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The Hearst Tower scaffold, in short, can fold around its center, allowing it to conform to the building’s angled windows. (A failure in this folding mechanism may be what trapped the men: NBC is reporting that the motor suffered a power failure.) — newyorker.com
It might seem like a mismatch: the Dolans, veterans of many public brawls, against Kimmelman, an urbane trained pianist who previously wrote primarily about art. But such is the power of the Times when it’s given to a crusading voice. — NY Magazine
Renderings by Tappan Zee Constructors LLC, the team selected to design and build the bridge at a cost of $4 billion, show a structure crowned by 400-foot-high towers that look like insect antennae waving aimlessly in the wind.
Four pairs of masts tilt outward, from which cables splay to support the road deck. The towers are intended to form an iconic image, but they are just stumpy.
This is a site that deserves the magnificence of the Golden Gate Bridge.
— bloomberg.com
The company will be moving all of its teams from its current office near Grand Central to two floors at the new office, the interior of which architect Frank Gehry has agreed to design.
Gehry is already leading the expansion of Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, CA. A source familiar with Facebook's plans said the company is "extraordinarily pleased with [Gehry's] ability to delivery an incredible quality of design at a remarkably efficient price"...
— mashable.com
Donald Judd bought 101 Spring Street, an 1870 cast-iron building, in 1968 for $68,000.
He stripped the dilapidated building down to its plaster walls and wood floors, illegally removing distractions like fire sprinklers.
Then Judd (1928-1994) spent decades turning the spaces into a showcase for his art and a place to rest his head on a bed made of wood planks. It’s carefully related to the colored tubes by Dan Flavin that march across the room, echoing the rhythm of a gorgeous row of windows.
— bloomberg.com
After dabbling at the edges for political discourse for several years, the AIA's New York chapter has jumped in with both feet by releasing this week its first-ever mayoral platform.
"We just felt these issues were too important to stand on the sidelines anymore," said Jill Lerner, a principal KPF and the chapter's president. "Whether it's zoning and building codes or sustainability issues or climate change and Sandy, politicians set the agenda for how the city gets built."
— crainsnewyork.com
The Municipal Art Society asked four design firms to draw big: Reimagine the ideal Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden.
The proposals — by Diller Scofidio & Renfro, SHoP Architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture — will be introduced on Wednesday at the TimesCenter. All plans expect the new station to include high-speed rail.
— nytimes.com
SHoP ARCHITECTS Expands the existing site with a lightweight concrete structure that is meant to evoke the old Penn Station and seeks to make the station a social meeting spot. “When’s the last time you heard someone say, ‘Let’s meet for a drink at Penn Station?'&rdquo... View full entry
Increasingly it's been cities that have taken the lead on critical issues, from gun control to immigration reform to economic stimulus to climate change. Given the migration of people into cities worldwide, this trend is sure to continue. We might even be in a de facto transition to a society dominated by economically and politically powerful cities — a contemporary version of the great city-states that arose in the 13th century and ruled Europe until the consolidation of modern nation-states. — Places
For almost a decade David Burney has been Commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction in New York City. In an interview with Places editor Nancy Levinson, he reflects on the urban design record of the Bloomberg years, focusing especially on PlaNYC, the ongoing post-Sandy recovery... View full entry
The biggest public transit infrastructure effort in the US is almost completely invisible — unless you’re 160 feet underground. The East Side Access project will connect the Long Island Railroad to New York’s Grand Central Terminal via a massive tunnel under the East River. Actually, that tunnel was the easy part; it was started in 1969. The hard part? “We are building a brand-new railroad here,” says Michael Horodniceanu, president of Metropolitan Transit Authority Capital Construction. — wired.com
Beautiful photographs by Dean Kaufman. To view more of his photos from this story, go to his website. View full entry
The Heron’s architect was N. D. Austin, a 31-year-old artist known for what he calls “trespass theater.” “It’s about making the invisible visible,” he said of his philosophy.
Mr. Austin located a suitable water tower by scouring Buildings Department records for violations with egregious scaffold fines. That can indicate a neglectful landlord, he said, which meant it might be a vacant building ripe for adopting as one’s own.
— nytimes.com
One Saturday night last month, 12 guests squeezed through the trap door into the space. “The great thing about the upright bass is how it got up here,” said Dirby Luongo, one of Mr. Austin’s collaborators who played the doorman. “It’s like a ship in a bottle.” View full entry
B2, a 32-story tower that is part of a 1,500-unit, mixed-use complex designed by SHoP Architects for Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards, will soon be the tallest modular building in the world. nARCHITECTS recently won adaptNYC’s competition to design a micro-unit apartment building, and will see its concept transformed into a 10-story building by 2015. It will be the first multiunit building in Manhattan to be built with modular construction. — opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
Mr. Tyler’s entire home was only 78 square feet. And while his “Midtown mansion,” as he called it, was a far cry from the lavish town homes and shimmering penthouses that have spawned a thousand lustful television shows, a video tour posted on YouTube of Mr. Tyler’s little room has been viewed nearly 1.7 million times over the past year and a half. A similar video, about a 90-square-foot apartment on the Upper West Side, has been viewed even more times. — nytimes.com
An exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, called “Making Room,” brought a 30 percent bump in attendance during its opening week in January, and the museum has maintained an 11 percent increase in foot traffic during the show’s run, compared with the same period last year. View full entry
In his first solo exhibition in a New York museum since 1980, American artist James Turrell sets out to reimagine the iconic rotunda of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in a dramatic transformation. The luminous and immersive site-specific work, Aten Reign, will be part of the upcoming exhibition James Turrell at NYC's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum which opens on June 21, 2013. — bustler.net
With the blank slate offered by a catastrophic attack, planners, soon joined by the mayor himself, saw a chance to re-establish a great crossroads: Fulton and Greenwich Streets, tying the second World Trade Center into New York — north, south, east and west.
Now, however, they see that vision slipping away, as security concerns trump urban planning.
— cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com
Gehry fans in NYC, here's one for you: A selection of over 30 Frank Gehry process models is currently on display at Manhattan's Leslie Feely Fine Art. The exhibition FRANK GEHRY AT WORK opened in April and still runs until June 29. The gallery is located at 33 E 68th Street, 5th Floor. — bustler.net
