Googie was used as a deragatory term almost from the start — born in Southern California and named for a West Hollywood coffee shop designed in 1949 by John Lautner, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. Architecture critic Douglas Haskell was the first to use “Googie” to describe the architectural movement, after driving by the West Hollywood coffee shop and finally feeling like he had found a name for this style that was flourishing in the postwar era. — blogs.smithsonianmag.com
Energetic duo Andreas G. Gjertsen and Yashar Hanstad, partners of TYIN tegnestue Architects from Norway live by Finnish architect and writer Juhani Pallasmaa’s saying, “Architecture is about the understanding of the world and turning it into a more meaningful and humane place.“ — nst.com.my
It seems to me Aberdeen thinks in terms of a consumerist society, where the solution is: "Well, put more shops in and get more business." I think it's a mistake; the same mistake they made back in the 60s. — Guardian
The singer Annie Lennox has made a scathing attack on plans for a £140m privately run park (aka the Aberdeen City Garden Project) in the centre of her home city of Aberdeen. Sir Ian Wood an Aberdonian oil industry magnate, has offered to give at least £50m towards the... View full entry
In this one-off special the Culture Show goes behind-the-scenes to follow it from commission to completion, and discovers just how difficult it is to build a tower for the 21st century. — bbc.co.uk
For generations, government policies have been geared toward creating endless landscapes of strip malls... In the process we have gutted our traditional downtowns. We have eaten up farmland and forest. We have, as Nate Berg reported this week, endangered the lives of our senior citizens. We have engineered a world where children cannot walk or bike to school without risking their lives. We have created countless places devoid of any real social value. — theatlanticcities.com
As Los Angeles architecture schools with their year end final reviews are contributing to the discourse in varying degrees of engagement, there is one institution usually stands out with its excellence in quality education, UCLA Architecture and Urban Design and its yearly Rumble brand. This... View full entry
Looking at the city through the lens of landscape architecture allows us a clear view of the situation. There is just one course of action available to us: if we are to resolve the world’s ecological problems we first need to resolve the problems facing our cities. And the only way we can reach these solutions is by naming and researching them in terms of the metabolism of the city. — IABR
-Dirk Sijmons, renowned landscape architect and former Governmental Advisor on Landscape, has been appointed curator of the next edition of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam. The 6th IABR has the working title “URBAN by NATURE” and opens in May 2014. It focuses on the... View full entry
The highly anticipated skyspace by famed American artist James Turrell does not open to the public until June 14, but Rice students, faculty and staff got a sneak preview May 5 during an exclusive Cinco de Mayo celebration for the Rice community. — youtube.com
The folks in Alabama have just passed a law that says quite clearly that they don’t want anything to do with sustainability. Though they might not have any problem with clean air and water and all that, it seems to be the planning for it that is the problem. Because planning, after all, is apparently what communists do. — triplepundit.com
Sumit Jain has fond memories of his childhood in a small town where everybody knew everybody. But as a young man, he moved to a big city for work and began living in an apartment building. Jain said he soon missed feeling connected to a community.
That sense of loss led him to create Commonfloor.com, a “neighborhood portal” for Indians whose lifestyles have changed with their nation’s economic transformation but who still crave neighborhood life.
— washingtonpost.com
The High Line in New York succeeds because it unites neighborhoods and gets people outside, building a community in a space that was planned to be demolished: it brought life from rehabilitation. As we all know, Los Angeles has many places that need rehabilitating and that could serve as a point of unification. The problem though is that unlike the High Line we don’t have an area that stretches between neighborhoods without feeling forced or unantural. — laimyours.com
This web documentary gathers the best of online resources about the famed Habitat 67 of Montreal's World Expo 67, mashes them up and tells the modern story of how this iconic piece of architecture remains relevant in today's urban debates. — youtube.com
via @burnlab View full entry
After being takent to the precinct in Greenpoint, Takeshi used his one telephone call to contact, not a lawyer, but the office of Rafael Vinoly, as he was working on a project for them. But at 7AM, the only person around to answer the phone was a security guard. Takeshi proceeded to calmly dispense instructions for a project that was supposed to occur later that day. After jotting everything down, the guard – presumably confused and slightly bewildered – asked if Takeshi needed any help. — spoon-tamago.com
Takeshi Miyakawa, as you may recall, was recently arrested for his art installation that was mistaken as a planted bomb in NYC. Spoon & Tamago visits him in his studio to discuss his 5 days in jail, Milton Glaser, some new works as well as his current feelings about NY. View full entry
Although as a preservation-minded fellow, he probably wouldn't suggest that the two-bedroom, one-bathroom house off Colorado Boulevard is a teardown: "Now is your chance to live in the cottage and oversee construction, or you can just move in, enjoy the charm, the seclusion, the views--and write that novel." — la.curbed.com
Architecture (insofar as architecture is an art) should contain within it the potential for the revelation of that which is unknown. Changes in our physical environment, particularly in the structure of our cities following the Second World War, have resulted in a loss of a sense of place, as well as a subsequent "empty space" within our perceived experience of our world. This can only be remedied by a renewed sense of human settlements as urban foci... — theonion.com
The Onion has an advice columnist! Found via Archinect member The Great Northern in this discussion thread. View full entry