In the hopes of becoming the next Silicon Valley, Denmark is embarking on a massive land reclamation project that involves the creation of nine new islands to the south of Copenhagen. Designed by the Danish office Urban Power, the Holmene project will create 3.1 million square meters of land to... View full entry
Authored and published by Zupagrafika, and now featured in our Downtown LA retail store and online at Archinect Outpost, these miniature versions of brutalist structures from former Eastern Bloc countries can now rest easily on your desk or bookshelf. House of Soviets (Kaliningrad, Russia)... View full entry
In this beguiling new gallery in the Engadin valley, it is hard to tell where nature ends and artifice begins. It is located on the site of a 12th-century monastery, in a rambling complex of buildings... The young architects Chasper Schmidlin and Lukas Voellmy have concocted a magical place where the historic fabric, contemporary art and the raw geology of the landscape collide. — The Guardian
Exterior. Photograph: (c) Studio Stefano Graziani, courtesy Muzeum Susch, Art Stations Foundation CHThough the outside of this gallery in the remote Eastern section of Switzerland appears perfectly ordinary, stepping past its entrance reveals a world of difference. Interior. Photograph: Studio... View full entry
UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Culture Ernesto Ottone R, Thomas Vonier, President of the International Union of Architects (UIA), and Verena Vicentini Andreatta, Municipal Secretary of the City of Rio for Urbanism, on Friday 18 January announced that the city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) will be the World Capital of Architecture for 2020. — UNESCO
The new World Capital of Architecture initiative is part of a recent partnership between UNESCO and the International Union of Architects (UIA) and allows the designated city to host the triennial UIA World Congress. Under the theme "All the worlds. Just one world," Rio de Janeiro is expected... View full entry
Every year, the MacDowell Colony's prestigious arts fellowship welcomes more than 300 artists from across the U.S. and worldwide to produce original works. Out of 846 applications, a diverse group of 86 artists were awarded $10,000 MacDowell Fellowships for a summer residency. Located in a... View full entry
“We just don’t build houses like we used to.” Whether we’re criticizing an individual home or a wave of boxy buildings, it’s a common lament... It’s a statement that contains some truth, but it also misses crucial context about the material conditions, functionality, and style trends of the past. — Curbed
Kate Wagner, the writer and critic behind McMansion Hell, has turned their sights towards an often-uttered statement about the current state of architectural craftsmanship: "We just don't build houses like we used to." Listen to our conversation with Kate on Archinect Sessions: Wagner... View full entry
Today, The Barbican, along with the London Symphony Orchestra and Guildhall School of Music & Drama, released images of the Diller Scofidio + Renfro-designed London Centre for Music. DS+R was first announced as lead architect for the project back in 2017, and teamed up with Sheppard Robson... View full entry
“Every child,” lamented Tom Wolfe in From Bauhaus to Our House of 1981, “goes to school in a building that looks like a duplicating-machine replacement-parts wholesale distribution warehouse”. Had there ever been another place on earth, he also said of Bauhaus-influenced America, “where so many people of wealth and power paid for and put up with so much architecture they detested?” — The Guardian
Observer architecture critic, Rowan Moore, on the vast and enduring impact of the "short-lived but longlasting" Bauhaus movement—both the sympathetic and the averse. The famed school celebrates the centenary of its original founding this year. View full entry
Even today, parking garages are typically underused. In the not-too-distant future, car shares, self-driving cars, increased investment in transit, or simple behavioral change could all shift the amount of parking people think they need. And the U.S. also has far more parking than necessary–in Seattle, for example, there are five parking spaces for every resident. Architects and city planners are increasingly realizing that valuable city space could be put to better use than storing cars. — Fast Company
Parking garages run rampant, especially in Los Angeles. According to Gensler's co-CEO Andy Cohen there are 500 million parking spaces in the United States. “Think about all that real estate, all that attention to parking, that could be revitalized and reused for the future of our cities.”... View full entry
All eyes have been on Long Island City since its partial triumph in Amazon’s urban beauty pageant. [...]
Queens native Kris Graves has kept his eye on Long Island City continuously since moving there ten years ago. Photographing what presents itself outside his door in Hunters Point South and as he walks around the neighborhood, Graves never intended to create a record of a vanishing scene (RIP 5Pointz notwithstanding). Instead, his photos, accumulating over time, represent an additive process.
— Urban Omnibus
Also check out Kris Graves's other fascinating photographic explorations of New York City we've featured on Archinect:Civic beacon or bunker? Photographer Kris Graves documents all of New York City’s 77 police precincts.How the Bronx breaks New York's grid View full entry
"If there was any lingering doubt that Brutalism — the architectural style derided for everything the name implies — was back in fashion, the “Atlas of Brutalist Architecture” quashes it with a monumental thump. At 560 pages representing some 878 works of architecture in over 100 countries, the outsize volume is part reference tool, part coffee table book, and certainly part of an ongoing design trend favoring big, big books." — Los Angeles Times
It has been remarkable to see the dramatic change in public opinion towards brutalist architecture in the last few years. Not only has the style shed its identity as a blight on the majority of modern cities, but dozens of products have recently entered the market in honor of these monumental... View full entry
An actor from Tamaulipas has created a project that would give the state’s capital, Ciudad Victoria, the world’s tallest statue of Jesus Christ.
Eduardo Verástegui Córdoba explained that the 77-meter-high statue and a complex to be built around it will be known as The Christ of Peace.
He said that the purpose of the project is to leave a legacy of peace for the state in which he was born.
— Mexico News Daily
Besides the enormous statue of Jesus Christ, the ambitious project is also expected to provide a large plaza for 10,000 people, a church of course, a convention center as well as facilities for retail, dining, hospitality, shopping, entertainment, transportation, and housing. Mexican actor Eduardo... View full entry
The Museum of Contemporary Art announced Wednesday that it will close its Pacific Design Center location next month after exhibiting architecture and design at the West Hollywood satellite for more than 20 years.
MOCA will continue an architecture and design program, but at its Grand Avenue and Geffen Contemporary locations in downtown L.A., board Chairwoman Maria Seferian said in a statement.
— LA Times
Showcased during the Mextrópoli International Festival of Architecture, one of the largest festivals in Latin America with over 50,000 people in attendance, I-CONO dazzles the streets of Mexico City. Aimed at creating and sparking discussion around architecture and the city architects, students... View full entry
The architects behind the Flying Pigs on Parade project—which planned to install four golden pig-shaped balloons in front of the infamous Trump Tower Chicago sign—are back with another anti-Trump parody, this time mocking the President's proposed border wall. New World Projects, the... View full entry
