Quick Clicks> Apples, Trains, Fields, Banks
Grand Central to get Apple but no glass cube. flickr/Randy Le'Moine
Apple takes another bite. Once famous for its oysters, Grand Central will now be known for its Apples. Cult of Mac reports that the computer giant plans to open their biggest retail outlet yet, which will, no doubt be as busy as Grand Central Station.
High speed posturing. If you don’t want it, we’ll take it! That’s the message being sent out by Democratic governors to their Republican counterparts who are rejecting infrastructure dollars. Huff-Po’s Sam Stein notes that governors from New York, Washington, and California are lining up to take Florida Governor Rick Scott’s rejected $2 billion in federal funding for high speed rail line.
Goal! One more hurdle to go. DNA reports that Columbia’s Baker Field got the green light from the City Planning Commission to build the Steven Holl designed Campbell Sports Center. Part of the plan includes a James Corner/Field Operations-designed park and 17,000 square feet of restored marsh and shoreline.
Pool Hall Banking. A 1916 bank building on Philadelphia’s Chestnut Street will take on an adaptive reuse that its architect Horace Trumbauer surely never dreamed of. PlanPhilly reports that developer Paul Giegerich is thinking of turning the architect’s two story cathedral of commerce into a swanky pool hall with food created by a star (Steven Starr to be exact).
MoMA/P.S. 1 Young Architects Program Winner Announced
Interboro's design for MoMA P.S.1 (Courtesy Interboro)
P.S. 1 and the Museum of Modern Art have just announced that Brooklyn-based urban design and planning firm Interboro Partners are the winners of the 2011 Young Architects Program. Now celebrating its 12th year, the honor means designing what by now is widely recognized as the liveliest party space of the summer, the outdoor plaza of P.S. 1 in Queens.
Quick Clicks> Safe, Cuts, Drawing, Rage
Manufacturer’s Trust Company, Fifth Avenue, NY (Courtesy Landmarks Preservation Commission via DNAinfo)
Safe. DNAinfo has a story on the newly landmarked interior of Gordon Bunshaft’s Manufacturer’s Trust Company building in New York including a 30-ton circular vault visible from the street. The exterior has been a landmark since 2007. Previous AN coverage here and here.
Cutting History. Preservation magazine reports that President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget sends the wrecking ball after two federal grant programs supporting historic preservation across the country: Save America’s Treasures and Preserve America. Needless to say, the National Trust president was “profoundly disappointed.”
Pin Up. Architect Roger K. Lewis penned a piece for the Washington Post lamenting the downfall of hand drawing in architectural production. He warns that we should avoid the seductive “I can, therefore I shall” approach that computers can sometimes produce.
Sidewalk Rage. Researchers at the University of Hawaii have identified key traits of Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome. Richard Layman has the list of behaviors on Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space, which is readily on display on the sidewalks of major cities everywhere.
Video> Exhibition Recalls NY′s Lost Garden of Eden
Adam Purple's Garden of Eden in the Lower East Side (Photo by Harvey Wang)
As he watched his Manhattan neighborhood crumble and burn around him in the urban decay of the 1970s, Adam Purple decided to build a garden. For roughly a decade from the 1970s until 1985, Purple’s Garden of Eden earthwork expanded with concentric circles as more and more buildings were torn down. Photographer Harvey Wang is marking the 25th anniversary of the garden’s destruction with an exhibition at the Fusion Arts gallery running through February 20.
Click through for more info and a video about the exhibition.
Bus Bonanza Expected at WTC Memorial
Memorial grove and the Museum Pavilion under construction.
While most of the World Trade Center site whirls in mid-construction, the National September 11 Memorial is a mere 208 days from completion. That thought brings both relief and consternation to local residents who have seen their neighborhood become a national flash point for mourning, controversy, and debate. It is also about to become one of the most heavily trafficked tourist destinations in the country.
Community Board 4 Welcomes Bjarke to New York
Proposed W57 tower viewed from the Hudson River (Courtesy BIG)
Bjarke Ingels’ star-studded ascendancy to New York architecture fame was checked last night as Community Board 4′s land-use committee had its first look at Durst Fettner Residential’s planned W57 tower in Hell’s Kitchen. Already sobered by a two-hour discussion of planned zoning changes only blocks from BIG’s courtyard-skyscraper hybrid, the board quietly sat through Ingels’ signature multimedia show detailing the strenuous process that guided the sloping tower’s design.
World Trade Weekly: Last of the Deutsche Bank
[ As the World Trade Center continues its ascent, AN stops by the massive construction site for a weekly update. ]
From behind a blue tarp shielding the remains of the Deutsche Bank building, the sound of groaning metal being bent into submission has stopped. Debris sits separated in two neat piles, one for crushed cement and the other for metal. A polished Peterbilt mack truck with an empty container made its way through gate to take away yet another load. There were no formalities, but by this time next week the last of the World Trade Center ruins will be gone.
Jugaad Urbanism: More Than Just Making Do
There is no direct English translation for the Indian word ‘jugaad,’ but the gist of it is to “make do.” But simply “making do” does not aptly describe the clever and resourceful strategies on display in Jugaad Urbanism: Resourceful Strategies for Indian Cities, a new exhibit at the Center for Architecture that opens tomorrow night. For the most part the exhibit shirks high design in favor of “design by the people, for the people.”
Code Orange: You, Too, Can Be a Zoning Expert
You can’t miss the New York Department of City Planning’s 2011 Zoning Handbook—it’s bright orange. Clear and navigable, the book reads like an intermediate level foreign language textbook.
The latest edition, like the 2006 version, includes user-friendly line drawings of buildings connected to cartoon balloons providing detailed information. The new handbook hit the agency’s bookstore yesterday.
Partying for the World Architectural Festival
Paul Finch welcomes the New York crowd to the launch of World Architecture Festival 2011
The 2011 World Architecture Festival was in town beating the drum for their international competition at the Van Alen Institute last night. Paul Finch, the festival’s program director, was joined by AN Editor-in-Chief William Menking and Van Alen Chair Abbey Hamlin in hosting the star-studded event.
The frigid weather did not deter a distinguished crowd—white maned Richard Meier, red scarved Bernard Tschumi, man of the hour Thomas Leeser, Parks Commish Adrian Benepe—from celebrating what promises to be a hot ticket this November in Barcelona. With his English lilt Finch thanked the crowd for coming and promised his remarks would steer clear of Ricky Gervais territory.
He briefly outlined some of the goals for this year’s program, which included a bigger tent to incorporate interior architecture as well. While no hat was passed, Finch did say that the organization would be happy to take donations in any denomination. Jan Berman of MechoShade promptly offered to make a donation in lira.
World Trade Weekly: Lunch Break Edition
[ As the World Trade Center continues its ascent, AN stops by the massive construction site for a weekly update. ]
Lunchtime at the World Trade Center site is a colorful sight even on an overcast and foggy day. Hundreds of construction workers in bright yellow and orange safety vests pour into neighborhood delis and pizza joints, but most crowd into the tiny local gourmet food store, the Amish Market. There, burly gents in hard hats hum to the Nat King Cole soundtrack while choosing prosciutto over pastrami. Make no mistake, these guys know food.
Back at the site, just two bays of the Deutsche Bank remain to tear down, a row of windows appeared on the northwest corner of One World Trade, and the steel mullions for a glass curtain wall began to wrap their way around Snøhetta‘s Museum Pavilion.
Turrets, Trumpets, and Baseball Greats
Addisleigh Park residents clockwise from top: Ella Fitzgerald, Count Bassie, Fats Waller, Milt Hinton, Jackie Robinson and Lena Horne. (Courtesy: NYC LPC, Jazzagemusic.com)
Yesterday morning, after a bevy of Modernist aficionados crowded into the Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing room to tout the merits of Bunshaft’s interiors at the Manufacturers Hanover Trust, the commission turned their focus to two historic African American neighborhoods: Sandy Ground in Staten Island and Addisleigh Park in Queens. The unanimous vote for the landmarks designations passed on the first day of Black History Month.
Advertise on The Architect's Newspaper.
Archives
Categories
Architecture
Design
East Coast
Midwest
National
Planning
Shft+Alt+Del
Sustainability
Transportation
West Coast
