A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Buckingham Road, Moxon Architects , originally uploaded by Andy Matthews . Buckingham Road residential refurbishment and extension in East London, England by Moxon Architects , 2011. See many more shots of the project in Andy Matthew's flickr set . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

[Montage of north elevation and gap, February 2009] Previously I posted a couple times about the Yohji Yamamoto store designed by Japanese architect junya.ishigama + associates located just west of the Meatpacking District in Manhattan. In the summer of 2010 I noticed that the store was closed. At the time I was working on my book and considered keeping the project in it, even though the building's future was uncertain; I was smitten with the gap that the architect carved through the old brick building (above). Eventually I left it out of the book, and I'm glad, based on what I saw yesterday. [Western tip, February 2009] [Western tip, March 2012] The first thing I noticed was the darker glass. (No, the brick didn't get darker; that's just different cameras, weather, and Photoshop.) Previously the store was very transparent, stemming from the pencil-point plan of the store and the clear, low-iron glass. Apparently the new tenant (not sure who it is as I fai...

Remember Ordos 100 ? You know, that project in Inner Mongolia master planned by Ai Weiwei where 100 architects chosen by Herzog & de Meuron designed 100 villas. It was announced amid lots of hype back in 2008, but nothing has materialized on that patch of desert. Ordos City has seen the Ordos Museum by MAD Architects and rows of bland housing , but no cutting edge villas. So what could be better than a remix of a recent Ai Weiwei documentary on the project? That is just what Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid has done. Here's a trailer: And here's the Ai Weiwei documentary (included in the 2012 International Film Festival Rotterdam ) in its entirety: The description from DJ Spooky's YouTube channel regarding the remix: For DJ Spooky film lends itself to appropriation and collage, much like the urban landscape. DJ Spooky has taken the concept of the Situationist concept of "psychogeography," to arrive at a kind of contemporary ...

One of the buildings on the World Monument Fund's 2012 Watch List is the Orange County Government Center in Goshen, New York, designed by Paul Rudolph and completed in 1970. It seems like at least one of Rudolph's buildings is slated for demolition each year, raising the ire of modern architecture preservationists, who  often prove unsuccessful in halting demolition. Having been plagued by leaks and poor maintenance, the building has been closed and offices relocated since Hurricane Irene hit last September, when it was flooded and the structure was damaged. County Executive Edward Diana tried unsuccessfully in 2010 to have the building demolished and replaced by a new one, but those demolition plans have been renewed in light of the recent closure. Here is the Rudolph-designed Government Center: [Orange County Government Center by Paul Rudolph, 1970 | image source ] And the proposed replacement, architect unknown: [Orange County Government Center proposal repl...

Here are some photos of the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center in Reykjavik, Iceland by Henning Larsen Architects with facade by Olafur Eliasson , 2011. Photographs are by Pedro Kok . See an article in the September 2011 issue of Domus for more of Pedro's photos as well as a video by him. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Writing About Architecture: Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities by Alexandra Lange, published by  Princeton Architectural Press , 2012. Paperback, 160 pages. ( Amazon ) A couple weeks ago the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects assembled five architecture critics from prominent publications to investigate the role of architectural criticism today. Justin Davidson ( New York Magazine ), Paul Goldberger ( The New Yorker ), Cathleen McGuigan ( Architectural Record ), James Russell (Bloomberg), and moderator Julie Iovine ( The Architect's Newspaper ) spoke for nearly two hours to a sold-out Center for Architecture audience. Absent of course was Michael Kimmelman, the current architecture critic for the New York Times . As these edited highlights at archpaper.com attest (I was not able to attend the panel discussion), that absence did not mean Kimmelman's few pieces for the paper since taking over Nicolai Ouroussoff's position did not...

On Thursday evening Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist spoke at the New York Public Library with NYPL Live Director Paul Holdengräber . After an introduction by Holdengräber, Koolhaas and Obrist gave brief presentations on their book Project Japan: Metabolism Talks . The three then engaged in a conversation that focused on the book, but which meandered into other territory, such as manifestos, film, libraries, and the act of interviewing itself -- Obrist is known for his marathon interview sessions held at the Serpentine Gallery , where he is Co-Director. Below is a transcript of a small portion of the conversation after a brief recap of the presentations. The evening reached nearly two hours from when I turned on my recorder to when I hit the stop button. [Celeste Bartos Forum | Photograph by Jori Klein] Holdengräber introduced the two participants with the seven words he asked from them to define themselves: Koolhaas: "mystic, rational, sober, baroque, patient, immediate....