Starchitecture: The Next Generation
Between Frank Lloyd Wright’s private homes, Louis Sullivan’s original skyscraper, and Henry Hobson Richardson’s asylum, Buffalo, New York has more famous and historically important architecture than most cities in the country. Now Buffalo is working hard to churn out its own starchitects—starting in high school. The new Architecture and Design Academy at the International Preparatory School at Grover celebrated its grand opening this week on Buffalo’s west side. Read More
Breaking Bricks at Moynihan Station
Moynihan Station Rendering (Courtesy Moynihan Station Development Corporation)
Moynihan Station might not be welcoming its first passengers for years to come, but a heavy-hitting group of officials gathered at the James A. Farley Post Office to sledge-hammer a cinder block wall and declare Phase I ground officially broken.
Under the High Line, Pop-Up Cave-itecture
Richard Chai + Snarkitecture's ice-cave under the High Line. (Photo: David Smith)
Lurking under the High Line has been a bit more fun since Building Fashion began its series of architecture-and-fashion installations in September, erecting a new collaboration every two weeks as a means of reusing the former onsite Sales Tin of Neil Denari’s HL23 condos. On Thursday, Brooklyn firm Snarkitecture and fashion designer Richard Chai will unveil the fourth project in the series, a cave carved by hand from architectural foam. Designed to give shoppers the feel of a glacial cavern, the pop-up shop will feature men’s and women’s fashions displayed on shelves, niches, and hang bars embedded in the foam. Read More
Nouvel Sanguine About Midtown Guillotine
Jean Nouvel optimistic despite MoMA Tower's shortened stature (CBS News)
Jean Nouvel feels like his MoMA Tower has been put under the guillotine. The starchitect behind the lopped-off Midtown Manhattan proposal told CBS News this weekend that “It’s very French to cut the head, eh?” His 75-story tower would have rivaled the Empire State Building for supremacy over the New York skyline, standing 1,250 feet tall, but met significant opposition from neighbors worried the tower would drown their street in shadow.
City Planning Commission officials voted earlier this year to allow a shortened version of the tower – chopping off 200 feet of the Pritzker Prize winner’s design. Nouvel’s vision has been sent back to the drawing boards, but he says it’s “not in his character” to feel discouraged. Be sure to check out AN‘s cameo appearance at the end of the interview.
Buffalo Unbuilt as Entropic Urban Art Project
Dennis Maher's installation "Animate Lost/Found Matter (001-)," at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo. (Courtesy Burchfield Penney)
With some 10,000 buildings languishing on the official demolition list, Buffalo is a landscape in the losing—a city coming to grips, like others in the Rust Belt, with the postindustrial present and its architectural aftermath. As part of that collective quest, the city’s detritus is now improbably on view in a pair of exhibitions that consider the fate of shrinking cities, thanks to artist and architect Dennis Maher and his ongoing project Undone-Redone City, an extended meditation on urban fabric in an entropic state of flux. Read More
Veni, Vici Furniture
Italian Suits from COSMIT, the Italian trade Commission, FederlegnoArredo et al.
Chef Mario Batali stopped by a group of diners at a press event today at Eataly to say that everyone who came into the new high-end Italian-theme eating court is ‘Italian.” But he was actually right, as sprinkled among the journalists sat the upper ranks of the Italian furniture industry all come to New York to announce one of those commercial-turned-cultural events that only the Italians can pull off without seeming crass. Read More
Night Lights on the Schuylkill
Light Drift (Courtesy Eric Höweler)
An array of glowing orbs has descended on Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River to interact with curious passers-by. Light Drift, a temporary installation by Meejin Yoon and Eric Höweler of MY Studio, will pulse blue and green on land and just off shore through Sunday, October 17.
One Billion Gallons One Drop at a Time
(Photo by flickr user eflon used under a Creative Commons license.)
New York City Council passed legislation Wednesday that aims to save the city one billion gallons of drinking water a year. Four bills slated to be implemented by summer 2012 will curb bottled water usage, reduce leaks, refine water efficiency standards, and ban some water-inefficient equipment.
Flowers and Recycled Planters Transform a Step Street in the Bronx
The dedication ceremony for the Bronx's ARTfarm brought together students from PS 73, NYDOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, lead architect Valeria Bianco, and Bronx Museum executive director Holly Block.
A formal dedication for a creative urban intervention called ARTfarm brings flowers and greenery to a formerly barren step street in the Bronx. Architects Valeria Bianco, Christian Gonsalves, Shagun Singh, and Justin Taylor designed and built the project with help from Architecture for Humanity and the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
15 Penn Plaza Catches a Wave
Pelli Clark Pelli's 15 Penn Plaza (Courtesy Pelli Clark Pelli)
The battle for Midtown Manhattan has taken a new twist. Radio broadcasters located in the nearby Empire State Building have raised concerns that Vornado Realty Trust‘s proposed 15 Penn Plaza will swat their signals from the sky.
Seeper Projects Gehry
IAC Building projection by seeper. (Dan Ilic / Vimeo)
Friday night, Frank Gehry‘s Manhattan IAC Building was transformed into the canvas for a fantastical display of light by London-based artists seeper. The video projection plays off the distinct angles of the IAC Building to create the illusion of three-dimensional transformation and playful animation.
“Our aim is to recreate a Victorian sense of magician-ship,” said Evan Grant, founder of seeper.com, in a press release. “I love the IAC building, its stunning lines and immediate reference to water. It looks as if it’s about to set sail on the Hudson. The opportunity to make this structure take on a new ‘seeper’ form is an honor and a challenge.”
Seeper has undertaken other projection mapping projects across the globe, but this New York example represents one of the most ambitious projection mapping displays in the United States. The event marked the end of the Vimeo Festival, a celebration of global creativity.
Open House New York Tourpalooza on Tap
Jefferson Market Library, a popular OHNY site (Photo: Steven Bornholtz)
Open House New York’s annual weekend of free tours is this weekend, on October 9 & 10. You may have waited too long to book many of these tours, but there are still some with space available on Saturday and Sunday. Open House New York was started in 2001 by architect Scott Lauer, and has quickly become America’s largest architecture and design event. It has opened spaces like the magnificent Jefferson Market Library tower to public tours (a full listing may be viewed on the OHNY website). And if you want to help this fantastic organization, come to their annual Weekend Launch Party! This year it will be on the top floor penthouse of the I.M. Pei-designed Centurion apartment tower in midtown Manhattan. The tickets are only $50, and can be purchased online or at the door. See you there!
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