A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

On Monday, October 3 Matthias Schuler of Transsolar will be speaking at the University of Illinois Chicago's School of Architecture. Transsolar see themselves as climate engineers, "a cross-disciplinary service that extends, as a total concept, from the architectural through the structural aspect to technical equipment for buildings." One of their completed projects is an office building for Sudwestmetall in Heilbronn, Germany. Designed by Dominik Dreiner, with structures by Werner Sobek, the low and long building is characterized by parallel glass walls surrounded by a woven mesh stainless steel wrapper. The siting and the reflective/transparent surfaces signal the importance of the surroundings in the building design, as much or even more than technical concerns. Links: :: Dominik Dreiner :: Transsolar :: Werner Sobek :: Photograph at You Are Here

Yesterday, New York Governor George Pataki evicted the proposed International Freedom Center museum from the World Trade Center site, basically killing the plan for what would have been a shared Drawing Center/Freedom Center entity overlooking the memorial footprints. But it appears the Snohetta-designed building might become an extension of the underground memorial museum, adding approximately 40,000 s.f. to it's already 110,000 s.f. But that number is small beans compared to the 300,000 s.f. of additional retail space e proposed just one day after the eviction, to be located along the popular Church Street thoroughfare overlooking the site. This number extends the 200,000 s.f. of retail space included in the PATH terminal. Proposed Freedom Center What irks me is the whole basis for the eviction: After critics expressed concern this summer that there would be anti-American exhibitions and programs in the cultural building, Governor Pataki demanded an "absolute guarantee...

... 2 register for Architecture for Humanity Chicago's new STAND competition. Click image for more information.

Some new sites of note: pointingit A new blog that integrates 0lll architecture photographs with Google Earth , as well as providing links to other architecture web sites and photo galleries. Fun stuff. (Added to the sidebar under architecture blogs) Tropolism A new blog by New York-based architect and writer Chad Smith that takes the city as the crowning achievement of civilization, even if it's a glorious mess. (Added to the sidebar under architecture blogs) Haecceity A "a portal and voice for critical and radical architecture theory in our time." (Added to the history/theory section of the sidebar; via Architecture Radio News ) LibraryThing Finally, a way to catalog your books online, without any software. My LibraryThing is added to the sidebar under My Links. (found over at no. 2 self )

Massive Change by Bruce Mau and the Institute without Boundaries , published by  Phaidon , 2004. Hardcover, 240 pages. ( Amazon ) Massive Change is an ambitious project by graphic designer (among other potential titles) Bruce Mau and the Institute without Boundaries (a 12-month interdisciplinary postgraduate program) that aims to "evolve a global society that has the capacity to direct and control the emerging forces in order to achieve the most positive outcome." Found in book form here, Massive Change is also a traveling exhibition (coming to Chicago in September 2006), radio show , online forum , and line of products . As a book, the project successfully con...

Center of Gravity Foundation Hall in Jemez Springs, New Mexico by Predock Frane Architects Founded in 1973 by Zen Master Kyozan Joshu Roshi, the Bodhi Manda Zen Center sits in the Jemez Mountains, about 60 miles northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Center's founding, the decision was made to build a Foundation Hall. According to the Center's web page, the Hall "is the place where the monastic world and the lay world meet...[it] is used for Sutra chanting and Teisho (formal Dharma talks)...it provides a place for Buddhist ceremonies, as well as marriages, baptisms, funerals, and memorial services...[it] will serve as a silent hall where participants can meditate and contemplate indoors." The Center of Gravity F...

A couple months after my Japan trip a year ago this month, I posted about Omotesando , a busy, tree-lined street in Tokyo that's home to Prada, Collezione, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Tod's, and many others. It's that city's version of Chicago's Michigan Avenue, a point of reference for me or anybody who's visited the Windy City but not Tokyo. In that post I mentioned the Jingumae 4-chome Project , designed by Tadao Ando for mega-developer Mori. When I was there, the site had been cleared and fencing with marketing images rung the perimeter. A Japanese site, Architectural Photography, presents some in-progress images of the project. The unrelenting facade, dictated somewhat by the program and the long and narrow nature of the site, appears to actually work well with the trees marching up and down the street, the two making an allee for pedestrians. (via dezain )

The pictures speak for themselves . (via Things )

This weeks big news in Chicago: In a press release from Federated Department Stores , the new owner of Marshall Field's : Marshall Field's Nameplate Conversion All Marshall Field's stores will convert to the Macy's nameplate in fall 2006. This includes 62 locations in Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Indiana, Ohio and South Dakota that will continue to be operated by the Minneapolis-based division that will become known as Macy's North. "From a shopping standpoint, customers will have the best of both worlds in major markets like Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit. They will continue to benefit from regional buying that remains attuned to local preferences and lifestyles, plus enjoy the distinctive merchandise and shopping experience that's part of the Macy's brand," [Terry J.] Lundgren [Federated's chairman, president and chief executive officer] said. "We have great respect for the legacy and traditions of Marsha...

Located on a hill (el. 1600m) above the Village of Artesina, Piemonte, Italy is " Hase ", an installation by gelatin that will be in place until 2025. As explained by the artists: "The things one finds wandering in a landscape: familiar things and utterly unknown, like a flower one has never seen before, or, as Columbus discovered, an inexplicable continent; and then, behind a hill, as if knitted by giant grandmothers, lies this vast rabbit, to make you feel as small as a daisy." "The toilet-paper-pink creature lies on its back: a rabbit-mountain like Gulliver in Lilliput. Happy you feel as you climb up along its ears, almost falling into its cavernous mouth, to the belly-summit and look out over the pink woolen landscape of the rabbitís body, a country dropped from the sky; ears and limbs sneaking into the distance; from its side flowing heart, liver and intestines." "Happily in love you step down the decaying corpse, through the wound, no...

Small Houses by Loft Publications Small, or mini, houses have grown in popularity lately, a response to the bloated McMansions that have become the standard for new construction not only in suburbs but many cities, as owners group lots to create larger sites that accommodate the beasts. Not really a type in an of itself, small houses (in the case of this book) tend to be less than 1,000 s.f. and must be highly efficient, often relying on elements that can serve double-duty, such as walls also acting as storage. With many recent books devoted to the subject of small houses, this one simply takes that name, offering the reader 25 built examples that vary in size from 355 s.f. (the Black ...

Architectural Documentation Center in Madrid, Spain by Guisado and Fernández-Elorza When confronted with the task of housing an architectural documentation center and a theater within the arcades of the Nuevos Ministerios on Madrid's Paseo de la Castellana, architects Jesus Aparicio Guisado and Hector Fernández-Elorza had to deal with many complex interactions with the existing building and infrastructure. In addition to structural, programmatic and contextual concerns the architects strove to minimize their intervention on the existing building while also creating a simple and flexible space, something definitely easier said than done. Entering the arcade from street level, one sees down into the theater/lecture hall. The de...

A couple months ago I featured the Chameleon by Cassandra Complex on my weekly page, a project that's also featured in this month's Architectural Record Interiors 2005. Another unique project by the Australian firm is the Platypusary at Healesville Sanctuary, located about 40 miles (65 km) east of Melbourne. The text and images below (click for larger views) are courtesy the architect. Emily Kngwarreye, when badgered to name her works, posited only "ewelye", "the lot", "the whole bang lot." It is an exclamation that describes an irrevocable connectedness of all things. It is an idea that has been given a great deal of thought here, particularly in light of what might be "ewelye" in our current cultural condition. The BHP Billiton Platypusary does not attempt a faux naturalism, rather it accepts the irony of its materiality and folds it into a form that metaphorically describes its evolution from another part of everything: us. Someh...

Architects copying architects seems to be a big issue lately, sparked by a lawsuit against SOM and David Childs over the design of Freedom Tower. Here's some articles/web pages that address the topic: :: When Architects Plagiarize, It's not always bad by Witold Rybczynski :: Brother from Another Mother by Clay Risen :: Hi, Gorgeous. Haven't I Seen You Somewhere? by Fred A. Bernstein (this article is now in the New York Times' pay-per-view archive, though I'll update the link if and when Mr. Bernstein puts it on his own site) :: Gutterland Police Blotter And some blog posts that deal mainly with Shine v. SOM and Bernstein's article above: :: The Anxiety of Influence at Veritas et Venustas :: Twisting in the Wind at The Party Copyright Blog :: The Collective Wellspring of Activity at OnTheCommons.org :: Discussion at Archinect :: Imitation of Art at Babble/On Project (with images from Bernstein article) :: The Endless Saga of 9/11 at Proceed at your ow...

This last weekend was "Fall preview" for some major papers. Extending this TV- and movie-theme to architecture, Nicholai Ouroussof weighs in with his picks while our own Blair Kamin flexes his powers of prognostication. One of the Tribune architecture critic's picks is One South Dearborn , a 40-story office building designed by Rick Keating and Jim DeStefano that sits next to Inland Steel that's set to open in November. Kamin mentions the "distinctive top: A large, windowlike opening, carved into the upper portion of the building's glass wall...[that] glows like a lantern at night." More construction photos can be found at Emporis.

The inaugral issue of AREA | Chicago features a piece on the exhbition " Urban, Rural, Wild " that is now on display at the I Space Gallery in River North (until October 22). The exhibition presents "work by eight artists addressing the complex historical and contemporary relationship between metropolitan Chicago and downstate Illinois." Immediately, one thinks of the glaring "blue-red" distinctions between Chicago and pretty much the rest of the state, a top-weighted population that made Illinois a blue state in a sea of red in the last presidential election. But the interdependence of city and country -- in terms of resources, manufacturing, service, education, etc. -- also can't be ignored. Having yet to see the exhibition in person, and judging by a William Cronon quote emblazoned on the exhibition web site (worth visiting just to see the stitched aerial -- portion visible below -- that illustrates the sprawling mess that is (sub)urban Chicago),...

When I saw the above advertisement (stretched five stories high near where it will rise, according to the Guttersniper ) for Manhattan's Urban Glass House , a 12-story residential project featuring the posthumous architectural design of Philip Johnson ( with Alan Ritchie ) and interiors by Annabelle Selldorf that's getting plenty of attention this week, the week of its groundbreaking, I couldn't help but wonder, "What if Philip froze some sperm? And then Ms. Selldorf gave birth to the next generation of 'Super-Duper-Starchitect', one that could handle exteriors and interiors? What would this future offspring look like?" . . . Update 09.15: Some better/more time-consuming morphing at the Gutter.

"Dirty-Magic" is a site-specific installation that is framed by a literary analogy. It is a place where Dirty Realism mingles with Magic Realism and where the banalities of the contemporary city are infiltrated by unsuspected perceptual potential. It is a work that is disarmingly simple, perceptually complex and discretely perplexing. It was built in the summer of 2005 as part of the show "Paysages éphémères". Its modest site is a safety curb occupying a slice of the property of an Esso gas station found at a busy street corner on avenue Mont-Royal in Montreal’s Plateau Mont-Royal district. It incorporates two telephone booths and an ill placed pine tree. The appearance of this peculiar assembly is entirely forgettable and therefore fundamentally "invisible", residing somewhere between the space of pathos and the unwittingly amusing. The space of the tree and the telephone booths are enveloped in a blanket of laminated glass sandwiching a pvb interlayer of...

In a online search for a corrugated metal texture map, I came across this image below. Taken in New Zealand during Dominic & Maria's Round-the-world Trip , it makes me think there's something in the water down under.

Some things you may have noticed, or not: :: Word verifications for comments - due to increased spam. :: "My links" in the sidebar - located under the current book cover, this area features images I've posted to Archinect (which I'll try to add to somewhat regularly), some of my published and unpublished writings , my bloglines feeds (in case you're curious what's being fed to me), and a couple Gvisit logs for my daily and weekly page. I'll add things to this section as they arise. Well, that's about it. Carry on.

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Richard P. Feynman, published by  W. W. Norton , 1997. Paperback, 352 pages. ( Amazon ) Richard P. Feynman was a physicist, probably most well known for working on the Manhattan Project, what's equally one of the greatest and worst achievements in science. A whole section in the physicist and teacher's autobiography is devoted to his time at Los Alamos, but rather than learning about his work on the bomb, the reader hears stories about him and his wife passing codes back and forth past the mail censors, the author's experiments with human smell, and cracking the safes of scientists and military men on the top secret project. That's not to say Feynman didn't work an...

Espacio Torner in Cuenca, Spain by Paredes Pedrosa Arquitectos The Spanish city of Cuenca -- literally "river basin", referring to its location between two gorges -- is known for its " hanging houses " that project from the cliffs they sit upon. The Monastery of San Pablo in the town is not different, appearing as an extension of the part natural and part manmade rock walls that give the small town its identity. The church besides the Monastery was used as a concert hall for years, but an installation by Paredes Pedrosa Arquitectos transformed the Gothic interior into a place for appreciating abstract art. From the exterior, the only indication of the gallery's installation is a new revolving door at the f...