Reflecting the Stars on the Hudson
"Reflecting the Stars" installation on the Hudson.
With the High Line getting the lion’s share of attention lately, Hudson River Park feels more neighborhoody then ever. Last night’s opening of public art installation by artist/performer Jon Morris of Windmill Factory felt pretty down home with everyone sprawling out on the grass around Morris, who explained the inspiration for his light show which sits out in the water.
Growing up in Beria, Kentucky, Morris could see the stars, but in New York light pollution made the experience impossible. His idea was to sprinkle a little stardust onto the Hudson in the form of solar powered LEDs attached to the tops of pilings from a long departed pier.
BOOM BOOM BOOM In The Desert
Ok, get ready for the strangest, most audacious project you’ve seen in a long time. Our friends at Architizer just tipped us off to BOOM, a $250 million community being developed in Rancho Mirage, outside of Palm Springs, that includes some pretty inventive, or (maybe more like it) wacky designs by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, LOT-EK, J.Mayer H., and seven more firms. The ultra-expressive project, set to begin construction next year, will include 300 residences built in eight neighborhoods, each designed by a different firm (important note: the developer, Matthias Hollwich, is a co-founder of Architizer). Read More
Comment: Architecture Is Not Enough at Grand Avenue
Map of LA's Grand Avenue; the new museum is colored red.
When Diller Scofidio + Renfro were solicited last June by Eli Broad to sketch an idea for his new archive and museum, the architects were forced to ask: “What do you build next to Disney Hall?” Answer: Something else. Where Frank Gehry’s work is smooth and impenetrable, the Broad Art Foundation is porous and accessible. The stainless steel concert hall reflects the city’s skyline; blinding sunlight bounces off its capering shell. The Broad’s concrete veil, by contrast, is a less aggressive spectacle. At three-feet thick, and punched through with large angular openings, the new museum looks as if it is cloaked in an ice cube tray twisted by a powerful algorithm. As, certainly, it has been, to pleasing effect. Read More
Thursday is D Day for Broad Museum
Site of the museum, on LA's Grand Avenue.
Finally. The design for Eli Broad’s new contemporary art museum in Downtown LA, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is being unveiled on Thursday, according to a press release sent out today. The event will take place at 11:00 am at Walt Disney Concert Hall (next to the new museum site), giving us lazy journalists plenty of time to make it. According to the release, the museum will be “home to the worldwide headquarters of The Broad Art Foundation,” and will provide a home for Broad’s collection of more than 2,000 works by 200 artists. Since the museum saga has dragged out over several years between several cities, and because he’s hired one of the country’s top architects, Mr. Broad has done an excellent job of building our expectations. Hope it’s good!
Broad Museum Leak Number 100: Diller Scofidio + Renfro?
Diller Scofidio + Renfro's Alice Tully Hall redesign
In a selection process with more leaks than the Titanic (or, ahem, the Gulf of Mexico) the LA Times reports (thanks to a number of anonymous sources) that Eli Broad is favoring Diller Scofidio + Renfro for his new contemporary art museum. In a previous leak the Times reported the narrowing of firms to Diller Scofidio and Rem Koolhaas’s OMA. This of course follows the leak that we first reported in March: that Broad was favoring downtown for the museum instead of Santa Monica. Of course none of this is official. In fact Broad hasn’t even formally announced a shortlist or a location. And he’s still waiting for city approval to lease the Bunker Hill site for $1 per year for 99 years (the LA CRA now owns the site, just next to the Walt Disney Concert Hall). But all this insider information is giving Washington politics and Wall Street banking a run for its money. Man, this Broad guy really knows how to play cities, and the media, doesn’t he? He should become a businessman or something. Meanwhile, is any firm hotter than Diller Scofidio + Renfro?
Broad Narrows His Sites on Downtown
The possible location of the new Broad museum.
According to both the New York Times and the LA Times, Eli Broad appears to have settled once and for all on a Downtown LA site for his new museum, and has gone so far as to hold a new competition for its architect. Further background has it that Thom Mayne, who had been favored to design Broad’s museum, is now out, and the new finalists are Rem Koolhaas, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Herzog & De Meuron, Christian de Portzamparc, Foreign Office Architects, and recent Pritzker Prize winners SANAA. According to the New York Times, the jury appeared to favor Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Koolhaas. A choice, according to their story, could be made within the week. Read More
Taming Governors Island
The new Governors Island, as envisioned by West 8 and Co. CLICK TO ZOOM (Courtesy GIPEC)
Even with last week’s heat wave making it feel like July in the city, it will still be seven weeks before that oasis in New York Harbor, Governor’s Island, opens for the season on June 5. But there’s still plenty of reason to celebrate like summer’s here, as the city reached its anticipated deal with the state for control of the 172-acre island yesterday. The city will now be responsible for the development and operation of all but 22 acres of the former Coast Guard base purchased for $1 from the federal government in 2003, whose National Parks Service remains responsible for a small historic district on the northern section of the island. This paved the way for the rather quiet unveiling today of the 87-acre final master plan designed by West 8, Rogers Marvel, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Mathews Nielsen, and Urban Design+, which had been under lock in key since last spring, when the proposal was completed but held up by all the fighting over the island’s, uh, governance. Read More
Lights, Camera, High Line!
Sundance Channel recently launched a new online video series titled “High Line Stories,” profiling activists, artists, architects, landscape architects, City officials, and celebrities involved in turning the abandoned elevated railroad track into a park paradise.
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