A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

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

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. An interactive map highlights the cities and their buildings and artworks of interest. A brochure is to be released on their web site soon. Pictured: La Claustra (via swissinfo , via ArchNewsNow )

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." 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

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. Personally I think if Wales wants its own national identity expressed by architecture, it needs to look beyond the high-tech style embraced by E...

Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami, published by Kodansha, 1995. ( Amazon ) Haruki Murakami's first book,  Hear the Wind Sing , published in 1979 (Alfred Birnbaum's English translation in 1987) exhibits many of his later trademarks, though on a much smaller scale, clocking in at 130 pages and fitting nicely in a coat pocket.The author's time spent in America comes across not only in direct references to American culture (mostly music) but in a peculiar universal placelessness during the story, broken only by the rare mention of Tokyo or a place in and around the city. This novel (or novella) sets up Murakami's atypical narrative techniques (jumping around in time, mainly) that would pervade later bo...

Alaska Capitol Building in Juneau, Alaska by Morphosis Thom Mayne of Morphosis is on quite a roll. Last year's completion of the Caltrans District 7 HQ drew rave reviews, UCLA's "L.A. Now" - led by Mayne - received the 2005 P/A Award , numerous commissions are under construction, and last week he was named the 28th recipient of the Pritzker Prize , the architectural profession's equivalent to the Nobel Prize. And earlier this month his design was chosen in a design competition for Alaska's Capitol Building in Juneau. Teaming with the local office mmense Architects , their design reinterprets the ubiquitous capitol dome in a contemporary manner. The site for Alaska's State Capitol ...

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." 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 "...

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

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." 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 ...

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 . 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. 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. - Architectura...

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...

Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies by James Sanders, published by Knopf , 2001. ( Amazon ) Billed as a "tale of two cities - both called 'New York'," James Sanders - a practicing architect and a co-writer of Ric Burns's New York: A Documentary Film - takes a look at the real and the mythic city through the medium of movies. The book begins at the beginning, when the movie camera was invented and New York City was its star in 19th century "actualities", scenes of daily life in the big city. Moving on to Hollywood's constructed reality, where the Big Apple was recreated and redefined in the eyes of expatriate writers and other creatives, the book abandons a chronological take ...

Mirador in Madrid, Spain by MVRDV On the heels of a building boom and housing shortage in Spain, MVRDV was commissioned to design the Mirador, a 21-story, 156-unit apartment building with local architect Blanca Lleó. Departing from the drab, conventional housing surrounding Mirador's site, the architects created a distinctive silhouette by grouping nine blocks arranged around a communal outdoor void. The articulation of these blocks is apparent in the exterior palette, equal parts stone, concrete and tile. These white, gray and black colors are offset bands of orange paint that are supposed to the building's circulation. The strips of orange give the building an extra kick in its otherwise colorless exterior, like the cen...

Thom Mayne of Morphosis For more information, click here (PDF) or here (html).

According to the Pritzker Prize web pag e, 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...

Apparently, a hell of a lot of caulk . Photo: Otto Pohl for The New York Times (via Improvised Schema )

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. 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 Jeremijenk...

Thanks for sending me the pic, Jim.

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. 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 t...

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." 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. 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 , thei...

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: 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. 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? Zook Home and Studio, Hinsdale Read Blair Kamin singing the praises of less...

Sixteen Acres: Architecture and the Outrageous Struggle for the Future of Ground Zero by Philip Nobel, published by Metropolitan Books, 2005. Hardcover, 304 pages. ( Amazon ) Philip Nobel's thorough account of the personal and political struggles to rebuild on the World Trade Center site offers many valuable insights into the sometimes overwhelming festivities that have transpired over the last three years. Being a commercial development with the added pressure of symbolizing a national tragedy is one of the book's approaches to the site. And contemporary architecture's inability to act as a suitable symbol to the public - compared with classical architecture - is an oft-mentioned "fact" throughout the book. Nobel ...

Perspectives Charter School in Chicago, Illinois by Perkins + Will Started in 1993 by Kim Day and Diana Shulla-Cose, two Chicago Public School (CPS) teachers, Perspectives Charter School is a public school with open admission that operates on a five year contract with CPS, last renewed in 2002. Perspectives takes the small-school format as its inspiration, limiting classes to 24 students in an effort to create a school with "a family-like atmosphere that students, parents, and faculty could call their own...where students felt safe...[and] where students were challenged." Perspectives' new school is located on Chicago's near south side, on a triangular site at State and Archer, just north of Bertrand Goldberg's Raymond Hilliard ...