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“It has been extraordinarily controversial and I made no bones of the fact that it’s not a project I would have supported if I had been on council at the time,” said the mayor.
“But the thing is, it’s there. It’s an indelible and a permanent part of the landscape of our city.
“It would all do us good to grow to love it.”
The span, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, is officially pegged at $24.5 million, but is expected to cost more.
— calgarysun.com
Frank Gehry didn't attend Monday's congressional hearing about his design for the planned Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington. But the Los Angeles architect sent a letter defending his controversial conception of the public memorial, while also stating that he is open to the idea of changes. — latimesblogs.latimes.com
"There is a backlash," says Gehry, now aged 82, "against me and everyone who has done buildings that have movement and feeling", that is "self-righteous" and "annoying… The notion is that it is counterproductive to social responsibility and sustainability. Therefore, curving the wall or doing something so-called wilful is wrong and so there is a tendency back to bland." — guardian.co.uk
Also make sure to check out the heated debate going on in Driehaus and Krier do battle against Gehry's Eisenhower Memorial design View full entry
The design shows Eisenhower as a youth gazing out at images of his adult accomplishments against a backdrop of the Kansas plains. But the Eisenhower family objects to the design and is attempting to delay approval of the project in a dispute that has pitted a leading American family against one of the country’s most recognized architects. The family says Mr. Gehry should portray Eisenhower as a man in the fullness of his achievements, not as a callow rustic who made good. — nytimes.com
A real media storm has started and we receive threatening emails and calls of angry people calling us Al Qaeda lovers or worse.
MVRDV regrets deeply any connotations The Cloud projects evokes regarding 9/11, it was not our intention.
— MVRDV, facebook.com
The Cloud was designed based on parameters such as sunlight, outside spaces, living quality for inhabitants and the city. It is one of many projects in which MVRDV experiments with a raised city level to reinvent the often solitary typology of the skyscraper. It was not our intention to create an... View full entry
The public handout will include a three-year holiday from the city's gross revenue taxes — a deal the city offers to relocating companies, and one that could save Gensler hundreds of thousands of dollars.
That would have been enough, you'd think, and hard to argue with. But city officials also paved the way for Gensler to receive a $1-million Community Development Block Grant, a federal program that historically has focused on stimulating economic growth and housing in low-income communities.
— latimes.com
The world’s most-famous architect sailed into a storm of old-fashioned Washington controversy this week.
At a public conversation Wednesday at the National Archives, Frank Gehry encountered hostile questions from audience members about his designs for a memorial to Dwight David Eisenhower planned for a prominent spot on Independence Avenue, just south of the Mall.
— washingtonpost.com
The new directors of the school, [AA, DC, MB said (on record and in a recording) that the university was a corporation and their first interest was not education. If education is a business, shouldn’t we know what we are paying for? — Public Intelligence
This document is a copy of the cyclical unit review performed by the University for the SoA in spring of this year. The result of the review may or may not have been the forced resignation of Professor Michael Jemtrud - an visionary individual who was making important and progressive changes... View full entry
The poet and author and one of the memorial's consultants, Maya Angelou, told The Washington Post, yesterday, the quote makes King seem arrogant. Actually, she put it in harsher terms.
"The quote makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit," she said.
— kcrw.com
Today, All Things Considered's Melissa Block spoke to memorial's executive architect, Ed Jackson Jr., who explained the quote was paraphrased because of design constraints. At first, he said, the quote was going to be placed on the south face of the monument, but instead the designers decided... View full entry
Word has been spreading since yesterday about the resignation of Michael Jemtrud, Director of McGill's School of Architecture. Archinect has just been anonymously informed, however, that "a very reliable senior faculty source within the school" has confirmed that the resignation was forced and... View full entry
Leading architects on both sides of the Atlantic hit out at the institute this week after American architect Richard Gage, part of the group Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, delivered a lecture at RIBA HQ on Monday night.
The venue was booked by fellow American and RIBA member Craig Phillip Kiner, an associate at Zaha Hadid Architects.
— bdonline.co.uk
Institute reviews policy after controversial event booked by Zaha Hadid Architects associate The RIBA is reviewing its policy on hiring out 66 Portland Place following a storm of criticism over its hosting of a group claiming that New York’s Twin Towers were brought down through a... View full entry
Paris town council has given the green light to a controversial "Triangle" tower rising 590ft above Paris which critics say is an "attack on the beauty of the French capital". — telegraph.co.uk