With full theatrical trappings—nu-age Philip Glass music, smoke machines, mood lighting--the Eisenman team unveiled to the crowd a scale model of the building, which produced a light show to rival a Laser Floyd spectacular.

These dozen red-hued Death Star beams [...] were to be placed on the building and neighboring structures, flashing, blinking, sweeping across downtown like some insane city-scale laser security system. 

Three years later, it was opened. 

Sans lasers.  — Docomomo US

Heading into their fourth and fifth decades, deep into midlife architectural crises, needing face-lifts, they’re now vulnerable and back again in the public eye, eliciting concern and attracting a second look — and sympathy — even from people who never liked them. But will these loved-hated structures be saved, and should they? — The New York Times

A year after Snøhetta’s first attempt at renovating Olayan America and Chelsfield’s office tower at 550 Madison Avenue ended in controversy and eventual landmarking, the architects are hoping their second attempt will be smoother. — The Real Deal

Now, his first Chicago skyscraper, Streeterville’s One Bennett Park, is nearing completion. [...]

“It has a very special site,” he said. “It will be a building that is memorable, I hope. I think it has already made an impression on the skyline. I would describe it as a building that has roots in the skyscrapers of New York in the 1920s and ‘30s, which people generally call Art Deco, but maybe that’s a kind of sloppy term.” — WTTW

The idea of the “both-and” suggested a new pluralism, and maybe a new tolerance, in architecture. But the phrase turned out to have its limits. To the extent that Venturi was making an argument in favor of a kind of big-tent populism in architecture, it was a space for new styles instead of new voices, new forms rather than new people. In fact, tucked inside Complexity and Contradiction is an argument for a renewed insularity in the profession [...]. — The Atlantic

In Miami, Arquitectonica took up these newfound freedoms with gusto, and did it differently than almost anyone else, deploying architectural elements in evocative, surreal, and highly charismatic ways that might have had little to do with the threadbare functionalist arguments of late Modernism, but functioned brilliantly upon the imagination of the press, Miamians, and clients alike. — citylab.com

The designation protects the exterior of the building, including the facades of the office tower, annex, and enclosed covered passageway, and notably preserving its rose Stony Creek granite cladding and the broken pediment at its crown. Going forward, any proposed alterations to the exterior will require approval and permitting by the [NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission]. — Architectural Record

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

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

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

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