The Modernism worth pursuing — worth protecting — is the one where Gregor Samsa wakes up transformed into a large insect, and ends up with an apple embedded in his carapace, which is exactly what the Folk Art Museum is to the Museum of Modern Art, right now, right where it is. — Places Journal
On Places, David Heymann presents an incisive critique of MoMA's decision to raze the Folk Art Museum building, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. From a quiet beginning — "Here is why I think the American Folk Art Museum is a great Modernist building" — Heymann works his way to... View full entry
Over at the LA Times, Christopher Hawthorne reported on LACMA Director Michael Govan’s plan’s for $650-million new building by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor...Eric Chavkin commented "New construction has always been fundraising tail that wags the museum dog. Big names to draw bigger money...Now that AMPAS is leveraging it's Oscar prestige to be a part of LACMA, a new name to entice donor dollars is Zumthor, a name that means absolutely nothing to most.
NewsMichael Z Wise reviewed the newest edition of Albert Speer, Architecture by Léon Krier for the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Wise concluded his review "Though he is again bemoaning a contemporary inability to regard classicism in a detached manner, it is Léon Krier who is in a... View full entry
The shape of the new headquarters of the People's Daily, the Communist Party's main propaganda machine, has sparked heated discussion online for looking a bit too phallic.
Most photos posted on Sina Weibo, the mainland's most popular microblogging site, were removed by censors, and attempts to search for " People's Daily building" in Chinese were met with a message that read: "According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, search results cannot be displayed."
— scmp.com
MoMA’s plan can hardly be a surprise, because its entire history since 1937 is based on demolishing potential landmarks. — nytimes.com
Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture has unveiled plans for Imperial Tower, which would become Mumbai's tallest building and surely one of the world's most slender skyscrapers, should it come to be built.
The 116-story, 400-m (1,300-ft) tall residential skyscraper has a distinctive curved shape, which AS+GG says has been designed to "confuse the wind."
— gizmag.com
The highly anticipated expansion to the Kimbell Art Museum, designed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) and Kendall/Heaton Associates, opens to the public on Wednesday, November 27, 2013.
Renzo Piano’s colonnaded pavilion stands as an expression of simplicity—glass, concrete and wood—surrounded by elms and red oaks, some 65 yards to the west of Louis I. Kahn’s vaulted, luminous museum of 1972.
Similar in scale to the Kahn building, the 300-foot-long, 22-foot-high building is composed of two parallel wings stretching from north to south, connected by two glass passageways. To the rear, the west wing will have a green sod roof, which appears to rise out of the ground with berms on either... 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. Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Details. ↑ Caribou County Guest... View full entry
Debate rages over whether the 125m spire counts as part of the building. Do you know your antenna from your radome? — guardian.co.uk
"This definitely raises questions," said Kevin Brass, the public affairs manager for the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the body that passes official judgment on such things as whether your erection is tall, supertall or megatall. "Our criteria are very specific. We include spires... View full entry
After traveling from Newark to New York City via barge in December and waiting a while for clear weather, the spire finally made its way to the top of One World Trade Center this morning. The project isn't quite finished—sections 17 and 18 of the spire were raised to a temporary work platform and will be installed by ironworkers later—but Curbed video editor David Sherwin headed downtown this morning to watch the spire's hoisting. Take a look. — Curbed NY
Construction crews at the World Trade Center hoisted a flag-bedecked spire to the top of the site's signature One World Trade Center building Thursday.
Workers raised the spire to a temporary work platform atop the structure's roof, where ironworkers can later permanently attach it.
When fully installed, One World Trade Center will stand a symbolic 1,776 feet high, making it the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. The 408-foot spire will serve as a broadcast antenna.
— usatoday.com
While high-speed rail remains an uncertain prospect in California, it is the centerpiece of four design concepts unveiled Wednesday for modernizing Union Station.
Architects commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to upgrade the 77-year-old transit hub in downtown Los Angeles showed preliminary plans that put a high-speed rail system atop, beneath or alongside existing subways without compromising the character of the historic landmark.
— LA Daily News
Metro will hold a community workshop on the Union Station Master Plan at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, May 2, 2013, at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. Previously: Los Angeles Metro Approves Gruen/Grimshaw for Union Station Master Plan Six visions for LA's Union Station in the year... View full entry
One expert in the UAE has estimated that 70% of the high-rise buildings there have panel facade cladding made of a combustible thermoplastic core held between two sheets of aluminium. — BBC News
Bill Law, a BBC Gulf news analyst, writes about how fears of a "towering inferno" disaster in the Gulf are growing after fires left residential buildings heavily damaged in the United Arab Emirates cities of Sharjah and Dubai. The panels have been prohibited in the UK and USA for some time and... View full entry
UC Davis today announced that it has selected an emerging New York-based design firm, SO – IL, to design the campus’s planned art museum, envisioned as a regional center of experimentation, participation and learning. The firm will work with team members Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, a prominent architectural firm with offices in San Francisco, Seattle and Pennsylvania, and contractor Whiting-Turner, a national construction firm... — news.ucdavis.edu
The new museum advances the way museums and architecture are approached in the 21st century. Designed by SO - IL in partnership with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, and built by Whiting-Turner, the design incorporates a 50,000 square foot steel structure that floats atop a series of interconnected... View full entry
Three of the most important modernist houses in the Northeast, including the 1964 house Robert Venturi designed for his mother, have been (or will soon be) put up for sale by their long-time owners, two of them without covenants that would ensure their preservation. — archrecord.construction.com
Venturi's Philadelphia House Louis Kahn’s Esherick House View full entry
At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, an acclaimed Swiss architect is hoping to pull off what an acclaimed Dutch one could not.
Next month LACMA will publicly unveil a $650-million plan by Pritzker Prize winner Peter Zumthor for a dramatic new museum building along Wilshire Boulevard.
— latimes.com