From the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona to the Sydney Opera House, the world's most recognizable landmarks display the character of the people who created them, but can individuality in architecture stand up to increasing pressure from developers to deliver universally popular designs?

...Daniel Libeskind warns that his profession is currently battling against commoditization and a "design by committee" approach that devalues the architect's role. — CNN

A new high-rise building called the Freedom Pyramid will change the face of Jerusalem’s downtown area. The project, conceived by architects Daniel Libeskind and Yigal Levi, will see a multi-purpose tower comprising commercial shopping and residential units atop the old Eden theater.

The idea for a high-rise at this location, adjacent to Mahaneh Yehuda market, first hit headlines in 2011. But a Jerusalem municipal committee only now approved the construction. — israel21c.org

Today sees the launch of CNN Style, a new online destination for intelligent, stylish content spanning the worlds of fashion, design, architecture, art, autos and luxury.

Throughout July, CNN Style welcomes renowned Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind [...]. As guest editor, Libeskind has commissioned a series of pieces about architecture to be published through July, given an exclusive video interview to CNN Style and written about the interplay of architecture and emotion. — CNN

Seventy years after the end of the war, Berlin is finally filling the last gaps left by Allied bombs, which destroyed more than two-thirds of the buildings in the city center. Architects say the construction boom offers Berlin a chance to make up for decades of bad planning and mediocre architecture. “This is a new time in Berlin,” says Libeskind [...]. “It’s one of the great cities of the world, and we expect it to compete. We don’t expect it to be some backwater.” — bloomberg.com

For six months starting on May 1st, Milan is hosting the World Expo, which has been held every five years since 1851 as a showcase for human progress. [...]

Of the 53 countries constructing pavilions, China is building not one, but five. [...]

Like many pavilions in the Expo, the designs of the Chinese-sponsored buildings are nothing if not adventurous—even though president Xi Jinping has called for an end to “weird architecture” [...]. — qz.com

Only one of the new buildings is ready, its centrepiece artwork had to be dismantled after bits fell off – and people are more excited about getting their first Ikea. [...]

A €155m new station, designed by Santiago Calatrava as a swooping sci-fi bird, is so far no more than a concrete foundation slab. It replaces a much-loved 1950s station by a local architect, and it’s now optimistically scheduled to open in 2018, having escalated to four times its original budget. — theguardian.com

In 2015, Libeskind’s brand of Deconstructivism (and all varieties of Deconstructivism, one might argue) amounts to a familiar, dull architecture; a calcified formal language whose shock-factor and novelty has worn away. One would hope that Libeskind, as a leading architectural practitioner, could at least try to articulate a new agenda in the experimental vein of his earlier work. Alas — as the Mons International Conference Xperience shows — that’s not the case.  — blouinartinfo.com

Team Lord of Toronto was announced today as the winner to design the new Canadian National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa, Canada's capital.

The team's proposal, titled "Landscape of Loss, Memory and Survival", was selected out of six finalists who were invited to present their concepts to a jury of professionals and then to the public during the national design competition. — bustler.net

Mark your calendars! Some popular architects will be speaking in the upcoming "Innovators" talk series at the Museum of the City of New York, starting tomorrow May 6 at 6:30 p.m...

Accompanying the current "Palaces for the People" exhibition, each talk will explore the influence of the Guastavino Company, led by a Catalan father-son team whose architecture, construction, and design practices helped shape NYC's built landscape. — bustler.net

Donna Sink offered up her memories "I spent a summer living in that building. It's very lovely and graceful, though I like ‘suavely-curved’ much better as a descriptor! The views are unmatched, IMO, still. Breathtaking...Back then its only drawback was that it was very removed from the activity of the city

1 World Trade Center, the iconic Ground Zero skyscraper formerly known as the Freedom Tower, this summer became the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere by some measures. It’s not, however, the building that Daniel Libeskind, the site’s master planner, conceived of over a decade ago. [...]

But as the opening of 1 World Trade Center approaches, a curious thing has happened. Libeskind has quietly transformed into one of the site’s most ardent boosters. — newyorker.com

vado retro summed up the design "a box within a box and one box the one inside, the inside box is at an angle. oh and there are trees" but Alex Gomez added "Although the facade is superficial, I feel it will succeed in attracting ‘qualitative and quantitative tourist flows in the area,’