A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Here are some photos of the BRAC Kanon ("first ever green retail outlet in Bangladesh," 2011) in Dhaka, Bangladesh, by Iqbal Habib, photographed by  William Veerbeek . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos  archidose

How to Study Public Life by Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre, published by  Island Press , 2013. Hardcover, 200 pages. ( Amazon ) In the question-and-answer session that followed a book talk given by Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre at the Center for Architecture on February 5 , Gehl said that politicians in Copenhagen revealed to him quite a compliment: "If you had not made those studies, we would not have tried to make Copenhagen a better city." Those and other public space studies are highlighted in the book he penned with Svarre, yet the evening focused mainly on what can be learned from their home city. How the Danish city has improved in the last five decades – the span of Gehl's career – is obvious to many people, especially those in the packed house at the Center. Nevertheless, Gehl clearly likes to recount how closing streets to cars, promoting bicycling and other measures have made Copenhagen lively, attractive, safe, sustainable, and healthy – the five-fold barome...

A Daily Dose of Architecture is one of eight blogs nominated in the Architecture category of the 5th Annual JDR Industry Blogger Awards . Other categories include Interior Design, Remodeling, Construction Business, Green, and Microblog, and it looks like I'm in good company, with some known and new-to-me blogs in contention. If you like this little 'ol blog, head over to JDR's website and cast your vote, taking a look at the other contenders while you're at it. Thanks to JDR for this opportunity. Voting ends April 11 .

American-Architects Building of the Week : 308 Mulberry in Lewes, Delaware, by Robert M. Gurney, FAIA, Architect: Last week's Building of the Week (which I forgot to post): Biomass Heating Facility in Lakeville, Connecticut, by Centerbrook Architects and Planners: American-Architects is taking a state-by-state look at architecture in the United States for our 2014 Building of the Week feature. " 50x50 - 50 Projects in 50 Weeks " presents one recent project from each state in alphabetical order, from Alabama to Wyoming. Projects are added every Monday.

Here are some photos of the Bagsværd Church (1976) in Bagsværd, Copenhagen, Denmark, by Jørn Utzon, photographed by  Flemming Ibsen . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos  archidose

While looking at an article on Curbed earlier today, I was intrigued by a photo of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Specifically, what was the undulating canopy atop the cylinder in the foreground, mounted in front of the Gwathmey Siegel-designed slab addition ? The rippling metal looked undeniably Frank Gehry, so my first thought was an exhibition on the architect who is responsible for the Guggenheim in Bibao, Spain. Turns out Frank Gehry, Architect was on display from May 14 until September 14, 2001, an exhibition I did not attend but whose catalog I have seen . As part of the major retrospective: A second site-specific architectural element [in addition to one in the rotunda] is a titanium-clad canopy above the sculpture terrace off Tower 5. The canopy extends over an outdoor café, which has been created especially for this exhibition. The undulating forms of this structure recall those used to create the façade of a hotel at Marqu...

Josh Wilson of Chicago is looking to manufacturer the Tech Force Pen, a "minimalist pen and ruler sleeve, precision machined from aircraft aluminum." Like many people he is using Kickstarter to fund his undertaking , and as of today he's a few dollars short of his $10,000 goal. I get a fair number of inquiries from people asking me to push their Kickstarter campaigns, most of which I don't post about. But Mr. Wilson's design happens to align with the fact I carry around a separate pen and ruler in my pencil case, the former a Pixma Micron and the latter an orange plastic scale made from Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Central Park Gates, no less. So I like the idea of combining the two into one, especially in metal.

Could Vienna's Coop Himmelb(l)au be realizing a building in New York City? And a high-rise to boot? Per a description-free news item on the firm's website with the following renderings, that might just be the case. [rendering from architect's website ] (Via Curbed , which has more speculative information on the project.)

Here are some photos of Falconry in Zülpich, Germany, designed and built by students at FH Köln*. Photographs are by  Chris Schroeer-Heiermann , who writes: The fourth-semester project last year for architecture students at the FH Köln was a falconry, which we knew was supposed to actually be built on the grounds of a garden-exhibit in Zülpich, near Köln. So we approached the powers that be with 30 of the 120 designs which had been submitted, and one, designed by Viviane Bonfanti, was actually selected for realization. A group of 4 students were assisted by myself and 2 other professors and, with the help of a structural engineer, worked out all the details and logistics to make the theory reality. We found a sponsor willing to pay for the materials and a local vocational school with an interested teacher and group of ongoing carpenters with a sense of adventure who then volunteered to build it. So two weeks ago [as of January 29], after we laid the sole plate, the architectu...

The Rise and Fall of Penn Station directed and written by Randall MacLowry. ( Amazon ) Based in part on the book Conquering Gotham: Building Penn Station and Its Tunnels by Jill Jonnes PBS/American Experience, 2014. For an architect the two most facinating things about New York's Penn Station – the one from 1910, not today's incarnation – are the grand spaces of iron and stone and the unsuccesful fight to save the building from demolition only 53 years after it was built. In the design of Charles McKim of McKim, Mead and White, the former were influenced by the Roman Baths of Caracalla, and the main space was on par with the nave of St. Peters Basilica in scale and some might even say beauty, at least for such a utilitarian building. The latter involved Jane Jacobs, Philip Johnson and other people with otherwise divergent views who came together over the obvious architectural merits of the two-block-large edifice. But in this one-hour documentary premiering Tuesday, F...

The deadline for registration for the 2014 Wheelwright Prize is tomorrow, February 15. The prize from the Harvard GSD is "a $100,000 traveling fellowship open to talented early-career architects worldwide proposing exceptional itineraries for research and discovery." Last year's winner – the first prize that looked outside of the GSD – was Brooklyn-based architect Gia Wolff. Some general information from the Wheelright Prize website : The Wheelwright Prize is a $100,000 travel-based research grant that is awarded annually to early-career architects who have demonstrated exceptional design talent, produced work of scholarly and professional merit, and who show promise for continued creative work. Throughout its history, Harvard GSD has had a strong global outlook, attracting deans, faculty, and students from all over the world. Moreover, a mainstay of the GSD curriculum is its traveling studio, which emphasizes the acceptance of ideas and practices with a diversit...

MoMA says it will dismantle the Folk Art Museum's bronze-panel facade and store it somewhere . How about tilting it up and making the facade a constant presence of the building they demolished, casting a shadow over the "Art Bay"? Original photo of Folk Art facade by me. Original rendering of MoMA expansion by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. See alternatives to MoMA's storage solution at FolkMoMA .

Here are some photos of the RMIT International Centre of Graphic Technology in Brunswick, VIC, Australia, by John Wardle Architects , photographed by Ximo Michavila . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos  archidose

New York has been without Penn Station nearly as many years as it was with the McKim, Mead and White masterpiece. Built in 1910, demolition started 53 years later in 1963, 51 years ago this year. The power of that building remains, found in last year's proposed futures for Penn Station but also a new American Experience documentary premiering on February 18 on PBS. I'll write more on the documentary early next week, but for the time being here is a preview, courtesy of PBS: Description from American Experience : In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad successfully accomplished the enormous engineering feat of building tunnels under New York City's Hudson and East Rivers, connecting the railroad to New York and eventually to New England, knitting together the entire eastern half of the United States. The tunnels terminated in what was one of the greatest architectural achievements of its time, Pennsylvania Station. Inspired by Paris' Gare D'Orsay and the Roman ba...