Special Coverage from the 2012 Venice Biennale, Issue 3
The Architect’s Newspaper is on the ground in Italy for the 2012 Venice Biennale. Here’s the third edition of a three-part series on the best of the Biennale, brought to you by The Architect’s Newspaperand Il Giornale Dell’Architettura. (You may also view the first issue and the second issue.)
Hope on Hudson? Durst has Idea for Beleaguered Pier 40
With Hudson River Park languishing, Douglas Durst is weighing in on dilemmas at Pier 40 (at left). (Stoelker/AN)
As AN recently reported, Hudson River Park is still in the weeds, both literally and figuratively. Now Douglas Durst is pointing to a possible solution to the beleaguered Pier 40. The pier was once one of the few money making sources for the self-sustaining park, but it is now deteriorating and costing $2 million a year to maintain. Durst, chair of the park’s friends group, told The New York Post that the park should consider stacking up the existing parking to free up valuable space and in turn rent the pier as lofts to the area’s expanding tech sector. The notion could avoid a lengthy State Legislature battle and an uphill ULURP processes for the proposed hotel/residential complex.
On View> California’s Designing Women, 1896 to 1986
(Courtesy The Autry)
California’s Designing Women
The Autry in Griffith Park
4700 Western Heritage Way
Los Angeles
Through January 6, 2013
It was uncommon for women to practice industrial design throughout late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, California’s newness and frequent population growth provided various opportunities for women to get involved with the creation and production of design. Autry National Center’s California’s Designing Women, 1896–1986 with works from over fifty women designers from California celebrates female designers who made major contributions to Californian and American design. The exhibition displays approximately 240 examples of textiles, ceramics, furniture, lighting, tapestries, jewelry, clothing, and graphics all inspired by California’s amalgam of society which include Indigenous American, Chinese, Japanese, Anglo, and Mexican cultures. Upholding California’s reputation for unlimited creativity, the displayed work includes materials such as wood, abalone, glass cotton, steel, silver, acetate, acrylic, and fiberglass, spanning a century of design movements from arts and crafts to art deco to mid-century modern and beyond.
PRODUCT> Rock Chair, by Fredrik Färg for Design House Stockholm
This streamlined Scandinavian stunner is not your granddaddy’s rocking chair.
We have lounges, chaises, day beds and a range of other seating options designed for nesting, curling up, reclining and relaxing, yet the rocking chair, that front porch symbol of lazy day languor, has been mostly forgotten by modern design. In fact, Design House Stockholm, the self-described publishing house for contemporary Scandinavian design, noted that “at some time in the 20th century the design development of the rocking chair stopped” altogether. With that in mind, Stockholm-based furniture designer Fredrik Färg created Rock Chair, a rocking chair that “continues the traditional rocking chair’s comforting function but in a modern design.”
Special Coverage from the 2012 Venice Biennale, Issue 2
The Architect’s Newspaper is on the ground in Italy for the 2012 Venice Biennale. Here’s the second edition of a three-part series on the best of the Biennale, brought to you by The Architect’s Newspaperand Il Giornale Dell’Architettura. (View the first issue here.)
Facebook Likes Gehry: Sprawling Expansion Unveiled for Menlo Park
Frank Gehry’s plans for a new Facebook campus. (Courtesy Gehry Partners)
Perhaps trying to regain its mojo after a difficult summer on the stock market, Facebook has selected Frank Gehry to design an expansion to its Menlo Park Campus in California. The project, scheduled to break ground next year, will include a quirky 420,000-square-foot warehouse topped by a sprawling garden. The cavernous space will contain open offices for as many as 2,800 software engineers, according to Everett Katigbak, Facebook’s environmental design manager. The firm wouldn’t reveal the project’s price tag.
A Rough Commute in Venice
Alan Brake and Julie Iovine in Venice. (The Architect’s Newspaper)
While we editors toil in a rainy New York City (and Chicago and LA), AN‘s outgoing executive editor Julie V. Iovine and incoming executive editor Alan G. Brake (and editor-in-chief William Menking, photographer) are dealing with their own challenges, like their daily commute to the Venice Biennale by boat. Thanks for sharing, guys!
Whether you’re in Venice this week or just checking in on the highlights from afar, stay up to date with AN‘s special coverage from the Venice Biennale. We posted the first of three editions published on the ground in Italy this morning and will have two more issues coming your way later this week. Ciao!
DS+R and OLIN’s “Granite Web” Fails to Ensnare Aberdeen
Diller Scofidio + Renfro and OLIN’s web-like park and culture center in Scotland has been rejected by City Council. (Courtesy DS+R)
In a tightly contested decision, the City of Aberdeen, Scotland has decided not to move forward with a dramatic $222 million renovation of Union Terrace Gardens designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and OLIN. The 22 to 20 vote may have brushed aside the so-called “Granite Web,” but it did retain the principals behind the design for whatever future plans are built on the site, including better pedestrian access, a revamped city council chambers, and a new art gallery. Council Lead Councilor Barney Crockett said the project “never won the whole-hearted acceptance of the people of Aberdeen.” [Via World Architecture News.]
People In Glass Houses Should Have Fresh Flowers
Philip Johnson and David Whitney. (Courtesy Glass House)
Director Henry Urbach just announced a program that will reintroduce fresh flowers into Philip Johnson’s iconic Glass House in New Canaan, CT, where they’ve been missing seen since Johnson and his partner, David Whitney, passed away in 2005. The arrangements will be created by local designer Dana Worlock, using Whitney’s original plant selection and archival photographs of the home’s interior as inspiration.
Meanwhile, AN is participating in this week’s Glass House Conversations about themes in this year’s Venice Biennale, especially the relationship between critical compliance as espoused by David Chipperfield and Spontaneous Intervention and as featured in the U.S. Pavilion. Share your thoughts through September 2nd.
The Glass House
199 Elm Street, New Canaan, CT 06840
Open Thursday-Monday, 9:30a.m-5:30 p.m.
Tickets start at $30.
In an about face, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie reversed a decision to demolish Athena Tacha’s Green Acres, a site specific installation at the State’s Department of Environmental Protection. Tacha is largely credited with bringing the land art movement into the social context of architecture. The 1985 sculpture’s staying power remains contingent upon private funding to restore the piece. With Art Pride New Jersey, Preservation New Jersey, and The Cultural Landscape Foundation all rallying to the cause, Green Acres looks like it will remain the place to be.
Special Coverage from the 2012 Venice Biennale, Issue 1
The Architect’s Newspaper is on the ground in Italy for the 2012 Venice Biennale. Here’s the first edition of a three-part series on the best of the Biennale, brought to you by The Architect’s Newspaper and Il Giornale Dell’Architettura.
Video> Manhattan Drawn in a New York Minute
A good portion of our editorial staff just boarded an airplane headed for the Venice Biennial, so AN headquarters is pretty quiet this afternoon. For your Friday afternoon enjoyment, check out this time-lapse video of the Manhattan skyline viewed from the Empire State Building being drawn with amazing detail by illustrator Patrick Vale. [h/t E Minor]
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