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Wilbert R. Hasbrouck, a pioneering Chicago preservation architect who breathed new life into buildings designed by some of the city’s renowned architects and co-owned a beloved architectural bookstore, died Saturday at a care facility in suburban Norridge.
A longtime Chicago resident, Hasbrouck was 86. The cause of death was complications from Parkinson’s disease, said his son Charles, a director at the Chicago architectural firm of bKL.
— chicagotribune.com
Over a 40 year career, Hasbrouck renovated buildings such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Dana-Thomas House in Springfield, William Le Baron Jenney's Manhattan Building skyscraper, and Louis Sullivan's Peoples Savings Bank in Cedar Rapids, along with several of Chicago’s important 19th-century... View full entry
The Italian firm Ciclostile Architettura has converted a 1960s barn in the Bologna countryside into a workplace for the artist Francesca Pasquali. Inspired by the view, all main services—i.e. main rooms and rest rooms—have been concentrated on the ground floor, allowing the first floor to... View full entry
Once the renovation is complete, the four-storey building will be used as a venue for art exhibitions, installations and seminars that will be open to the public, as well as a philanthropic institution to help vulnerable people including refugees...any old material removed from the building will have to be taken away in barges along Venice’s canals, while new material will have to be brought in the same way. — The Telegraph
David Chipperfield will lead the painstaking renovation of the monumental Procuratie Vecchie in Venice's St. Mark's Square. When the project is complete in 2020, the building will be accessible to the public for the first time in some 500 years. View full entry
Today, the Glasgow School of Art unveiled a full-size prototype of a section of the Mackintosh Library bay that is based on the original 1910 design, marking another step forward for the building's restoration after the devastating 2014 fire. Following two years of meticulous research and six... View full entry
The restoration aims not only to clean and maintain the structure, but also to offer an insight into what the cathedral would have looked like in the 13th century. Its interior was designed to be a radiant vision, as close to heaven on earth as a pilgrim might come, although many modern visitors have responded more with shock than with awe. The architecture critic Martin Filler has described the project as a “scandalous desecration of a cultural holy place.” — The New York Times
The decade-long restoration of Chartres' grand cathedral (rebuilt in its current Gothic style between 1194 and 1220) isn't going over without controversy: is the dirt that's currently being scrubbed off its walls, ceilings, and even Madonna statues, part of the building's history or merely... View full entry
Church officials, who have created what they are calling a “stone cemetery” from fallen masonry, say the cathedral remains safe to visit.
Entry is free and the French state, which owns the building, devotes €2m (£1.9m) a year to repairs. But that is not enough to embark on major restoration works, the last of which were carried out during the 1800s, officials at the cathedral and charity said.
— The Guardian
The archbishop of Paris launched a €100m fundraising campaign for Notre Dame's extensive restoration works. The 12th century cathedral on the Seine river—one of Paris' biggest landmarks, is visited by up to 14 million people visit per year. “Gargoyles are what people want to see when they... View full entry
The historic Japanese city of Kumamoto, famous for its picturesque 15th century castle, experienced a damaging earthquake in 2016, leading to the demolition of several of its historic buildings. The World Monument Fund has pledged to help restore the remaining older buildings (although it should... View full entry
"Over the last 20 years, the [Nanjing] government has made real efforts to establish national laws, local laws and regulations so we can pursue this work," [architect Zhou Qi] said, of his optimism for the city's heritage preservation efforts. "It has just become common sense." — CNN
Amid the rapid urban development across China, Nanjing's government is making an effort to preserve and restore more of the city's historic buildings. Although some restorative projects expectedly attract some criticism, architect Zhou Qi — who has worked on restoring over 100 of the city's... View full entry
In May 2014, as students prepared their final-year degree show, the Mackintosh Building that houses The Glasgow School of Art was engulfed by flames and severely damaged. The building, built between 1897-1909, is one of the Scottish city's most famous structures. It is considered the architect... View full entry
The full scope of work includes architecture, civil and structural engineering, building services engineering, interior design, landscape architecture, lighting design, acoustics and planning.
Since its construction in the mid-1800s, many systems in the palace have never undergone a major renovation, and the heating, ventilation, water, drainage and electrical systems are antiquated.
— GCR
BDP's London studio beat Allies and Morrison, Foster + Partners and HOK in the competition and has been awarded a full interdisciplinary contract for client advisory services for the refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster, the meeting place for the two houses of the UK parliament. The firm... View full entry
It’s heralded as one of the major masterpieces of American modernism, but its ocean-adjacent location has made conservation difficult. Today, the Getty Conservation Institute announced that a major renovation project of Louis Kahn ’s Salk Institute in La Jolla has been completed. The project... View full entry
"Almost every day, a visitor will be standing in the house and will ask where the house is," said Jenny Gibbs, executive director of the Elmhurst Art Museum. — The Chicago Tribune
The McCormick House, located in the Chicago suburbs, was built by Mies van der Rohe in 1952 and is one of only three residences designed by the pioneering modernist architect. In 1994, the steel frame row house was moved to a nearby park where it was restored and opened to public as part of the... View full entry
Wimbledon house in London, UK, designed by Lord Rogers in 1968, was gifted to Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2015 to provide both a residence for the Richard Rogers Fellowship, and GSD's new venue for lectures, symposia, and other events. Restored by British architect Philip... View full entry
News of the “long-lost” Lautner echoed around Los Angeles and the world. The architecture community marveled at how a home designed by a modernist genius could go unnoticed for decades. [...]
Somehow, the Salkin Residence, which was completed around the same time as more acclaimed Lautner projects like the Desert Hot Springs Motel, was left out of the architect’s list of works when it was assembled by his devotees years later.
— The New York Times
The NY Times portraits the 'long-lost' John Lautner-designed Salkin Residence, built in 1948 in LA's Echo Park neighborhood and, over the last three years, painstakingly restored to renewed beauty by designer/business woman Trina Turk and her husband, Jonathan Skow. View full entry
Completed in 1905 in one of Kansas City, Missouri's oldest neighborhoods, the Westport Presbyterian Church was in dire need of repair after suffering from a catastrophic fire in 2011. Undertaking all the technical challenges that come with a project of this nature, architecture practice BNIM... View full entry
