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Beth Mosenthal penned a thoughtful Op-Ed titled The Ego and the Architect. Therein, she briefly examined "the idea of ‘leadership’ in an architectural office". News Celebrating the fact that "the Museum of Modern Art blinked" Michael Kimmelman wrote an article... View full entry
Following the release of CLOG: Brutalism—the architecture journal's most recent issue—CLOG and DoCoMoMO NY Tristate are pleased to co-sponsor a panel discussion that will focus on the politics, opportunities, and constraints surrounding these structures. The conversation will address common issues faced by Brutalist buildings including their structural potential, aesthetics, and how these factors and more make the question of preserving Brutalist structures difficult and oftentimes contentious. — clog-online.com
For those of you who heart brutalism, we still have some t-shirts left. Oh, and CLOG is hiring, if you haven't heard. View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles. Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Concrete. ↑ Pavilion Siegen in Siegen... View full entry
For nearly 40 years, the F.B.I. has had its headquarters in a massive example of Brutalist architecture on Pennsylvania Avenue. But the federal government hopes to swap the building and its prime location for a sprawling new home in the suburbs, and there seem to be plenty of developers eager to help make that happen. — nytimes.com
The General Services Administration, the federal government’s landlord, held an “industry day” this month to lay out its wish list for new F.B.I. headquarters, drawing more than 450 interested developers, architects, brokers and consultants. View full entry
Designed in the late 1960s by one of the most inventive architects in American history, Paul Rudolph, the campus is a powerful, muscular pile of raw concrete. It’s an example of an architectural style that’s known, for better or worse, as Brutalism.
Now one of the major chunks of UMass Dartmouth is being transformed. That’s the Claire T. Carney Library, which is being renovated and enlarged — redesigned, really, in many ways — by a talented Boston architecture firm that calls itself designLAB.
— bostonglobe.com
The public doesn’t typically consider the Brutalist buildings historical — they consider them ugly. The Hoover Building in particular was named the ugliest building on Earth earlier this year by a travel Web site. And now that Penn Quarter has evolved into a posh residential community, neighbors of the building want it gone. — washingtonpost.com
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles. Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Concrete. ↑ Casa La Punta in Mexico... View full entry
Alex Maymind highlighted the work of Cornell studio "Ungers vs. Rowe" in a piece titled ARCHIPELAGOS: Ungers vs. Rowe. Both the studio and feature, articulate "a theoretical argument about two divergent Cornell legacies: one, O.M. Ungers and the other, Colin Rowe as exemplary urban design... View full entry
Not everyone liked the skywalks, which connect buildings Mr. Franzen designed at Hunter College on Lexington Avenue. Neighbors lamented the loss of sunlight. But Mr. Franzen, a Modernist subscriber to the form-follows-function credo, considered them the functional equivalent of ivy-covered walkways for urban students. It would “become the college community’s main street,” he wrote of the skywalk plan in 1972 in the college’s student newspaper, “well above rush-hour traffic at street level.” — nytimes.com
Gerhard Kallmann, the architect who, with Michael McKinnell, designed Boston City Hall, a hulking, asymmetrical, Modernist building that has been widely acclaimed by architects for half a century though disparaged by many Bostonians, died on Tuesday in Boston. He was 97. — nytimes.com
Elected officials in Goshen, N.Y., voted Thursday against a resolution to demolish and replace the Orange County Government Center, a late-1960s building in the small Hudson Valley town that sparked debate on the value of modern architecture.
"I am deeply disappointed by the outcome of today's vote," Mr. Diana said in a written statement.
— online.wsj.com
As Modernist buildings reach middle age, many of the stark structures that once represented the architectural vanguard are showing signs of wear, setting off debates around the country between preservationists, who see them as historic landmarks, and the many people who just see them as eyesores. — nytimes.com
Also see this discussion in the forum: Paul Rudolph threatened with demolition: when I see #&*! like this I just want to give up. View full entry
Whatever else you might think about it, Boston City Hall is an improbable building. Call it a giant concrete harmonica or a bold architectural achievement, but to walk by this strange, asymmetrical structure in Government Center is to wonder how on earth it landed there. — bostonglobe.com
Fifty years after a groundbreaking competition, two architects look back at the project that polarized the city — and gave it a new lease on life View full entry