Thursday, March 31, 2005

Half Dose #10: New Milan Trade Fair Complex

A couple days ago, Milan's new Trade Fair opened in a massive (750,000 sm) new complex by Massimiliano Fuksas.

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An aerial view of the complex illustrates the simple plan: a central spine feeds long-span exhibition halls on either side. This spine is the project's most dramatic element, an undulating, glass-covered walkway at the scale of an airport concourse.

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Clearly Fuksas is embracing the computer technology that allows him to create these blobby surfaces, ones that read that much stronger by the adjacent boxy structures. Although reminiscent of Peter Cook and Colin Fournier's Kunsthaus Graz, structures like this will become more and more common as construction catches up with the architect's computer designs. Perhaps we'll see designs like this built in that largely bereft area between purely surface (Milan's elongated canopy) and institutional designs (Graz's attention-seeking museum). Is a blobby office or residential high-rise in the near future?

(via noticias arquitectura)

Links:
- Official page of M fuksas ARCH.
- New Milan Fair System, the English homepage of the new building.
- Floor Nature's page on the project with images.
- Images at Skyscraper City.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Great Idea

The third and last of Switzerland Tourism's Theme Routes, "Art and Architecture" guides the visitor to 26 towns cities around the country, "introducing places of interest from all regions, styles and eras." Previously were the successful "Gastronomy and Wine" and "Luxury and Design" routes.

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An interactive map highlights the cities and their buildings and artworks of interest. A brochure is to be released on their web site soon.

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Pictured: La Claustra

(via swissinfo, via ArchNewsNow)

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

RU Feeling Lucky?

With the release of TENbyTEN's TENth issue, Luck, a plethora of activity is spinning around the issue, both physical and virtual.

The Physical
Editor in Chief Annette Ferrara will be speaking next Tuesday at the Graham Foundation. Like all their lectures nowadays, reservations are required for the free event. She "will speak about some of the more compelling [Chicago Furniture Now] competition entries and the role the magazine plays within the design community and in Chicago."

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The Virtual
A selection of articles from the Luck issue are now online, including:

Still Learning From Las Vegas
An interview with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown by Melissa Urcan

Winner's Circle
Top-tier design from Modern+Design+Function?Chicago Furniture Now competition

What is Welsh Architecture?

This question is posed by RIBA, both in their Journal this month and in exhibition going on now until April 9 at the RIBA Gallery in London.

Projects include:
National Assembly of Wales (pdf) by Richard Rogers
Wales Millennium Centre by Percy Thomas Partnership

and others by:

Dewi-Prys Thomas
Maxwell Fry
Alex Gordon
Future Systems
Foster and Partners
Wilkinson Eyre
Richard Murphy
Welsh architecture is a subject that interests me since my mother is from Barry, a small, seaside town near Cardiff, the Capital of Wales. RIBA seems to take the position that contemporary architecture is under-represented in Wales, though this is changing as these new projects take shape. That might be the case if my weekly page is any indication: only one project from Wales is featured, a Visitor's Center at Caerphilly Castle by Davies Sutton Architecture.

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Personally I think if Wales wants its own national identity expressed by architecture, it needs to look beyond the high-tech style embraced by England (London in particular) that is already found (with varying degrees of success) in projects like Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. A more appropriate aesthetic may lean towards heavier, masonry structures and organic responses to the local landscape, like the Visitor's Center above. Like the Welsh language itself, the built and natural landscape is unique but susceptible to powerful outside forces, so effort must be taken to both preserve its unique history and foster a unique cultural sensibility rooted in its place.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

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Alaska Capitol Building in Juneau, Alaska by Morphosis.

The updated book feature is Hear the Wind Sing, by Haruki Murakami.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:
Scott-ish
A NYC photoblog with nice street scenes.

Banksy
Web page of the artist who got reams of publicity for illegally hanging his artwork in four New York museums, all since removed.

40h.net
Swedish photography page with an interesting "daily" page.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Traditional vs. Progressive in Alaska

Over at City Comforts, Laurence Aurbach writes about the recent competition for the Alaskan State Capitol, won by Pritzker Prize-winner Thom Mayne's Morphosis with local architect mmenseArchitects. He examines a counter-proposal by Marianne Cusato, "using the historic precedent of Russian civic buildings built in the 19th century."

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Cusato's State Capitol

Aurbach contends that Cusato's design is superior to the winning design for three reasons:
1. It creates and orders its surrounding spaces into accessible, functional parks and greens.
2. It provides a more legible point of reference in the city fabric.
3. The design conveys meaning.
Looking at the Capitol Building's site, Thom Mayne appears to be inviting criticism, saying "Now we say to Alaskans, 'these are some things we propose: speak to us.'" According to Aurbach they are speaking, with "dislike and discontent." Also, according to Aurbach, somebody like me "will object that a tradition-based design is 'not of our time,' and that "new materials and construction methods mean that only un-ornamented, machine-like designs with a high novelty factor can be authentic." Well, I believe that the way we build defines what "our time", so if we build traditionally that indicates take pride in history, for example, and the counter indicates that we are thinking ahead. At the moment, "our time" is a multitude of different styles and directions, all finding a place somewhere. The same applies to ornament, something that can be attributed to long-gone craftsman, replaced (unfortunately) by mass production and the building manufacturing industry.

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Morphosis's State Capitol

What seems to be at issue here is legibility: traditional design rooted in historical styles - that use columns, pediments, arches, etc - is understood by most, though contemporary design that lacks direct precedent lacks the ability to be understood by the same. So the argument goes and has been going on since Modern architecture took favor last century with architects, developers and cities. So I definitely won't be able to solve anything here, but I'd like to address Cusato's argument that accompanies her design.

She titles her letter "Alaska Deserves a Real Capitol Building, Not an Egg." Granted that the dome of the winning design has an egg-like form - a popular form for contemporary architects globally today - but this title only helps to diminish the design by associating it with an actual egg, much the way the THINK team's WTC runner-up design was described as a skeleton, effectively killing their chances of winning. Cusato continues to use this ammunition with phrases like, "[the design] is egg on the face of all Alaskans." Not very funny.

Basically, Ms. Cusato's argument is fool-proof because she states, "Alaska's capitol should be rewarded with a building no less grand than the other 49 that have stood the test of time in our country." Looking at the other 49, it's apparent that most are based on Washington D.C.'s Capitol Building, referencing its dome and neo-Classical language, so therefore Alaska would have to do the same to be properly rewarded.

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But if Alaska wanted to do what the mainland did already, why did they hold a competition? Competitions are notoriously geared towards finding contemporary solutions, those selecting traditional designs (see Michael Graves) creating as much negative controversy as this one apparently is. The design by Morphosis (to be featured on my weekly page Monday, so I won't go into too much detail here) responds admirably if awkwardly to the task. They are definitely trying to find a contemporary solution to the question of what a state capitol should look like, coming close with the dome (evident in the image above) but looking too much like an office building (which a Capitol is to a certain extent) and not civic enough in other parts.

So do we abandon the winning design in favor of a 19th century Russian civic structure? Or do we do as Mayne says and speak to him, in favor of modifying and improving the winning design? I would recommend the latter.

Update 04.07: The Anchorage Daily News picks up the story of "'Traditional' architects challenging winning Capitol design.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Nice Shot

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Part of a run of abstract images by photoblogger Tozzer of Modernist facades (click previous after link for more).

(via Gothamist)

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

This Just In - Block 37 Update

For those of you following the wild ride that is Block 37, Crain's reports that "WBBM-TV/Channel 2 is expected to sign a lease 'within days' for a showcase television studio on the Loop site."

According to the article, " The company expects to break ground by the end of the year...A lease with Channel 2 ? the project?s first ? would be a shot in the arm for a development that has lost momentum in recent months...News that a signed lease is only days away would silence some skeptics who believe that Mills? plan to develop Block 37 will fail just like others that preceded it."

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Image by Yanul

After years and years of hot air surrounding developments on this site, the more I hear about plan after plan of high-rise, multi-use BIG developments, I'm tempted to think that Chicago should just stop trying to get its money back. Why not relocate the ComEd station and build another world-class park that ties the Loop to Millennium Park and celebrates open space? Perhaps I'm being too cynical, but we can't expect developers to achieve greatness and find the "ideal" solution for the site via their money-driven thinking, something the city seems to want as they rebound from one developer to another.

I think the Mayor must realize that this void he's created isn't going to fill itself (with buildings, a designed park or other creative option) and as his time in City Hall ticks away, Block 37 might just become his (unwanted) legacy, over his greater accomplishments like Millennium Park.

Thanks to Karen for the link to the Crain's report.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Half Dose #9: Guthrie Theater

Doing a bit of work-related research earlier today I came across some images of Jean Nouvel's Guthrie Theater under construction, a project I'd seen a while ago only as a design, one that recalls Russian Constructivist projects of the early 20th century and contemporaries like Bolles + Wilson.

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About five minutes after looking at the construction images online, the new issue of Architecture arrived, showcasing the Guthrie for its exterior skin: insulated steel panels with blue paint and pixelated images screened on top.

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After the Guthrie Theater announced its plans for a new, relocated building, preservation groups stepped up to save the existing theater, one valued for its intimacy and acoustics but described by the owners as "cramped and separated." As planned, the existing building site would become the sculpture garden for the Walker Art Center, whose expansion by Herzog & De Meuron opens on April 17.

Links:
- Jean Nouvel's official page.
- Architectural Alliance, the local architect.
- Guthrie Theater's page on the expansion with construction images.
- Images that will be silk-screened to the exterior panels.
- Interview with Andrew Hartness , architect and 3d developer at Ateliers Jean Nouvel (with renderings and movies.)
- Save the Guthrie, a group dedicated to saving the existing Guthrie Theater.

Monday, March 21, 2005

Being Mayne

When I was in undergraduate architecture in the early- to mid-1990s, Morphosis was one of the most popular designers for "inspiration" for many reasons, but most notably for their presentation drawing and model techniques. The former tended to feature multiple layers of information (plans, sections, perspectives, photographs, other imagery) that illustrated the project's complexity and mood over the actual design; the latter were covered with a plaster-like coating that gave each model a mono or duotone look, nullifying any hierarchy in the model but also putting the focus on the form rather than materiality. We picked up on these techniques (usually to lesser degrees of success) realizing that each could help mask an otherwise weak design, or distract from poor craftsmanship, what have you, but mainly we looked to Morphosis because their stuff was so damn cool and we wanted our designs to be just as cool.

Their competition entry (below) for the Los Angeles Arts Park is a good example of their unique presentation techniques. The 2d presentation combines model photographs, a floor plan, a building section, and a carefully-composed though indistinguishable background (are those the bright lights of a concert? is that a burning cross?). It's difficult to ascertain what exactly is represented or what is going on, but the mood is unmistakably bleak and aggressive, perhaps a bit too much for an Arts Park, though it's unique enough that they won the competition. An aerial view of the model doesn't exactly help explain things, but built in sections the large scale model could be taken apart to reveal sections of the mainly underground spaces.

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This - and many projects like it - were a product of the Morphosis of Thom Mayne and Michael Rotondi. Since they split in the early 90s, I've come to the over-simplified conclusion that Mayne was the theoretical, avant-garde partner and Rotondi was the tectonic, practical one. Since they've gone their separate ways, Rotondi (with RoTo Architects) has experimented with the construction process, sometimes designing on site, a far cry from the labored presentation artifacts of early Morphosis. Mayne, on the other hand, turned to the computer in a move away from the firm's early aesthetic and into a whole new layer of complexity. Folded planes and porous, exterior materials like perforated metal are the norm these days.

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The San Francisco Federal Building (above) is a good example of this later stage of Morphosis, the one befitting the Pritzker Prize. Currently under construction, this project is part of a string of large built works that started with the Diamond Ranch High School (and numerous school-related buildings) and have continued with the Hypo Alpe-Adria Center and last year's Caltrans District 7 HQ (the icing on the cake for the Pritzker jury, as is the firm's selection for the NYC2012 Olympic Village). Two other projects are also currently under construction, the University of Cincinnati Student Recreation Center and NOAA Satellite Operation Facility.

For many years Mayne was a "paper architect", paying the bills with lavishly illustrated books, lecturing and teaching around the country, and cheap interns. But like other of his contemporaries (particularly Hadid and Libeskind), Mayne is now racking up the commissions. And at 61, he is probably considered in his prime with many more years and great designs to come.

Is Morphosis as big an influence at universities now as ten to fifteen years ago? I can't really say for sure, but given Mayne's ability to design AND build aggressive, in-your-face buildings for a diverse range of clients (from schools to the Federal government), all the while creating super-sexy computer renderings, I would have to say yes.

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:


Mirador in Madrid, Spain by MVRDV.

The updated book feature is Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies, by James Sanders.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:
Art MoCo
A new "web magazine featuring modern contemporary art news and views."

AIANY Design Awards 2004
Winners in the Architecture, Interior Architecture and Project categories.

Electronic Green Journal
"Peer-reviewed articles, book reviews, news, and information on current printed and electronic sources concerning international environmental topics."

Jahn Goes On
Peter Slatin's report on a new suburban Chicago office development by Helmut Jahn.

Re-Building.com
On architect John Van Bergen, landmarking, and preservation.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

And the Winner Is...

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Thom Mayne of Morphosis

For more information, click here (PDF) or here (html).

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Pritzker Countdown

According to the Pritzker Prize web page, the 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate will be announced tomorrow morning. Discussion is a-brewing over the potential winner, with the following favorites:
Santiago Calatrava
Thom Mayne (Morphosis)
Peter Eisenman
Daniel Libeskind
Toyo Ito
Jean Nouvel
Richard Rogers
Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA)
Looking at the past winners (below), the prize tends to single out individuals (omitting Robert Venturi's wife and partner and only once giving the prize to two individuals, in 2001) that are male (again, omitting Robert Venturi's wife and partner and giving the first prize to a woman last year). Architects outside the U.S. have won the last thirteen prizes, pointing towards an American architect to be named and making Mayne the apparent favorite. But the Pritzker Prizes tend to be a bit unpredictable - though last year's choice had a "p.c." smell to it - so it's anybody's guess who will win.

Past winners:
1979 - Philip Johnson of the United States
1980 - Luis Barrag�n of Mexico
1981 - James Stirling of Great Britain
1982 - Kevin Roche of the United States
1983 - Ieoh Ming Pei of the United States
1984 - Richard Meier of the United States
1985 - Hans Hollein of Austria
1986 - Gottfried Boehm of Germany
1987 - Kenzo Tange of Japan
1988 - Gordon Bunshaft of the United States / Oscar Niemeyer of Brazil
1989 - Frank O. Gehry of the United States
1990 - Aldo Rossi of Italy
1991 - Robert Venturi of the United States
1992 - Alvaro Siza of Portugal
1993 - Fumihiko Maki of Japan
1994 - Christian de Portzamparc of France
1995 - Tadao Ando of Japan
1996 - Rafael Moneo of Spain
1997 - Sverre Fehn of Norway
1998 - Renzo Piano of Italy
1999 - Sir Norman Foster of the United Kingdom
2000 - Rem Koolhaas of The Netherlands
2001 - Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron of Switzerland
2002 - Glenn Murcutt of Australia
2003 - J�rn Utzon of Denmark
2004 - Zaha Hadid of the United Kingdom
But there are some glaring omissions from both the past winners list and the "betting list", what I guess would be my favorites (in alphabetical order):
Wiel Arets
Mario Botta
Nicholas Grimshaw
Steven Holl
Enric Miralles (posthumously)
Antoine Predock
Tod Williams + Billie Tsien
Peter Zumthor
Whatever tomorrow's anticipated announcement, there definitely isn't a shortage of worthy contenders.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

What Does $3 Billion Buy These Days?

Apparently, a hell of a lot of caulk.

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Photo: Otto Pohl for The New York Times

(via Improvised Schema)

Mark Your (NYC) Calendars

Issue 7 ("Untitled Number Seven") of Praxis will be unveiled on March 31, 6-8pm at the Skyscraper Museum in New York (39 Battery Place). Admission is free, refreshments will be served, and journals will be on sale.

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The info:

Praxis 7, features recent projects that reconceptualize the space and discourse of the museum. The journal posits an expanded definition of curation as not only an organizational device for choosing and arranging works of art, but more broadly as a device for structuring a relationship between building and the works of art it houses. This issue focuses on projects that challenge the very definition of the museum as a static determinant structure, and instead situate the contemporary museum more broadly as a cultural institution.

EDITORS
Amanda Reeser Lawrence | Ashley Schafer

FEATURED ARCHITECTS & DESIGNERS
Sejima & Nishizawa | Renzo Piano | Diller + Scofidio+ Renfro | Jane Harrison and David Turnbull (XLA) | Thomas Struth | Natalie Jeremijenko | Mauricio Rocha | OpenOffice

FEATURED WRITERS
K Michael Hays | Nana Last | Michael Meredith | Aaron Betsky | Jeff Kipnis | Fredric Migayrou | Terry Riley | Joseph Rosa | Robert Irwin

It's a ...

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Thanks for sending me the pic, Jim.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Architecture on the Radio

Looks like Architecture Radio is getting some company, as internet radio and podcasting are gaining both popularity and ease of use/creation.

Archinect reports on Radio Bonfi, "a free student run radio station from the Architectural Association School of Architecture." The "station" uses Flash but has a friendly, lo-fi-looking interface.

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Radio Bonfi welcomes submissions from anybody, in an effort to "[explore] the commitment to a collective space of pleasure, provocation, and feeling alive...and to support the makers and breakers of the world." Tune in.

As well, LA's KCRW has a podcast of its Design and Architecture features. For those not familiar with podcasting (like me, I'll admit), it basically works like a blog feeder but instead of subscribing to a site and receiving post updates, mp3's are automatically downloaded to your CPU for your listening enjoyment at your leisure, via special software. Podcasting allows anybody with access to a computer to express a thought, a song, anything, aurally to the rest of the connected world, a liberating thought but, like blogging, one that requires some filtering. I'll try to post some links to worthwhile architecture-related, internet audio sites as I hear about them (and figure out this podcasting stuff).

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Half Dose #8: TAG McLaren HQ

The TAG McLaren Group wished to consolidate its operation around Woking, Surrey, England into one large complex with "design studios, laboratories, research and testing facilities, electronics development, machine shops and prototyping and production facilities for the Team McLaren Mercedes Formula One cars and the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren."

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Norman Foster designed a environmentally sustainable building, a low bean-shaped structure that hugs a man-made lake used for the building's cooling system.

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According to Foster and Partners' page, "the building is organized around double-height six-meter wide linear 'streets', which form circulation routes and allow daylight into the interior of the building providing all employees with an awareness of the outside." Like Foster's other buildings, McLaren's Headquarter's is a sleek, well-detailed piece of architecture that is novel but also environmentally friendly.

Links:
- Foster and Partners, their homepage and their project page.
- McLaren, the client's official page.
- Mercedes Enthusiast, a scanned article on the Technology Center.
- Some images here, here and here.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Ten Most Endangered

Last week the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois announced its 2005 list of the Ten Most Endangered Historic Places in the state. Four of the ten places are in and around Chicago, a special 11th spot given to Cook County Hospital for the ongoing struggle over its future.

Here's a few places of interest:

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River Forest Women's Club, River Forest
A Prairie-style building designed in 1913 by William Drummond, the chief draftsman of Frank Lloyd Wright. The distinctive green siding makes this house appear like a slightly off-kilter Prairie house, like Drummond wanted to go beyond his master's style but couldn't escape Wright's influence.

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Westgate Street, Oak Park
A new downtown master plan threatens a portion of Oak Park's beautifully-scaled, walkable downtown, a block from a Green Line station to the Loop. Oak Park has the downtown that most newer suburbs want, so why mess with it?

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Zook Home and Studio, Hinsdale
Read Blair Kamin singing the praises of lesser-known architect Harold Zook's home and studio.

Will the Council achieve the intended effect from this list? Perhaps, but more so if the list reaches as many people as possible, opening their eyes to the unknown joys around them.

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:


Perspectives Charter School in Chicago, Illinois by Perkins + Will.

The updated book feature is Sixteen Acres: Architecture and the Outrageous Struggle for the Future of Ground Zero, by Philip Nobel.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:
Hadrian Awards 2005
Architecture awards focusing on North East England, by Northern Architecture. Even though the winners won't be announced until mid-June, all the entries are available for viewing and comment.

nextroom architecture database
A large collection of European architecture, in German with some entries in English.

Ned Kahn
Cool "environmental" artworks, broken down into the categories Fog, Water, Fire/Light, Wind, Sand by the artist. (via Future Feeder)

University of Illinois, Chicago
Part of the Archinect School Blog Project.

Friday, March 11, 2005

Ten Years Later

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Having read Haruki Murakami's Underground not too long ago, for me this article in Japan's English-language magazine Metropolis is required reading. What effect did the gas attacks have after this long? And what changes, if any, will continue in the year's ahead? The way it paints Japanese society as religiously lost is insightful, helping to explain how the attacks happened in the first place.

Thanks to Masha for the link.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

The Holl Truth

The Kansas City Star reports (alt. bugmenot link) that Steven Holl will give a presentation on his design of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's Bloch Building in Kansas City, addressing negative controversy over the project.

All I've seen on this "controversy" is a Feb. 3 article in The Pitch, K.C.'s alternative weekly paper. Written by somebody calling himself (herself?) The Strip, the piece actually praises the interior but takes exception with the exterior, eloquently saying, "it [looks] like ass." The Star points out that, "detractors have complained that what they see going up doesn't have the magic of the luminous initial design that was presented to the public."

Let's take a look:

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Early model of the design.

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Rendering of the design.

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Photos of the construction site.

The area of contention is the vertical strips between pieces of glass (apparently Pilkington's channel glass). This detail is missing from the model, a conceptual image that eliminates any expression of construction in favor of expression of idea. If anything mislead people it was this model, as the rendering does show a vertical striping, though not as pronounced as the actual condition.

So basically critics are arguing that the public was cheated; that the initial design and the built work don't jibe. This is very common in architecture - with presentations expressing feeling over actual construction (usually not fully know at the time) - though photo-realistic renderings, made possible by computer model and rendering software, is becoming the norm. Could it be that the public expects the latter? Do all architectural renderings need to accurately display their built image or the public is lost?

Eliminating gestural, expressionistic sketches is unlikely, though taking exception with the differences between concept and execution points towards the necessity for "as-built" renderings in public building designs. This would be unfortunate, especially if architects were actually responsible for the narrowing the gap between the two, something the detractors of the Holl design seem to want.

But beyond this generalization regarding design and construction image, I think people are upset because the neo-classical Nelson-Atkins Museum has been a beloved part of Kansas City's built environment (having attended architecture school in Kansas, and made numerous trips to Kansas City, the Nelson-Atkins was always a popular place to visit.) Sitting opposite an expansive sculpture garden and straddled by Claus Oldenburg's witty Shuttlecocks, the public probably wanted a respectful design to the existing museum and its grounds. And they probably don't see it in Holl's "shipping container" architecture.

Ultimately, I think any judgment needs to wait until the building is actually done, preferably after it's had a chance to be used, both indoors and out. A lot of beloved buildings have started their existence with hatred, only to gain favor over time; why should this be any different?

Update 03.18: The Kansas City Star publishes a piece by James Hart on yesterday's "town hall" meeting. Transcript follows (thanks to Eric M. for the update).
The architect who designed a hotly debated addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art asked Kansas Citians for one thing Thursday night: patience.

The construction is not complete on the Bloch Building, and visitors need to tour the building's interior to really appreciate the space, Steven Holl told an audience Thursday night.

He predicted the addition would draw large crowds to see the museum's art collection.

�What's most important is the experience,� Holl said.

The construction has generated strong reactions, positive and negative. So the museum turned Holl's scheduled speech Thursday evening into a community forum. Unity Temple on the Plaza was close to full with people who came to listen � and speak.

Joe Williams, a museum volunteer, was the first audience member to go to the microphone. The new addition, he said, looks out of place against the original building. He wondered what, if anything, could be done at this point.

�I suspect this whole proceeding is an inquiry about spilled milk,� Williams said.

While many speakers questioned the project � several worried about the effect on neighbors � Holl also received applause when he promised the addition would draw more visitors to the museum and provide more space for its collection.

At times he poked fun at himself, noting that one critic had said the addition's layout looks like a �broken clarinet.�

�I like that,� Holl said. �Architecture and music.�

The Bloch Building is the major element of a $200 million expansion and overhaul of the museum. The limestone face of the original building has been cleaned and restored, and considerable changes to the interior are well under way.

�This will be a whole new museum,� museum director and chief executive Marc Wilson said recently.

The addition will nearly double the museum's square footage. Holl's design weaves the building in and out of the ground. The underground levels of the building extend more than 800 feet along the east side of the grounds.

Above ground will be five irregularly shaped glass-covered structures called lenses or pavilions. The smaller ones will serve something like skylights. The largest will contain offices, a library, meeting rooms and a soaring lobby area. Between the buildings will be sloping lawns and pieces from the Nelson's sculpture collection.

Grumbling about the Bloch building arose last summer as custom glass planks began defining the outer walls of the largest pavilion. Neighbors and passers-by expressed displeasure with the look of the building and its size.

Museum trustee Henry Bloch acknowledged recently that he had received an earful from the public. But he said he was confident and listening to the experts. He said they have reassured him that the building bearing his family's name would be beautiful and attract international attention.

Earlier this year, commentators and letter writers seemed to turn up the heat. The museum found itself on the defensive, so Holl's visit Thursday was turned into an opportunity to address the public.

Wilson and others have asked for patience as construction continues.

Holl predicted that by May, when glass installation on all five of the pavilions is closer to completion, the building will begin to make more sense.

�Art is about controversy,� Holl said earlier Thursday while walking through the construction site. �It's good to get people all agitated. Then when we let them in, they'll be overwhelmed.

�The thing with great architecture,� he said, �is people either are going to love it or they're going to hate it. That's because it's got something.�

On Thursday night he noted that his art museum in Helsinki, Finland, attracted lots of negative attention before it was finished. �But at the opening, everybody was there. And it was a great, great opening.�

The forum Thursday ended civilly.

�I wish we had this much discussion whenever we built a Wal-Mart,� landscape architect Matt Schoell-Schafer said.

Update 04.04: The Kansas City Star publishes a positive review of Holl's addition, with images.

Tuesday, March 8, 2005

M5 Ornament

Flipping through this month's Architectural Record, I noticed a blurb on an architecture exhibition called Ornament, being held at M5 from March 5-26. The magazine describes it as:
An exhibition of architects working with new materials and fabrication processes that push the boundaries of conventional wisdom. The show aims to examine and reveal the contemporary understanding of ornament in present architectural design, allowing for a new perspective on historical precedent.

Unfortunately M5's web page provides no further information, and a quick google search yields little to nothing, though SCI-ARC does have a press release (pdf) with details.

Participants include:
Hernan Diaz Alonso(Xefirotarch)
Ammar Eloueini (Digit-all Studio)
Doug Garofalo (GarofaloArchitects)
Mark Goulthorpe (dECOi)
Lisa Iwamoto/Craig Scott (Iwamoto Scott Architecture)
Anders Nereim/Paul Preissner (Qua�Virarch)
Ali Rahim (Contemporary Architecture Practice)
Blair Satterfield/Marc Swackhamer (SLV)
Nader Tehrani/Monica Ponce de Leon (Office dA).

The exhibition is located at 216 W. Chicago, 2nd floor, is curated by Melissa Urcan, and sounds worth checking out.

Lecture-palooza

This week offers some promising lectures - and tough choices - for those in and near Chicago:

Tuesday, March 8
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Stanley Tigerman
6pm at the Graham Foundation
Free reservations required - Sold out!

Thursday, March 10
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Philip Nobel, author of Sixteen Acres: Architecture and the Outrageous Struggle for Ground Zero
6pm at the Chicago Architecture Foundation
Free!

and

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Robert F. Ivy, Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Record
6pm at the Art Institute's Fullerton Hall
Free!

Monday, March 7, 2005

Hidden Gem: Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist

Enjoying yesterday's mild winter weather, I walked near the Chicago River with my camera. Heading towards the Loop I happened upon Harry Weese's Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist at Wacker Drive and Wabash Avenue. A small but eminently noticeable building due to its round and windowless form, I was struck by the subterranean area wrapping the corner, a space I either have never seen or don't remember. I can't see how it's the latter, though, because the space is quite unique within its surroundings.

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In an interview with Weese shortly before his death, the designer explains, "that sunken garden was for the benefit of the Sunday School, which didn't have any windows. It was underground on Lower Wacker. So it was all functional structurally and in every other way." A vestibule behind and to the left provides access to the building's interior at grade, in effect a bridge over this sunken area. This space is reminiscent of Marcel Breuer's Whitney Museum design, while also related to Bertrand Goldberg's Marina City across the River in their overt shaping of space.

While the below-grade space is not for public use, it sits like a Japanese garden: a visual oasis of calm. Where most buildings now reach to the property line and the sidewalk, or think that outdoor public space is merely an arcade, I hope that the creative shaping of exterior, urban space - like this - is not a thing of the past.

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:


Crown Fountain in Chicago, Illinois.

The updated book feature is Too Blessed To Be Depressed: Crimson Architectural Historians, 1994-2002, edited by Ewout Dorman, Ernst van der Hoeven, Michelle Provoost, Wouter Vanstiphout, and Cassandra Wilkins.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:
Ben Nicholson's Faith Based Initiative
Archinect's latest feature, an interview with Nicholson conducted by John Jourden.

Filling the Hole
Reviews of four books on the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, by Martin Filler at The New York Review of Books.

Beyond the Trailer Park
Lynn Becker's latest, on "A new exhibition [that] asks whether top designers can rescue manufactured housing from the public's disdain."

cornershots
Photoblog by Brooklyn native Jimmie, specializing in nighttime shots of New York City.

Sunday, March 6, 2005

IBM Images

At the prompting of Edward Lifson, I ventured over by the Sun-Times site and the Michigan Avenue Bridge to get some glimpses of the IBM Building in all its unobstructed glory.

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A temporary walkway over Wabash gives an open view of the cleared site.

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With the Sun-Times Building gone, the buildings across the River to the south are in full view. A similar view is what the plaza between the Sun-Times and Wrigley buildings afforded, along with sunlight and a place to sit and enjoy both the view and the sun.

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This is the view of the IBM Building between the two Wrigley towers.

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The "money shot" from the Michigan Avenue Bridge. Compare to the previous view with the Sun-Times Building and the future view with Trump Tower.

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View from Columbus Avenue a couple blocks east of Michigan Avenue.

As I was taking many of these photos, people around me were commenting on the circumstances. "Boy, that building's gonna cover that up!" and "Man, that's a big open site!" indicative of the power of the visual abyss now apparent on the banks of the River. It reminds me of the World Trade Center site, its void a powerful presence that in some ways begged to be left intact, uncluttered by towers. Here, the same argument can be made, but ironically we wouldn't have the current view and the impressive open space without the plans for Trump Tower and the concomitant demolition of the Sun-Times Building. Since Trump is moving ahead with his tower, all that can be achieved is perhaps a respectful re-shaping of his residential tower's mass to allow similar views along the River. And to achieve that maybe Trump needs to get out of his limo as it rides across the Michigan Avenue Bridge, look west, and appreciate the impact he's made without even having to build anything.

Update 03.18: The local CBS affiliate station has a news tidbit on the unobstructed view of the IBM Building. Unlike Edward Lifson's commentary, Channel 2 doesn't take a stand, if anything prepping people for the impending Trump Tower.

Friday, March 4, 2005

Blinkage

Blog Linkage, that is. Here's some interesting blogs that have recently come to my attention:

Triple Mint
"An online review dedicated to new urban residential development, design and living." Pretty sharp.

Gravestmor
"Tales of architectural propaganda." A page with a great sense of humor. And T-shirts!

Improvised Schema
Formerly called Work Studios. Streamlined, with more links.

Megan and Murray McMillan
Husband and wife performance installation designers blogging about art and their work.

Hardblog
A personal blog with some cool art/architecture images. In Spanish Portugese.

Omnitectural Forum
Radical Urban Theory
More online journals than blogs, but interesting nevertheless.

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Half Dose #7: Bioscleave House

Since college I've been a fan of Arakawa + Madeline Gins. Their work appeals to the theoretical and artistic sides of me, though some of their writing can be dense and esoteric, a bit off-putting. Alongside their project images, their words start to resonate with the duo's far-reaching ideas: that we are inseparable from our surroundings and that communal, spatial experimentation could lead to humankind reversing its destiny and being able to live forever. Far-fetched might be more like it, but I'm never one to dissuade against something that's out of our current abilities or - more importantly - grasp of understanding. In many ways, their work tries to open people's minds to possibilities.

I've always wanted to feature one of their projects on my weekly page, but MoCo Loco has beaten me to the punch with a post on the artists and the Bioscleave House.

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This house, like Yoro Park in Japan, is an attempt at finding a physical means of expressing their ideas. Where the novelty of their ideas and projects fits the playfulness of a public park, pulling off a residential commission must have been difficult, requiring a client with an open and understanding mind. Regardless, Yoro Park actually features a house, not an inhabited house but a potential house that people can experience, perhaps a blueprint for Bioscleave.

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Click for larger, expanded image.

Where the Yoro's Destiny House features such oddities as walls bisecting rooms and its furniture, the Bioscleave House seems a bit more tame. The plan illustrates a living area in the center of the house that is like a landscape, open and full of contours. This landscape gives way to more traditional, flat-floored spaces (bedrooms, study, bathroom) that just from the main mass. Unlike a house on one level (ore even a two-story house linked by a stair), this house should make the occupants well aware of their paths through and across the spaces, perhaps training them for immortality...or at least a greater understanding of human/environment interaction.

The house on Long Island is currently under construction.

Links:
- Reversible Destiny, Arakawa + Gins' homepage.
- Site of Reversible Destiny, Yoro Park's official page.
- Architecture Against Death, Interface Journal's three-part issue on the duo. (Text available in PDF via Arakawa + Gins' page; Part I, Part II)
- The Slought Foundation's recent exhibition on the artists.

Graham Reopening

The Graham Foundation is reopening the doors to the Madlener House after holding lectures during its renovation at The Arts Club. To kick off its Spring 2005 lecture season back in its old digs, Stanley Tigerman will give a talk on Tuesday, March 8.

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Due to what looks like an anticipated packed house, reservations are required, available starting this Friday, the 4th.

I have not seen Tigerman lecture, though I did meet him as part of a class visit to his firm in my third year of undergrad. While he was a bit difficult at first - appearing to live up to his cantankerous reputation - after somebody asked him about graduate school he talked our ears off for a good 30 minutes on the importance of post-bachelor education. Recently he seems to have become something of a godfather, an outgoing promoter of the younger generation of Chicago architects, through his programs at Archeworks and the Ten Visions exhibit now at The Art Institute which he curated. He also designs buildings.

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Gates Finale

Since Christo and Jeanne-Claude's "The Gates" is ending its two-week run, I thought I would link to one of the comments in a previous post comparing The Gates to Torii in Kyoto. Bill Wilson's comment is lengthy (and a bit dense wordy and confused at times), but he does have some insights into the meaning of The Gates, particularly regarding the horizontal and the vertical. For the readers who complete it, it should give them something to think get angry about.

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Photo by Angel Franco/The New York Times.

Half Dose #6: Old Orchard Woods

Last night, David Hovey of Optima spoke at IIT, a lecture timed to the recently-published book on his work, The Nature of Dwellings. As both developer and architect, Optima is able to create suburban residential developments of daring design that might be impossible otherwise. Old Orchard Woods is no exception.

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Old Orchard Woods is located right off the Edens Expressway north of Chicago in Skokie, between the Old Orchard Shopping Center and Harms Woods Forest Preserve. The immediate area contains many unexceptional commercial structures, so the glassy Modernism of the development should stand out.

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The asymmetrical massing and linking of future phases are unique aspects of the development that features from one to four bedroom apartments, a pool, spa, sundeck, a party room, and tennis courth. Of the planned Oak, Elm, and Maple Towers, the first is now under construction.

Links:
- Optima's Old Orchard Woods page.
- MoCo Loco's page on The Nature of Dwelling.
- Listen to Edward Lifson and Ned Cramer talk about Hovey, from Sunday's Hello Beautiful!
- A Sun-Times article on Hovey and his new book.
 
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