iToldya So
Now doesn't that look familiar? (Georgetown Metropolitan)
So it turns out they’ve finally approved designs for the Apple Store in Georgetown. As we speculated, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson came up with a perfectly appropriate glassy-historicist design, as they already have in places like Soho and Boston. Read More
Old School
Last night we had the pleasure of attending Delab’s (Design East of La Brea) monthly gathering of creative types, this time at Cole’s, a legendary restaurant and bar in the Pacific Electric Building in Downtown LA. Open since 1908, Coles is known for its French Dip sandwiches (it claims to have invented the delicacy), clever–and strong–mixed drinks and “atomic” pickles. Read More
My Cousin St. Vinny
The proposed hospital, now headed for a court date. (Courtesy Pei Cobb Freed)
The Observer points us to a lawsuit filed today in State Supreme Court aimed at stopping the demolition of Albert C. Ledner’s National Maritime Union HQ in Greenwhich Village, now known as the O’Toole Building. If you read the paper with any regularity, you should know full well the story of St. Vincent’s Hospital’s attempts to replace the one-of-a-kind “overbite building” with a 300-foot tall Pei Cobb Freed-designed hospital tower. Well, the lawsuit may be just in time, as the Landmarks Preservation Commission is due to vote today on whether or not it approves the outsized plans for the new hospital building. Read More
AN Celebrity Party #1
Since we’re in LA, it was only a matter of time until The Architect’s Newspaper got to visit a celebrity party. This Saturday we were invited to the launch of author Jerry Stahl’s new thriller Pain Killers, thrown by none other than Ben Stiller and his wife Christine Taylor. How did we get in? Thanks to voiceover artist-cum-architect-extraordinaire Janna Levenstein, who designed the 5,000 square foot Hollywood Hills pad (pictured above) that housed the festivities: 1615 Rising Glen. Read More
Say Goodbye to Your Gnome
What better way to usher out the profligate design culture of the Bush era than to have these Alien Gnome Bandits escort your Philippe Starck Gnome thingee back where it belongs–into the past. Read More
AIA SF Awards; aka Back When Architects Made Things
Aidlin Darling's 355 11th Street won both Architecture and Sustainability Awards
Remember when architects actually built things? Oh yeah, that was last year. And to commemorate that fact in Northern California, the AIA San Francisco chapter just announced the winners of its 2009 Design Awards. Read More
LIEBing for New Shores
Moving day for the Lieb House, en route to a Long Island-bound barge. (Akira Sawa)
The Lieb House, Robert Venturi’s second commission and once in danger of demolition, will soon be en route to its new location, but by sea, not by land. After a bit of resistance from Glen Cove town council, the house has been cleared to travel by barge to its new site in the Long Island town.
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Architecture Gets Its Close Up
A home-made dwelling in Portland's Dignity Village, featured in the film "Adapt"
What is SMIBE? Is it a brand of paint? Or maybe a government agency? No, it’s something much more interesting: the Society for Moving Images about the Built Environment. The Los Angeles-based, volunteer-run organization just announced the winners of its inaugural “Story About a Place” competition, which looked for short films (less than 6 minutes long) that “reveal new sides or issues about a place told by memorable characters.” The competition, which launched last fall, received over 90 entries from 13 countries. Read More
Mari(mekko) Has a Brand New Bag
Leading Finnish textile and clothing company Marimekko recently unveiled a new line of women’s bags that reflect the distinctive design and simple pragmatism for which the company is known. Based on an existing Marimekko tableware fabrics, the bags are patterned using state-of-the-art printing technology in keeping with the cheerful, utilitarian Marimekko aesthetic, and are available in an array of colors and materials including the company’s trademark cotton canvas, Italian patent leather, and metal. Fashioned to be a bold personal statement as well as a practical handbag with functional details, these bright bags are contemporary while maintaining a sense of everyday practicality. From stylish evening bags to work totes, Mari’s new bags are suited to fit any well-designed lifestyle! Read More
Will the Recovery Be Webcast?
If you take a look at the White House’s recovery.gov web site, dedicated to dispersing information about stimulus efforts across the country, you’ll notice a page dedicated to individual states’ stimulus spending sites. The page offers links to recovery sites from states like Ohio, Illinois, and, ahem, New York. But California is a big blank. Read More
LA Solar Measure Trailing
Solar panels atop LA's Staples Center
It’s still too early to call, but right now Los Angeles charter amendment B, a.k.a. Measure B, which would authorize the creation of a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) program to require the production of at least 400 megawatts of solar energy in the city by 2014, is trailing in the results from yesterday’s city election. Read More
Detroit Pick Me Up
The new Mercury Coffee Bar designed by Zago Architecture with the abandoned Michigan Central Station in the distance (all photos by Corine Vermeulen-Smith)
The collapse of Detroit has been a subject of fascination for artists, architects, and urbanists. In the current economic environment, the symbolism of the city’s decline threatens to overshadow the human and physical realities of the place. And while few would argue that the city will ever return to its height, it is nice to be able to show a project that disrupts the city-in-free-fall narrative, such as the new Mercury Coffee Bar, designed by Andrew Zago. No architect has been more closely associated with working on and thinking about contemporary Detroit’s plight than Zago. In his latest project, he’s created a bright, cheerful refuge in the city’s desolate landscape. Read More
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