Gabriele Basilico, one of the most important European documentary photographers working today, has died. Born in Milan in 1944, Basilico trained as an architect before taking to the camera, documenting the changing landscape of Europe, postwar Beirut, and many other regions. According to the Garlerie Anne Barrault, which represents him, he participated in the Venice Biennale and won a Golden Lion, was exhibited widely in museums and galleries, and won numerous awards for his work capturing contemporary urban conditions. His recent work has focused on urban transformations. He was 69.
America’s Oldest Existing Indoor Mall To Be Filled With Micro-Apartments
Micro Apartments. (Courtesy of Evan Granoff/Arcade Providence)
Nowadays it seems that everyone is jumping on the micro apartment bandwagon, and it only makes sense that a bite-size state like Rhode Island would pick up on this trend. Developer Evan Granoff is restoring the historic Providence Arcade (also known as Westminster Arcade), the oldest existing indoor mall in America dating to 1828, and converting it into a mixed-use complex with retail on the ground floor and micro apartments on the second and third levels. J. Michael Abbott of Northeast Collaborative Architects is leading the renovation of the Greek Revival-style Arcade.
Eero Saarinen’s Gateway Arch in St. Louis Broke Ground 50 Years Ago Today
St. Louis’ Gateway Arch under construction. (Courtesy Missouri State Archives)
Fifty years ago, the St. Louis waterfront was one gigantic parking lot after 40 blocks of the city’s gritty industrial quarter were cleared in the late 1930s to create a site for a new Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. It took another two decades to get anything built, but on February 12, 1963, the missing slice of St. Louis began to change as ground was broken for Eero Saarinen’s famous Gateway Arch that still defines St. Louis in one dramatic gesture.
Designer Documenting the Windows of New York
Graphic designer José Guizar is documenting the variety of windows to be found across New York City. His project, Windows of New York, adds a distinctive aperture each week rendered in stunning simplicity, reminding us of another ambitious graphic design project James Gulliver Hancock‘s All the Buildings of New York. According to Guizar, Windows of New York “is a collection of windows that somehow have caught my restless eye out from the never-ending buzz of the city. This project is part an ode to architecture and part a self-challenge to never stop looking up.” [Via Swiss Miss.]
Philadelphia Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe to Break Ground on New Festival Hall
Rendering of new Festival Headquarters. (Courtesy WRT)
The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe, entering its 17th year of performances, will celebrate the groundbreaking of its new 10,000-square-foot headquarters on February 25th. The arts organization has purchased a former fire hydrant pumping station, built over a century ago, right near the Old City and the Delaware River waterfront. Partner Antonio Fiol-Silva of landscape architecture firm WRT (formerly Wallace Roberts Todd), will lead the renovation. The new headquarters will include a 225-seat theater, a rehearsal studio, a gastro-pub style restaurant, an outdoor plaza for performances and outdoor dining, administrative offices, and a permanent festival hub.
Situ Studio’s Valentine’s Day Installation Opens in the Heart of Times Square
Situ Studio’s Heartwalk installation in Times Square. (Courtesy Times Square Alliance)
Just in time for Valentines Day, today the Times Square Alliance and Design Trust for Public Space officially opened Situ Studio’s Heartwalk, a heart-shaped installation constructed of salvaged boards that once made up the boardwalks in Long Beach, Sea Girt, and Atlantic City, to the public. Heartwalk is the winner of the 5th annual Time Square Valentines Day Design competition, taking its cue, in subject matter and materials, from the “collective experience of Hurricane Sandy and the love that binds people together during trying times,” according to Times Square Alliance. Check out the installation “in the heart of Times Square” through March 8, 2013.
Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center Gets Reprieve, Vote Points To Renovation
(Tom Stoelker / AN)
Concrete architecture from the 1970s hasn’t been faring well of late, but while Bertrand Goldberg’s expressionist Prentice Hospital seems destined for the wrecking ball, Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center in Goshen, New York has been spared. In a 15-6 vote, the members of the Orange County Legislature backed a resolution to renovate the building, defeating efforts by County Executive Edward Diana who has pushed for demolition of Rudolph’s dynamic and puzzling structure. The arguments hinged on cost more than on architectural merit, but even so, architecture fans will be relieved that this unique building will be spared.
Alloy Development Proposes Modern Take on Brownstone Brooklyn
55-57 Pearl Street. (Courtesy Alloy Development)
Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood is home to many a loft, but few, if any, townhouses make up the neighborhood streetscape. Curbed reported that boutique development firm and architect Alloy Development plans on building five adjacent, 6-story houses at Pearl Street in place of a graffiti-covered garage. But these won’t emulate your typical 19th-century Brooklyn-style brownstone, they will include a single facade built of ductal concrete fins with wood on the ground level.
2013 SCUP Excellence Awards for Architecture, Planning, or Landscape Architecture
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The 2013 SCUP Excellence Awards for Architecture, Planning, or Landscape Architecture deadline is February 22. These awards recognize and honor institutions and consulting firms whose success and best practices demonstrate achievements through plans, buildings, additions, renovations, restorations, and landscapes. This is a juried program.
The Society for College and University Planning (SCUP), which was established in 1965, is a community of senior, higher education leaders who are responsible for, or are involved in, the integration of planning on their campuses and for the professionals who support them.Award categories include:
• SCUP Excellence in Planning for a New Campus; Existing Campus; District or Campus Component
• SCUP Excellence in Landscape Architecture for General Design; Open Space Planning and Design
• SCUP/AIA-CAE Excellence in Architecture for a New Building; Building Additions, Renovation or Adaptive Reuse; Restoration or Preservation.
Get all the details at www.scup.org/awards or contact Betty Cobb: 734.764.2004, 734.395.0024, or betty.cobb@scup.org
Los Angeles’ New Parklets Bring Color, Fun To the Street
Enjoying LA’s newest Parklet. (Sam Lubell / AN)
Earlier this week, AN reported on the opening of Los Angeles’s first parklet in Eagle Rock. Thursday saw the arrival of the city’s second and third sidewalk-extending mini-parks, located on Spring Street in Downtown LA’s historic core. Created by architects/developers utopiad.org, designers Berry and Linné, and builders Hensel Phelps, the 40 foot by 60 foot parklets, located just a few parallel parking spots from each other, are impressively detailed and fitted, with wood planter boxes, minimalist bench seating, stone pavers, hardwood decking, and quirky touches like seat swings, astro turf, bar seats, colorful fences, foosball tables, and exercise bikes.
INABA Creates a Cylindrical Beacon For A Norwegian Concert Hall
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Cutaways in the cylinder reveal the LED lighting scheme. (Courtesy Ivan Brodey)
INABA’s inverted chandelier comprises a steel frame clad with aluminum tubes and activated by LEDs.
Both simple in its geometry and intriguing in its illumination, a massive new lighting installation in Stavanger, Norway, aims to activate the lobby of a concert hall and create a welcoming civic gesture. Designed by New York-based INABA, the cylindrical structure responds to its setting in a variety of ways. Cutaways in the cylinder reveal views out for visitors inside the concert hall and also reveal slices of the dynamic LED lighting inside the structure to people outside the concert hall on the plaza.
Jeffrey Inaba, principal of INABA, calls the installation Skylight, and refers to it as an “inverted chandelier.” The light is reflected within the rings, rather than out. The outside is coated in glossy white to reflect the warmer daylight and ambient light in the building. The design of Skylight is meant to function as a recognizable figure for the building, which was designed by Oslo-based Ratio Arkitekter.
Bertrand Goldberg’s Chicago Prentice Hospital Denied Landmark Status, Again
Ceci n’est pas une landmark? (ChicagoGeek/Flickr)
Amid the latest in a series of temporary reprieves, Bertrand Goldberg’s former Prentice Women’s Hospital was again denied landmark status by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.
Despite once again turning out a crowd of supporters who contributed hours of impassioned testimony, many preservationists were unsurprised by an outcome that they chalked up to political determinism.
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