A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Posts will be light for a week or two as I pack and move house. I'm also taking this week off for my weekly page. ["Pulling Mike and Hilda Symmonds house across the road in Conche" | image source ] Update 03.02: Just got internet service today at the new place, so my weekly page will resume next week (2010.03.08). Daily posts should resume shortly.

Here are some night shots of a couple buildings completed last year as part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center at the Dallas Arts District in Dallas, Texas. Photographs are by redblank . [ Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre by REX / OMA (see REX's Joshua Prince-Ramus speak about the building at TED .)] [ Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House by Foster + Partners ] To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Featured a few years ago in project form, the Rolex Learning Center by SANAA is now complete and opens on February 22 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Back then I discussed the design in terms of the trend of "Swiss cheese architecture," probably unrelated to the building's location but nevertheless found in a number of building designs by SANAA and other architects. [Rolex Learning Center within the EPFL campus / ©EPFL/Alain Herzog] One aspect of the Rolex Learning Center which sets it apart from other horizontal buildings punctuated by round or elliptical courtyards (see Burr Elementary School by SOM) is the building section, the way the slice of cheese undulates along the ground's flat plane. In a sense the building becomes the landscape; instead of cutting and filling the earth to provide access underneath, the building rises and falls to accomplish the same. [Rolex Learning Center / EPFL / SANAA / ©Hisao Suzuki] So to what end does the undulating cheese building ac...

Here are some photos of the Hale County Animal Shelter in Greensboro, Alabama by Rural Studio , 2006. Photographs are by schopaia . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

In news that probably won't surprise anybody, the results of the voting for Barbie's next profession ( reported earlier , where architect was in the running against four other careers) are in, and the blond doll will not be an architect. The winners ? News Anchor (girls' vote) and Computer Engineer (popular vote). It looks like Despina Stratigakos's campaign could not even help drum up enough votes for our profession to be immortalized as a skinny figurine. Well, as they say, it was an honor just being nominated. (Thanks to Yazan's comment on my previous post for the heads up!)

Installations by Architects: Experiments in Building Design by Sarah Bonnemaison and Ronit Eisenbach, published by  Princeton Architectural Press , 2009. Paperback, 192 pages. ( Amazon )   Provisional: Emerging Modes of Architectural Practice USA by Elite Kedan , F. Jonathan Dreyfous and Craig Mutter, published by  Princeton Architectural Press , 2009. Paperback, 288 pages. ( Amazon ) These two books by publisher Princeton Architectural Press tread into the margins of architectural practice. One looks at creations by architects that eschew the defining traits of architecture: function and permanence. The second investigates practices that are pushing the boundaries of not only building design but how architectural practices ...

Split Level House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Qb Photographs are copyright Todd Mason / Halkin Photography . According to Wikipedia , Philadelphia's Northern Liberties neighborhood "has become something of small enclave of young professionals, students, artists, and design professionals." Further, "the neighborhood has been targeted for revitalization because it is very close to Center City, in spite of having many vacant lots and abandoned historic properties." If these statements are accurate, the Split Level House by local firm Qb is an example of such a development helping to transform the area. The house sits on an irregular corner lot created by two grids at an angle to each other. Qb's design creates a mass extruded from the property...

Here are some photos of the Centre Pompidou-Metz in Metz, France by Shiguru Ban Architects , opening May 2010. Photographs are by VisiOkrOniK . A live webcam can be found at Ville de Metz . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Earlier today I attended a press preview of the Contemplating the Void exhibition opening at the Guggenheim Museum . Curators Nancy Spector and David van der Leer asked nearly 200 artists and architects (a roughly 50/50 split between them) to create something that would fill the void in Frank Lloyd Wright's famous rotunda. The curators mentioned that they have scores of proposals for exhibitions in the void that went unrealized, though unfortunately they did not opt to display those alongside the predominantly one-page/2d pieces gifted to the Guggenheim for a silent auction next month. The exhibition occupies the fourth floor annex, an unfortunate but unsurprising condition. It would have been great to have the ideas that contemplate void interacting directly with it, but a quick glance reveals that the show isn't "meaty" enough to take on that large space. As is, the 193 pieces are scattered about the annex in no particular order, necessitating image and title keys...

MINE THE GAP is the Chicago Architectural Club 's 2010 Chicago Prize Competition. Its site is one of the most instantly recognizable signs of the economic slowdown and Chicago's ambition to extend itself as a global city. MINE THE GAP , a single-stage international design ideas competition dedicated to examining one of the most visible scars left after the collapse of the real estate market in Chicago: the massive hole along the Lake Michigan shore that was to have been—and may yet be—the foundation for a singular 150-story condominium tower designed by an internationally-renowned Spanish architect, a tower which was to have become a new icon for the city and region. What to do with the gap? Whether or not the project is resuscitated, what else can we do with this strategic and highly-charged site? Once the motor of real-estate speculation has stalled, what can we use to propel ourselves, and the discipline, forwar...

The US has The Architect's Newspaper, and now it looks like Europe has its own newspaper on architecture. P anorama architecture newspaper is published by future , the maker of those giant magazines on competitions. Published every two months, the term newspaper may be a stretch, especially given that blogs and other online platforms can break news and even delve into some depth before the paper is printed. RIBA Bookshops describes the paper as such: Panorama Architecture Newspaper is an exciting new channel for architecture news, Up-to-date, beautifully illustrated and with global content and appeal, Panorama aspires to become a point of reference for architectural news, research and opportunities. This issue of Panorama [January/February 2010] features a day-in-the-life interview with Spanish architect Carlos Ferrater, the new Dallas Theater Center, plans for the new home of National Archives of France and Andalusia's tallest building, The Towers of Hercules.

Unless you've been living sans internet for the last few weeks, you've probably seen Unhappy Hipsters . Last week I added a link to the site that features photos from Dwell Magazine with some droll and usually spot-on commentary as a caption. The heavily re-tweeted and e-mailed web page lightly critiques both the architecture, the inhabitants and the means of expression Dwell uses to convey their particular "brand" of neo-modern residential design. [Unhappy Hipsters | image source ] Well, those Unhappy Hipsters make me wonder why a similar blog does not address the out-of-control formalism in architecture today, the because-we-can designs that seem to ignore some of the basic human, environmental and other concerns that architecture should address, all in the name of formal invention. Architectural Record's The First Word blog comes pretty close, but its format of providing a definition and commentary based on a single image is uncritical in its look at new bu...

Falderstrasse , originally uploaded by schromann . Apartment building in Köln-Sürth, Germany by Chris Schroeer-Heiermann, 2009. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose