Obit> Yukio Futagawa, 1932-2013
Left to right: Yukio Futagawa, Stevel Holl, Yoshio Futagawa. (Courtesy Steven Holl)
A sad but touching note today from Steven Holl informed us that Yukio Futagawa, the founder and impresario of GA Architecture magazine, passed away in Japan on March 5, 2013. Futagawa was 80 years old and was best known as the founder and director of GA Architecture Publishing Group. GA is recognized for seeking out the world’s best architects and projects and presenting them in elegant and intelligent formats (GA Houses, GA Documents) that crossed magazines with book publishing.
It is understandable that GA would be such a powerful and distinguished publishing house since Futagawa was a much respected architectural photographer and, as Holl writes, “a cultural force for fine architecture globally [who] understood that we must think beyond the provincial beyond the national.”
GA will continue to operate under the new leadership of Yukio’s son Yoshio. The family held a private funeral service for Futagawa in Japan on March 10, but if you are in Beijing, Holl will hold a tribute toast for him at the Opposite House Penthouse on March 17 from 7:00 to 8:00 pm.
After falling a bit off the radar, the folks from Quadriad Reality are back in Washington Heights with a revised plan to build a cluster of towers just down the hill from The Cloisters, DNAinfo reports. The 34-story towers will be an anomaly in a neighborhood where the the average apartment block runs from about ten to twelve stories. Just up Broadway, Peter Gluck is planning to build a modular building, Steven Holl’s Campbell Sports Center is taking shape, and Field Operations’ contentious park has broken ground.
Michael Graves, Steven Holl Named Academicians of the National Academy
The National Academy on 5th Avenue in New York. (Courtesy National Academy)
On June 28th, the academicians of the National Academy welcomed 23 newly elected members, recognized for their contribution to American art and architecture. This year, the nominees included artists working in video, photography, and installation, further reinforcing the National Academy’s mission of promoting art across America. The roster of over 2,000 academicians includes famous pioneers of early American art such as Thomas Cole and seminal architects such as Philip Johnson.
Fukuoka hotel by Michael Graves. (courtesy National Academy)
This year’s inductees include visual artists such as Cindy Sherman and Bruce Nauman and architects Steven Holl and Michael Graves. Chosen annually by their peers, the elected members contributed representative work to the Academy’s permanent collection of over 7,000 artworks, architectural drawings, photographs, and models.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston announced today that architect Steven Holl was selected to build a new building on a two-acre parking lot in the city’s Museum District, besting Morphosis and Snøhetta. Situated among other structures by Mies van der Rohe, Raphael Moneo, and a sculpture garden by Isamu Noguchi, Holl’s building dedicated to art after 1900 will help unify the campus. According to MFAH Director Gary Tinterow, “Everyone on the committee was deeply impressed by the intelligence and beauty of their museum projects, and we feel certain that they will conceive a design that will match the clarity and elegance of our existing architectural landmarks.”
Holl Gets AIA Gold, VJAA Wins Firm Award
Holl's Vanke Center (photo: Iwan Baan)
Steven Holl has been awarded the AIA Gold Medal, the institute’s highest honor and among the most significant in the profession. Holl is known for his formally inventive, richly detailed buildings in the US and around the world, including the Linked Hybrid in Beijing, the Vanke Center in Shenzen, the Bloc Building at the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City, MO, and Simmons Hall at MIT among many other notable projects.
On View> Light Pavilion by Lebbeus Woods & Christoph A. Kumpusch
Rendering of Woods & Kumpusch's Light Pavilion. (Courtesy MAK)
Light Pavilion by Lebbeus Woods and
Christoph A. Kumpusch: Construction
Drawings & In-Process Photographs at the
Mackey Garage Top
MAK Center at the Schindler House
835 North Kings Road
West Hollywood
Through August 6
The Light Pavilion by Lebbeus Woods and Christoph A. Kumpusch was created for Steven Holl’s Sliced Porosity Block project now under construction in Chengdu, China, and will be Lebbeus Woods’ first built work of architecture. A physical intervention into Holl’s rectilinear structure, the pavilion consists of a series of columns and stairs that are illuminated from with and change color, and the luminous effect will be amplified by the pavilion’s mirrored interior walls. The MAK exhibition includes construction drawings and process photographs of the installation, as well as conceptual renderings of this project, above, and other work of Woods and Kumpusch.
Design Commission Awards at Museum of Moving Image
Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris (center) checks out Steven Holl's designs for Hunter's Point Community Library. (Courtesy Tucker/nycmayorsoffice)
It was an event that was on message and on time. With the unfortunate passing of Mayor Bloomberg’s mother this week, officiating duties for Design Commission’s Twenty-ninth Annual Awards for Excellence in Design fell to Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris and Design Commission president Jim Stuckey. As the invitation noted, remarks were scheduled to begin at 6:15PM, and Harris started remarking on the dot and kept to the script, reading directly from it in fact, with few off-the-cuff remarks. “Short and sweet,” was how one audience member described it afterward, with an Oscar-worthy combo of Harris and Stuckey–like an urban design version of Hathaway and Franko, without the awkward flubs.
Columbia Boathouse Marsh Hullabaloo
New renderings shown at the community meeting include a few details that won't make it into the final picture. Instead of galvanized steel and cables the rails will be executed in bent wood.
Columbia University looks as though it’s in the final stretch of the public review process for the proposed Boathouse Marsh designed by James Corner Field Operations and the Steven Holl-designed Campbell Sports Center. On Friday night and Sunday afternoon, Columbia University Executive VP Joseph Ienuso made presentations to neighborhood residents. A few media outlets dubbed the gatherings “dueling meetings,” due to some political infighting between council members Robert Jackson and Ydanis Rodriguez, which erupted during a subcommittee meeting before the city council last week. The background political drama only heightened already-tense negotiations between the neighbors and the university.
Quick Clicks> Apples, Trains, Fields, Banks
Grand Central to get Apple but no glass cube. flickr/Randy Le'Moine
Apple takes another bite. Once famous for its oysters, Grand Central will now be known for its Apples. Cult of Mac reports that the computer giant plans to open their biggest retail outlet yet, which will, no doubt be as busy as Grand Central Station.
High speed posturing. If you don’t want it, we’ll take it! That’s the message being sent out by Democratic governors to their Republican counterparts who are rejecting infrastructure dollars. Huff-Po’s Sam Stein notes that governors from New York, Washington, and California are lining up to take Florida Governor Rick Scott’s rejected $2 billion in federal funding for high speed rail line.
Goal! One more hurdle to go. DNA reports that Columbia’s Baker Field got the green light from the City Planning Commission to build the Steven Holl designed Campbell Sports Center. Part of the plan includes a James Corner/Field Operations-designed park and 17,000 square feet of restored marsh and shoreline.
Pool Hall Banking. A 1916 bank building on Philadelphia’s Chestnut Street will take on an adaptive reuse that its architect Horace Trumbauer surely never dreamed of. PlanPhilly reports that developer Paul Giegerich is thinking of turning the architect’s two story cathedral of commerce into a swanky pool hall with food created by a star (Steven Starr to be exact).
Man of Metal
Moneo
Last night Rafael Moneo, Madrid-based architect and Harvard Graduate School of Design professor, kicked off Columbia’s third annual conference on architecture, engineering, and materials with a keynote lecture on his Northwest Corner Building, a new interdisciplinary science facility between Chandler and Pupin halls.
This year’s conference is titled Post Ductility: Metals in Architecture and Engineering, and though Moneo’s building isn’t scheduled to be completed until the fall of next year, there may not have been a better time to discuss its materials or its contribution to the campus. Unfinished, the building can be seen as the engineering marvel that it is, with 300 tons of structural trusses enabling it to float above the gym beneath it. (Here’s a video we posted of them being installed.) Read More
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