Print Journals

Sidebar update: I've added a category to the architectural links, publications on architecture, design, landscape, and urbanism that have web content. Here's the list as of today, though feel free to comment if you know of one I've missed.

:: Abitare
:: a+t
:: Archis
:: Architectural Record
:: Architectural Review
:: Architect Magazine
:: Architecture and Culture
:: Architecture Australia
:: ark
:: art 4D
:: A10
:: Azure
:: Building Design
:: DETAIL
:: Domus
:: Dwell Magazine
:: El Croquis
:: Frame Magazine
:: Harvard Design Magazine
:: Icon Magazine
:: Japan Architect/A+U
:: MARK Magazine
:: Metropolis Magazine
:: Monu
:: The Plan Magazine
:: The Next American City
:: Quaderns
:: RIBA Journal
:: 32BNY
:: Topos
:: Ume Magazine
:: Via Arquitectura
:: Wallpaper*

Today's archidose #139

Limerick County Council building, Ireland, originally uploaded by massamann.

Limerick County Council HQ in Limerick, Ireland by Bucholz McEvoy Architects, 2004.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
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Book of the Moment

While looking around one of my favorite bookstores I came across Virginia McLeod's Detail In Contemporary Residential Architecture, an "analysis of both the technical and the aesthetic importance of details in the development of contemporary domestic architecture from 2000 to 2005."



What impresses the most is the quality of the projects and the clear and consistent layout, making the presentation of details that much stronger. Many other detail-oriented books presenting projects side by side tend to have drawings that vary in quality and content, making some projects more helpful to the reader than others, or just more interesting to look at.



The extra effort required to create consistent drawings pays off in the form of having a solid reference, rather than just a hurried and inexpensive collection of what's cool now.

"Virignia McLeod studied architecture in Australia and has worked for a number of private practices in London. She was the editor of The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture and currently works as a freelance writer and editor." [source]

Today's archidose #138

School of Music triptych, originally uploaded by numstead.

The Earl V. Moore Building by Eero Saarinen (1964), home of the Music Department, on the campus of The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

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The Worst Buildings of NYC

For WNYC's Leonard Lopate show, writer Christopher Gray, author of New York Streetscapes and a regular column for the New York Times, asked listeners to submit pictures of what they think are the worst buildings in New York City. Yesterday he discussed what makes a building bad, unveiling his choices for the worst buildings.

Here's a slideshow of listener submissions:



(via Archinect)

West Side Gets Crowded

First came Gehry, then plans for a Selldorf (minus Johnson) and a Nouvel. And now there's Shigeru Ban's Metal Shutter Houses on West 19th Street, a stretch from the Highline to the West Side Highway that's quickly becoming some sort of Starchitect District.



Ban's addition, revealed at Curbed, is named for the large operable shutters on the facade that open and close to bring outside inside, or vice-versa. It's an interesting idea that seems more suited to the west-facing site of the IAC HQ, rather than the north-facing lot it occupies. Regardless, these large shutters will give the building its character, particularly the combination of open and closed and in-between from the different tenants. I'm guessing the closed view of the rendering -- and image that makes the building like a solid block with some subtle relief -- will be a rarity.

(via Archinect)

Literary Dose #15

"Thinking about daylight and artificial light I have to admit that daylight, the light on things, is so moving to me that I feel it almost as a spiritual quality. When the sun comes up in the morning -- which I always find so marvelous, absolutely fantastic the way it comes back every morning -- and casts its light on things, it doesn't feel as if it quite belongs in this world. I don't understand light. It gives me the feeling there's something beyond me, something beyond all understanding. And I am very glad, very grateful that there is such a thing. And I have that feeling here too; I'll have it later when we go outside. For an architect that light is a thousand times better than artificial light."

- Peter Zumthor, from Atmospheres (2006). The book is a transcript of a lecture Zumthor gave at Wendlinghausen Castle in East-Westphalia-Lippe, Germany in 2003.

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

Royal Netherlands Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by Dick van Gameren and Bjarne Mastenbroek.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York
An "exhibition about how a legendary activist changed New York in the 1960s -- and how you can shape the city today," running from September 25 through January 5 at the Municipal Arts Society.

Performance Z-A
A pavilion and 26 days of events to celebrate the Storefront for Art and Architecture's 25th anniversary, running until October 16.

Architecture in Art
The latest Artkrush focuses on this appealing topic.

Seen Better Days

Came across this photo on Flickr and couldn't help agree with thegoatisbad's assertion that Zaha Hadid's Landesgartenschau (aka LFone) in Weil Am Rhein, Germany looks pretty crappy for a building less than ten years old.

if this is the building now..., originally uploaded by thegoatisbad.

Compare with a couple (unfortunately) lo-res images from when I featured the building on my weekly page back in '99 to see the difference.

Today's archidose #137

exploded wine barrel, originally uploaded by jiathwee.

The National Wine Centre of Australia by the Grieve Gillette and Cox Architects. This building was featured on my weekly page in 2002.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
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Mr. Green in the ...

Have a good weekend!

Today's archidose #136

High Court_3, originally uploaded by *chiara!.

The high court of Punjab, in Chandigarh, India by Le Corbusier, 1955.

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After you left, they tore it apart

Chris Mottalini is a New York-based photographer who has documented vacant homes designed by Paul Rudolph, photographed just prior to demolition.



Westport, CT 1972-2007

Rudolph's building seems to be falling these days at a rate faster than even the busiest architect can throw them up. The house above in Westport received a fair amount of press earlier in the year when a last-minute attempt to save it failed.



Westerly, RI, 1956-2007

The Cerritto House in Rhode Island was spared the fate of other Rudolph creations, as its new owners moved it to Catskill, NY. Like other houses, this one depended a great deal on its site for its meaning, though I'm guessing the move is seen as a win over the apparently popular alternative these days.



Sarasota, FL, 1941-2007

Rudolph is known for many things, such as popularizing the short-lived brutalist Modernism of his Yale Art and Architecture building. He was also one of the major architects of the Sarasota School of Architecture, "a regional style of post-war architecture that emerged on Florida's Central West Coast." The Riverview High School is the latest building threatened in that state, in addition to houses like above.

While Mottalini's photos in the "after you left, they tore it apart" series strike a similar appeal as other images of ruins and the like, they serve a dual purpose of bringing attention to not only the state of these buildings shortly before their fate is sealed, but also raising the question of why such unique buildings are threatened to begin with.

(Thanks to Chris for the head's up!)

Today's archidose #135

Kunsthal*, originally uploaded by fdo h.

The Kunsthal in Rotterdam, Netherlands by Rem Koolhaas and OMA, 1992. Note the portrait of the architect at the end of the stepped corridor.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

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Literary Dose #14

"Digital or not, today's notion of 'sustainability' mostly refers to, and derives from, a strategy of survival: a legitimate ambition for sure, even in posthistorical times. But an ambition without drive, without impetus, and ultimately -- by definition -- without much of a future. Perhaps this is something akin to what the founding fathers of postmodernism had in mind when they foretold the 'fragmentation of master narratives.' No matter how vocal, the maintenance of the status quo cannot contend with the master narratives that preceded it. By itself, reducing energy waste is unlikely to become an exciting architectural agenda. Sustainability is already an indispensable part of any building program, its technical and economic rationale self-evident and proven. The diverse ideologies underpinning it may thrive within the general compass of a postmodern environment, but today's single-minded pursuit of a 'sustainable' development is not a postmodern vision of social responsibility. It is postmodernism run out of gas."

- Mario Carpo, in "Sustainable?" from Log 10 (2007).

A Psychic Vacuum

No, this isn't the cover of a techno album, it's the web site of an art installation at the Old Essex Street Market at 117 Delancey (@ Essex) in New York's Lower East Side. In A Psychic Vacuum, artist Mike Nelson "[takes] audiences on an unexpected journey through reconstructed rooms, passageways, and meticulously assembled environments." It looks awesome.



Flickr member f.trainer wonderfully documented the various spaces a couple days after the opening. The images clearly show how the artist used "materials gleaned from local salvage yards and debris from the market's heyday," which would probably have been between the market's opening in 1940 and its eventual decline in the 1970s when supermarkets began to take hold.


Photo by f.trainer

The line between art and environment is blurred to the extent that the former appears to be non-existent (minus the room with 80 tons of sand), as if the spaces were found in their current condition, after being inaccessible to the public since the city gained control in 1995 and closed portions of the market. To this day the market still operates, though not on the scale of its heyday.


Photo by f.trainer

Of course, I can't say too much more about the spaces themselves, as I've yet to experience them in person. For sure I'll be visiting one of these weekends and will follow up with my own images and first-hand thoughts.


Photo by f.trainer

(Thanks to Ana Maria for the head's up!)

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

Hanamidori Cultural Center in Tachikawa City Tokyo, Japan by Atelier Bow-Wow.

The updated book feature is Bow-Wow from Post Bubble City, by Atelier Bow-Wow.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Open Architecture Challenge
A competition to "design a sustainable multi-purpose technology facility for under-served communities," open to all.

Architectural Photography
Photographs of many contemporary buildings, in Japanese. (added to sidebar under architectural links::photography)

dod:travel
It's back...in blog form. (via Land + Living; added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

Today's archidose #134

cliff, originally uploaded by andrewpaulcarr.

Crampton Street residential development by Tate + Hindle, as part of the Elephant and Castle Regeneration Program in London's Southwark area.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

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Half Dose #36: Kolumba

According to its web site, Kolumba's new building opened yesterday. Kolumba is the "art museum of the archbishopric of Cologne," Germany, designed by Peter Zumthor.



This is the second building to open this year by Zumthor, whose Bruder Klaus Chapel has received much press and visitors to the private chapel in Southern Germany, due to its design as much as for the fact that Zumthor produces very few buildings.



According to Kolumba's web site, the "architecture combines the ruins of the late Gothic church St. Kolumba, the chapel 'Madonna in the Ruins' (1950), the unique archaeological excavation (1973-1976), and the new building designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor."



This layering of old and new is evident on the outside walls, where the new, minimal walls sit behind the old stone walls and openings of the late Gothic church. The windows of the new building sit in front of its own walls, in a slight gesture to the layering of the church openings below.



The most distinctive element of the exterior is a band that almost rings the building, of what appears to be small openings within the masonry exterior wall. These small openings create dappled effects on the inside walls, impressive effects per the image below.



It's difficult to get a full grasp on the building and its design based on the current documentation featured on Kolumba's web site (inclusive of the images above), though I'm guessing it's just a matter of time that the building gets its fair share of treatment in the press with the usual glossy photos, architectural drawings, and maybe even a video or two.

Today's archidose #133

Hoofddorp Bus Station by NIO, originally uploaded by dod:.

Bus station at Spaarne Hospital (aka The Amazing Whale Jaw) in Hoofddorp, Netherlands by NIO Architecten, 2005. See the station in its pre-peachy-paint state at Galinsky.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
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Mark Yr Calendars

Some events for those in an and around New York City in the next couple of months.

The Tennessee Valley Authority: Design and Persuasion
Tuesday, September 18, 7 pm
Housing Works, 126 Crosby Street (between Prince and Houston)

"Visionary and monumental, the Tennessee Valley Authority brought hydroelectric dams, electricity, controlled flooding, and consumer appliances to an area devastated by the Depression. As contemporary designers search for models of socially-engaged design, progressive city-planning, and conceptions of the social good, the TVA becomes an important model.

Tim Culvahouse and Jane Wolff will discuss the role of design as an agent of public persuasion and as an embodiment of political ideals. Presented by Princeton Architectural Press and The Center for Urban Pedagogy."

Performance Z-A: a Pavilion and 26 Days of Events at Storefront
Opening Friday, September 21, 2007 (Running until October 16)
Storefront for Art and Architecture

"Twenty-five years ago, in September 1982, Storefront's first public event got underway in its original Prince Street location. Performance A-Z, organized by the gallery's founders Kyong Park and R L Seltman, and artist Arleen Schloss, was a 26-day sequence of performances by New York-based artists. Each of the 26 performers was allocated one evening slot. The event became a manifesto for the gallery's future programming: as Kyong Park wrote in his introduction, "Storefront supports the idea that art and design have the potential and responsibility to affect public policies which influence the quality of life and the future of all cities."

In late September 2007, Storefront will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a new edition of its first event. Entitled Performance Z-A, this 26-day celebration will be hosted in Petrosino Park, adjacent to Storefront, in a specially built pavilion designed by Korean architect Minsuk Cho. Organized by the three directors who have led Storefront over the past 25 years (Kyong Park, Sarah Herda and Joseph Grima), Performance Z-A will be an inclusive event involving not only performance artists but also representatives of all the disciplines that have participated in Storefront's program in the past decades: architects, artists, writers, researchers, filmmakers, photographers, musicians and more. For 26 days, from September 21 to October 16, 2007, the protagonists of Storefront's past, present and future will host 26 evening events including performances, concerts, open discussions, film screenings and interviews"

BIG Apple (pictured)
Opening Tuesday, October 2, 6:30 pm (Running until November 24)
Storefront for Art and Architecture

"BIG is a Copenhagen based group of over 80 architects, designers, builders and thinkers operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and development. BIG’s architecture emerges out of a careful analysis of how contemporary life constantly evolves and changes. In their projects, BIG tests the effects of size and the balance of programmatic mixtures on the triple bottom line of the social, economical and ecological outcome. Like a form of programmatic alchemy, they create architecture by mixing conventional ingredients such as living, leisure, working, and shopping.

The exhibition will showcase some built works and a number of large-scale models illustrating proposals for innovative residential typologies, all of which are situated in Copenhagen. Focusing on Kløverkarrén, BIG House, the LEGO project, Mountain Dwellings and VM Houses (both designed in conjunction with JDS Architects), the exhibition presents a broad spectrum of the research that has gone into varying housing solutions for different generational attitudes and economical backgrounds. "

Debate + Book Launch: The City Unplugged
Monday, October 15, 2007, 6:30 pm -8:30 pm
Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall

"Do urban models still exist? Three Columbia authors present three books on (urban) conditions, tales and trajectories that challenge what it means to talk about the "city" today.

Kadambari Baxi, Barnard + Reinhold Martin, GSAPP; authors of: Multi-National City (Actar, 2007); Daniela Fabricius (M.Arch 03), PennDesign/ Pratt, author of: 100% Favela (Actar, 2007); Kazys Varnelis, GSAPP; author of: Blue Monday (Actar, 2007) Moderated by: Michael Kubo, Actar." (via varnelis.net)

Women in Modernism: Making Places in Architecture
Thursday, October 25, 2007, 6:30pm
MoMA's Celeste Bartos Theater

"This program explores the role that architectural arbiters have had and continue to have in shaping the history and defining the legacy of modern architecture in the United States. Through a lecture and discussion, scholars, curators, and architects address the process of selection and the values that they employ each time they design a course or exhibition, or publishes a book or an article.

Moderated by Barry Bergdoll, with speakers Gwendolyn Wright, Sarah Herda, Toshiko Mori, Karen Stein, and a welcome by Beverly Willis.

Today's archidose #132

Leaning to the left, originally uploaded by thomaswongpz.

The Freitag Flagship in Zurich, Switzerland by spillman.echsle.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

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Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

4 Projects in Italy by Studio Elastico.

The updated book feature is The Hanging Cemetery of Baghdad, by NaJa & deOstos.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Meet the Bloggers
"With an unorthodox mix of reporting, commentary, and activism, a new generation of architectural pundits is making its voice heard—online." Article at Architect Online.

loud paper
It's back...in blog form. (via Land + Living; added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

architecturephoto.net
English language site for the Japanese blog. (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

topophilia
"An online publication devoted to landscape architecture and related fields, including urbanism, architecture and land art." (added to sidebar under blogs::landscape+maps)

Jihad Pop

Currently on view at the Queens Museum of Art is the exhibition Generation 1.5, featuring works by artists who immigrated to a country in their adolescence. According to the exhibition page, "1.5 members are old enough to be fluent in their home language and culture, but have less difficulty adjusting to change than their first-generation counterparts. Often characterized by cultural hybridity, 1.5ers navigate various cultural perspectives from the inside, while often feeling un-tethered to any one homeland."

The artists on view supposedly, "take part in dexterous manipulations of artistic modes and materials as they engage with diverse personal, social, and intellectual contexts...[walking] the line between assimilation and dissent...uniquely capable of critiquing their native country as well as their adopted ones."

While a number of the pieces impressed me, what stood out the most were a couple rooms devoted to Pakistan/Brooklyn's Seher Shah. Her Black Cube and Jihad Pop series both overlay Western architectural perspectives of Islamic buildings (real or imagined) with dynamic imagery to create realms at once utopian and nostalgic."


Interior Courtyard 2, 2006, from the series Jihad Pop Progression 5

You can read an interview with Shah here, where she talks about her background, architectural and other inspirations, and perceptions of 1.5ers.


Image Play 1

Visiting her web site, her other works hold the same appeal for me, like the one above that incorporates color as well as photography to create a striking collage composition.


Jihad Pop Progression 3, detail

From the artist's statement:

"Jihad Pop exists as a means to explore how issues of identity and associations define themselves. Where do I belong when past associations of both family and lifestyle breakdown and begin to form new negotiations based on personal values. The personal symbols that I have acquired through my own values play out simultaneously with symbols of Islamic religion and death as a symbol of struggle. The meeting of these two words ‘jihad’ and ‘pop’ is the marriage of this exploration of identity and the simultaneous broadcast of imagery of violence, conflict and migration."

Literary Dose #13

"Particularly after the war, FHA's endorsement of prebuilt subdivisions paved the way for developments like Levittown that did not adopt the assembly-line house but rather turned the entire site into a giant assembly line. Holes were dug, slabs poured, and framing hoisted simultaneously in a stepwise sequence across the whole of the site within a huge choreographed machine that was several thousand acres large and produced fourty [sic] houses a day. Earth-moving equipment lined up and dug the holes for several buildings at once or planted a uniform number of shrubs on the lot. Even appliances were delivered to several houses at once. The balance sheet for this kind of subdivision was restructured as well. The bottom line did not only correspond to an individual address but to a process applied to hundreds or even thousands of homes. Thus, a developer might evaluate the costs of pouring a thousand concrete slabs, and as a consequence of this new tabulation of costs, find new ways to economize in the building process. Reducing the thickness of a slab or of structural members on an individual home would provide negligible savings, but within a summation process, alterations to several thousand slabs or beams provided significant savings. From prefinancing, prebuilding, and prefabrication evolved an entirely new residential fabric in which all the negotiations among the pieces occurred all at once and would be undifferentiated by iterative growth over time. In return for more predictable resale value, the home buyer bought the house lot together as well as accepting simultaneous development of a very similar fabric throughout with more predictable resale value."

- Keller Easterling, from Organization Space (1999).

The World Edition

The World Edition is a new online urban development magazine, intended to be a source for an in-depth look into the evolution of cities. Its aim is to promote a better understanding of cities and the ways in which they are changing.



For the magazine's first issue I contributed a piece on new residential developments underway on the Brooklyn/Queens side of the East River, speculating on what this might mean to the city years down the road (ignoring the effects of global warming, though readers in interested in that can read publisher and über-contributor Alexander H. Johnstone's cover story on coastal development). Where's Brendan Crain also submits a piece on Pittsburgh, a city I was impressed with on a short visit last year.

7 x 7

us/nyc/daily photograph/40, originally uploaded by Hagen Stier.

Similar in vein, though predating it by a couple years, to my 30 in 30 series is Flickr user Hagen Stier's NYC Daily Photograph, or 7 x 7 photo series from 2005.

Each photo of a place is accompanied by an aerial photo and an address, a simple and well-composed layout aided by the high quality of the photographs. My favorites are the handful of Dia:Beacon, starting here.

ArtJail

Yes, ArtJail.



An art project by Albo Jeavons.

5ive Days Left

Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years at MoMA closes on September 10, the day after which the below video will happen in reverse.



It's an amazing, can't miss show -- especially the new second floor pieces.



I wrote about the show here and have a Flickr set here.

Today's archidose #131

GRAM, originally uploaded by numstead.

The new Grand Rapids Art Museum by wHY Architecture.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

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It Floats!

Okay, it doesn't float, but the Farnsworth House sure did come close to getting submerged in the latest flooding that hit Chicago and the Fox River bordering Mies van der Rohe's famous house in Plano, Illinois.



According to Landmarks Illinois, where the above image was found,

Floodwaters crested on Friday afternoon, August 24, just below the main floor of the house, which was constructed in 1951 on six-foot high piers along the banks of the Fox River. Following torrential rains during the previous week, the staff of Landmarks Illinois—which operates the historic site—implemented an emergency flood plan, raising the house’s furniture on crates and removing other valuable articles.

Mies located the house within the river's floodplain, though the height of the house has twice been insufficient for high waters, in 1954 and 1996. According to Michael Cadwell in his recent Strange Details, these floods can be attributed to water runoff from increased development in the Chicago area. Cadwell states that the house "testifies to our ability to look at nature with respect, [potentially] swallowed by nature run amuck through our willful ignorance."

(via The New Modernist)

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

Heritage Interpretation Centre in Brie-Comte-Robert, France by Semon Rapaport.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

D4S - Design for Sustainability
The web page of the "Design for Sustainability (DfS) Programme of Delft University of
Technology...active in the area of promoting more sustainable product design since...the 1990s."

Architecture Lab
A new blog on the Big 3: Architecture, Urban Design, Sustainability. (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

2 or 3 things I know...
"about design, architecture and Godard." (added to sidebar under blogs::design+technology)