Adorned with gold and marble, [the Trump Tower] looks like Saddam Hussein went on a shopping spree with Liberace.
To make way for its construction, Mr Trump demolished the handsome Art Deco Bonwit Teller department store. He promised to donate its bas-relief carvings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art but it turned out they were too expensive to remove so they were smashed to pieces on site instead.
— Financial Times
Loud, pushy, indifferent to anything but self-touted glamour: Donald Trump's politics and his buildings share a great deal in common. In this piece, The Financial Times' reigning design critic Edwin Heathcote briefly touches on the repugnant qualities that the Donald's politics and his buildings... View full entry
In a filing Tuesday, the city asked the judge in the case to lift an order barring Lucas from starting construction before the legal fight is resolved. The city argues the order "puts the entire project at risk" because the museum "may choose to leave Chicago and relocate to another city." A status hearing is set for Wednesday. — Chicago Tribune
Will Los Angeles be the ultimate destination for George Lucas' museum? It's a possibility if the Chicago legal battles drag on, which makes one wonder: what would be the easiest, hassle-free site? Downtown? The Westside?In the meantime, here's a recap of the history of the Lucas Museum... View full entry
“Practicing” architecture is moving from a profession that focuses on building buildings as its highest calling, to a lifestyle that appreciates the beauty of architectural design, real or fantastic. This shift has two underlying realities. Just like the musician who lives his art, or the athlete who loves her sport, there are people that love architectural design, deeply, but fewer architects are needed to create buildings in this generation. — Common Edge
"The lack of need is based on less construction activity (a normal cycle, but now longer than any living architect has experienced) and the fact that technology has pre-empted the body count necessary per building design."For more on the current status of the profession, check out these... View full entry
I want the house to be an educational tool for young architects, and I want to inspire good architecture for Los Angeles - James Goldstein — LATimes
In a most generous move, public in Los Angeles is assured to have access to a masterpiece designed by legendary architect and maintained by its colorful owner Jim Goldstein who dedicated a good part of his living to the healthy survival of the house."Even though he had the Concannon Residence... View full entry
Amnesty International and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, recently presented reports on the vulnerable position of women refugees and the dangers they face.
Europe is failing to provide basic protection for them, the Amnesty report stated.
This problem is now all the more critical because the percentage of women among the refugees who travel through Europe has risen dramatically.
— Al Jazeera
"All the women interviewed for the Amnesty report said that they felt unsafe and threatened during the various stages of their journey. Women are at greater risk of becoming victims of violence, robbery and extortion... There is also the threat of rape and sexual assault by smugglers, security... View full entry
On March 18, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens an annex at Madison Avenue and 75th Street in Manhattan, it will be attempting to shrug off the ghost of a museum past.
The specter is the Whitney Museum of American Art, which called the iconic Marcel Breuer building on that corner home for nearly five decades. In an eight-year deal, the Met is leasing the Breuer building from the Whitney— which relocated to its dazzling new Renzo Piano–designed home last year...
— Architectural Record
The Breuer-designed building will house some of the Met's modern and contemporary collection. But shrugging off the association between the Brutalist masterpiece and its former tenant may prove a tough task. For many, nothing say's "the Whitney" more than those protruding windows... For related... View full entry
A handful of scientists and policy makers are...grappling with the long-term environmental effect of an economy that runs increasingly on gotta-have-it-now gratification [...]
The environmental cost can include the additional cardboard — 35.4 million tons of containerboard were produced in 2014 in the United States, with e-commerce companies among the fastest-growing users — and the emissions from increasingly personalized freight services.
— NY Times
As internet retailers compete to provide as-close-to-instant services to satiate our increasing desire for rapid gratification, our collective ecological footprint grows. The problem isn't just the cardboard boxes piling up on your doorstep, but also the carbon emissions required to get that... View full entry
American infrastructure is deferred home maintenance on a massive scale. We just keep putting it off until something major — and often catastrophic — happens, and then it ends up costing twice as much [...]
A century later, we’ve lost our collective faith in the power of great projects like the Golden Gate, not to mention our trust in the government to fix a pothole on time and on budget, let alone create an inspiring bridge. How can we restore that faith in possibility?
— mobile.nytimes.com
Allison Arieff, editor and content strategist for SPUR (and former judge for Archinect's Dry Futures competition), pens this piece for the Times calling for infrastructure to reprioritize the "bold and courageous," with a look at a few awe-inspiring urban infrastructure projects around the... View full entry
The letters are written to Aline Bernstein Louchheim, who became Saarinen's second wife in 1954. The Archives of American Art have an impressive collection of photos and letters from Eero and Aline, which you can view here. View full entry
dying online is open to anyone willing to share his or her end with the blogosphere. [...]
This dissolving of the barriers between the public and the intimate is death’s vital new upgrade... death has acquired a “neurotic separation” from daily life, and this separation has been identified as part of the “malaise of the late twentieth century.”
But thanks to the internet, death might be losing some of its pariah status.
— designobserver.com
Prompted by the recent mass internet-public mourning of David Bowie, as well as a few agencies that offer post-death social media updates to perpetuate the online persona of your late loved-ones, Adrian Shaughnessy (graphic designer at the Royal College of Art) reflects on how a death shared... View full entry
The NYPD has used cell-site simulators, commonly known as Stingrays, more than 1,000 times since 2008, according to documents turned over to the [NYCLU]. The documents represent the first time the department has acknowledged using the devices.
The NYPD also disclosed that it does not get a warrant before using a Stingray, which sweeps up massive amounts of data. Instead, the police obtain a “pen register order” from a court... [which] do not require the police to establish probable cause...
— theintercept.com
Stingrays operate by imitating cell phone towers, sweeping up massive amounts of user data without their knowledge or permission. They force cell phones to connect to them and then track the user's location. Originally a military technology, they have been increasingly bought and used by local... View full entry
What can architects learn from an award-winning producer and actor whose Netflix Original Series made appointment TV obsolete?
A lot.
— AIA Convention 2016 Press Announcement
Kevin Spacey will be the keynote speaker for the upcoming 2016 AIA Convention in Philadelphia, partly because he is described on the AIA's website as having a "talent for disruption and drive to challenge the status quo." Disruption seems to be trendy in the architectural community of late... View full entry
Until recently, though, Mr. Meier had never broken ground in South Korea. He checked that off his list with the newly opened Seamarq Hotel, a towering white complex overlooking the East Sea in the city of Gang-neung. “Our client chose a really magnificent site,” Mr. Meier said from his New York office. — The Wall Street Journal
When asked why the company chose not to commission Rem Koolhaas' OMA, who are already involved with designing the department store’s art foundation, Costa says that the decision to select BIG was based on the firm’s disruptive thinking and that OMA was already working with German department store KaDeWe in Berlin. “We were confident to work with new architects,” he says. — Business of Fashion
Tune in to tomorrow's Archinect Sessions to listen to a fuller discussion of what this disruptive design choice means for BIG, for Paris, and for flagship stores everywhere. In the meantime, here's a window display from Galeries Lafayette, circa 2007:And here's a quick refresher on what Bjarke's... View full entry
In a fresh bid to confront a problem that has confounded lawmakers for decades, Los Angeles city and county officials approved sweeping plans Tuesday aimed at getting thousands of homeless people off the streets.
But one crucial question remains unanswered: Where will most of the money come from? [...]
The renewed government attention to homelessness was spurred in part by a 12% surge in people living on the streets [...] pushing the total to more than 44,000 homeless people countywide.
— latimes.com
Previously in the Archinect news:"It’s about recognizing someone as existing": Photo exhibit depicts L.A.'s homelessness crisisLA's freeway system is becoming an increasingly crowded 'neighborhood' for the city's homelessLos Angeles to declare homelessness in the city an 'emergency' and pledge... View full entry