A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Tomorrow, Tuesday April 16, is the opening of The Vienna Model , an exhibition at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York curated by Wolfgang Förster and William Menking. The opening includes a panel discussion at 5pm ( RSVP required ) and a opening reception (no reservations required) following at 6pm. See below for more information on the exhibition that runs until September 2, 2013. From the ACFNY exhibition page : This exhibition at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York presents a survey of public housing design in the Austrian capital of Vienna curated by Wolfgang Förster and William Menking . The exhibition will feature 36 case studies in Viennese public housing, accompanied by a responsive series of images of artworks curated by the Austrian collaborative duo Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber. The City of Vienna has achieved extraordinary milestones with regard to public housing: today, about 60% of the Viennese population lives in municipally built, owned, or managed ...

Diller Scofidio+ Renfro: Architecture after Images by Edward Dimendberg, published by  University of Chicago Press , 2013. Hardcover, 248 pages. ( Amazon ) Gracing the cover of film professor Edward Dimendberg's analysis of Diller Scofidio + Renfro 's first three decades of output is a photograph of the southern end of the High Line park, designed with James Corner and Piet Oudolf. Chances are that a mention of the firm or one of its members to most people will bring to mind this project, whose first phase opened in 2009 and whose third phase is now under construction. But of course a lot happened from the late 1970s, when Elizabeth Diller and Ricard Scofidio started working on small projects together, to the opening of the High Line (realized with partner Charles Renfro), one of the most important projects in New York City this century. And that is the value in the this book: charting the history of a duo and trio that is intent on questioning the conventions ...

Coach Flagship, Omotesando in Tokyo, Japan, by OMA, 2013 In early April Coach opened its flagship Tokyo store on Omotesando, a strip known as much for its high-end fashion houses as for the architects designing them. Most well known are Prada by Herzog & de Meuron , Dior by SANAA, and Tod's by Toyo Ito. Coach's flagship is designed by OMA , but it departs from these other projects on Omotesando in a couple ways: Coach is part of a larger building rather than a standalone building, and the project is but one version of a design (by OMA's Shohei Shigematsu) that will be applied to various Coach stores around the world; it is not a one-off, one-of-a-kind store trying to make a statement on one of Tokyo's thoroughfares of contemporary architecture. In OMA's design for Coach there are echoes of Rem Koolhaas's experiments with Prada close to 20 years ago. While the Prada stores strove to rethink retail as a cultural and social space, Koolhaas made ea...

Here are some photos of Steven Holl Architects' INVERSION , part of INTERNI's Hybrid Architecture exhibition at FuoriSalone 2013 in Milan, photographed by Asli Aydin . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos  archidose

The Light Pavilion by Lebbeus Woods and Christoph a. Kumpusch for the Sliced Porosity Block in Chengdu, China 2007-2012 , published by  Lars Müller Publishers , 2013. Hardcover, 88 pages. ( Amazon ) Sliced Porosity Block , the five-building mixed-use project designed by Steven Holl Architects, was completed in November 2012, the month after Lebbeus Woods died. The visionary architect and educator, along with New York-based architect Christoph a. Kumpusch , contributed the Light Pavilion (affectionately called Time Light by locals) in a carving in one of Holl's towers. It is Woods's only permanent construction, and its posthumous completion makes this book devoted to the project that much more important. (Woods's passing was also only a few months before a major SFMOMA exhibition on his work.) Even though it is a slim volume, the installation's documentation (sketches, construction drawings, construction photos, completed photos) do a good job in establishing s...

Here's my quick-and-dirty proposal for #FolkMoMA ; an idea of how MoMA can reuse the Folk Art Museum rather than tearing it down. MoMA wants glass? Give 'em a glass wall separating their galleries and the Folk Art galleries. Even if the floors don't align there's a visual connection. People can head down to the first floor to get into the former Folk Art Museum galleries from MoMA, and vice versa. Original photos: Folk Art Museum by Peter Mauss; MoMA by John Wronn Visit #FolkMoMA's Tumblr site for other ideas.

Just so happens that #666 (aka Number of the Beast ) of the "today's archidose" series features the soon-to-razed American Folk Art Museum, coming two days after MoMA announced they are going to replace the 12-year-old museum designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects with an expansion that melds with their building. It's doubtful that the MoMA expansion will have as much exterior character or interior richness as its predecessor. Shame on MoMA for not finding a way to keep this important building. A screenshot from the TWBTA website : Some photos by Scott Norsworthy : To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos  archidose