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!
The Weekly Review
Get reading...
For readers of the paper—the print paper, that is—you know full well the importance of our reviews section, just as vital to the pulse of the architectural discourse as the news and features we regularly publish. Online, however, we have never had a good, dedicated place for these disquisitions on the latest books, exhibitions, and ephemera. But, no longer! Now, we will be posting one review from recent issues each Friday, for your weekend enjoyment. Perhaps you can pull it up on your new iPad with the Sunday Times, or print it out and enjoy with a bloody mary or two. We know that’s what Herbert Muschamp, subject of our inaugural effort, would have done. And don’t forget to check back next Friday for more. Until then, happy reading.
BigUps for BigApps
(Courtesy NYC.gov)
Last fall, the Bloomberg administration launched NYC BigApps, a competition to design web and phone apps using a massive cache of city data. Dozens of developers entered, including the designer of this very blog, and we’re to report that the mayor announced tonight that her team’s Big Apple Ed came in third place overall. Granted a site all about school data may not be that useful to our readers—unless you’ve got kids in the city school system, of course—but the BigApps site is worth checking out because there are plenty of cool apps dealing with buildings, parks, and even one that lets you build a “walkability shed,” determining how walkable various neighborhoods in the city are based on individual criteria. Other personal favorites include a landmarks app, a bike rack app, and one called BldgBeat. Any strike your fancy?
New and Not So New
On a day when the MTA announced that its budget shortfall may now surpass $400 million as last year’s payroll tax is bringing in even less revenue than expected, Mayor Michael Bloomberg began his day underground. He and MTA chief Jay Walder were touring a new station underway at 34th Street and 11th Avenue, the terminus of the underway 7-Train extension. At least during boom times, the project was seen as a boon to residential development on the Far West Side. Now, with construction limited and the MTA in desperate need of money, transit advocates like the Straphanger’s Campaign and the City Council continue to call for tapping capital funds—namely stimulus set-asides—to help cover the gap. And if two recent projects are any indication, maybe that’s not a bad idea. Read More
Coronary Blockage
A giant ice heart by Moorhead & Moorhead will be installed in Times Square next Thursday. (Courtesy Moorhead & Moorhead)
With Valentines Day barely a week away, the Times Square Alliance is eschewing flowers and candy yet again. Instead, they’re sending New Yorkers a giant designer valentine for the second year in a row, as Moorhead & Moorhead will stage an installation adjacent the TKTS Booth beginning next Thursday. For the inaugural effort, Gage/Clemenceau created a laser-cut heart as flashy as the surrounding billboards. This year’s entry is rather more demur, as Granger Moorhead explained. “We looked at last year’s entry, ‘Two Tons of Love,’ and, well, at the end of the day you’re just left with two tons of stuff, not to knock that project,” Moorhead said. “We didn’t want to do something that would be there at the end. We wanted something more ephemeral.” Read More
Freedom At 200 Feet
Construction on One World Trade Center, formerly known as the Freedom Tower, has reached 200 feet above street level.
The Port Authority announced today that steel erection for One World Trade Center has reached the 20th floor, or 200 feet above street level. For this particular project, that means that 8,000 tons of structural steel have been installed by DCM Erectors—700 tons more than all the steel in the Eiffel Tower. Currently, ironworkers are installing 16 giant steel nodes, some as big as 175 tons, which will act as joints between the framing of the podium and the rest of the tower. From here on out construction should move much faster, and completion is expected in 2013. The first 20 floors required very complex framing, whereas the remainder of the erection will be standard office floors. You can view more images of the construction at the Port Authority’s Flickr page.
Such Great Heights
Blue Ridge Pass by Maya Lin (images courtesy Arts Club of Chicago)
Winter makes Chicagoans crave a sense of escape. An intriguing new exhibition of Maya Lin’s work at the Arts Club of Chicago provides a timely opportunity to visit, visually at least, some fascinating terrain. With its small and large-scale sculpture and installations, viewers can travel from mountain peaks to the bottom of the sea. Read More
Do Not Let Me Down
The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince is one of the only major structures to survive the earthquake and has become an important base for relief operations.
Engineering News Record brings us the news that the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince is one of the few major buildings to survive the January 12th earthquake with only minor damage. According to the report, the facility remained functional during and after the earthquake: the electricity stayed on, communications systems continued to function, and water and air kept operating. As a result the building has become an important center for relief efforts. The reason that the 134,000-square-foot structure escaped the general devastation seems to be that it was built recently in accordance with the International Building Code and the State Department’s Overseas Building Operations requirements. The building was constructed between 2005 and 2008 as a design-build project by New York City-based Fluor Corp, was bolstered by reinforced concrete shear walls, and had mechanical and electrical systems built to withstand seismic events.
Save LA Cultural Affairs. Really.
Just when we thought budget cuts couldn’t get any deeper in LA, the City Council has put forward a motion to eliminate the Department of Cultural Affairs’ only regular revenue stream, the 1% allocation from the city’s Transient Occupancy Tax. The tax now funds a large portion of the department’s operations and programs. Local non-profit Arts For LA is hoping to block this move by organizing testimony against it at the LA city council meeting this Wednesday. They’re also calling on all concerned to reach out to their local council people. Here’s a link to find yours. So go ahead. Save the day.
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!
Eavesdrop CA 01
Belzberg Architect's Skyline Residence, recent site of Sam Lubell book signing, $5.6 million sale. Coincidence? We think not! (Courtesy Belzberg Architects)
TORCH BEARERS
On January 5, our New York colleagues attended a wake to mourn last month’s folding of I.D. magazine, the 55-year-old trusted chronicler of design where pioneer modernist Alvin Lustig was art director and a young John Gregory Dunne was an editor before turning to novels and screenplays. The bi-coastal bash was more of a gathering of the fellowship than a farewell, with Pentagram grandee Michael Bierut and former editors Chee Pearlman and Julie Lasky hosting. Fresh from Silicon Valley, newly appointed National Design Museum director Bill Moggridge, formerly of IDEO, was also there studying local rituals. Read More
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