A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Empire, State & Building by Kiel Moe, published by  Actar , 2017. Hardcover, 264 pages. ( Amazon ) Exactly  four weeks ago, news broke that JPMorgan Chase would be tearing down its 52-story headquarters at 270 Park Avenue in order to accommodate its 15,000 employees in a new 70-story tower on the same site providing an additional 1 million square feet of floor area. If all goes to plan for the bank, the act would enter the history books as the largest purposeful building demolition. Given that the building was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for Union Carbide and completed in 1961, the demolition would also mean the building's useful life lasted less than 60 years – a long time for buildings in general but hardly long enough for one totaling 1.5 million square feet. Arguments against the tower's demolition have focused on the role of SOM senior designer Natalie de Blois, the quality of its design and the mystery as to what would replace it, and the was...

Yesterday, Balkrishna Doshi was named the 2018 laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize . So today I'm posting photos of a few of his projects, all located in Ahmedabad, India, and all photographed by Nicholas Iyadurai . Amdavad Ni Gufa : Institute of Indology : Sangath - The Architect's Office : To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just: :: Tag your photos  #archidose

"Other" being Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi and a reference to my recent poll on guessing the winner of the 2018 Pritzker Architecture Prize. Doshi was not one of the 25 architects/firms I listed in the poll, making him a surprising choice, at least to this blogger. [Balkrisha Doshi | Photo courtesy of The Pritzker Architecture Prize/VSF] The 90-year-old architect (who I share an August 26 birthday with – another surprise!) is the first Pritzker Prize winner from India. Learn more about Doshi on the Pritzker Architecture Prize website  and in my quick write-up at World-Architects .

[Note: Due to a deadline, this blog is taking a break until the Pritzker announcement on March 7.] The Pritzker Architecture Prize website is indicating that the announcement of the 2018 laureate will happen on Wednesday, March 7 — 10am EST to be precise. So with just twelve days until the announcement, who do you think should win the Pritzker? As in previous years — well, every other year , about — I've set up a poll in the right column (mirrored at the bottom of this post) to see how well this blog's readers know their stuff. I've selected 25 candidates, but if you disagree with my choices vote "other" and please comment on this post with your pick. Check back here on March 7 to see who won – both the real Pritzker and this poll. For reference, the nine-member Pritzker Prize jury (now with four former Pritzker laureates*): - Glenn Murcutt* (Chair) - Stephen Breyer - André Corrêa do Lago - Lord Peter Palumbo - Richard Rogers* - Kazuyo Sejima* - W...

[Rendering of new 40th Street entrance | Image: Mecanoo/Beyer Blinder Belle] Curious about Mecanoo and Beyer Blinder Belle's design for the renovation of the New York Public Library's grand building (officially the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building) next to Bryant Park? The $317 million plan was released to the public in November 2017, but the renderings that accompanied the release fail to impress on what exactly is going on. Thankfully the NYPL has a 9-minute film with some snazzy animated illustrations, like the one below, and some words from Mecanoo's Francine Houben. (Note that you'll have to sit through a few minutes of NYPL fluff to get to the architecture parts.) [Section perspective through new 40th Street entrance | Image: screenshot] Watch the video here:

On March 30, Columbia GSAPP is hosting a conference and opening an exhibition, both pertaining to Arakawa and Madeline Gins. Details are below. [Critical Holder Chart 2 (detail), c1991 / Image Credit: © 2017 Estate of Madeline Gins.] Encounters with Arakawa and Madeline Gins Conference in Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall, at 1pm: A half-day conference on the occasion of the opening of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery exhibition Arakawa and Madeline Gins: Eternal Gradient . The event convenes architects, artists, historians and writers to offer fresh interpretations of Arakawa and Gins’ work and theories in the context of contemporary practices and scholarship. Among the conference participants are: Amale Andraos , Dean of Columbia GSAPP and co-founder of WORKac; Adrienne Hart , Artistic Director/Choreographer of Neon Dance (London), who is developing a new dance piece that draws on the life and work of Arakawa and Gins; Momoyo Homma (Tokyo), Director of Co-ordinologist Inc...

Way back in February 2015 I posted a heads up on three exhibitions  coming to the Parrish Art Museum – that barn-shaped building designed by Herzog & de Meuron. One of them, Image Building: How Photography Transforms Architecture , was slated to run in mid-2017. Turns out, it's not opening until March 18, 2018. So if you thought you missed it – you didn't! [Iwan Baan, Torre David #2, 2011] Image Building: How Photography Transforms Architecture March 18 – June 17, 2018 Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY Image Building: How Photography Transforms Architecture is a comprehensive survey that explores the dynamic relationship between architecture, photography, and the viewer. Seen through the lens of historical and architectural photographers from the 1930s to the present, Image Building offers a nuanced perspective on how photographs affect our understanding of the built environment and our social and personal identities. The exhibition features 57 images that expl...