Tuesday, Tuesday

My weekly page update:

This week's dose features Rajel Mikveh in Mexico City, Mexico by Pascal Arquitectos:


The featured past dose is Meditation House in Mexico City, Mexico by Pascal Arquitectos:


This week's book review is The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn: Gentrification and the Search for Authenticity in Postwar New York by Suleiman Osman:


american-architects.com Building of the Week:

Grey Group Roof Deck in New York, NY by SOM:


Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Plan of the City
"A new animated film, conceived and directed by Joshua Frankel, about the architecture of New York City blasting off into outer space and resettling on Mars."

Landmark "Old" Prentice Hospital
Sign the petition to save Bertrand Goldberg's "modern masterpiece."

Brusselssprout #3
"Dubai Graphic Encyclopedia."

Blue Award 2012
"International Student Competition for Sustainable Architecture," kicking off today in Vienna.

Rethinking Mallorca's Seafront
"Ideas competition for students. Special registration period is now open."

Ramsign Giveaway

Much like jewelry on a beautiful woman, the right accessory on a house can really pull an entire look or design together. Details matter!

Ramsign, a small Danish company that has been producing porcelain enamel house signs for years has generously offered to give a house number plaque to a lucky reader here on ArchitectDesign.

The winner will be selected on Wednesday, June 8th in celebration of my birthday! To enter, simply leave a comment saying which house number you would pick if you won. Receive 1 extra entry for posting a link to the giveaway on twitter or facebook. Good luck!

p.s.This giveaway is international, so don't hesitate to enter!

Today's archidose #501

Museu da Geira, originally uploaded by TheManWhoPlantedTrees.

Museum of Geira in Portugal's Peneda-Gerês National Park by Carvalho Araújo, 2006. See more on the project at Europaconcorsi.

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Hepworth Wakefield

MA A+U had an expedition to Wakefield yesterday to visit David Chipperfield's new gallery dedicated to the work of Barbara Hepworth. Despite the unpromising weather spirits were  brightened by fleeting sunshine as we crossed the Pennines into Yorkshire.  The new building, which features a cluster of top-lit and individually expressed galleries stands adjacent to a weir on the River Calder


Craig thought it was contextually contrasting in terms of location and materials

Natalie was reminded of the work of Tadao Ando

Bill appreciated the relationship with the water

Angad thought the reflective quality of of the water added to the monumentality of the gallery"s scale

Supriya liked the free flowing organisation of spaces,  the big windows and top lighting in the galleries

Meliz thought the lighting system was very sophisticated

Chen liked the combination of blocks and the siting and connections across the water

Laleh liked the relationship established from the contemporary gallery with the medieval chantry chapel

Ketki preferred the subtlety of the circulation here to that of Zaha Hadid's MAXXI in Rome

Preeya liked the way the building sits on the site and the clean way it meets the water

Kathryn thought it was very welcoming and open

Luke was impressed with the complex and dynamic form of the building

Carrie thought the windows created interesting relationships with the gallery rooms

Christina thought the building was integrated well in its riverside context

Jack thought the bridge created a sense of journey across the different qualities of water

McCormick Apartments

The evolution of a building is natural, much bemoaned by strict preservationist but it is the nature of time, particularly in cities; another topic for another day. A building which started out as the most luxurious apartment building here in Washington, DC now finds itself a distinguished office building holding none other than the National Trust for Historic Preservation.I was lucky enough to have a tour of the building a few months ago and while many changes have been made to the interiors to accomodate offices, it's extraordinary how many of the original details have been retained. Construction began in late 1915 when a mansion previously occupying the site, the Belden Noble residence, was torn down (seen below). The sturdy looking 3 story mansion was built in 1880, meaning it was only 36 years old when torn down. I was just talking to a friend just recently about how some things never change; so many of us still regard many buildings as temporary, even fine specimens such as this (yet again a subject for another post).

The neighborhood, Dupont Circle, was the heart of the cultural center of the city at the time (and some may argue still is) and the new building was designed to fit into this city beautiful movement stretching across the country.The owner of the property, Stanley McCormick, hired local architect Jules Henri de Sibour (designer of many of the most beautiful mansions in the Dupont area now housing embassies) to design a large Beaux-Art Louis XVI styled building which would house 6 luxury apartments with servant quarters for up to 40 employees.The apartments are palatial and were rented out at prices that seem high, even today. Because of this, the tenant list reads as a veritable 'Who's Who' of the DC social scene from the era. Most famously, Andrew Mellon lived in the penthouse apartment while Secretary of the Treasury and later while building his art collection which would eventually become the foundation of the National Gallery of Art (an interesting story for my next post related to the building).

In 1941, the building was leant to the British Army for use during the war for purchasing and since has had many commercial tenants including NCARB (National Architectural Accrediting Board, Inc) , the national AIA, the American Council on Education and has been home for years now to the National Trust for historic preservation (who recently tried to unsuccessfully sell the building).

Despite having lived longer as an office building than as an apartment house, the building fortunately retains much of its early detail. One enters a rounded corner at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and 18th Street NW into a small round lobby seen here.

Unlike luxury apartment buildings in the city today, there were no shared amenities per say. Rather, the public spaces, while beautiful, are small and efficient. No swimming pool , roof deck or gym were offered to the tenants!From the entry lobby, one stepped up into a marble lined vestibule which contained doorways into two smaller apartments, 3 seperate elevators (one for service staff) and the main staircase (which wraps around the primary elevator).The plaster work in the lobby is astounding and even more amazing is that it has survived intact for so many years.The marble floors are an added bonus in Washington as it gets rather hot here in the summer and this was built pre-air conditioning. However, most of the tenants were here only during the winter 'season' and would not have had to worry about this inconvienence.The marble main staircase, while wide and gracious, is rather utilitarian with simple moldings but originally had windows opening onto an air shaft for natural light and ventilation which has since been enclosed.

The landings outside of each apartment continue the simple moldings and 12" square black & white marble floors.Join me next week as I show details from these original apartments, a typical floor plan is below to whet your appetite!Color photographs are my own but the historical images come from the book "Massachusetts Avenue Architecture, Volume 1" produced by the Commission of Fine Arts in 1973.

Designers of Architecture Books

Graphic design is very important for the layout of architecture books, probably more than any other subject. The combination of text, photos, drawings, and other illustrations requires solid understanding and creativity to convey the various types of information to the reader. Architecture books are not easily translated to ebook formats, since the appearance of information on a page is extremely important: Images, different fonts, white space, the flow of information, and various other considerations point to static page layouts that are not yet translatable to electronic formats (outside straight PDFs) incorporating user-defined fonts, sizes, and so forth.

Needless to say, the graphic designer's role is crucial. Yet all too often they are unacknowledged beyond the copyright page and the author's thank you in their acknowledgments. To help remedy this deficiency, stemming from my own appreciation of good design in architecture books, I've collected a list of graphic designers below. This list is far from comprehensive; rather it is limited to designers that have a strong focus in books on architecture and design. Many were found by scouring my own library, so the list happens to be solely comprised of U.S. designers, many in and around New York City, a reflection of publishing's epicenter. To keep it simple the firms are listed alphabetically with a link to their homepage and a reference project. Please comment if there is a designer/design firm that you think should be included; I'll amend this post to make it more thorough and helpful for architects and writers looking for a graphic designer.

EA PROJECTS (Brooklyn, NY):

[Reveal by Jeanne Gang]

mgmt. design (Brooklyn, NY):

[Layered Urbanisms edited by Yale School of Architecture]

MTWTF (New York City):

[The Studio-X Guide to Liberating New Forms of Conversation edited by Gavin Browning]

Omnivore (New York City):

[Architecture at the Edge of Everything Else edited by Esther Choi and Marrikka Trotter]

over,under (Boston, MA):

[Micro Green by Mimi Zeiger]

Pentagram (London, New York City, Austin, Berlin):

[The L!brary Book by Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi]

Project Projects (New York City):

[Urbanisms by Steven Holl]

PS New York (New York/LA):

[Expanding Architecture edited by Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford]

Jeff Ramsey (Brooklyn, NY):

[Building (in) the Future edited by Peggy Deamer and Philip G. Bernstein]

Starfish-Prime (Los Angeles):

[Urban Future Manifestos edited by Peter Noever and Kimberli Meyer]

Think Studio (New York City):

[Support and Resist by Nina Rappaport]

Thumb (Brooklyn, NY):

[Bracket 1: On Farming edited by Mason White and Maya Przybylski]

2x4, Inc. (New York City):

[Glass House by Toshio Nakamura with photogaphs by Michael Moran]

WSDIA | WeShouldDoItAll (Brooklyn, NY):

[The New York 2030 Notebook edited by Jeff Byles and Olympia Kazi]

Today's archidose #500

memorial., originally uploaded by clarkmaxwell.

Bartholomew County Veterans Memorial in Columbus, Indiana by Thompson and Rose Architects (now Maryann Thompson Architects and Charles Rose Architects), 1997.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

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Car Companies and the City

The relationships between automobiles and architecture are myriad: I've explored how architecture is used in car advertisements and how architects take an active role in the same; cars have long been an influence on architects (think Le Corbusier); and companies like BMW have hired architects (Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelb(l)au) to design important buildings for them. But recently car makers have joined with museums and other institutions to take on more advisorial roles in the realms of art, architecture, and urbanism. This may not be a recent phenomenom, but I'm struck by the number of initiatives being funded by automobile manufacturers. These include:

» BMW Guggenheim Lab » It "will address issues confronting urban life through free programs and public participation."
» Audi Urban Future Initiative » It "aims to establish a dialog on the synergy of mobility, architecture and urban development by means of a view into the future."
» VW-MoMA-MoMA PS1 Partnership » Its prime focus is an international contemporary art exhibition, but the collaboration also aims to be a platform for VW's "Think Blue" initiative, which "intends to provide food for thought for sustainable action in all areas of society."

[BMW Guggenheim Lab by Atelier Bow-Wow]

With these undertakings, car makers are taking an active role in shaping how we think about cities and how we think they might evolve. These come at a time when people look to car companies for new technologies, many incorporating alternative fuels, that will overcome the pollution and depleting energy supplies that mark the internal combustion vehicle. Sustainability and cities are the keywords used, but when I think about those terms in conjunction with automobiles nothing positive comes to mind. Cars in cities are dangerous; they pollute; they are loud; they take up a lot of space; the infrastructure for cars uses subsidies that would be better spent on public transportation and the planning of walkable neighborhoods.


[ProjektNY by Abbruzzo Bodziak, part of the Audi Urban Futures Initiative | image © Audi AG]

So what do BMW, Audi and VW hope to accomplish in these efforts? Considering that they first and foremost design and make cars, my first speculation is that they want to know people's concerns and thoughts on the future, in order to help shape the next generation of cars. After all these initiatives tap designers, urbanists, artists, and the public; they compile information. I think they also want to take an active role in the infrastructure, the urban backdrop for their vehicles. Ultimately they are being proactive about important issues, but they are participating in ways that help their long-term bottom lines; at least that's what the cynic in me thinks when I see these synchronious initiatives.

Chinoiserie automaton

While working on a more in-depth post of a fantastic building I visited recently, I wanted to leave you with something just to let you know I'm still around! Located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a collection of ingenius bejeweled objects known as automatons. These machines, popular in the mid 18th century (as so many of my favorite things were!), were mechanical moving devices; a sort of early day robot! Often they were more than a mere toy and incorporated something useful, such as the clock seen here. Made by James Cox in London, 1766, this device still would fascinate and amaze the most ardent anti-antiquarian!

Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond

[Image: Photo by Iwan Baan, from No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond edited by Jessica Varner].

Last autumn, I had the pleasure of speaking with architects Michael Maltzan and Jessica Varner for the new book No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond.

[Image: Photo by Iwan Baan, from No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond edited by Jessica Varner].

That conversation was then included in the book itself, alongside conversations about the city with such artists, architects, and writers as Catherine Opie, Matthew Coolidge, Mirko Zardini, Edward Soja, Charles Jencks, Qingyun Ma, Sarah Whiting, James Flanigan, and Charles Waldheim. It will surprise no one to read that my interview is the least interesting of the bunch, but it's an honor even to have been invited to sit down as a blogger amidst that line-up.

[Image: Photo by Iwan Baan, from No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond edited by Jessica Varner].

Overall, the book represents a series of interesting decisions: it doesn't document Michael Maltzan's work—though, with several recently completed, high-profile projects, including Playa Vista Park, Maltzan could easily could have spent the book's 200+ pages discussing nothing but his own productions (in fact, Maltzan's buildings are absent from the publication).

Instead, the book instead features newly commissioned photographs of greater Los Angeles by the ubiquitous Iwan Baan; further, Michael's and Jessica's introductory texts are not about the firm's recent buildings but are about those buildings' urban context. It is about the conditions in which those buildings are spatially possible.

[Image: Photo by Iwan Baan, from No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond edited by Jessica Varner].

In many ways, then, the book is astonishingly extroverted. It's a book by an architecture office about the city it works in, not a book documenting that firm's work; and, as such, it serves as an impressive attempt to understand and analyze the city through themed conversations with other people, in a continuous stream of partially overlapping dialogues, instead of through ex tempore essayistic reflections by the architects or dry academic essays.

[Image: Photo by Iwan Baan, from No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond edited by Jessica Varner].

Iwan Baan's photos also capture the incredible diversity of spatial formats that exist in Los Angeles—including camouflaged oil rigs on residential hillsides—and the range of anthropological subtypes that support them, down to fully-clothed toy dogs and their terrycloth-clad owners.

[Image: Photo by Iwan Baan, from No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond edited by Jessica Varner].

In an excerpt from Maltzan's introduction to the book published today over at Places, Maltzan writes that the city's "relentless growth has never paused long enough to coalesce into a stable identity."

Los Angeles and the surrounding regions have grown steadily since the founding of the original pueblo, but the period immediately after World War II defined the current super-region. During this time, the economy accelerated, and Los Angeles became a national and international force. Today, innovation and development define the metropolis as the region multiplies exponentially, moment by moment, changing into an unprecedented and complex expansive field. The region continues to defy available techniques and terms in modernism's dictionary of the city.

This latter point is a major subtheme in the interviews that follow: exactly what is it that makes Los Angeles a city, not simply a "large congregation of architecture," in Ole Bouman's words. As Bouman warns, "If you don’t distinguish between those two—if you think that applying urban form is the same as building a city, or even creating urban culture—then you make a very big mistake. First of all, I think it’s necessary for architectural criticism, in that sense, to find the right words for these very complicated processes, to distinguish between two processes or forms that, at first sight, appear the same, but that are, in reality, very different."

At the end of his introductory notes, Maltzan remarks that "we have reached a point where past vocabularies of the city and of urbanism are no longer adequate, and at this moment, the very word city no longer applies" to a place like Los Angeles.

"Perhaps it is not a city," he suggests. Perhaps something at least temporarily indescribable has occurred here.

[Image: Photo by Iwan Baan, from No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond edited by Jessica Varner].

You can read Maltzan's essay in full over at Places; or I'd encourage you to pick up a copy of the book as a way of encouraging this kind of discursive engagement with the city—what Varner describes in her introduction as a set of outward-looking, nested narratives "which then fold back onto themselves" from conversation to conversation, and will only continue to develop "as the city advances forward."

[Image: From No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond edited by Jessica Varner].

The book also comes with a small fold-out poster, one side of which you can see here.

(Earlier on BLDGBLOG: Agitation, Power, Space: An Interview with Ole Bouman).