Sixteen years after the city spent $9 million to fix the 1982 postmodernist icon’s sagging 14th and 15th floor, it’s now facing a $95-million top-to-bottom overhaul because virtually every joint in the building is leaking. But as haters of the building call for its demolition and preservationists wail to save it, I’d like to pose a simple question that ought to be asked before spending millions of dollars to save any historic building: is the real thing better than the pictures? — portlandmonthlymag.com
London-designer Asif Khan's pavilion for the Sochi 2014 Olympics is essentially a building-sized pin screen, capable of transforming its facade into 3D projections of visitors' faces. Khan designed the pavilion for MegaFon, the general partner of the Sochi Winter Olympics and one of Russia's... View full entry
![Rem Koolhaas, working on an exhibit on Wallace Harrison at the IAUS, and Wallace Harrison. [from The Making of an Avant-Garde, directed by Diana Agrest]](https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/e5/e5s1fkha5s1adz2e.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=514 "Rem Koolhaas, working on an exhibit on Wallace Harrison at the IAUS, and Wallace Harrison. [from The Making of an Avant-Garde, directed by Diana Agrest]")
I wish that it still existed.
— Frank Gehry
It would be the world's biggest nightmare if the Institute were still alive.
— Mark Wigley
It was the moment for something to happen.
— Diana Agrest
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— Places Journal
In 1967 Peter Eisenman founded the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, and until it closed in 1985 the Institute — a heady mix of think tank, exhibit space, journal publisher and cocktail party — was one of the centers of American architecture culture. Belmont Freeman... View full entry
Now that Helsinki has decided to reserve a plot in the South Harbour, the Guggenheim Foundation can organize and fund an international architecture competition for a potential Helsinki museum location. — yle.fi
Previously: Another Step Toward a Guggenheim in Helsinki View full entry
Israeli designer Avner Gicelter gives loving homage to Tel Aviv's array of architectural styles in his illustrated "TLV Buildings" project. In the continuing series, Gicelter faithfully represents each building's facade in simple, colorful, almost 8-bit renderings, sometimes retaining small... View full entry
Madeline Arakawa Gins, a poet-turned-painter-turned-architect who publicly forswore mortality — and whose buildings, by her own account, were designed to pre-empt death for those living in them — died on Wednesday in Manhattan. She was 72.
The cause was cancer, said Joke Post, the manager for architectural projects at the Reversible Destiny Foundation, which Ms. Gins and her husband, the Japanese-born artist known simply as Arakawa, established in 1987.
— mobile.nytimes.com
National and local foundations have pledged more than $330 million to a fund to protect city-owned art at the Detroit Institute of Arts from being auctioned off, mediators in Detroit’s bankruptcy announced Monday.
A statement from Chief U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Rosen’s team of mediators called the financial commitments “an extraordinary and unprecedented effort” to preserve the art collection and raise money for Detroit’s underfunded pension funds.
— detroitnews.com
Previously: Detroit’s Venal Art Sale No Fix for Urban Nightmare View full entry
The Working Group plan puts forward a number of recommendations that are worth pursuing under any financial model. However, we believe that the contingencies and risks inherent in the proposals are too great to supplant the need for new revenue sources. Regrettably, tuition remains the only realistic source of new revenue in the near future. — Richard S. Lincer, chair of The Cooper Union Board of Trustees
Below is the entire email announcing the Cooper Union's decision to start charging tuition this fall, breaking the school's 153-year tradition. Catch-up on the history behind the controversial move, explained in Archinect's 13 top issues of 2013: #5: Free Cooper Union To: The Cooper Union... View full entry
The Barcelona-based illustrator responsible for Archicine and Archipixel, Federico Babina, has created a whimsical alphabet in the style of 26 particularly inspiring architects. For Archibet, Babina modeled each letter after an architect with that shared initial. The Guggenheim wraps... View full entry
I foresee that major urban spaces of Pyongyang, such as Kim Il Sung Square, will be used as “public” space with a greater variety of urban activities, such as commercial activities and show events. [...]
The last thing that may happen in North Korea, or the thing that should not happen in some sense, is the Chinese model. Considering the scale of the economy and the potential of the North Korean market compared to China, it is hard to picture radical and massive urban development in Pyongyang.
— NK News
Part two of NK News' interview with Dongwoo Yim pushes the discussion of North Korean urbanism into the future, comparing potential development methods to those seen in China and South Korea. Focusing on capital Pyongyang, Yim proposes a "Bilbao effect" development strategy that is heavy on... View full entry
Yesterday, DS+R announced in their proposal for MoMA's redesign that the American Folk Art Museum would have to be demolished. Backlash from the #folkMoMA community quickly arose: architects and critics called the choice callous and unsustainable, outraged not only by the Folk Art Museum's... View full entry
Looking at the diagram of a restricted image reminded me of the ubiquitous stock photograph of the NSA, the one reminiscent of the Kaaba and among the few used by news outlets. The photograph’s ubiquity, along with its subject’s resemblance to another opaque monument, serves as shorthand for an institution that seeks to be perceived as beyond human comprehension or accountability.
I made my pilgrimage not to the NSA, however, but to adjacent temples of lesser gods.
— creativetimereports.org
[Diller] had great respect for the Folk Art Museum, calling it a “bespoke” design tailored to the needs of the museum. She went through several scenarios on how to integrate the museum in the expanded footprint. [...]
Adapting the Folk Art Museum building, however, would basically compromise the building’s interior beyond recognition. [...]
The architects would have had to destroy the Folk Art Museum building in order to save it.
— Architect Magazing
In what looks like the kiss of death for the #folkMoMA movement, Diller Scofidio + Renfro's design for MoMA's expansion will necessitate the destruction of the neighboring American Folk Art Museum, as proposed today in a MoMA press conference. The initial threat to the Folk Museum was made last... View full entry
They conceive of urban space as space owned by the public, not space for real estate development. — Dongwoo Yim, NK News
Much of the North Korean news that reaches the United States reads like tabloid hearsay, as glimpses of a totalitarian dictatorship rife with human rights violations are peeked through Dennis Rodman and military showboating. NK News, an independent and private news source based in Washington... View full entry
The disaster that reduced Christchurch to rubble has given rise to a spirit of art and enterprise, writes Tijana Jaksic. [...]
Nearly three years on from the devastating earthquake that shook the city, it's clear that Christchurch will never be the same. But the city is embracing the chance to not only rebuild, but completely reinvent itself.
— heraldsun.com.au
