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Alongside a wider effort to uncover and rediscover the lost and forgotten histories of historically marginalized groups and populations, Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia has recently taken steps to uncover the 18th century living-history museum's queer legacies. In a recent... View full entry
Please join Archinect and the Architecture + Design Museum on Saturday, December 7th at 2pm for History + Theory Education in LA's Schools of Architecture, a panel discussion investigating the current and future state of historical and theoretical approaches to architectural education. The... View full entry
“Trajan's Hollow” is a new book by Joshua G. Stein — founder of Radical Craft and co-director of the Data Clay Network — that sheds new light on the historic Trajan's Column, one of ancient Rome's great monuments that has been obsessively documented by archaeologists and historians... View full entry
“Shoji’s architectural background was instrumental to these large projects,” Thomas T.K. Zung, who became a partner of Mr. Sadao’s in the firm Buckminster Fuller, Sadao & Zung Architects, said by email. “Shoji’s accomplishment was his service to two geniuses, Bucky and Isamu,” Mr. Zung added. “Shoji was an architectural samurai — he understood them both and added to their mix, without need or benefit of self-glory.” — The New York Times
Architect Shoji Sadao, who played a major role in bringing some of the most famous designs by Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi into the world, passed away in Tokyo at the age of 92 on November 3. As one of Fuller's most important collaborators, Sadao applied his mathematical and... View full entry
Neal Curtis, Samuel Lemley and Madeline Zehnder conducted some keen literary sleuthing to discover Thomas Jefferson’s original intentions for the Dome Room, and then harnessed modern digital technology to bring the planetarium to life in a way that the University’s founder could not have imagined. “The concave ceiling of the Rotunda,” Jefferson wrote in 1819, “is proposed to be painted sky-blue and spangled with gilt stars in their position and magnitude copied exactly.” — University of Virginia
While planning the early stages of the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson envisioned a fantastical planetarium for the school's historic Rotunda. In 2019, that vision has been achieved as the Rotunda Planetarium, thanks to three Ph.D students from the school's English department, and a grant... View full entry
Making a building is such a big thing. They impact people for generations and act as massive transfers of information. It’s very profound. You can’t think enough about what the responsibility is. — The Guardian
Writing in The Guardian, architect David Adjaye of Adjaye Associates shares his personal thoughts on architecture as it relates to the creation, maintenance, and longevity of memory by highlighting his firm's recently completed Linda Pace Foundation building in San Antonio, Texas. View... View full entry
As a response to the race against time to preserve the world's ancient cultural heritage, The Getty recently announced an ambitious, $100 million initiative called “Ancient Worlds Now: A Future for the Past” that aims to promote a stronger understanding of global cultural heritage and its... View full entry
Watching the way children used his equipment, often in ways he could never have anticipated, made him more and more certain: play wasn’t a frivolous distraction from learning, but something essential to childhood and indeed humanity. [...] According to his design philosophy, each park wasn’t just a place to jump on a shockingly large air mattress. It was “a place where a child can ask questions of what it means to be human.” — The Local
Journalist Nicholas Hune-Brown profiles Canadian designer Eric McMillan, who started out his career as an exhibition designer and was then thrown into the spotlight after he designed the Ontario Place Children's Village in Toronto. Suddenly becoming the expert on children's design, McMillan... View full entry
This all makes what is happening now all the more remarkable. Last summer, Ford Motor Company announced it had bought the building, with plans to invest $740million to transform it into a world-leading research centre for ‘future mobility’. The very industry that signed the station’s death warrant in the first place is now set on resuscitating it as a beacon of sustainable transport. — The RIBA Journal
Oliver Wainwright pens a piece on the upcoming renovation of the Michigan Central Station, which was a celebrated icon of Detroit when it first opened in 1913. After the station closed in 1988 and was abandoned, it became the epitome of the city's ruin porn. After buying the building last summer... View full entry
Since 1983, Iraq has lobbied to have Babylon, the "Mesopotamian metropolis," recognized as an official World Heritage Site. For three decades, Iraq persisted until finally, on July 5th, a committee met in Azerbaijan to vote for the city to be recognized by UNESCO. According to a piece in Al... View full entry
Who and what comes to mind when thinking of American architecture? In practice, academia, and culture, America's influence on the built environment has undergone moments of triumph as well as moments of reflection. In celebration of the nation's independence from British monarchy in... View full entry
Technically, the sand wasn’t intended for public use. But Manhattan is not your usual island, and beaches are whatever Manhattanites say they are: sidewalks, tar-paper roofs, the hoods of cars or, in this case, acres and acres of landfill. — The New York TImes
Though Manhattan skyline has been the focus of countless photographs, movies and television shows, there are still images out there that can defy expectations. For a brief period, between the late 1960's and the 1980's, the lower West end of Manhattan (known as Battery Park City) was an "ersatz... View full entry
The Stonewall Riots in June 1969 set forth the fight for LGBTQ rights that continues today. To honor the last five decades of its lasting impact, the LGBT Community Center of NYC teamed up with the National Park Service, with support from Google, to create an interactive, augmented reality... View full entry
Clean lines, white surfaces and indoor-outdoor living epitomise early modern architecture. Contrary to received wisdom, to Colomina this is less a machine aesthetic than a hospital aesthetic. Through the lens of disease, nervous disorders, sexuality and self-expression, Colomina’s fascinating interpretation of modern architecture suggests the motivating factors behind the architectural revolution were the need for health and cleanliness, hygiene and smooth, calming surfaces. — The Sydney Morning Herald
In light of her recently published book X-Ray Architecture, architectural historian Beatriz Colomina talks about the history of how illnesses shaped the clean aesthetics of 20th-century modern architecture. ‘‘In the 20th century architects from Le Corbusier to Mies van der Rohe to Alvar... View full entry
These setbacks toughened her demeanour. [...] Her toughness soon gave her a reputation for being a “difficult woman”. Following an intense period of building in the 1950s, De Silva’s contracts dried up, while [Geoffrey] Bawa’s rocketed. Ismeth Raheem, an architect who worked closely with Bawa in the early years, recalls De Silva telling him on several occasions: “I was dismissed because I am a woman. I was never taken seriously for my work.” — The Guardian
While Minnette de Silva's influence can be seen in the more progressive architecture in Colombo in her native Sri Lanka, “her contribution to architecture has been only belatedly – and sometimes begrudgingly – acknowledged,” writes Shiromi Pinto in The Guardian. Throughout her career... View full entry
