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That we are now starting to get to grips with PoMo architecture’s controversial legacy is welcome, not least because other important buildings have already been destroyed, and others are threatened. [...]
Today the worlds of design and conservation are more closely allied than before. But even as this latest batch of postmodern buildings has won protected status, it is worth noting that important brutalist buildings are still excluded from the roster.
— The Guardian
Commentary by Catherine Croft for The Guardian on Historic England's recent selection of 17 postmodern buildings to be listed as heritage without extending the same love to important examples of the brutalist school. Recently received Grade II listed status: Judge Business School, University of... View full entry
Designed by Michael Graves, the pioneering Portland Building is at once considered to be a postmodern icon as well as the "ugliest building in Oregon". A rectangular block of four, heavily ornamented, salmon and turquoise facades, the building can easily be likened to a small, fancy French... View full entry
The Longaberger basket building has been sold.
The iconic seven-story office building at 1500 E. Main St. in Newark has been sold to Coon Restoration of Louisville, which is near Canton. The developer has an eye toward converting the building and its 21-acre site to a new use, the company said in a release.
— bizjournals.com
Developer Steve Coon, the landmark building's new owner, hasn't revealed specific details about his redevelopment plans for the property but announced Cleveland-based Sandvick Architects as the designers for the job. 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
This year, the group has expanded aggressively into the City of London, snapping up floor space usually reserved for large corporates over the year to date, including large offices in Moorgate — its largest site globally — and at One Poultry, a Grade II listed building directly opposite the Bank of England. — Financial Times
The start up WeWork has acquired One Poultry, the Grade II post-modern icon designed by James Stirling and completed in 1998. After a heavily contested designation, the building is currently in the process of undergoing an extensive refurbishment headed by Architects BuckleyGreyYeomen and expected... View full entry
Can Helmut Jahn's Thompson Center be saved? A newly released short documentary, Starship Chicago, delves into the struggle and controversy around preserving the state of Illinois building. Some see the building as a unique representation of transparent government and Chicago's architectural... View full entry
A week to the day in which Norwegian design firm Snøhetta released their ambitious designs to modernize Phillip Johnson's Postmodern icon — the AT&T building in New York — Norman Foster has come out and added his name and gravity in support of the building protests against the proposed... View full entry
The news of Snøhetta's renovation of Philip Johnson's iconic postmodern AT&T Building has the architectural world abuzz, with many lamenting the controversial overhaul. There is a petition going around to give the building landmark status—only recently made possible due to the structure's... View full entry
Philip Johnson and John Burgee's 1984 AT&T Building, for many, signaled the arrival of Postmodernism onto the world scene. Now known as the Sony Tower, the 37-story skyscraper's deployment of historicity contradicted the glass and metal modernism of its neighbors, signaling a new architectural... View full entry
In this eye-candy survey of Iran's newest architectural projects and prevailing trends, Architectural Digest takes a closer look at how the country's architects and architecture is shifting to not only attract more media attention, but to create a new visual identity:"Right now, the massive trend... View full entry
On November 11th in London, Sotheby's will be auctioning off the late great David Bowie's Memphis, Milano collection, which includes works by architect and designer Ettore Sottsass, Aldo Cibic, and Michele De Lucchi, among others. The works embody the Memphis movement's 1980s philosophy of 'New... View full entry
postmodernism can be summed up in a single word: Memphis.
Although architectural incarnations such as Graves’s Portland Building in Oregon and Philip Johnson’s Chippendale-topped AT&T Building (now the Sony Tower) in New York generated heated discussion, it was the spectacle of Memphis objects that catapulted postmodern design into the public eye. [...]
postmodern designs, most often from Memphis affiliated names, are gaining market momentum
— blouinartinfo.com
The cycle continues.Related on Archinect:8 Reasons You Will Also Like Postmodern Architecture In 2016Can Helmut Jahn's Thompson Center be saved?Postmodern No 1 Poultry divides architects in debate over recent heritageMore is more: the gaudy genius of the late Deborah SussmanPortland Building still... View full entry
To those concerned about the renovation of the Hood Museum of Art, the situation is charged with paradox: The architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, who protested the Museum of Modern Art’s dismantling of the Folk Art Museum they designed in Manhattan, are now transforming the Hood, an award-winning museum designed by Charles Moore [...].
“It’s almost as if they were getting revenge for what MoMA did to their Folk Art Museum [...] It’s totally insensitive to the Moore building.”
— nytimes.com
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien previously in the Archinect news:"Starts with me, ends with us": A conversation with Tod Williams and Billie Tsien on Archinect Sessions Episode #22Tod Williams and Billie Tsien presented with National Medal of Arts by President ObamaTod Williams & Billie Tsien... View full entry
Moore’s appreciation of Disneyland was notorious in an era when the ‘truthfulness’ of modern architecture was largely unquestioned. — places journal
"No architectural essay of the time foretold the preoccupations of postmodernism more memorably: “You Have to Pay” featured the very first architectural appreciation of Disneyland, which had opened just ten years earlier. Moore’s provocation would be upped three years later when Robert... View full entry
Scott Merrill, an architect known for his originality and creative application of architectural precedents, has been named the recipient of the 2016 Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame. Merrill, the 14th Driehaus Prize laureate, will be awarded the $200,000 prize and a bronze miniature of the Choregic Monument of Lysikrates during a ceremony on March 19 (Saturday) in Chicago. — University of Notre Dame School of Architecture
Scott Merril, the founder and principal designer of Merrill, Pastor & Colgan in Vero Beach Florida, has been awarded the 2016 Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame.Now in it's 14th year, the Driehaus Prize is something like an alternative Pritzker awarded to "a living... View full entry
