Critics have argued that big arts-building investments are vanity projects, or that private donors should finance community arts organizations or scholarships instead. — NYT
James S. Russell digs into the building boom on college campuses, where museums and arts centers are opening and expanding. Mostly an elite phenomenon (Stanford University is constructing a $235 million arts district), few state/public schools are able to afford the costs. View full entry
Out of a super-star list of competitors, a team led by Steven Holl Architects won the competition to design the North Wing -- or the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum -- of the Mumbai City Museum in India. The museum is one of India's leading cultural institutions and is undergoing a renewal process to establish itself as a cultural destination. The new 275 crore (approx $44.3 million) building will include new galleries and facilities. — bustler.net
The Steven Holl Architects team included local architects Opolis Architects, Guy Nordenson & Associates as structural engineers, and Transsolar as sustainability consultants.Learn more about this project on Bustler. View full entry
After a $91m, three-year renovation, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is due to reopen on Friday, 12 December.
[...] the firms Gluckman Mayner, Beyer Blinder Belle and Diller Scofidio + Renfro—moved the museum’s offices and research library, previously on the third floor, into the adjacent Miller-Fox townhouses, which had been used for storage. In the offices’ place, they built the Cooper Hewitt’s first open-plan galleries.
— theartnewspaper.com
Previously: Cooper-Hewitt Selects DS+R as Exhibition Designer and Local Projects as Media Designer View full entry
According to a press release issued last week by Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman & Associates, principal Gene Kaufman has submitted a proposal to buy the Orange County Government Center (Goshen, NY), which has been closed since 2011 due to storm damage. Designed in 1967 by Paul Rudolph, the building... View full entry
The Galapagos Art Space, a performance center and cultural staple in Brooklyn for nearly 20 years, will close this month, another casualty of rising rental prices that its founder says are making it difficult for independent arts organizations to survive in New York ... Galapagos helped put Williamsburg on the art map when it opened there in 1995 ... Although the last night of programming is likely to be Dec. 18, the center will have a second life — more than 600 miles away, in Detroit. — nytimes.com
During its time in Brooklyn, Galapagos Art Space produced more than 7,500 shows. Hopefully, its legacy of progressive programming – from films to musical events to visual art exhibitions to burlesque – will continue after the space moves to Detroit. The new home of Galapagos Art Space includes... View full entry
It's not going to look like 'Apocalypse Now' by any stretch of the imagination.
The Marine Corps has held similar training in recent years in Atlanta, Memphis and other cities. The military worked closely with the Los Angeles Police Department and notified property owners so no one will be caught off guard
— CBS
Message and the purpose is clear. US Government is training for urban warfare and large cities are the training grounds. Once we are done with foreign urban centers perhaps the idea is to "bring it on home."Of course, it's all under the disguise of fighting terrorism (or is it... View full entry
“When they came out of the quarters they could see it was fully engulfed,” fire department spokeswoman Katherine Main told the paper. “It was a building under construction in the framing phase. Almost 1 million square feet and a city block.” — RT
Freeway signs melt and windows in adjacent buildings burst in the intense heat. Two buildings near the burning construction site are damaged and freeways are closed for hours.The fire which burned down an unpopular (among the architects) apartment complex a 7 storey wood construction in its final... View full entry
“I think it’s definitely derivative of the Gardens by the Bay concept,” Chris Wilkinson, one of the British architects responsible for the “super-trees” in Singapore’s Marina Bay, told The Daily Telegraph.
“You’d have expected them to have come up with something a bit more original.”
— telegraph.co.uk
"Super Trees", Singapore, designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects View full entry
As the saying goes, history likes to repeat itself. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. broke ground yesterday on the Kennedy Center Expansion Project. The ceremony also celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Center's original groundbreaking in 1964. The event... View full entry
A new condo building is going up in Manhattan's Hudson Square neighborhood — the triangle on the river between Tribeca, SoHo, and the West Village that has until recently been mostly commercial and industrial buildings.
15 Renwick isn't just any building: it's a steampunk-themed luxury development. Steampunk-themed. Luxury. Development.
— Business Insider
What is steampunk? For the most part, the term refers to a literary sub-genre that fetishizes the aesthetics of early industrialization in Western Europe. Steampunk works are often set in post-apocalyptic futures or revisionist histories. This new condo development would definitely fall into the... View full entry
Beth Mosenthal penned an Op-Ed: Response to Michael Kimmelman's Critique of 1 WTC. She writes "I can only imagine the list of priorities that 1 World Trade entailed, but am still celebratory of the feat that it was realized despite perhaps the greatest obstacles any project could possibly... View full entry
The first images of Bjarke Ingels Group's public square [officially titled Malaysia Square] for the £8 billion Battersea Power Station redevelopment in London have been revealed just a few weeks after BIG was appointed as the competition-winning designer. The public square, which will be BIG's first U.K. project, is only a part of the Battersea Power Station's redevelopment plan. — bustler.net
Head over to Bustler for more details. View full entry
Since Cummins Inc. appointed Deborah Berke Partners back in September, the company finally revealed DBP's design of their new global distribution business headquarters in downtown Indianapolis to the City of Indianapolis’ Metropolitan Development Commission today. The Commission could vote on... View full entry
The current, temporary trade center station serves... only 10,000 more than use the unassuming 33rd Street PATH terminal in Midtown Manhattan.
In fact, the hub, or at least its winged “Oculus” pavilion, could turn out to be more of a high-priced mall than a transportation nexus, attracting more shoppers than commuters. The company operating the mall, Westfield Corporation, promises in a promotional video that it will be “the most alluring retail landmark in the world.”
— nytimes.com
One World Trade Center is by far the world's most expensive building, coming in at $3.9B, nearly double the second-most expensive buildings, Vegas' Palazzo casino and London's The Shard, which both cost $1.9B to build. Perhaps even more surprising, Dubai's dizzying Burj Khalifa, currently the world's tallest building, comes in at number five — curbed.com