Fragments of RPBW

In a summer of must-see architecture exhibitions (specifically I'm referring to Le Corbusier at MoMA), there is one more, at the Gagosian Gallery on West 21st Street: Renzo Piano Building Workshop: Fragments, which runs until August 2. I stopped by on Thursday for the opening reception.



Twenty-four tables document the same number of projects in the large skylit space, with even more models and photos overhead.



The opening reception was the least ideal time to visit the exhibition and get immersed in any of the projects, be it the Pompidou, the Tjibaou Cultural Center, the New York Times Building, or one of the in-progress projects on display. The large numbers of people just accentuated the sheer quantity of models, drawings, photos, books, and other objects on display, while making it impossible to sit down and examine the materials.



The exhibition has been done before in slightly different form as early as 2003, but this iteration coincides with the halfway point of construction on Piano's Whitney Museum of American Art a few blocks south in the Meatpacking District; a hard hat tour of the building was hosted by the Whitney and Mr. Piano the day before the Gagosian opening.



My short visit to the Gagosian before heading to Long Island City for the MoMA PS1 unveiling will be the first of at least a couple more; Piano's show requires numerous visits to really take in the thorough documentation presented. No wonder each table is served by eight chairs for sitting down to take a closer look at the projects.



While very few architects are deserving of such a treatment, if every architect thought of their process being displayed in a similar manner they would probably take more care in the sketches, models, and other pieces that make up the interim steps toward realizing a project. Or at the very least they wouldn't throw away the napkin sketch that seemed so important at the time but whose significance faded over time. Fragments expresses that each piece is an important part of the whole.



Whatever you do, go see this show—but make sure you do it when you have a couple hours free.

Today's archidose #688

Here are some of my photos of Party Wall, the 2013 YAP installation at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens, by CODA. The installation is up until August 31, 2013.













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Going, going, GONE!

As many of you have been reading and are probably already aware, Google Reader will be ceasing operation on July 1st ( blog lists on blogs showing updated posts). This is how I personally read blogs and I know a number of other people do as well so we all have to find another way to keep up to date!

I've signed up for Bloglovin after having issues with some of the other recommendations I've seen. Every day I get an easy to navigate email with the new postings for the blogs I had entered into the website.  It seems to work well although I'll still miss my blog list here on my blog!

I won't bore you with a lot of redundant information but a great writeup of options can be found at Pigtown Design HERE. As always you can sign up for an easy email of ArchitectDesign sent to you on the upper right hand sidebar "FOLLOW BY EMAIL" on this page by simply adding your email and hitting 'submit'.  You can also sign up for this blog via amazon which will upload directly to your kindle for a small fee (see information here).  Otherwise please consider adding ArchitectDesign to whatever blog reader service you choose to use as I'm happy to have YOU as a reader! Happy Blogging!

Images from our ICAA tour of hunt country taken earlier this spring: future blogpost in the works!

Denver, Photographed

Here are a few slideshows of photos I took while in Denver last week for the AIA Convention.

Denver Art Museum (Gio Ponti, 1971; and Daniel Libeskind, 2006) and Denver Public Library (Michael Graves, 1996):


Clyfford Still Museum (Allied Works, 2011):


Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (David Adjaye, 2007)

Today's archidose #687

Here are some photos of the Zarzuela Hippodrome (1935) in Madrid, Spain, by architects Carlos Arniches and Martín Dominguez, and engineer Eduardo Torroja, photographed by Ximo Michavila.



















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Designer Shopping Architectural Tour

On Saturday, June 29, at 11am I'll be giving a walking tour of architecturally distinctive stores in SoHo. We'll duck in and out of retail environments like Rem Koolhaas's Prada, Asymptote's Alessi, and Thomas Heatherwick's Loncghamp, pictured below. Head over to the 92YTribeca page for tickets.

Today's archidose #686

Here are some photos of the Museum de Fundatie expansion (2013) in Zwolle, Netherlands, by BiermanHenket Architects, photographed by Ken Lee.









Update 06.25: A couple interior shots:





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Architecture + Urbanism recommends "Preston Bus Station Charrette 28 June 2013"

In December 2012 Preston City Council voted ‘in principle’ to demolish Preston Bus Station and replace it with a surface car park. This building is a major cultural landmark and it should be preserved and creatively adapted to serve the city. It could act as a key building and public space to make Preston accessible and temper the decay that is affecting the city. BDP will host a charrette on Friday 28th June 2013, at their North West office to discuss ideas for the future of this building and the urban area surrounding it. The charrette or workshop will be held in BDP’s Manchester offices in Piccadilly Basin. Key members of their architectural and urban design team will contribute to the discussion. They feel that this is a very important project, both locally and nationally. The state of panic that now exists in Preston is symptomatic of the reaction not only to the recession, which has hit the North particularly hard, but also to the change in shopping habits that the digital revolution has caused. How the post-industrial city will have to adapt to an uncertain future is one of the most pressing issues for architects and designers at this point in the twenty-first century. Preston Bus Station was constructed in 1969, and was designed by BDP. It was built at a time of great confidence; it was, after all, the same year as the first Moon landing. The building resembled an airport lounge, testament to the importance that was placed upon it by the people of Preston. Modernist buildings can possess great quality and worth, and can contribute to the collective memory of a place. If we are not careful, we will regret the loss of many of them, just as we regret the loss of many older structures that were torn down in the name of progress. Certainly the Bus Station is very much a symbol of Preston, if it is lost the city will lose a famous landmark and part of its optimistic heritage. This charrette is open to all, architects, designers, and students as well as anyone else who is interested in the future of the building. Contact Sally Stone for more details or to discuss this further: s.stone@mmu.ac.uk. Gate 81 is a project that intends to bring to greater attention the plight of Preston Bus Station. There has been a considerable amount of negativity surrounding the future of the building, and this is our attempt to bring some optimism to the situation. To this end, we are staging a series of events to both raise the profile of the building, and to generate ideas for the future of this troubled building and the urban area that surrounds it. The first, which was held on May 11th, was an open workshop, collection of lectures and other happenings that was held on the concourse of the Bus Station. Gate 81 is supported by: The Arts Council, Manchester School of Architecture, They Eat Culture. www.gate81.com

On the Road Again

[Image: The 5,000-ton neutrino detector of the Soudan Underground Mine State Park in northern Minnesota].

I've been on the road for the past three weeks, wrapping up our final site visits and interviews for Venue across the northern Plains, eastern Oregon, the Great Basin, and, now, northern California. It's been hard to find time to post during all this, sadly, but I thought I'd just put up a few quick Instagrams of our travels—you can always see more, and follow along, at my Instagram feed, if you're interested.

[Image: The subterranean domestic furnishings of the Free Enterprise Radon Health Mine in Boulder, Montana].

A lot of this will also be documented in a forthcoming feature in the July/August issue of Popular Science, including a small map for anyone who might want to do some of these travels themselves.

In the past few weeks alone, we've been 2,341 feet below the earth's surface visiting the vast, 5,000-ton underground neutrino detector in the old Soudan Mine in northern Minnesota, the headwaters of the Mississippi river in the nearby Itasca State Park—

[Image: At the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Itasca State Park, Minnesota].

—a branch of the Ice Age Trail in central Wisconsin—

[Image: Hiking the Baraboo Hills branch of Wisconsin's Ice Age Trail].

—the extraordinary Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana, home to extremophiles—

[Image: Butte, Montana's Berkeley Pit].

—the world's largest organism in the mountains of eastern Oregon's remote Malheur National Forest, and much more.

In any case, I'll begin posting again as these travels wrap up, but I thought I'd say hello from the road... Hope you're all having a good summer.

Siza at MoMA

I'm a bit too tired to put some thoughts together on this now, but here are plenty of photos of Alvaro Siza's lecture last night at the Museum of Modern Art, organized with the Architectural League of New York. His talk focused on one building, the Foundation Iberê Camargo in Porto Alegre, Brazil. As can be seen, Siza spent lots of time talking about his sketches and design process, before looking at some precedents from his past then construction shots and photos of the completed building. At the end he spoke with MoMA curator Pedro Gadanho; the lecture was prefaced by comments from Barry Bergdoll and a history of Siza's architecture from Kenneth Frampton.