The firm’s website still tags the National Cathedral, the Du Bois Museum Complex and others as ‘current’ projects, in contrast to on-the-ground reality. In the midst of a lack of transparency, and accountability, what remains clear is the mistake we make when we expect global celebrities who have cut their teeth in the transactional corridors of the corporate world to switch to an opposite ethic in the name of local solidarity or values. — ArtReview

Over the past decade or so, bleacher stairs have become a ubiquitous marker of contemporary public architecture. It’s time for the trend to stop.

Its subsequent proliferation serves as a good example of how avant-garde design, or at least a consumerist version of it, filters down to the mainstream.

The broader point is that architects need to be more inventive as they plan new public spaces, and their patrons need to demand that those spaces are accessible for the entire population. — The Dallas Morning News

A lightweight university study centre designed to be easily disassembled has won the prize for the best building in Europe. Longevity, permanence and a sense of immutability might be the ambition of most architects, but Gustav Düsing and Max Hacke would be delighted to see their building adapted and reconfigured, or ultimately dismantled and moved somewhere else altogether. — Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian

Its sale, for £275m, by BT to a hotel group, if it gives the tower a secure future, is welcome. I’m more troubled by the reports that the designer Thomas Heatherwick is to “repurpose” the building. His past work shows that he’s not one to leave well alone, but rather festoon structures with over-sized flower-pots and look-at-me swirling shapes. One can only hope that he discovers some restraint. The BT Tower is already an icon. It’s perfect. Let it be. — The Guardian

Conceivably, as one architect speculates, The Line will be “a Noah’s Ark for the happy few”, a privileged AI-controlled citadel set in an inhospitable desert. Otherwise it will be clickbait visible from space, two vast and pointless lines of glass whose colossal construction cost would defeat the Vision 2030 plan to reduce dependency on oil revenues. What’s more likely is that it will never be completed. — The Guardian

Zumthor describes the wing as “a concrete sculpture,” with floors, walls and ceilings of exposed concrete. There will be bronze surrounds on the window and door openings throughout the building. When I visited Haldenstein, he and his colleagues were weighing final choices for the color palette of the walls at the base of the new wing, inside the various legs. “Lively, not dark colors, to give identity to different spaces,” he said. “And then you come up into this world of concrete.” — The New York Times

Founded in Sweden in 2014 as a public Facebook group, [Architectural Uprising] is a collective of citizen design critics who object to what organizers call the “continued uglification” of developments in Nordic cities, and push for a return to classically informed design. [...]

The movement’s size and persistence, however, has earned it a seat in the discourse. “When [historians] talk about architecture during these years, [the Architectural Uprising] will be part of that history” — Bloomberg

The only thing everyone seems to know for certain is that nothing meaningful ever really happens to improve North America’s busiest and most miserable train hub, despite decades of demands and promises. Hope has long gone to die on the 6:50 to Secaucus.

But now may actually be different. — The New York Times

The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture, today named Kate Wagner (@mcmansionhell) to its masthead as architecture correspondent. Best known as the brains behind the brilliant and satirical architecture blog, “”McMansion Hell,” and following a wildly successful stint as a Nation guest columnist earlier this year, Wagner will contribute monthly commentary on architecture and the built environment—but not as always conventionally understood. — The Nation

I started the blog McMansion Hell to document—and deride—the endless cosmetic variations of this uniquely American form of architectural blight. [...] I worry that I’ve actually reinforced the idea that McMansions are a relic of the recent past. In fact, there remains a certain allure to these seemingly soulless suburban developments [...] the McMansion is alive and well. Far from being a boom time fad, it has become a durable emblem of our American way of life. — The Baffler

It is the centrepiece of the Central Vista Project, an ambitious plan to make over the city’s British-built administrative centre. Critics of the new building say that it is an unnecessary replacement of the existing parliament, that short cuts were taken with its procurement and the obtaining of permissions, and that there was minimal consultation with parliamentarians and the public. — The Guardian

The result is a menacing thing, cranking up Moss’s cyberpunk tendencies to new high-octane levels. If ever Hollywood needs a villainous headquarters for a dystopian petrol-guzzling empire, this will be first in line – with a carbon footprint to match. — The Guardian

What struck me when I went back to reread the book is how deliberately it works to collapse the distance, and therefore the distinction, between enthusiasm and skepticism, and ultimately between documentation and critique. Above all, “Learning from Las Vegas” argues for a curious and open-minded anti-utopianism, for understanding cities as they are rather than how planners wish they might be—and then using that knowledge, systematically and patiently won, as the basis for new architecture. — The New Yorker