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A spoof Guggenheim website, globalguggenheim.org, went live this morning with a satirical “Sustainable Design Competition” for the global museum’s embattled Abu Dhabi branch. The website, a slightly modified replica of the official Guggenheim version, features images of Saadiyat Island, where the museum is to be built, overlayed with the hashtag #futureguggenheim, as well as references to Gulf Labor’s ongoing 52 Weeks campaign. — hyperallergic.com
A curvy futuristic $450M building meant to remake Seoul into a global design capital opened to the S. Korean public Friday after years of debate about its impact on a historic city precinct. And not everyone is happy with the outcome.
Designed by award-winning architect Zaha Hadid, the Dongdaemun Design Plaza is a stark contrast to its neighbourhood, which is better known in Seoul for its links to a royal dynasty that ruled for half a millennium and as home to one of the city’s oldest markets.
— o.canada.com
I worry if the criteria of the Pritzker Prize ... architecture's... most prestigious prize ... are now also being diverted in the direction of political correctness .... — Patrik Schumacher
Conrad Newel responds to Patrik Schumacher's "backhanded compliment" criticizing the Pritzker Prize awarding political correctness... Patrik Schumacher :"it is Ban's humanitarian work that the Pritzker jury emphasized in announcing the prize" I congratulate... View full entry
Researcher Anastasia Swearingen claims that "LEED certification is little more than a fancy plaque displayed by these ‘green’ buildings", and compares energy use intensity (EUI) of LEED certified buildings to non-certified buildings. Quoting data from the Green Building Report for the District of Columbia, she concludes that "For LEED-certified buildings, their EUI was 205, compared to 199 for non-certified buildings..." — treehugger.com
"Ai Weiwei, who helped design the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing, stayed away from the opening ceremonies because he said he wanted his building to represent freedom, not be a trophy for an autocratic regime uninterested in change." — hyperallergic.com
Are we even delineating the role of the Architect in the construction process? Especially in the case where the clients are a monarchy and the problem cited is endemic to the entire region and not limited to the construction industry?Quoting Ai Weiwei and not Herzog and de Meuron seems almost... View full entry
Contrary to what you may have read lately, the Museum of Modern Art is intent on carefully preserving the former American Folk Art Museum next door.
At least, the part of it that is most recognizable to the public: an 82-foot-high sculptural ensemble of 63 panels, cast in a gorgeous copper-bronze alloy [...]
“We will take the facade down, piece by piece, and we will store it,” Glenn D. Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, said in an interview last week.
— nytimes.com
As reported last week by Archinectors Ayesha Ghosh and Alex Stewart, a discussion regarding MoMA's expansion plan and the intended demolition of the American Folk Art Museum took place at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, an appropriate venue for a conversation rife with implications for... View full entry
The controversial plans to demolish the American Folk Art Museum in service of MoMA's expansion rumbled along last night, at a panel discussion hosted jointly by the Architectural League, the Municipal Art Society, and the AIA's New York chapter.Catch-up on news surrounding MoMA's expansion... View full entry
"I think that the press has been too fast to reduce the conversation to heroes and villains and martyrs, and to suggest that what MoMA is doing is necessarily bad. We want to get more information out. We want to share the problem with others and invite them to really take a hard look" - Elizabeth Diller — LA Times
They discuss the almost uniformly negative reaction to the announcement as well as the details of DS+R’s proposal for MoMA, which is still in an early design phase. In response Michael Kimmelman tweeted "Her answers are deeply unsatisfying". View full entry
The Working Group plan puts forward a number of recommendations that are worth pursuing under any financial model. However, we believe that the contingencies and risks inherent in the proposals are too great to supplant the need for new revenue sources. Regrettably, tuition remains the only realistic source of new revenue in the near future. — Richard S. Lincer, chair of The Cooper Union Board of Trustees
Below is the entire email announcing the Cooper Union's decision to start charging tuition this fall, breaking the school's 153-year tradition. Catch-up on the history behind the controversial move, explained in Archinect's 13 top issues of 2013: #5: Free Cooper Union To: The Cooper Union... View full entry
[Diller] had great respect for the Folk Art Museum, calling it a “bespoke” design tailored to the needs of the museum. She went through several scenarios on how to integrate the museum in the expanded footprint. [...]
Adapting the Folk Art Museum building, however, would basically compromise the building’s interior beyond recognition. [...]
The architects would have had to destroy the Folk Art Museum building in order to save it.
— Architect Magazing
In what looks like the kiss of death for the #folkMoMA movement, Diller Scofidio + Renfro's design for MoMA's expansion will necessitate the destruction of the neighboring American Folk Art Museum, as proposed today in a MoMA press conference. The initial threat to the Folk Museum was made last... View full entry
"It looks like a prison to be honest with you," said Lynda Johnson, an assistant professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology and editor and founder of KidStyleSource.com who has owned a townhouse on St. Nicholas Place for 20 years and is a member of the Hamilton Heights Homeowners Association.
Some feel the design does not fit into the context of the nearby Hamilton Heights-Sugar Hill Historic District, which is filled with Beaux Arts and Queen Anne-style 19th-century row houses.
— dnainfo.com
In the wake of the controversial demolition of Bertrand Goldberg’s Prentice Women’s Hospital, Northwestern University has moved forward with the process for selecting an architecture firm to design the building's replacement. Firms that protested the demolition, however, have been excluded from consideration for designing the building's replacement—and may be blacklisted from other projects at Northwestern. — architectmagazine.com
Zaha Hadid, the world’s best-known female architect, is none too pleased with critics like Jon Stewart, who have mocked her Al Wakrah Stadium—designed with AECOM for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar—and likened her to the “Georgia O’Keeffe of things you can walk inside.”
“It’s really embarrassing that they come up with nonsense like this,” Hadid tells TIME exclusively. “What are they saying? Everything with a hole in it is a vagina? That’s ridiculous.”
— newsfeed.time.com
Previously: Unnecessary Muffness; Jon Stewart discusses Zaha's "f**kable buildings" View full entry
New tumblr blog that looks at "outrageously gender-imbalanced lecture series, etc." send observed inequalities to feministwall at gmail dot com. — feministwall.tumblr.com