a part of HUD's Rebuilding by Design, the High Line residence will be the firm's first "ground-up" building... View full entry