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"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
Italy is giving away more than 100 historic buildings - including castles, houses, and towers - in a bid to boost 'slow tourism' and tempt visitors away from the overcrowded city centres.
The only catch is that those who take up the offer will have to commit to restoring and transforming the sites into tourist facilities, such as hotels, restaurants, or spas. Successful applicants will get an initial nine-year period to work on their project...
— thelocal.it
Italy is “giving away” over 100 ancient castles, homes, and towers for free to be restored into new tourist spots, in hopes to lure travelers away from already-crowded city centers. Successful applicants are given an initial nine-year contract to work on their project, and can potentially... View full entry
Frrank Lloyd Wright was never one to fret about meeting deadlines, sticking to budgets or roofs that leaked. So there is something fitting about the delayed, but altogether triumphant, restoration of Wright's Unity Temple, [...] the finest public building of Wright's Chicago years and home to one of the most beautiful rooms in America.
Instead of finishing on schedule last fall, the $25 million project is wrapping up just in time for the 150th anniversary of Wright's birthday, June 8.
— chicagotribune.com
"Success, it's often said, has many fathers, and so it is with here," Kamin writes. "A team of consultants led by Chicago's Harboe Architects has lavished exacting care on every aspect of this project, from the restoration of jewel-like art glass to the recreation of textured plaster walls." View full entry
Built in the 14th century on the Jutland peninsula in Denmark, the Kalø Castle ruins is one of the country's most iconic landmarks and tourist hotspots. But the medieval tower was largely inaccessible to the public, and lacked any internal structure for centuries. That all changed with a crafty... View full entry
The Rothko Chapel in Houston, a masterpiece of midcentury architecture, houses 14 panels by the revered artist Mark Rothko. But the Chapel is in need of some TLC, from fixing the HVAC system to improving the lighting. The New York-based office Architecture Research Office (ARO) has been selected... View full entry
Fungal biofilm and water sealant failure have added a black patina to the Salk Institute's iconic teak paneling, making the material vulnerable to decay. In order to save what is considered to be one of the world's finest architectural projects (and coolest structural alignment of the sunset save... View full entry
Los Angeles wants to rethink its river. [...] And LA isn’t the only metropolis looking to reclaim its once-mocked waterway. Cities around the world are realizing that water can be a cultural and recreational asset, not something to hide or pillage, and it seems no waterway will be wasted for long. — wired.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Gruen Associates, Mia Lehrer, Oyler Wu appointed to design L.A. River Greenway in San Fernando ValleyWhat's happening with Frank Gehry's masterplan for the LA River?A plan to clean up the River Spree around Museum Island in Berlin View full entry
The greatest work of art at New Haven’s Yale Center for British Art is arguably the landmark building itself—and Louis Kahn’s last structure is due to reopen this month after a 16-month renovation of its public galleries and lecture hall, and an upgrade of its accessibility, security, mechanical and electrical systems. This is the third phase of a $33m conservation project that began in 2008. — theartnewspaper.com
"George Knight of Knight Architecture, who led the conservation work, says: “The thing that kept me up at night was [thinking] how can we preserve the building, which is so architecturally rich, and do all this surgery so as not to disfigure the patient in any way?""All images courtesy of the... View full entry
The Italian government announced [May 2] that it is allocating €1bn [approx. $1.15B] to major restoration and building projects at 33 museums, monuments and archaeological sites across the country, including Pompeii, the earthquake-stricken city of L’Aquila and the Uffizi galleries in Florence. [C]ulture minister Dario Franceschini described the funding, which will continue until 2020, as the “biggest investment in cultural heritage” in Italy’s history. — The Art Newspaper
More on Archinect:Better than ever: Mackintosh Building will reopen in 2018 along with campus expansionRecreation of Palmyra's Arch of Triumph presented in Trafalgar SquareLe Corbusier's Cité de Refuge in Paris to reopen after restoration View full entry
Public tours of a newly-restored Salvation Army shelter in Paris designed by Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret start in April. The tour guides for the 11-storey building, known as the Cité de Refuge, will be the residents of the building themselves who have been trained by the Fondation Le Corbusier.
The Cité de Refuge, which opened in 1933..., is historically significant as Le Corbusier’s first urban housing project and one of only two completed buildings in Paris.
— The Art Newspaper
Does Le Corbusier have you crowing? Check out these related links:Jørn Utzon's final touch to the Sydney Opera House: a Le Corbusier tapestryRenault issues Coupé Corbusier: a concept car to explore "a new way forward", inspired by Le Corbusier“Le Corbusier was a combination of blind and naïve... View full entry
A recently completed restoration project [of Spain's Matrera Castle] has provoked an incredulous reaction from some locals and a Spanish conservation group...
However, Carlos Quevedo, the architect who oversaw the restoration of the castle...pointed out that the project had been painstaking, professional, and legal...'I do think that some basic, accurate information can help avoid some of the prejudices that spring from a simple image.'
— The Guardian
Spain is having another cultural kerfuffle over the recent restoration of the ancient Matrera Castle in Cadiz. While locals and preservation groups are mocking and criticizing the makeover, architect Carlos Quevedo says that it was done to prevent further structural collapse.More about historic... View full entry
It is fervently hoped that when the 45th president takes the oath of office outside the Capitol on 20 January 2017, a $60m project to restore the building’s august cast-iron dome will have been completed. [...]
“There’s never been a major renovation of the dome. It’s important work and was long overdue. It apparently has a thousand cracks and pieces have been falling off for years but, once this work is done, it should be good for another 150 years.
— theguardian.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:U.S. Capitol building to receive much-needed faceliftTurns out the Washington Monument is shorter than we thoughtHistory breaks down the Lincoln Memorial’s bizarre rejected designs View full entry
