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Better known for their iconic lounge chairs, the mid-century designers Charles and Ray Eames spent a good portion of the post-war period applying their revolutionizing plywood-modeling process to radio housings. Dubbed "Design's Best-Kept Secret" by the Wall Street Journal, an estimated... View full entry
I think it was a wonderful moment in American history. I thought what Michelle Obama was attempting to do was to draw that link to show that it isn't just what's going on in the White House now and isn't it great that there's a black family there, but there's a much longer history that needs to be appreciated...
[It was] just grueling, grueling kind of work. And nobody was really willing ... to do it. So slave labor played a massive role in getting this city built.
— Clarence Lusane
During her speech at the DNC on Monday, First Lady Michelle Obama alluded to the White House's history of slave labor during the 1790s. NPR interviews Clarence Lusane, chairperson of Howard University's political science department and author of “The Black History of the White House”, who... View full entry
Architecture is both expansive and specific, artistic and technical. Agrest says that even after teaching and practicing the discipline for over 40 years, she still marvels at how much there is to learn.
'Architecture is really difficult. I realized that only very recently,' she says. 'It's like music. You can enjoy it but — to know it — it's a different story.'
Another bit of wisdom she shares with her students: The career of an architect blossoms late.
— npr.org
Now at 70 years old, Diana Agrest reflects on some of her teaching and design approaches in her illustrious career, with those approaches having influenced both former and current students and fellow educators alike.Related View full entry
KCRW, the NPR-affiliated public radio darling of Southern California, broke ground yesterday on its new 35,000 square-foot Media Center, located on Santa Monica College's Academy of Entertainment & Technology campus. For the past thirty years, KCRW was run out of a basement underneath the... View full entry
Its style is “brutalist,” which looks exactly like it sounds: big, blockish, hulking. Basically, a fortress of concrete... But what if these homely structures are actually tomorrow’s historic architecture? What if we just don’t appreciate them yet, and later generations will embrace them even though we think they’re monstrosities? — radioboston.wbur.org
"Homes of Tomorrow", a new radio program from London's "radical alternative" radio station, Resonance 104.4 fm, will explore the atmosphere and legacy of modernist architect Ernö Goldfinger’s utopian visions. Broadcasting Wednesdays at 10pm (BST) through September, the program features... View full entry
This was the first time where a musician, Eno -- who said I'm not a musician, by the way, I really construct ideas in a studio -- I felt connected to the idea of music, let's say, as sort of an intellectual project but at the same time it was still music that you wanted to dance to. So this is the architectural song and Eno as a kind of designer. Totally opened my eyes to new things. — kcrw.com
Track List: Theme From Shaft – Isaac Hayes Kurt’s Rejoinder – Brian Eno 2nd Movement, Symphony No. 5 – Glenn Branca The Bridge – Lee Ranaldo Keep Your Dreams – Suicide (from the First Album) View full entry
Architect Michael Maltzan has designed prestigious museums, luxurious private residences and social housing in Downtown LA. Music has been a factor in his life since he first started to discover architecture and he ruminates on the connection between the two art forms while sharing songs from Big Star, Talking Heads and more. — kcrw.com
Track list:The Bad Plus - Long Distance RunaroundTalking Heads - The Big CountryBig Star - The Ballad Of El GoodoPJ Harvey - We FloatGlen Campbell - There's No Me Without You View full entry
China is also the land of the knock-off: knock-off designer handbags, knock-off blockbuster movies on DVDs, etc. But now, it seems the knock-off has gone off the charts in terms of proportion: entire buildings. — theworld.org
As we have previously mentioned, Zaha Hadid is the latest victim of piracy in China, with a upcoming copy of her Wangjing Soho complex... scheduled to be completed before the original. NPR explores this issue with McGill architecture prof Avi Friedman. View full entry
Frances Anderton came to Los Angeles via Bath, England in 1991 and like her compatriot Reyner Banham, fell in love with the city. As a longtime producer and host of radio shows Which Way, LA? and DnA: Design and Architecture respectively, Anderton has spent the last 25 years of her professional and personal life exploring the relationship between L.A.'s architecture, politics and design. — kcet.org
Chances are, you know Moby best for his electronic dance music. But it turns out the eclectic-minded musician has another life, as an architecture buff who recently moved to LA and now writes a blog about buildings here he loves. The blog is called, simply, Moby Los Angeles Architecture Blog, and features his photos of local architecture. Frances Anderton talks to Moby about his love of architecture.
And, on that note, I promise this will be the last we refer to Moby's over-hyped move into the world of architecture blogging. View full entry
Craig Hodgetts credits the “unencumbered and exceedingly emotional” style of Miles Davis for shaping the direction of his architectural work. He also names the sounds of Vangelis and Terry Riley as inspirations in a guest DJ set that is a tribute to all kinds of creative work. — KCRW
Architect Craig Hodgetts, of LA design firm Hodgetts + Fung, is being featured today at KCRW's Guest DJ Project. View full entry
Monticello is home renovation run amok. Thomas Jefferson was as passionate about building his house as he was about founding the United States; he designed Monticello to the fraction of an inch and never stopped changing it. Yet Monticello was also a plantation worked by slaves, some of them Jefferson’s own children. Today his white and black descendants still battle over who can be buried at Monticello. It was trashed by college students, saved by a Jewish family, and celebrated by FDR. — Studio 360
Steve Jobs has the right name for what's missing in America's economy. Does he also represent the way back to prosperity? We look at his record at Apple and its influence in the US and around the world. — kcrw.com
KCRW's "To the Point" addresses Steve Jobs' attention to innovation and integration of design into Apple's business model, and how that can improve the state of today's horrible job market. View full entry
Star architects such as Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, and Daniel Leibiskind have created sensations with singular, unconventional designs that look (and sometimes are) unbuildable. John Silber thinks that’s a problem. He’d like to see our buildings showing less individualism, more standards. Silber is the former president of Boston University and the author of Architecture of the Absurd: How “Genius” Disfigured a Practical Art. — studio360.org
