Ai Takes on Turbine Hall
The Tate's South Bank space. (Tate Photography)
The outspoken Chinese architect and artist Ai Weiwei has been selected by the Tate Modern as the 11th person to create a work for its massive Turbine Hall in London. A known figure in China and the west, Ai lived in New York for many years and attended the Parsons School of Design before going on to collaborate on projects such as the Beijing National Stadium (with Herzog & de Meuron) at the 2008 Summer Olympics, and was included in the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, where he collaborated (also with H&deM) on a sprawling installation of bamboo poles and chairs set akimbo. Read More
Alessandro Magris, 1941-2010
Superstudio's Alessandro Magris is pictured fourth from the left.
Peter Lang called this morning with the sad news that Superstudio member Alessandro Magris has died in Florence, Italy. Born in 1941, Magris joined the group in 1970 after graduating from the University of Florence, and was responsible for the general organization of the Superstudio office. He continued a practice long after the demise of Superstudio, specializing in the restoration of historical monuments and residential and commercial renovations. He is the brother of Roberto Magris, also a member of Superstudio, who died in 2003.
Canapes Chez Judd
Judd's loft at 101 Spring Street. (Courtesy The Judd Foundation)
It may be the original glass house in New York. Many years before Richard Meier’s Perry Street glass towers opened up domestic rituals to the public’s gaze, Donald Judd was living and working in one of the finest cast-iron buildings in Soho. The huge windows opened up his minimalist aesthetic to the public beginning in 1968, when he purchased the building and practically defined the “loft” look of New York for the public. Now openhousenewyork is offering a rare visit for a small group on March 11, with a tour of the building and meal catered by Christina Wang of the French Culinary Institute featuring “Swedish and Mexican” hors d’oeurves—Judd’s favorite. To reserve your place, contact OHNY.
Positively Palm Springs
John Lautner’s 1968 Elrod House in Palm Springs. (Courtesy Palm Springs Art Museum)
We are just back from three sunny, margarita-and-architecture-filled days in Palm Springs. This small desert city was barely a mirage until the arrival of Liberace, Frank Sinatra (you can rent his house for $1,900 a night), and air-conditioning helped make it a popular resort in the 1950s. But the clear warm desert air (and wealthy patrons) seemed to lend itself to visionary modern architecture. Read More
La Serenissima Strikes Again
Venice is seeking to rival Milan's annual design fair, the Salone, above.
Is Italy returning to medieval-era warfare between city-states Milan and Venice? AN’s own Julie V. Iovine reports from Milan that Milanese and Lombardy officials are more than a bit miffed that Venice is proposing to start its own design fair in 2011, seeking to steal the spotlight from the nation’s long-established epicenter of design. Read More
Palm Springs Modern
Airstreams converge on Palm Springs next week.
The Architect’s Newspaper is heading to the desert for the annual Palm Springs Modernism Week. This small city of 45,000 residents was, like other wealthy post-World War II communities including Sarasota, Florida, and New Canaan, Connecticut, fertile ground for modernist architectural experimentation. Palm Springs has perhaps the largest per-capita number of what are now called “midcentury” modern houses, shops, and public facilities, as well as landmarks by Richard Neutra, Albert Frey, John Lautner, and others. These will all be on display during Modernism Week from February 12 to 21, as well as house tours, a John Lautner exhibition at the Palm Springs Art Museum, and an encampment of Airstream trailers. The silver aluminum mobile homes will be huddled around the Ace Hotel and Swim Club—itself a renovated 1965 Howard Johnson’s hotel. It should be a great week!
AIA Honors for AN
AN is among the winners of the 2010 Institute Honor Awards.
This weekend the AIA announced that The Architect’s Newspaper has been awarded a 2010 Collaborative Achievement Award. We’re thrilled to get the national recognition because even as a regional publication (Ok-now three regionals) we have always aimed our sights as high and wide as possible. The Architect’s Newspaper has always prided itself as well on its independent voice and critical attitude toward the practice and profession of architecture, while still working collaboratively with the AIA on many events, including the New Practices program in New York and San Francisco. We’re honored our voice has been heard, and we look forward to picking up our award at the AIA national convention on June 10-12 in Miami. Thank you, AIA!
The Life of Riley
Courtesy MAM
In a series of articles over the past week, The Art Newspaper takes an extensive look at the recently concluded art extravaganza in Miami. It reports that the scene was not as grim as last year, offering this roundup of celebrity-studded Art Basel Miami Beach: “The fair attracted its usual tribes of pop stars, fashionistas, museum directors, actresses in sky-high stilettos and dressed-down buyers, including a denim-clad Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire. Lily Allen was sashaying around White Cube, while John Taylor of Duran Duran showed interest in a Richard Prince collage at Gagosian.” But while on the subject of Miami and its art world, the paper reported on Terry Riley’s exit from the Miami Art Museum (MAM), and added a few interesting tidbits to the story. Read More
The Storefront Files
The Storefront for Art and Architecture was founded in 1982 in a small, street-level space on Prince Street. Kyong Park, the founder of the gallery, created a cheaply reproduced catalogue or “newsletter” that he circulated to a mailing list to announce exhibitions. Now the Storefront has published a $69 limited-edition version of the newsletter Storefront Newsprints 1982–2009. It will serve as the definitive archive of this important gallery, but current Storefront director Joseph Grima said that the effort is missing a single newsletter for the 1988 exhibition From Destruction to Construction that documents projects by the Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata. Grima will give a free book to anyone who can locate the missing newsprint, and he can be contacted at 212-431-5795.
Green Day
Don't try this at home: ASU's Power Plants at Greenbuild.
If you’re wandering the aisles of the Phoenix Convention Center for Greenbuild 2009 this week and need a break from the worthy trade booths, swing by Arizona State University’s Power Plants installation. It’s a mini-environmental system based on a polyvinyl panel with oxygen-rich aloe plants fed by an IV drip. Each structure incorporates a monitor displaying the scope of sustainable initiatives carried out at ASU. The idea behind the pipe is that it creates a structural narrative linking each element of the environmental system, and should be a lighthearted break in the day! The project is a collaborative design led by Jason Griffiths, Darren Petrucci, Phil Horton, and various members of the ASU student body. Also, don’t forget to come to The Architect’s Newspaper’s party tonight (co-hosted with Arup, SWA Group, and KMD Architecture) at Monorchid Studios, 214 East Roosevelt, just a five-minute walk from the convention center.
Sejima Lands Biennale
Kazuyo Sejima
The president of the Venice Biennale, Paola Barrata, announced this morning that the director of the 12th International Architecture Exhibition will be Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA Architects. Last week, we reported rumors that the next director was going to be a woman—a first for this most important of international contemporary architecture expositions. The names most frequently bandied about for this major job were Sejima and Liz Diller. Read More
World Arch Fest: Dia Dos
Community service? The nWn Bar by Vo Trang Nghia Co.
I just finished my day of judging the Civic and Community session of the WAF in Barcelona. The festival competition is divided into sixteen categories, with each session winner going into a final round to determine the Building of the Year. My session’s jurors included the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto and the Canadian (now living in London) Renato Benedetti, and we spent the day working our way through 14 entries, including the new British Embassy in Algiers by John McAslan + Partners, and a fine Mexican church and community center by Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos. Read More
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