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Gregory Ain, a midcentury champion of modern architecture whose students included Frank Gehry, is virtually unknown outside Los Angeles today. His left-leaning politics made him the object of decades-long F.B.I. surveillance [...]
Even the fate of his most important commission — an exhibition house in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art — is a mystery. That house is now the subject of “This Future Has a Past,” an installation at the Center for Architecture in Greenwich Village.
— The New York Times
This Future Has a Past opened in July at the Center for Architecture in New York and still runs through September 12. The accompanying event Who Was Gregory Ain? on September 7 will feature the installation's producers, Katherine Lambert and Christiane Robbins, as well as other speakers. View full entry
"Over the last 20 years, the [Nanjing] government has made real efforts to establish national laws, local laws and regulations so we can pursue this work," [architect Zhou Qi] said, of his optimism for the city's heritage preservation efforts. "It has just become common sense." — CNN
Amid the rapid urban development across China, Nanjing's government is making an effort to preserve and restore more of the city's historic buildings. Although some restorative projects expectedly attract some criticism, architect Zhou Qi — who has worked on restoring over 100 of the city's... View full entry
A major Roman settlement discovered south of Lyon in France is the “most exceptional excavation of a Roman site in 40 or 50 years”, says the chief archaeologist working on the project. Benjamin Clément, who works for the Swiss conservation company Archeodunum, is leading a team of 15 archaeologists at the dig in Saint Colombe, a small town near the city of Vienne. — The Art Newspaper
The well-preserved ancient Roman neighborhood, dubbed "Little Pompeii" by the archaeologists, covers an area of almost 7,000 square meters (75,000 square feet) and was discovered during construction of a housing complex near the city of Vienne. View full entry
With focus on works of the twentieth century, the Getty Foundation's Keeping it Modern program awards buildings of architectural and cultural significance funding for conservation and preservation. Grants focus on the creation of conservation management plans that guide long-term maintenance and... View full entry
Talk about redeveloping the long-vacant Michigan Central Station in Detroit's Corktown area heated up again Thursday during an announcement about this year's Detroit Homecoming, which will hold the first significant private event in the 104-year-old train station since the mid-1980s. [...]
"(Redevelopment of) the depot is going to take a marathon, but we're not at the beginning of the race, we're a few miles into it," said Matthew Moroun, whose father, Matty, bought the building in 1995.
— crainsdetroit.com
"I said, 'there's one thing: Every time I read a damn national story about Detroit, there's a picture of the train station with the holes in the windows as the international image of the city's decline,'" Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is quoted saying, recalling his conversation with billionaire... View full entry
Officials and activists in the Hudson River town of Kingston, N.Y., plan to meet with the boat's owner Aug. 4 to discuss the possibility of transporting the vessel there from its current berth on the Illinois River in Ottawa, Ill. Late last month, musicians performed aboard the boat in the town, some 80 miles southwest of Chicago. — Chicago Tribune
Last week Archinect reported that Yo-Yo Ma sent a letter out through the New York Review of Books in an attempt to save the floating concert hall, designed by Louis Kahn, from demolition. The famed cellist pleaded: "At a time when our national conversation is so often focused on division, we... View full entry
Anchoring in large cities and small towns, in busy shipping lanes and at public parks, the barge opens like a clamshell to reveal a glittering concert stage. Audiences on shore delight in the music, much of it specially composed for Maestro Boudreau and his American Wind Symphony Orchestra — The NY Review of Books
Louis Kahn was commissioned to design Point Counterpoint II, a unique floating concert hall, by conductor Robert Austin Boudreau in the mid 1960s. Launched in 1976, the 195-foot structure carried an orchestra up and down America's waterways for five decades. Robert Boudreau and his wife... View full entry
Others are concerned the demolition of its famed French architectural gems will render Ho Chi Minh City indistinguishable from other Asian megacities. "In the 1960s and 1970s it was very much French, but now it's very Americanized, McDonald's on every corner," said Hiep Nguyen, born in Ho City Minh City and author of several books on its architectural history. "A streetscape without a story has no value," he added. — dw.com
"City officials are now writing a nine-point plan to classify buildings and mark some for protection," DW writes, "but admit such a huge task could take years to be implemented." View full entry
News of the “long-lost” Lautner echoed around Los Angeles and the world. The architecture community marveled at how a home designed by a modernist genius could go unnoticed for decades. [...]
Somehow, the Salkin Residence, which was completed around the same time as more acclaimed Lautner projects like the Desert Hot Springs Motel, was left out of the architect’s list of works when it was assembled by his devotees years later.
— The New York Times
The NY Times portraits the 'long-lost' John Lautner-designed Salkin Residence, built in 1948 in LA's Echo Park neighborhood and, over the last three years, painstakingly restored to renewed beauty by designer/business woman Trina Turk and her husband, Jonathan Skow. View full entry
The Parker Center, depending on who you ask, is either a midcentury icon, or a powerful symbol of Los Angeles' racist past. Located downtown, the building was home to the LAPD up until 2009 when they relocated due to expensive retrofits needed on the site. Designed by Welton Becket—the architect... View full entry
Frrank Lloyd Wright was never one to fret about meeting deadlines, sticking to budgets or roofs that leaked. So there is something fitting about the delayed, but altogether triumphant, restoration of Wright's Unity Temple, [...] the finest public building of Wright's Chicago years and home to one of the most beautiful rooms in America.
Instead of finishing on schedule last fall, the $25 million project is wrapping up just in time for the 150th anniversary of Wright's birthday, June 8.
— chicagotribune.com
"Success, it's often said, has many fathers, and so it is with here," Kamin writes. "A team of consultants led by Chicago's Harboe Architects has lavished exacting care on every aspect of this project, from the restoration of jewel-like art glass to the recreation of textured plaster walls." View full entry
An interactive map of the former Soviet Union’s Constructivist architectural heritage went online just days before the city of Moscow published a list of 4,500 apartment buildings proposed for demolition as part of a plan to relocate up to 1.6 million residents. Describe by many residents as a property grab [...] the demolition plan has proven so unpopular that thousands turned up for a demonstration against it in Moscow on Sunday 14 May carrying signs with slogans like “My house is my castle”. — The Art Newspaper
"The plan has also alarmed preservationists," The Art Newspaper writes. "Initially described as an effort to upgrade residents from pre-fabricated mass housing built under Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, the architectural targets have broadened and fears are mounting that it has become a... View full entry
Designing a structure to protect a historic artifact or monument from the elements can often be a dry affair. At their most basic, such structures are often simple tent canopies, or more permanent, but still bare-bone, envelopes. Not the Qianfoya Cliff Inscriptions in Guangyuan, Sichuan Province... View full entry
The World Monuments Fund (WMF) launched its first Instagram campaign [...] to draw attention to the plight of the world’s Modern buildings, an increasing number of which are at risk because of the lack of regulations or political will needed to protect them.
The fund kicks off the programme with a list of 30 sites nominated by architects, experts and students posted on its website and is appealing to the public to add to this list by submitting nominations via Instagram.
— theartnewspaper.com
"The list will be sent to an advisory council formed of architects, including Annabelle Selldorf, designers and critics, who will advise the WMF on the next phase of the Modern Century programme."The sites included on the initial list of 30 nominees are:Hall of Nations (pictured in the cover photo... View full entry
The family of Brutalist Maps architectural guide books just welcomed its newest member into this world and extends the reach to Australia: Brutalist Sydney Map—launched this week by Blue Crow Media in collaboration with Glenn Harper of @Brutalist_Project_Sydney and Senior Associate Architect... View full entry
