[...] the bridge will be closed at night, won't allow entry to cyclists or groups of 8 or more without prior booking, and will ocassionally be closed off for fundraising events. Right. So less a public bridge than a privately-managed tourist attraction, then. [...]
The east of London, on the other hand, could actually use another crossing, with or without limits to access
— citymetric.com
Previously: London's Garden bridge: 'It feels like we're trying to pull off a crime' View full entry
The great limestone slabs of Valletta's modern entrance give out on to two broad new monumental stairways leading up to the ancient fortifications....This is certainly statement architecture - and that is exactly what former prime minister, and driving force behind the project, Lawrence Gonzi intended. — BBC News
Juliet Rix visits Valleta, the capital of Malta, where Renzo Piano Building Workshop has designed a new gate/entrance and square. View full entry
Amid politically charged scenes, Paris city council has narrowly rejected a plan to build the historic city's first skyscraper since a height restriction was imposed in the 1970s.
But Mayor Anne Hidalgo said [...] she would fight the Triangle tower vote. [...]
The architects, Herzog and de Meuron, proposed to build the 180m (590ft) tower in the south-west Porte de Versailles area of the city, after then-Mayor Bertrand Delanoe proposed an end to the 37m limit in parts of the capital.
— bbc.com
Not far from the Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer Platz was a no man’s land during the Cold War. Then the Berlin Wall fell, and the German authorities made it a petting zoo for celebrity architecture. The corporate headquarters of Germany’s new global swagger.
But the ambitions for Potsdamer Platz, like the hopes and fears about a united Germany, turned out differently. The architecture was not so great. Many companies fled.
— nytimes.com
Related: 8,000 Glowing Balloons Recreate the Berlin Wall View full entry
How many truckloads does it take to transport a 2,800 sq. ft house, designed by one of America’s most revered Modern architects, more than 1,200 miles from New Jersey to Arkansas? [...]
Staff at the three-year-old Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art put that question to the test recently when Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1950s Bachman Wilson House was moved from its flood-prone location on a riverbank in Millstone, New Jersey, to the institution’s sprawling 120-acre campus in Bentonville, Arkansas.
— theartnewspaper.com
Previously: Museum buys a Frank Lloyd Wright house with plans to move it from New Jersey to Arkansas View full entry
The architect today is no ‘fountainhead.’ It is rather sad to watch today’s ‘starchitects’, designing their weird-looking signature buildings. These seem now always to be either museums or condos for billionaires. The brand-name architect just build useless luxury housing for the 1% and their trinkets. The actual design of the world is now in the hands of other people. — Public Seminar Commons
McKenzie Wark pens a rather a wake up call of a book review on Easterling's new book Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space in which Easterling offers a set of subsidiary metaphors for contemporary infrastructure design: multipliers, switches, and topologies."The multipliers... View full entry
The McMillan Sand Filtration Site is one of Washington, DC's most conspicuous mysteries. Unbeknownst to the thousands of commuters and residents that pass by its rusted gates daily, below this sprawling parcel of land lies a series of vast underground caverns built in the early 20th century by the Army Corps of Engineers as a natural purification facility for DC's turbid water supply. — Vimeo
The latest episode of PBS Digital Studios’ Unusual Spaces series visits mysterious abandoned silos and underground reservoirs at the McMillan Sand Filtration Site, just 2 miles north of Capitol Hill in DC. View full entry
Luxury brand Porsche Design recently launched a closed invite-only competition to find the architect for their Porsche Design Tower in Frankfurt, Germany. The winning proposal will have the most fitting urban architectural concept along with ideas for the surrounding outdoor spaces. The project will be Porsche's debut in real estate in Europe. — bustler.net
Out of a goal of 20 participating architecture teams, the first six firms to compete are: Delugan Meissl Associated Architects, Vienna (Austria) 3XN, Copenhagen (Denmark) Neutelings Riedijk Architecten, Rotterdam (The Netherlands) Stefano Boeri Architetti, Milan... View full entry
"394,000 US$!! This is the budget of homes in America that are 1/10th of this quality. Perhaps it's for two people, who are empty nesters, and entertain for a large extended family. The simplicity of materials and form, is exceedingly elegant". - b3tadine[sutures]
The latest edition of Showcase: features Slate House, located on a site in Laval, a suburb of Montreal. Designed by Affleck de la Riva architects, it stands in sharp contrast to the tract houses that surround it. b3tadine[sutures] exclaims "394,000 US$!! This is the budget of homes in America... View full entry
the Byzantine-inspired structure will “glow from the inside,” through the combination of light marble fused with glass and backlit with LEDs. — NYT
Last month, Alex Vadukul attended a ground blessing ceremony for the new Saint Nicholas National Shrine at the World Trade Center. Designed by architect Santiago Calatrava to replace the original, whitewashed, four-story building, the shrine is set to be fully rebuilt by the end of 2016. For... View full entry
Smithsonian officials are planning a $2 billion futuristic reimagining of the institute’s southern campus that will create clear entrances, expand visitor services and upgrade mechanical systems to the historic Castle and the six buildings surrounding it.
Architect Bjarke Ingels, partner at BIG in Manhattan, unveiled the proposal Thursday in the Smithsonian Institution Building, known as the Castle.
— washingtonpost.com
Erecting such a building “without authority of the General Assembly will diminish or impair the beneficial interest of plaintiffs and other Illinois citizens” [...]
such a designation conflicts with the trust, which calls for preserving property as “a natural resource and as a free and open space not occupied by a giant building.” [...]
by acting without the approval of state lawmakers, the city and park district would have excessive power over the property “for which they have no authority.”
— chicagobusiness.com
BIG is about to make its debut in the UK. The Architects' Journal reported that the Danish firm was selected in an international competition to design the public square in the £8 billion redevelopment of the historic Battersea Power Station, a decommissioned coal-fired power station in southwest London. A formal announcement is yet to be made. — bustler.net
Situated within the Rafael Viñoly-designed masterplan, BIG's public square is described as becoming the gateway to the revamped power station.BIG, who is working alongside the Malaysian-backed Battersea Power Station Development in overseeing the design of the public square, is set to join the... View full entry
Two window washers' lives are literally hanging in the balance - they're stuck on scaffolding at 1 World Trade Center, officials said Wednesday afternoon.
The shaky scaffolding, which is suspended around the 69th floor, was seen dangling at an unstable angle, according to images that surfaced of the scene.
The workers are dangling at a 65-degree angle, according to NYPD counterterrorism czar John Miller.
— nydailynews.com
Architect Frank Gehry courts curves and controversy, and the deputy vice-chancellor of UTS admits to a degree of trepidation. A first look inside reveals whether those fears were justified [...]
The city’s first building by the controversial architect is part of a larger $1.1bn masterplan for the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), but is already attracting a lot of attention.
— theguardian.com