A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Having read Haruki Murakami's Underground not too long ago, for me this article in Japan's English-language magazine Metropolis is required reading. What effect did the gas attacks have after this long? And what changes, if any, will continue in the year's ahead? The way it paints Japanese society as religiously lost is insightful, helping to explain how the attacks happened in the first place. Thanks to Masha for the link.

The Kansas City Star reports (alt. bugmenot link ) that Steven Holl will give a presentation on his design of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's Bloch Building in Kansas City, addressing negative controversy over the project. All I've seen on this "controversy" is a Feb. 3 article in The Pitch , K.C.'s alternative weekly paper. Written by somebody calling himself (herself?) The Strip, the piece actually praises the interior but takes exception with the exterior, eloquently saying, "it [looks] like ass." The Star points out that, "detractors have complained that what they see going up doesn't have the magic of the luminous initial design that was presented to the public." Let's take a look: Early model of the design Rendering of the design Photos of the construction site The area of contention is the vertical strips between pieces of glass (apparently Pilkington's channel glass ). This detail is missing from the model, a conceptu...

Flipping through this month's Architectural Record , I noticed a blurb on an architecture exhibition called Ornament, being held at M5 from March 5-26. The magazine describes it as: An exhibition of architects working with new materials and fabrication processes that push the boundaries of conventional wisdom. The show aims to examine and reveal the contemporary understanding of ornament in present architectural design, allowing for a new perspective on historical precedent. Unfortunately M5's web page provides no further information, and a quick google search yields little to nothing, though SCI-ARC does have a press release (pdf) with details. Participants include: Hernan Diaz Alonso( Xefirotarch ) Ammar Eloueini ( Digit-all Studio ) Doug Garofalo ( GarofaloArchitects ) Mark Goulthorpe ( dECOi ) Lisa Iwamoto/Craig Scott ( Iwamoto Scott Architecture ) Anders Nereim/Paul Preissner ( Qua‘Virarch ) Ali Rahim ( Contemporary Architecture Practice ) Blair Satterfield/Marc Swackham...

This week offers some promising lectures - and tough choices - for those in and near Chicago: Tuesday, March 8 Stanley Tigerman 6pm at the Graham Foundation Free reservations required - Sold out! Thursday, March 10 Philip Nobel , author of Sixteen Acres: Architecture and the Outrageous Struggle for Ground Zero 6pm at the Chicago Architecture Foundation Free! and Robert F. Ivy , Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Record 6pm at the Art Institute's Fullerton Hall Free!

Enjoying yesterday's mild winter weather, I walked near the Chicago River with my camera. Heading towards the Loop I happened upon Harry Weese's Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist at Wacker Drive and Wabash Avenue. A small but eminently noticeable building due to its round and windowless form, I was struck by the subterranean area wrapping the corner, a space I either have never seen or don't remember. I can't see how it's the latter, though, because the space is quite unique within its surroundings. In an interview with Weese shortly before his death, the designer explains, "that sunken garden was for the benefit of the Sunday School, which didn't have any windows. It was underground on Lower Wacker. So it was all functional structurally and in every other way." A vestibule behind and to the left provides access to the building's interior at grade, in effect a bridge over this sunken area. This space is reminiscent of Marcel Breuer's Wh...

Too Blessed To Be Depressed: Crimson Architectural Historians, 1994-2002 edited by Ewout Dorman, Ernst van der Hoeven, Michelle Provoost, Wouter Vanstiphout and Cassandra Wilkins, published by  010 Publishers , 2002. Paperback, 480 pages. ( Amazon ) The five members of Crimson live and work in Rotterdam, "the city that never thinks." This situation affects their practice to a great degree, and subsequently this book - a collection of writings over almost a decade. But instead of rallying against the postwar, industrial city, like others they criticize, they embrace it in all its "mediocrity and pragmatism." Split into three sections (History, Obsession, Top Down), the first and last focus primarily on their home city, prim...

Crown Fountain in Chicago, Illinois by Jaume Plensa and Krueck & Sexton As part of an AIA Conference in Chicago last week, various people involved with the Millennium Park project spoke about their experiences on specific park components. Mark Sexton talked about the design and construction of Crown Fountain in the park's southwest corner, a project undertaken by his firm Krueck & Sexton Architects . Initially their office felt this project would not be appropriate for them, since they are a design firm and since artist Jaume Plensa already developed a concept for the fountain. But seeing the artist like any one of their other clients, they realized that Plensa had an idea but no way of getting it done. So they took the ...