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A scholarship fund honoring the legacy of the late Kevin Roche has been established by the Connecticut Architecture Foundation (CAF) in coordination with the local firm Svigals + Partners and in time for what would have been the Pritzker winner’s 100th birthday this year. Roche’s... View full entry
A key building feature on one of Kevin Roche’s most ingenious New York City designs is under threat of being erased, according to the preservation group Docomomo US. The late Pritzker winner’s 60 Wall Street building is undergoing renovation by Kohn Pedersen Fox this summer, and the group says... View full entry
In response to the recent surprise demolition of Marcel Breuer’s Geller I house on Long Island, modernist conservation group Docomomo US has released its first-ever list of the 11 most threatened modern sites in the United States. Working on the advice of its chapter members, the group... View full entry
Change at the top of the museum world as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced Mexican architect Frida Escobedo as its new designer of the forthcoming Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art. Escobedo now officially replaces David Chipperfield... View full entry
Kevin Roche (1922-2019) had a lasting influence on the American architecture scene. After moving here from his native Ireland in 1948, Roche studied under Mies van Der Rohe, another significant European emigré, and quickly found his footing in the country's largest cities, producing numerous... View full entry
Astonishingly, the feel of the original emerged largely intact. [Darren] Walker, an aficionado of mid-century design with an eye for detail, spent serious money to salvage whatever was salvageable. Hanging brass lighting fixtures, door handles, granite-topped credenzas (some with embedded hot plates), Platner tables and chairs, black walnut bookshelves, bronze trim — 1,500 items in all — were given back their mid-century gleam. The Ford Foundation Building has become a museum of itself. — New York Magazine
After many years of detailed renovation, the Ford Foundation has been successfully renovated and is ready to house 2,000 occupants. According to New York Magazine, "[the Ford Foundation] has withdrawn into a fraction of its previous space, halving the size of the president’s once imperial, now... View full entry
Mitsui Fudosan has built a 51-story office building in New York, demonstrating Japanese developers' strong appetite for overseas investment as their home market shrinks.
The company announced Friday that it has completed 55 Hudson Yards in the heart of Manhattan. Next door, construction continues on another 58-story office development at 50 Hudson Yards.
— Nikkei Asian Review
55 Hudson Yards, facade details. Photo: ACME/Flickr.The 51-story office tower 55 Hudson Yards (originally known as One Hudson Yards) has recently wrapped up construction. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, the high-rise stands 780 feet tall and offers a... View full entry
The Landmarks Preservation Commission is set to consider a proposed $190 million renovation to the Ford Foundation...Although many aspects of the building have long been outdated...it is health and safety, not aesthetics or technology, that initially drove the foundation’s plans. The city has given Ford until 2019 to bring the building up to code for fire safety and handicapped accessibility... — Curbed
“...But since they had to scratch the building’s surfaces, Ford Foundation president Darren Walker and his staff decided to go further, upgrading not just by adding sprinklers to the ceilings and greater access to the atrium, but new security, new lighting and mechanicals, and a new spatial... View full entry
NOT MANY ARCHITECTS get to reshape a wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But Shohei Shigematsu, who runs the New York branch of Rem Koolhaas’s Rotterdam-based firm, OMA, has done precisely that. This month he converts a skylit, double-height section of the museum—the 1970s Robert Lehman Wing—into a graceful, cathedral-like setting for Manus x Machina, the Costume Institute’s spring show, opening May 5. — the Wall Street Journal
The exhibit, curated by Andrew Bolton, considers "the founding of the haute couture in the 19th century, when the sewing machine was invented, and the emergence of a distinction between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) at the onset of industrialization and mass production."Accordingly... View full entry
The more period commentary on these spaces you read...the more you see the hotel's owners are falling into the very trap the interiors were engineered to escape: banality, anywhere-ness, the flimsiness of changing fashion...Are the current going to rip out the mirror and replace it with barn wood and mason jars? Just wait. Stop the unpermitted demolition. Landmark this interior and, in doing so, remind people of its undated and undateable wonder. — ny.curbed.com
Alexandra Lange writes about the Ambassador Grill & Lounge and Hotel Lobby at the United Nations Plaza Hotel (now known as ONE UN New York), which is currently planned for reconstruction and where illegal exploratory demolition has reportedly begun. The remodeling plan has sparked outcry from... View full entry
Wavelength Pictures, a London-based production company, has been awarded grant funding by the Graham Foundation to put out "Kevin Roche: The Quiet Architect", a feature-length documentary about the eponymous, Pritzker Prize-winning Irish-American architect. Wavelength has previously produced... View full entry
From Kiev to Los Angeles, from mind-bending artist Dan Graham to stately architect Kevin Roche, the Graham Foundation has announced the 49 international winners of its 2015 Grants to Organizations. Each year, the Foundation gives out two sets of grants: one for individuals including architects... View full entry
Amelia Taylor-Hochberg presented Curated thoughts from an earlier (Archinect Sessions Episode #24 and #25) conversation with Kevin Roche, "a hero of the long-game". snooker-doodle-dandy noted "I have always liked Kevin and his work. He was one of the people whom drove me to the... View full entry
For the latest edition of Deans List; Amelia Taylor-Hochberg profiled Michael Speaks, the Dean at Syracuse Architecture. Ken Koense commented "The SU Architecture program stands in stark contrast to what is happening, and has recently occurred at NJIT. Credible, steady leadership at Syracuse... View full entry
Paul's back from Peru, just in time for our 25th episode! And thanks to Patrik Schumacher, it's mostly about criticism. We respond to a polemic/rant left by Schumacher on his Facebook page, "In Defense of Stars and Icons", and consider not simply his argument, but its presentation – how... View full entry
