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London Mayor Sadiq Kahn has announced a new commission that will "review and improve diversity across London’s public realm to ensure the capital’s landmarks suitably reflect London’s achievements and diversity." A press release announcing the creation of the commission states: "The... View full entry
After the tragedy, [a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Va.] and another honoring Stonewall Jackson were shrouded, but only temporarily. Around the country, similar monuments have been removed. In some cases, only their pedestals remain.
We asked artists to contemplate these markers of our country’s racist and violent history — the space they take up, physically and psychically — and imagine what should happen when they are gone.
— The New York Times
Around the US many statues and monuments celebrating racism in our country's history have been removed, either partially or fully. The question currently remains on what we as a culture should do concerning the spaces these historical monuments inhabit[ed]. The New York Times asked artists to... View full entry
Had things gone differently, France's Arc De Triomphe could have been a massive giant elephant!—at least, that is what architect Charles Ribart envisioned for the landmark back in 1759 before his proposal was rejected by the French Government. Similarly, Sydney's iconic Opera House, known for... View full entry
So why is it that, as the United States has engaged in a contentious process of dismantling monuments to its Confederate past, and France has rid itself of all streets named after the Nazi collaborationist leader Marshall Pétain, Italy has allowed its Fascist monuments to survive unquestioned? — The New Yorker
Many monuments and buildings constructed in the late nineteen-thirties, as Benito Mussolini was preparing to host the 1942 World's fair, are still standing in Rome. "In Germany, a law enacted in 1949 against Nazi apologism, which banned Hitler salutes and other public rituals, facilitated the... View full entry
The project, called Paper Monuments, will entail a series of posters plastered all over the city that detail the people, places, events, and movements of the city’s 300-year history.
“When we make decisions that do embody hatred, whether we mean to or not, it allows for society to grow along those frameworks. Our job should be to acknowledge them and counteract them and produce things that elevate the welfare of the constituents that we serve.”
— Co.Design
“It’s not simply about the ways individuals hold onto ideology, but it is more so about the way individuals embed their ideology into the spaces and places we all frequent. For us the Paper Monuments project is still rooted in the fact that these symbols of oppression need to be countered by... View full entry
Slated to open in 2018, the Memorial to Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama will seek to tell the truth. Six acres of land owned by the Equal Justice Initiative—the legal services nonprofit Stevenson founded in 1989—will memorialize the more than 4,000 victims of what Stevenson calls racial terror lynching in the American South between 1877 and 1950. A nearby museum will tell the history of slavery, lynching, segregation, and mass incarceration as a single narrative. — Citylab
Designed by MASS Design Group—which has previously worked on the Kigali Genocide Memorial—the memorial stems from a comprehensive report on lynchings released in 2015 by the Equal Justice Initiative. The memorial will feature six-foot columns, each representing counties where lynchings took... View full entry
As City—Michael Heizer’s vast Land Art installation in the Nevada desert—nears completion, the fate of the federally protected land surrounding it could soon be decided. Ryan Zinke, the US Interior Secretary, visited the state on Sunday, 30 July, as part of a review of 27 national monuments ordered by President Donald Trump, which could result in some of these lands being reopened to development. — theartnewspaper.com
"A number of museums banded together to call for the site’s preservation," The Art Newspaper explains the background of City's current surroundings (previously also on Archinect), "and in 2015, Obama created the Basin and Range National Monument, which covers 704,000 acres in southern Nevada’s... View full entry
“My good friend Richard Serra is building out of military-grade steel. That stuff will all get melted down. Why do I think that? Incans, Olmecs, Aztecs—their finest works of art were all pillaged, razed, broken apart, and their gold was melted down. When they come out here to fuck my ‘City’ sculpture up, they’ll realize it takes more energy to wreck it than it’s worth.” — New Yorker
Heizer, a pioneer of the earthworks movement, began “City” in 1972. A mile and a half long and inspired by ancient ritual cities, it is made from rocks, sand, and concrete mined and mixed on site. “ ‘City’ is one of the most important works of art to have been made in the past... View full entry
For 45 years, Iran's most famous modern monument, the Azadi (Freedom) Tower in Tehran, has been the backdrop to every major news story coming out of the country...Hossein Amanat was a rising star in Iran's architectural scene when, in 1966, he won a national competition to design the monument...Its historical pull, he believes, lies in the tower's evolution as a 'symbol of Iran'...that is both intensely Iranian and Islamic at the same time. — BBC
More on Archinect:The young woman who designed Tehran's new popular bridgeKhamenei's fight against "un-Islamic" architecture in Iran View full entry
Using his authority under the Antiquities Act, the president created a protected area spanning roughly 704,000 acres in central Nevada’s Basin and Range, as well as smaller ones in California’s Berryessa Snow Mountain and Texas’ Waco Mammoth. [...]
Broadly supported by environmentalists, [Basin and Range] is also home to a major earthen sculpture, “City” which the artist Michael Heizer has worked to create over nearly half a century.
— washingtonpost.com
All in all, these new monuments cover more land than the state of Rhode Island, adding significant mileage to Obama's public lands legacy. The Basin and Range (Nevada), Berryessa Snow Mountain (California) and Waco Mammoth (Texas) monuments cover lands that are either completely or mostly... View full entry
This process is cheaper and faster than restoration, and allows developers to make cosmetic improvements as they see fit. Moscow, you are a fake and a fraud. — NYT
Masha Gessen penned a "Dear John" letter to Moscow. Exploring the city and its love affair with anthropomorphic monuments, she laments the "barbaric destruction" and hipsterization of the city’s historic architecture and public spaces. View full entry
Damningly described as ‘hell on wheels’, ‘malice in blunderland’, and ‘a field of dreams’; welcome to a run-down of some of the world’s most eye-wateringly over-budget projects. — Podio.com
After adjusting costs for inflation and converting into US Dollars, Podio put together a simple, nifty visualization of the world's most over-budget monuments. Unsurprisingly, Olympic and large infrastructure projects rank high, with projects like Healthcare.gov and the International Space... View full entry
The recent "TALL DC: New Monumentalism" exhibition took a critical approach to how outdated urban building standards -- specifically in D.C. -- can affect the built environment and the field of architecture, even as social demands and technology progress. Graduate students of Emerging Technologies and Media at The Catholic University of America proposed three skyscrapers among D.C.'s historical monuments to further encourage the questioning of this notion and the definition of "a monument". — bustler.net
More photos and other details on Bustler. View full entry
Situating The Mound of Vendôme, the current exhibition on view at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, requires looking back into Paris' history after the French Revolution. For a tumultuous two months in 1871, the city was under the control of the Commune de Paris, a socialist revolutionary... View full entry
Power to the people is the driving force behind the Austrian Pavilion for the upcoming 2014 Venice Biennale. The pavilion will include an exhibition that explores the concept of parliament and its architectural influence on the world's more than 200 national parliament monuments. — bustler.net
The pavilion was designed by a collective team including Commissioner Dr. Christian Kühn, Harald Trapp, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Auböck + Kárász Landscape Architects, Kollektiv/Rauschen, and the Vienna University of Technology - Institute of Architecture and Design.Here's a glimpse of the models in... View full entry
