The UN's cultural organisation has listed 17 works by pioneering Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier as world heritage sites.
Le Corbusier spearheaded the modern movement after World War One, using iron, concrete and glass in a new focus on bold lines and functionality that did not appeal to everyone.
The sites are in seven countries.
— BBC News
17 of Le Corbusier's buildings, including Unité d’habitation in Marseille and the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo were announced as new UN world heritage sites. The 17 buildings meet three of the selection criteria for World Heritage status:(i) A masterpiece of human creative... View full entry
"We’re not against art or culture," [says Boyle Heights activist Maga Miranda.] "...But the art galleries are part of a broader effort by planners and politicians and developers who want to artwash gentrification."
"We’re saying that they need to make a bigger effort to amplify the voices of the people that are gonna be most affected by this, and that doesn’t happen to be artists in this situation. It happens to be people who can’t afford to live here anymore."
— LA Weekly
Amid widespread gentrification in LA, activists in Boyle Heights have been scrutinizing the art galleries that set up shop there in recent years — including significant spaces like Self Help Graphics, which helped put the Eastside neighborhood on the cultural map. While activists want to... View full entry
Have you heard? There’s this game called Pokémon Go, and it’s responsible for a radical new relationship to the city!Think pieces are clogging Twitter and Facebook expounding the virtues of the augmented reality game that has lead distracted pedestrians off cliffs, into muggings, and... View full entry
Architects might be known for wearing black, as if in permanent mourning for the lives they once had, and for spending months searching for the perfect shade of grey. But judging by this year’s student shows, that monochromatic hegemony is under threat: the next generation appears to be plotting a psychedelic revolution. — The Guardian
Incorporating influences drawn from popular media and gaming, architecture is increasingly reflecting the multi-faceted world in which we live, at least if you take a look at this new UK-based student work. Students from The Bartlett at the University College London, The Royal College of Art, and... View full entry
What do you do with a sad, funky, abandoned trolley terminus? Well, if it's the former Williamsburg Bridge Trolley Terminal under Delancey Street in New York City, you make the world's first underground park by virtue of adding some mirrors, skylights, and vegetation. One acre in size, the freshly... View full entry
Imagine blending the veiny facade of 8 Spruce Street and the jaunty offset of the New Museum with Zaha Hadid's signature grace, and you might get something like the 54-story, 70,000 square meter 600 Collins Street, a tower that is reminiscent of a stacked series of ridged vases. The four principal... View full entry
What does it take for a project to transcend from merely eye-catching architecture to a lasting, inspirational, nationally acclaimed building? The RIBA Stirling Prize, which awards the UK's best new building each year, has narrowed 2016's contenders down to a shortlist of six (two of which, the... View full entry
The thousands of new old houses in New Orleans reveal the ethos of a people in a place nearly destroyed. New Orleanians have embraced their city’s architectural heritage as they’ve rebuilt for an uncertain future. — Places Journal
What does post-Katrina architecture look like in New Orleans? And what does it reveal about its society? In their survey in Places, Richard Campanella and Cassidy Rosen discover that historical styles are 14 times more popular than contemporary styles in the rebuilt city, despite the focus of... View full entry
What makes a person creative? What are the biographical conditions and personality traits necessary to actualize that potential? These were driving questions behind a 1958-59 study conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, which attempted to divine the elements of creativity by... View full entry
Malaysia has too much sewage sludge and not enough concrete, a problem which naturally prompted an "aha!" moment among researchers. By burning and drying wet sewage sludge cake and then grinding and sieving the dry cake to produce Domestic Waste Sludge Powder (DWSP), the Malaysian researchers are... View full entry
Spatial Bodies was created by AUJIK, a self-described "mysterious nature/tech cult," with music composed by Daisuke Tanabe. Filmed in Osaka, Japan, the video is "the urban landscape and architectural bodies as an autonomous living and self replicating organism," according to the description on... View full entry
Block a highway, and you upend the economic life of a city, as well as the spatial logic that has long allowed people to pass through them without encountering their poverty or problems. Block a highway, and you command a lot more attention than would a rally outside a church or city hall — from traffic helicopters, immobile commuters, alarmed officials. — the Washington Post
The article notes that, historically, highway construction decimated black communities, such as in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Oakland, and many other cities. In New York, Robert Moses explicitly used highways to clear "slums," in the process devastating parts of the Bronx and other black... View full entry
Debates are rubbish. We've all been there: a panel of similar people with similar views taking it in turns to talk at length about their similar work - too polite, too deferential, too dull. At best they are lukewarm love-ins, critically impotent, elitist and stuffy. Turncoats is a shot in the arm. — Turncoats statement
Turncoats, a provocative architectural debating society that originated in London last year, has expanded to Scotland, the USA, Canada and Serbia, with more cities in the pipeline. The London originators have turned the premise into a franchise, inviting cities to apply for free and start a... View full entry
Back in February, the Chinese central government demanded an end to all mainland construction of buildings that are “oversized”, “xenocentric” or “weird” and a move toward architecture that is “pleasing to the eye”.
Fast forward five months, and a 12-story toilet has been built in Henan province.
— the Independent
Ironically enough, the building is home to the North China Water Conservancy and Electric Power company.For more on the state of architecture in China, check out these links:China plans to build an underwater "space station" in the South China SeaMegatall Shanghai Tower receives CTBUH signboard... View full entry
The park’s centerpiece features three decks of exhibits explaining Answers in Genesis’ views of the biblical flood account..[It] also features a two-story restaurant, aerial zipline cables and the Ararat Ridge Zoo...
“...in a world that we see becoming very secularized before our eyes, it’s really time for Christians to do something of this size, of this quality, that competes with the Disneys and the Universals to get a message to the world.”
— The Charlotte Observer
This might be worth a pitstop for anyone planning a U.S. summer road trip. Envisioned by the Creationist apologetics ministry Answers in Genesis, a replica of Noah's Ark — measuring 510 feet long, 85 feet wide and 51 feet high — opened last week as the centerpiece of the Ark Encounter theme... View full entry