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Multiple Detroit news outlets are reporting about the controversy swirling around a potential demolition of the city’s downtown Renaissance Center five-tower block as General Motors looks to secure public funds needed for a renovation. The company is apparently pursuing an all-or-not approach to... View full entry
Today, December 4th, would have been the 100th birthday of architect and developer John Portman. For fans of the hotel atrium grandmaster who died in 2017 at 93, Chicago-based MAS Context has arranged a digital screening of John Portman: A Life of Building, a film directed by Ben... View full entry
This house from John Portman has hit the market in coastal Georgia for $40 million. The Peachtree Center architect’s vacation home from 1986 until his death in 2017, Entelechy II is a 13,000-square-foot design with seven bedrooms and eight full baths. The Robb Report says it "represents an... View full entry
Architect John Calvin "Jack" Portman III has passed away at age 71. Jack, who passed away from natural causes, led Portman Architects following the death of his father, John Portman, in 2017. Jack earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master of... View full entry
Portman was a pioneer of the devices with which somber modernism was given glitz: mirror-glass, wall-climbing glass lifts, sky bridges, swooping curves. He described some gaudy candelabra he put around a piano stage in the Atlanta Marriott Marquis as a “homage to Liberace”. His buildings became known for their “Jesus moments”, those times when, emerging from a deliberately understated entry into some architectural emulation of the Grand Canyon, a visitor would reliably exclaim, “Jesus!” — The Guardian
Rowan Moore pens a piece on the lasting impact of the late John Portman's other-worldly buildings in Atlanta, which were known for eliciting “Jesus moments” from surprised visitors and also described as “Disneyland for adults” by less-impressed critics. View full entry
Construction has begun on Atlanta's soon-to-be largest park by John Portman & Associates. The repurposed quarry pit will not only provide an outdoor recreational area but also create 2 billion gallons of emergency drinking water for Atlanta, increasing the city’s emergency water reserves... View full entry
He was very focused on the consequences of ideas. In his own work he was trying to create a sense of totality. He’s doing the hotel, the sculpture, and the furniture. He’s choreographing—it’s like a stage set and he’s staging the whole experience. — CityLab
CityLab chats with GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi about John Portman's relationship with the school, the professorship he created at Harvard, and their book collaboration, Portman’s America & Other Speculations. View full entry
The Bonaventure has become a focal point for the debate on Postmodernism, ever since its discovery as a Postmodern hyperspace by [cultural theorist] Fredric Jameson some years ago…It’s a landscape that’s highly fragmented. It’s a space that de-centers you, makes you feel lost. And in this feeling of being lost and dislocated, you feel that your only recourse is to submit to authority. You’re helpless, you’re made helpless, you’re peripheralized, you’re lost in these spaces. — Ed Soja, eastofborneo.org
In light of John Portman's passing, here is a 6 minute clip with urban theorist Ed Soja discussing the postmodern nature of the infamous architect's Bonaventure Hotel located in downtown Los Angeles. h/t to Orhan from this thread. View full entry
Architect John Portman, often credited as the father of the massive hotel atrium, has passed away in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. No cause of death has been announced. His firm, John Portman & Associates, has released the following statement, along with a website celebrating his... View full entry
“[Directors are] projecting a future by imagining how it would look in ruins,” said Michael Hays, a professor of architectural theory at Harvard. “All the flesh has been removed and you just see the architectural bones. I’ve always thought Portman’s buildings would make very beautiful ruins, because the essence of them is so powerful and so direct.” — The Atlantic
In this larger piece about how Atlanta has become a favored setting for dystopian cinema, Harvard professor Michael Hays shares an unusual perspective on the work of John Portman as cinematic harbinger of doom. View full entry
BIG together with West 8, Fentress Architects, John Portman & Associates (JPA), Revuelta Architecture International and developers Portman-CMC have unveiled the urban planning proposal Miami Beach Square, the centerpiece of a 52-acre Miami Beach Convention Center District development. Portman-CMC is one of two development teams currently in the race for the project. — bustler.net
UPDATE: OMA Wins Miami Beach Convention Center Competition View full entry
Now 86 and still running his Atlanta-based firm, John Portman & Associates, the architect is the focus of a new documentary, “John Portman: A Life of Building,” which premieres tomorrow at the Architecture & Design Film Festival in Manhattan. Mr. Portman recently spoke with a reporter about his career. — nytimes.com
And for more information about the film go to www.johnportmanfilm.com View full entry
