Thursday, July 13, 2017

EDITOR'S NOTE: Tomorrow and Monday will be no-newsletter days; we'll be back Tuesday, July 18.

Click here to see today's news.
ANN feature: Nuts + Bolts #14: Mancini Duffy's Giordano explains how and why his firm is taking cultural cues from its tech-sector clients: Why can't the rules (or lack thereof) of start-up culture apply to an AEC firm (and fun doing it)? --Pedersen takes on the NRA and its "terrifying" ad: "They have found a Bogey Man: it's those elitists who want to take away your guns! And their provocative symbols? The buildings and art they create and consume" (a "sinister" Cloud Gate included). --Q&A with Azaroff re: the AIA's 2017 Disaster Assistance Handbook, "why it took almost a decade to update - and why it's better than ever." -- Ottawa's Brutalist National Arts Centre has been transformed by Diamond Schmitt Architects with a "delicate and transparent" addition. -- Dickinson finds the "noise and rancor" of so-called "Style Wars" to be "reductionist nonsense. I long for a time when 'Good' and 'Bad' is sufficient architectural judgment - no style screed necessary." --Brussat takes issue with Dickinson's take on the "style wars": "after describing valid reasons for the anger of many new traditionalists and a public that has seen its built environment trashed by modernism for decades, he trashes those who call for an alternative." ++ Deadlines! -- Call for entries: Save Cork City Morrison's Island International Design Competition, Cork, Ireland. -- Call for entries: 2018 City of Dreams Pavilion for NYC's Governors Island. -- Call for entries: Kaunas M.K. Ciurlionis Concert Centre in Kaunas, Lithuania (2022 European Capital of Culture). -- Call for entries: The Cambridge to Oxford Connection Ideas Competition (no fee!). ++ Weekend diversions: -- PBS premieres "Weekend in Havana with Geoffrey Baer" that explores Cuba's history and architectural treasures, and includes local restoration architect Daniel de la Regata. --Australia's Channel Ten launches the nine-part "Australia by Design" this Saturday. --A sneak-peek at some the projects featured in "Australia By Design": the "are not full of dollar signs and glamour, rather they represent architecture at its finest, which claims an architectural purpose and has a positive impact on the local landscape." -- Moore considers the new film "Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle" as he ponders whether Britain's "social housing dream has died" and "whether the postwar housing ideal can be revived." --Goldberger x 2 (yay!): In Lesser's "ambitious" Kahn biography, "You Say to Brick," her "subject isn't only Kahn, but also the shift in culture that has made this philosopher-cum-artist-cum-architect seem so out of sync with the times." --He cheers MoMA's "sage" and "remarkable" FLW show that offers "surprising sides of the architect" and "makes possible a fresh age in Wright scholarship." --Plagens is not totally pleased with Ai Weiwei and H&deM's "Hansel & Gretel" at NYC's Park Avenue Armory: the "gizmopalooza gives everyone a visceral experience of what it's like to be watched by unseen forces," but "its insights into the power and meaning of surveillance are superficial." --Wainwright looks "beneath the veneer" of the V&A's "eye-opening" show "Plywood: Material of the Modern World" that "tells the astonishing story of this age-old yet perennially modern material." -- "Educating Architects: Four Courses by Kenneth Frampton" at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal "illustrates his multi-generational impact on the landscape of architecture education" and the profession internationally. -- "Architecture of an Asylum: St. Elizabeths 1852-2017" at the National Building Museum "explores the links between architecture and mental health" (great pix!). --A "hypnotic" time-lapse video of the construction of Studio Gang's "Hive" (also at the National Building Museum) is "a good digital alternative" if you can't make it in person. --A fascinating look at why the NBM's "Hive" wasn't quite finished on opening day: "Things started to go wrong at the seventh row of the silver and magenta beehive."

Designer William Hall's photographic essay of wood architecture spanning a 1,000 years broadens thinking about a trendy material so it appears as an ever-changing, perennial, and crucial one.

 
by Norman Weinstein

June 29, 2017

The profession has a problem, and the advice proffered in "Women Who Work" (or any other insipid milkshake) is no cure.

 
by Charles F. Bloszies, FAIA

June 22, 2017

"The most important thing one can achieve in any building is to get people to communicate with each other. That's really essential to our lives. We are not just individuals, we are part of a community."

 
by Michael J. Crosbie, Ph.D., FAIA

June 15, 2017

A Plaza home and office had much to offer the architect, including prestige, prospect, and refuge - an elegant perch from which to survey the city he loved to hate.

 
by Jane King Hession and Debra Pickrel

June 8, 2017