President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has unveiled a new presidential palace on the outskirts of Ankara. The immense project has been built at a reported cost of $350m. The building has been denounced by ecologists as an environmental blight and by the opposition as evidence of Erdogan’s autocratic tendencies. Supporters say the palace is a symbol of what the president touts as his drive towards a ‘new Turkey’ — The Guardian
The question is that Turkey having few (1, 2, 3) historically significant presidential residences, why would anybody tore down forest areas and historically significant farm to build this make do palace? Showcase of power? Well maybe they can put up visiting American diplomats within reach. View full entry
“Condé Nast’s arrival puts a stiletto in the heart of the outdated notion that Lower Manhattan is stuffy and gray,” said Jessica Lappin, president of the Downtown Alliance, a local business organization. “They will accelerate the transformation that’s well underway and create additional demand-side pressure for more cool restaurants, art galleries and bars.” — nytimes.com
Thirteen years after the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, and a fair share of construction delays, 1 World Trade Center is open for business. While the tower's 102 floors are currently only 58% occupied, mostly by media giant Condé Nast (of Vanity Fair, Vogue, The New Yorker, and... View full entry
With this new issue of MONU we would like to expand on, and complement, the topic of "Border Urbanism" through the topic of "Transnational Urbanism" as cross-border processes are not just limited to cities that are located close to nation-state borders, but impact cities anywhere else as well by trans-border relations.
Bernd Upmeyer, Editor-in-Chief, October 2014
— http://www.monu-magazine.com/news.htm
Around six years ago, our issue #8 entitled "Border Urbanism" focused on urban phenomena that appear in cities that are located close to nation-state borders. We were fascinated by the fact that when cities are located close to borders, they often foster very specific economic features or urban... View full entry
Continium. Cube. Columbus. What sounds like characters in a comic book series is really the three defining components in "C-City", a new museum district located at the entrance into the Dutch-German border town of Kerkrade. Designed by Rotterdam-based Shift Architecture Urbanism, the €... View full entry
For as long as digital technology continues to creep into every part of our daily lives, so will the discussion regarding its impact on everyday reality. Over at London's Hayward Gallery, the MIRRORCITY exhibition features the multimedia works of London-based emerging and established artists that address the dilemmas, consequences, and experiences of living in the digital revolution. MIRRORCITY will be at the Hayward Gallery until January 4, 2015. — bustler.net
One of the MIRRORCITY artists is Emma McNally whose Choral Fields (1-6) graphite drawings are featured in the exhibition. If McNally's name sounds familiar, she exhibited her beautiful cosmos-inspired drawing/space body of work in the Drawing Room's "Abstract Drawing" last year. Similar to... View full entry
10x10 Drawing the City London is an annual fundraising event established by British architect Tim Makower and organized by charity group Article 25 that gets its name from the 100-square grid that captures one particular area in the city of London.Each square of the grid is assigned to... View full entry
Welcome to Archinect's Lexicon. Architecture notoriously appropriates and invents new language – sometimes to make appeals, sometimes to fill conceptual gaps, sometimes nonsensically. But once a word is used, it's alive, and part of the conversation. We're here to take... View full entry
Beavercreek, Ohio, nabbed its own infamous place in civil rights history last year, when the Federal Highway Administration ruled that the suburb had violated anti-discrimination laws by blocking bus service from nearby Dayton. [...]
The Beavercreek case illustrates larger, more widespread problems with America’s transportation system [...]. The Kirwan Institute is producing a one-hour documentary exploring the Beavercreek case and how racism can influence transportation decision making.
— usa.streetsblog.org
For the first time in the 14-year history of the International Venice Biennale of Architecture, the Nunavut flag flew at the entrance to the Canadian Pavilion, an Inukshuk floating at the entrance of “Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15.”
The exhibit, curated by architects Lola Sheppard and Mason White, from Toronto-based design firm Lateral Office, coincides with the 15th anniversary of the territory’s creation.
— indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com
Previously: “Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15” to represent Canadian Pavilion at 2014 Venice Biennale View full entry
Three sites in California — the Watts Towers, Noah Purifoy's Outdoor Desert Museum in Joshua Tree and the "Bay Lights" installation on the Oakland-Bay Bridge — have been named to a list of 11 "at-risk" sites by The Cultural Landscape Foundation in Washington, D.C. [...]
"Landscapes often die quiet deaths when you're dealing with the elements," says foundation President Charles Birnbaum.
— latimes.com
Related: UCLA engineers will study the stability of Watts Towers View full entry
Purrington says he removed the Founding Fathers from his design as this was a practice Congress had wanted to abolish following the American revolution. He wanted to focus instead on the attributes shared by workers in a community, and "how these attributes contribute to the principles we end up seeing as valuable." — The Verge
Travis Purrington View full entry
One of the most popular museums in Paris, the Picasso Museum, reopens on Saturday after a five-year closure for a costly and controversial renovation. [...]
In the run-up to the big day, Lebon has been busy conducting VIP tours. Among his guests: the American architect Frank Gehry, whose monumental Louis Vuitton art foundation has just opened on the other side of Paris.
"I am not here to criticise the architecture, but to praise the painting - which is of course phenomenal," says Gehry.
— bbc.com
Related: An Architect’s Big Parisian Moment View full entry
The School’s curriculum will intensively utilize the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area and the Wenzhou region of China, where Kean University has an English-speaking campus [...]
“Michael Graves’ philosophy is to draw by hand first so that the students see, “feel” and experience the new building spatially. Then, only after the drawing is complete will the students transfer the design to a computer so that the computer becomes an execution tool, not an ideation tool.”
— businesswire.com
“People used to complain that people went to New York to buy what they could buy in LA,” said Kathy Halbreich, the associate director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “I don’t think that happens anymore. I think there’s a recognition that the city matters, that the people aren’t just there for the weather. You see a level of ambition that’s been ratcheted up.” — theguardian.com
As technology evolves, what today seems science fiction may become the job market of tomorrow. Experts predict that 60% of employments in the next 10 years haven’t even been invented yet. — nextnature.net