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!
Suburbia: The Next Generation
Netlab & PARK's winning vision of a new suburban downtown
It’s official. The suburbs are here to stay. Now we just need to figure out what to do with them. At least that’s the premise of the Build A Better Burb competition that we told you about back in July, when entries submitted by architects, urban designers, planners, visionaries and students, all vying for $22,500 in prizes, were slimmed down to 23 finalists.
And the winners are… Read More
Bring to Light Fest Shines on Brooklyn
Bring to Light: Nuit Blanche New York
If New York is the city that never sleeps, how come it took us so long to get around to hosting our own Nuit Blanche (French for “Sleepless Night”)? The global all-night festival of arts began in Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg way back in 1997, and has spread around the world in the years since.
This Saturday, October 2, starting at 7:00 p.m., Brooklyn will host our city’s first Nuit Blanche, rechristened “Bring to Light” by local organizers DoTank:Brooklyn and producers Furnace Media. Over 50 artists and performers will converge on Greenpoint’s Oak St. between Franklin St. and the East River, taking over street corners, galleries, vacant lots, and rooftops to showcase their work. Read More
Come Party for a Cause with CUP
Drink up with CUP!
The Brooklyn-based Center for Urban Pedagogy is a unique organization that brings real meaning to the often overused word “design.” Founded in 1997 by Damon Rich, the organization has evolved to engage art and design professionals—artists, graphic designers, architects, and urban planners—with community-based advocates, researchers, and policymakers. Tomorrow night, CUP is once again hosting an annual benefit party that is always one of the best celebrations around. It only costs $35, and, as CUP says, offers “good people, food, music, fun, and a great cause.” You’ll also get acquainted with CUP’s recent projects like the Sewer in a Suitcase, the Affordable Housing Toolkit, and more. This year, the party will be held at the Old American Can Company at 232 Third Street near the Gowanus Canal.
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