The Architectural Association (AA) in London has announced that it has terminated the employment of its Director Eva Franch i Gilabert due to Gilabert's "failure to develop and implement a strategy and maintain the confidence of the AA School Community which were specific failures of performance... View full entry
Conceptual artist JB Daniel wants to transform a Chicago landfill site near the Calumet River into a sculpture park to house all of the toppled monuments from recent protests, reports The Art Newspaper. The artist proposes the statues be installed in their topped states with their... View full entry
Officials in Downtown Los Angeles are moving to cancel building permits for a $700 million mixed-use development embroiled in a sprawling federal corruption investigation working its way through the city government's highest levels. In June, Los Angeles City Planning Director Vince Bertoni... View full entry
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree Friday ordering Hagia Sophia to be opened for Muslim prayers, an action likely to provoke international furor around a World Heritage Site cherished by Christians and Muslims alike for its religious significance, stunning structure and as a symbol of conquest. — The New York Times
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan followed through on his plan today to convert Istanbul's famed Hagia Sophia, a Unesco world heritage site, into a mosque. The presidential decree was issued within minutes after Turkey’s administrative court revoked the museum status that the... View full entry
Last week, President Donald Trump's unveiled the Executive Order on Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes, a measure that sets out to create a new "National Garden of American Heroes" to be filled with statues depicting "historically significant Americans. ... View full entry
New York City-based Terreform and Chicago community development nonprofit Blacks in Green are planning to moving ahead with the BIG Green Homestead project, a development that will bring community-owned sustainable housing and commercial spaces to the city's South Side. The project... View full entry
Virgil Abloh announced today that he has raised $1 million to support Black students through the Virgil Abloh™️ "Post-Modern" Scholarship Fund. This new offering will be managed in partnership with the Fashion Scholarship Fund (FSF), a fashion-oriented education and workforce... View full entry
Southwark council declared that its New Architect Design Services Framework was a “first-of-a-kind” attempt to engage with a new generation of diverse designers. As councillor Leo Pollak put it: “It is the framework some architects have been waiting for all their years.”
It turns out that black architects will have to wait even longer.
— The Guardian
Writing in The Guardian, architecture critic Oliver Wainwright highlights the long-standing barriers Black and other minority architects in the UK face with regards to attaining public building contracts. Wainwright finds that while the 2010 Equality Act compels localities to improve how... View full entry
Following a surprise announcement that foreign students will not be allowed to remain in the United States if their colleges adopt all-online education for the coming semester, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have sued the federal government to stop the... View full entry
The Greek government says that Turkey will violate Unesco’s conservation rules if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan moves ahead with plans to turn the historic Hagia Sophia site in Istanbul—currently a museum—into a mosque. — The Art Newspaper
After plans by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to turn Istanbul's most iconic historic site from a museum into a mosque caused international condemnation last year, Unesco has now been invited by the Greek government to weigh in on the proposed conversion, reports The Art Newspaper... View full entry
Kanye West, who almost a year ago, was forced to demolish his housing project in Calabasas for lack of permitting and failure to comply with building codes, unveiled July 5th on Twitter what appears to be a new stab at the endeavor. "YZY SHLTRS in process #2020VISION" the post reads. The... View full entry
Rather than fancy restaurants and gimmicky stores, lobbies could host outside organizations to convene and organize. The museum might act as a partner and participant, catalyst, and amplifier. Here, there are no bananas stuck to the wall, but ample meaningful information for an active audience. Guards would protect patrons over property. And during the next protest, lobbies could open up and transform into staging grounds, sanctuary spaces, and broadcasting stations for citizen journalists. — artnet
Architect Florian Idenburg offers alternative uses for boarded up museum fronts in New York City during the social uprising and protests and questions the corporate policies now running the museum's public interface on city's sidewalks. "Amid the stream of information about systemic racism... View full entry
Over the holiday weekend, President Donald Trump announced the creation of a new "National Garden of American Heroes" that will contain statues depicting "historically significant Americans" and other historical figures like Christopher Columbus. The order comes as protest movements and... View full entry
Even before the pandemic reconfigured every aspect of our daily lives, it was clear that the cash register — the kind with a drawer that pops out after your groceries are tallied — was headed for the dust heap of technology, joining fax machines and CD players. Many convenience stores, like CVS, Rite Aid and Target, started installing self-checkout stations a decade ago. — The Philadelphia Inquirer
Architecture critic Inga Saffron of The Philadelphia Inquirer examines the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has supercharged the automation of grocery stores and other spaces, finding that with the boom in grocery delivery services that has taken hold since the pandemic hit, some purveyors... View full entry
The Architectural Association (AA) in London finds itself in crisis this week as students, staff, and leadership express a lack of support for a proposed strategic plan crafted for the institution’s future by AA Director Eva Franch i Gilabert. Further, as The Architect’s Journal reports... View full entry
