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To the extent that modernism in architecture was about clearing the historical decks — about dramatically and even gleefully breaking with the past — Cliff May was never cut out to be a modernist. Not an orthodox one, anyway. — latimes.com
Mr. Kundig first visited Frey House II about 25 years ago. "The design is a bit strange, but it completely resonated with me," he said. "I'm influenced by architecture that toes the line between rugged and beautiful, that demonstrates how they can be the same thing." He notes that Mr. Frey's simple design nodded to the local vernacular of humble miners' shacks. — WSJ.com
Modern Tide: Midcentury Architecture on Long Island explores the work of the region’s best postwar architects and designers, including Albert Frey, Wallace Harrison, Herbert Beckhard, Frank Lloyd Wright, Horace Gifford, Edward Durrell Stone, Marcel Breuer, Andrew Geller, Philip Johnson, Charles Gwathmey, Barbara and Julian Neski, and others. The film features interviews with architects and historians, as well as friends, families and clients of these influential designers. — vimeo.com
Modernist architect Eugene Weston III was in his early 30s when he declared that "the house is the last of the handcrafted objects" in an industrial age...
The architect built a number of homes in and around Pasadena but only one in Eagle Rock, in 1953, for Norman Bilderback, then a director of design at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
— latimes.com
Architects innovate through design, but developers also innovate by selecting architects and making decisions to invest in new neighborhoods or provide housing forms that they think other developers are neglecting. Although what developers do is not as obvious as architecture, that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to liming competition among them. — forbes.com
This has been a vision of architecture since earlier in the last century. Modernism, some people would argue, is doing more with less. Steve wanted us to push the edge of technology, but it had to be comfortable for people. Sometimes that idea got lost in modernism. It’s an interesting challenge, how to marry the two.” — NYT
The Sunday NYT Business section published A Genius of the Storefront, Too, a piece which explores a collaboration, that extended from Pixar’s headquarters completed in 2001, to more than 30 Apple Stores (and counting) around the globe, between Peter Bohlin and his firm, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson... View full entry
Much of the debate involves modernist architecture's role in landmark settings of a traditional character. Preservation professionals often advocate modernist additions to these settings, while at the grass-roots level there is strong support for keeping the new work traditional. — online.wsj.com
Fallingwater was as handmade as any of the early Modern experimental structures that, while earnestly seeking the hallowed label of prefabrication, were largely handmade, with lumpy (handcrafted!) white stucco that was smooth only if you were two miles away. Like finally seeing a real Mondrian, with all of its beautiful “imperfections,” much of building today still remains “handmade” even when it means the final connections that make a building sing. — Lamprecht archiTEXTural
Author, preservationist and historian Barbara Lamprecht takes on an earlier WSJ article called, "What's So Great About Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater?" Read her response to second question in the article: Is Fallingwater a work of modernism? View full entry
The Chapel of St. Lawrence in Vantaa and the famous Temppeliaukio Church in Helsinki are both results of architectural competitions. The competition system has brought around a hundred church buildings to Finland. — yle.fi
Is there an establishment bias against traditional architecture? Modernist Michael Taylor talks pastiche and passion with traditionalist Robert Adam — guardian.co.uk
"The Dodge House in West Hollywood was considered one of the most architecturally significant American houses of the 20th century. Designed in 1914 and completed in 1916, the masterwork by architect Irving Gill made a profound break from the traditional pitched-roof, symmetrical house design ... — By Jeffrey Head, Special to the Los Angeles Times
... Gill had the radical notion to elevate reinforced concrete to the "architectural importance of stone," but perhaps more important than the house's form — a horizontal box lacking roof overhangs, surface details or other ornaments — was a revolutionary vision of what a modern... View full entry
There is beautiful architecture but it was bombed down by the allies in the war. This is a nice city but I cannot shoot in modern architecture, my camera don't like it. My camera wants to kill your mama. — Aki Kaurismaki
"Badyboy filmaker" Aki Kaurismaki in Cannes, discussing his latest film "Le Havre". View full entry
Junaid Younis, Modern Associates principal told Mr. Buncombe that his father, Mohammad, made the drawing,
“Lots of people come to us,” Younis said. “We are more interested in making money rather than the individual.”
— International Business Times
Designed by legendary architect Eero Saarinen, the J. Irwin & Xenia Miller House ranks (...) as a hallmark of Modernist design, (...) surrounded by some of the most beautiful Modernist gardens in the United States, created by landscape architect Dan Kiley. The interiors, a carnival of opulent colors and graphic patterns, are the work of Mad Men–era architect and textile designer Alexander Girard. — travelandleisure.com
This comes via modernista and docomomoist Jon, @jbuono View full entry