Sculptures by Sol LeWitt Stand Tall In Lower Manhattan
Detail of Splotch 15 (Branden Klayko/AN)
Last week, Mayor Bloomberg and a cadre of arts enthusiasts from the Public Art Fund gathered at City Hall Park to officially open a retrospective on conceptual artist Sol LeWitt titled Structures, 1965-2006. Comprised primarily of sleek white cubes and forms and one colorful Splotch, the installation of 27 sculptures represents the first outdoor retrospective of LeWitt’s work as well as the largest public art display at City Hall Park, billed by Nicholas Baume, chief curator for the Public Art Fund, as New York’s “museum without walls.”
Video> A Cry for Modernism in NOLA
A shot of Phillis Wheatley from A Plea For Modernism
Filmmaker Evan Mather, one of the country’s few architectural filmmakers, makes a viral appeal for Charles R. Colbert’s Phillis Wheatley Elementary School in New Orleans, which is set for demolition this summer. Appropriately titled A Plea for Modernism, the 12 minute short makes the case that buildings like Phillis Wheatley are disappearing throughout the Crescent City (watch the video after the jump).
The school–owned by the Recovery School District and located in the historic neighborhood of Tremé–is one 30 schools in the city from the postwar Modernist Movement of the 1950s and 60s (only four of those schools still stand). New Orleans is also home to Moisant Airport, the Greater New Orleans Bridge, and other works by the likes of Goldstein, Parham & Labouisse, Modjeski & Masters, and Curtis & Davis.
Galloping Gallatin: NYU Exhibition is Out There
The exhibit "Global Design: Elsewhere Envisioned" at NYU's Gallatin through June 25. (Julie Iovine/AN)
It happened suddenly, as if out of nowhere: NYU’s Gallatin opened Global Design/Elsewhere Envisioned, an exhibition that comes with two symposia, is described as an initiative, and some hope might just morph into a new school of architecture.
SmithGroup′s ASU Facade: Kovach
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The facade includes six copper panel types (Liam Frederick)
Articulated copper clads gateway building to new College of Nursing in Phoenix
Copper has certain attributes that make it an appealing facade option in arid climates. The first is that it doesn’t turn green. “Here in the desert, it weathers like a penny in your pocket,” said Mark Kranz, the SmithGroup Phoenix design principal in charge of the recently completed Arizona State University College of Nursing and Health Innovation Phase II project. Clad in an articulated and partially perforated copper skin, the 84,000-square-foot, five-story facility complements a collection of existing and new buildings that form the college’s new Phoenix campus. This month, the project won a 2011 North American Copper in Architecture Award, earning points not only for the identity it imparts to the campus, but also for a unique panel design that delivers environmental performance at a low cost.
Documentary Celebrates Burnished Bungalows
Beach-side bungalows are the stars of the documentary. (Courtesy Bungalows of the Rockaways)
With summer weather quickly approaching, it’s the perfect time to kick back and dream about a sweet bungalow by the beach… in Queens. Endangered bungalows throughout New York City have been on the radar for some time now, but documentary filmmaker Jennifer Callahan has focused on the fight to preserve the few bungalows left on the Rockaway Peninsula in her film Bungalows of the Rockaways, which will be screened tonight at Tenement Talks at the Tenement Museum.
Johnson′s Glass House: the Anti-McMansion?
Courtesy Philip Johnson Glass House
Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, CT clocks in at under 2,000 square feet–tiny compared to the McMansions being built just a stone’s throw away. The transparent house is widely known as one of the earliest and most influential modernist homes in the United States, but its size is also a lesson in sustainable living.
Savior of the Meat Market
Florent Morellet, in a scene from the movie. Courtesy The Villager.
When talking to Florent Morellet, don’t call it the Meatpacking District. For the eponymous owner of now-closed diner/bistro Florent on Little West 12th Street, it’s the Meat Market. Well before SoHo House and long before Pastis, there was Florent, the subject of a new documentary by David Segal, Florent: Queen of the Meat Market. I found out about the New York opening of the film while showroom hopping on Green Street last week. At Kartell, the perfectly bouffant-ed Darinka Chase encouraged me to try out Philippe Starck‘s Magic Hole. Before slinging chic plastic, Chase spent twenty years as hostess at the downtown den of dining debauchery. She vividly recalls how preservationists met at the restaurant in an effort to preserve the district. “At the time people did think it was kind of nuts, like landmarking the city dump,” she said.
Infrastructure Blues: ULI Report Assesses National & Global Policy
Once again, the results of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) /Ernst & Young annual global infrastructure report don’t look good for America. According to the document, “The United States notably continues to lag its global competition—laboring without a national infrastructure plan, lacking political consensus, and contending with severe federal, state, and local budget deficits that limit options.” The end of the federal stimulus package in 2013 makes the picture even bleaker. “The stimulus helped, but it was only a down payment on what’s needed,” said Ernst & Young Global Real Estate Leader Howard Roth at a recent ULI meeting in Phoenix.
Nilus Designs′ W.E.T. Seat
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W.E.T. seat 1/8 scale prototype made with 2mm coroplast (Nilus Designs)
Polycarbonate sheets become an interactive bench, part of Fort Mason Center’s upcoming SEAT exhibition.
San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center will be the stage for an outdoor chair show set to open June 23. Called SEAT, the yearlong exhibition is being curated by artist and landscape designer Topher Delaney, of Seam Studio, and will include work by more than 40 designers, artists, and architects. Each team was given a site on the former Fort’s 13-acre waterfront campus, which now serves as an arts and culture venue. As one of the invited participants, San Francisco-based Nilus Designs is preparing an interactive piece called W.E.T: West End Terminal, an anthropomorphic bench created with carefully stacked strata of clear twin-wall polycarbonate.
Billings> Index Tumbles to Lowest Point in 6 Months
Billings (blue) and inquiries (red) for the past 12 months. (The Architect's Newspaper)
In what can only be described as an about face, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) took a bit of a tumble into negative territory last month. The April ABI fell to 47.6 from 50.6, beating even October’s low of 48.7. At the end of 2010, words like “rebound” were cautiously bandied about, but for the past three months the ABI skated along the edge of positive territory hovering around 50.
Guggenheim′s Newest Exhibit to Offer Therapy
Pedro Reyes's rendering of the Sanatorium
The stereotypes of New Yorkers are that they’re rude, they only wear black, and they all have therapists. Sanitorium, the first installation of Guggenheim’s new program, stillspotting nyc, explores the smorgasborg of therapies that help the city’s neurotic residents keep their lives together.
ICFF Studio: Bernhardt Mentors The Design Stars of Tomorrow
Clamp Chairs by Andreas Kowalewski (all images courtesy ICFF Studio)
ICFF wraps up today and, as usual, reviews of the fair seem mixed. Professional but boring! Too safe! Appropriately sober! Practical and market-friendly! Reheated Eames! Now in its sixth year, the ICFF Studio, sponsored by Bernhardt, offers a snap shot of where young designers are looking. Most skewed toward the market-ready, while one designer went in a conceptual direction. The young Dutch designer Andreas Kowalewski’s Clamp Chairs certainly look showroom bound (above).
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