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For those former guests and architectural buffs who lamented the demolition of the iconic Hotel Okura Tokyo, they can soon preserve a piece of it in their homes.
Hotel officials plan to sell on the Internet some of the furniture and fixtures used in the guest rooms and restaurants during the main building's 53-year history, with the proceeds going to charity. [...]
The 11-story main building, which opened in May 1962 [...], was called “a masterpiece of Japan’s modernism architecture.”
— ajw.asahi.com
Previously:It's lights out at the old Okura: reconstruction of the iconic Tokyo hotel starts next weekAs the Okura says sayonara, Tokyo doesn't seem to care muchFarewell to the Old Okura View full entry
Each year, Critical Halloween celebrates a feared ghost of art and architectural production. This year, we explore DEMO, which operates simultaneously as an abbreviation, a prefix, a verb, and a noun.
From acts of collective will (DEMOnstration) to institutional erasure (DEMOlition), DEMO invites guests to intellectually examine ideas, issues, and objects in art, architecture, and design with a focus on those that should get a dose of DEMO.
— Storefront for Art and Architecture
Critical Halloween, an annual event hosted by the Storefront for Art and Architecture, is a hybrid party, critical debate, and costume contest. Each year, the organizers announce a "spooky" architectural issue or concept, which is then interpreted by design aficionados and practitioners from... View full entry
Tokyo’s venerable Hotel Okura is getting a remake, starting next week.
Over the course of the past 53 years since its opening on May 20, 1962, the Okura, located in Toranomon, has earned an unsurpassed reputation both at home and abroad as a luxury hotel to represent Japan.
The hotel said in a statement that it will maintain the Japanese traditional aesthetics and the basics of the architecture style of Hotel Okura.
— japantoday.com
Previously on Archinect: As the Okura says sayonara, Tokyo doesn't seem to care muchFarewell to the Old Okura And before the wrecking ball ends an era of Japanese 1960s Modernism to make way for the new, shiny, 41-story, $836M Okura Hotel, here a few more impressions of all its glory on the... View full entry
the Pinnacle skyscraper grew to just nine floors before falling victim to financial wrangling. Often referred to as The Stump, its stunted lift core has stood as a concrete folly ever since work halted more than three years ago.
Its days are numbered. Scaffolding is now climbing up the core in preparation for demolition. The replacement building will have a very different design. The old core must be pummelled to rubble and a new one constructed.
— londonist.com
More from London's skyline:London's oligarch-transformation continues with a "sky pool"Artist Carsten Höller to wrap world's longest tunnel slide around the ArcelorMittal Orbit Tower in LondonWalkie Talkie Tower summons the elements again — this time it's wind!London is eating itself View full entry
The Hotel Okura, built in 1962 in time for the 1964 Olympics, is slated to be torn down in September to make way for a bigger, fancier Okura, in time for the 2020 Olympics. (The less-good, less-famous southern wing of the old Okura, added in 1973, will be allowed to stay.) [...]
There will never be this particular hush again in the middle of Tokyo. You will have to have been there to know what you will soon miss.
— nytimes.com
Previously: Farewell to the Old Okura View full entry
This project [titled 'Projection'], announced last October, is probably the first time in a long time that the old inn (aka the Sunset Pacific) has gotten so much attention. The Bates—whose nickname is as much a callback to 'Psycho' as it is to the motel's location near the intersection of Bates and Sunset—has been vacant for decades, except for the squatters and the occasional, totally fun-looking, likely illegal party — la.curbed.com
Artist Vincent Lamouroux went all out in covering Silver Lake's Bates Motel in stark white limewash for his piece titled, Projection, which officially opens on April 26. As of now, the derelict landmark will eventually be razed to make room for three mixed-users. View full entry
Started in 2003 by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and intended to be Turkey’s tallest tower, the partially-constructed Republic Tower in Ankara’s Keçiören district will now be demolished after the Ankara Municipal Assembly rejected its zoning plan. [...]
First started in 2003 and stalled since 2008, the 144-meter tall tower which has already cost TRY 27 million (USD 10 million) will now be demolished.
— national.bgnnews.com
Related: Istanbul's 'illegal' towers to be demolished after landmark court ruling View full entry
[Ray Bradbury's] Cheviot Hills house ... hit the market last May, and sold in a little over a month for $1.765 million [...]
the buyers were Pritzker-Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne, of the firm Morphosis, and his wife, Blythe Alison-Mayne. [...]
the new property owner's plan is to demolish Bradbury's house to put in a new house with three underground levels—one of which will hold a swimming pool—and two stories above ground.
— la.curbed.com
CurbedLA also points out that, according to Morphopedia, this will be Mayne's first residential project in LA in more than ten years.More photos via File 770. View full entry
We call it “destructoporn” (since 2007, according to Urban Dictionary) and it comes, unbidden, via digital media. Where did I see that Tod Williams and Billie Tsien’s Folk Art Museum, just thirteen years old, was down to steel and rubble? The art critic Jerry Saltz’s Instagram. [...]
The dailiness, even hourliness, of social media makes it a perfect vehicle for documenting each thump of the wrecking ball, each crunch of the backhoe. Its visual slant is ideal for activism wrapped up in pictures.
— newyorker.com
For some historic preservationists on the North Shore, the economic downturn in 2008 had a silver lining, bringing a lull in tear-downs and new-home construction that gave scores of vintage properties a reprieve from the wrecking ball.
But six years later, officials in north suburban Winnetka tasked with preserving historic homes say that reprieve has clearly ended. They report that demolition permits have nearly doubled, with 36 issued in 2013, up from 19 in 2009.
— chicagotribune.com
5 Pointz, New York City’s “graffiti mecca,” is being demolished right now. This morning, a backhoe began tearing into the building that has served as a legal spot for aerosol artists for over two decades. In 2011, the property owner announced that he will be developing the site and transforming it into a massive residential condo complex. — animalnewyork.com
Previously View full entry
The Turkish Council of State has ordered three luxury apartment blocks to be bulldozed amid widespread outrage. But will it have any impact on the country’s unstoppable, and often unlawful, construction boom? — theguardian.com
News of the planned destruction of the Hotel Okura building in Tokyo to make way for a larger 38-story glass tower has brought cries of protest in Japan and elsewhere in the world. Monocle, the wide-ranging global magazine, has started a petition to save the old Okura on behalf of “all lovers of modern Japanese architecture.” — nytimes.com
Monocle's savetheokura.com petition website is still up, but it seems that the fate of Ol' Okura has been sealed. View full entry
There’s no smooth sailing for at least one of Google’s mysterious barges.
Parts of the $4 million boat, located in Portland, Maine, are being sold for scrap, a Google spokesperson has confirmed to Fortune.
Google’s three barges sparked a media storm of inquiries when they first appeared in 2013, raising questions about their purpose. Were they floating data centers? A secret lab to design and launch Google’s next stunning project?
— fortune.com
Previously:Google's barge explanation: Bilge?San Francisco's bay barge mystery: Floating data center or Google Glass store? View full entry
This week came the news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is leaving its home in Washington, D.C. [...]
Most importantly, from the perspective of thousands of D.C. residents, the District will finally be rid of the FBI's dark architecture. I will be sad to see the building go, as the city will almost certainly demand. Not only could it still potentially be put to good use, but whatever replaces the FBI Building will be regular, orderly, safe, and worse.
— citylab.com