Nouvel’s Torre Agbar in Barcelona (left) and his new line of shoes. Photos: via Oobject and Co.Design

Jean Nouvel has taken a break from drafting (and re-drafting) MoMA’s controversial new Tower Verre to launch a line of … leather moonboots? Yes, Nouvel is the latest architect to dabble in shoe design, launching his Pure Capsule Collection recently during Milan Design Week. So how do his monochrome booties match up to Zaha’s scale-y sandals, or Gehry’s spiffy spats? Click through for our comprehensive ranking of starchitect-designed shoes, from the fab to the fug.

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“Kosmaj Toy”, 2012 by Los Carpinteros at Sean Kelly

You would expect to see architects wandering the stalls of Design Miami or lounging by the entrance yearning to be chosen to design next year’s pavilion. But cross the parking lot and head into Art Basel Miami Beach and you’ll find that architecture is quietly taking over the art world. Proof of architecture’s ascension: Low Carpinteros’ spiky, sculptural Kosmaj Toy, pictured above, sold within 10 minutes of the opening, according to the New York Times ArtBeat. Indeed, scale models of buildings, cross-sectional drawings, feats of engineering, wild architectural fantasies, and even some full-scale built prototypes could  all be found at the Miami Convention Center (which is itself at the center of an oedipal architectural contest between OMA and BIG). Given that architecture is the mother of all arts, the strong architectural themes at ABMB might indicate a reunification is underway — and we couldn’t be more excited.

We’ve rounded up some of our favorite architecture-inspired art at ABMB. Click through to see them all, and don’t forget to share your favorites in the comments section below.

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All images: Ateliers Jean Nouvel / Adamson Associates

It’s been well over a year since we heard any substantial news of Jean Nouvel’s “Torre Verre”, the residential skyscraper and MoMA expansion that sparked more than a bit of controversy when the project was first unveiled in 2007. The design’s apparent irreverence for New York’s sanctified skyline—there were fears that the new tower would compete with the Empire State Building for stratospheric dominance—provoked the disfavor and subsequent bullying of the City Planning Commission, which pushed Nouvel to revise his scheme. The architect obliged, lopping off 200 feet of the tower and stripping it of its expressionistic steel exoskeleton in the process. The axonometric drawings depicting the modified design, which were released last August, reveal little as to what the structure would look like from the street. Now, new renderings give us a look at the tower at ground-level and inside. Continue.

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Foster + Partners’ Zayed National Museum; Image: Foster + Partners

Over the past several years, Abu Dhabi has been host to some of the world’s greatest architectural excesses–mankind’s tallest structure, the planet’s largest man-made island, plans for an extravagant underwater hotel–that remain unmatched by few other places (or economies). Abu Dhabi, it seems, can and will build whatever it wants. Museums are next on the list, and the capital city has enlisted the world’s most renowned architects to build its iconic cultural institutions.

But several delays, funding problems, and public concerns over worker conditions have held up construction of works by Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, and Jean Nouvel. Rumors were building that Gehry’s Guggenheim Abu Dhabi had actually been canceled, with Foster’s Zayed National Museum and Nouvel’s Louvre Abu Dhabi expected to meet the same “fate”. As if to allay those fears, the trio will speak at the Abu Dhabi Art Fair next week (November 7-10) to discuss their plans and progress of their respective projects. Read more.

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images © Building Satire

Building Satire, an architectural site we love for not taking itself too seriously, is diving right into the Halloween spirit. Their Architect’s Appearance/Morbid Models post features spooky spoofs on some of the world’s most renown architects (and an Architizer A+ Award jury member or two). Man-about-town Bjarke Ingels from BIG makes a great freaky Frankenstein, while we couldn’t possibly think of a better mime than Tadao Ando–aw, just look at him!–or a more convincing sad-sack jester than sad-sack (“sober”) architect Rem Koolhaas. One note of advice: we’d stay clear of Zaha if we were you…

See more photos.

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Zaha’s design for NAMOC; Rendering: Zaha Hadid Architects

Jean Nouvel has reportedly beaten out two architectural heavy-weights, Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry, to design a new building for the National Art Museum of China. The decision will be officially released in November, after the scheduled change in Chinese leadership, but apparently all competing offices have already been informed of the results.

NAMOC is renowned for its collection of 20^th-century and contemporary Chinese art, and it is hoped that the new building, sited next to Herzog & de Meuron’s Bird’s Nest, will become an architectural icon to draw visitors to the area. Nouvel’s design, which features patterns cut in its metal sheathing and subtle nods to the parametric arts, was recognized for its consideration of traditional Chinese poetics and painting, beating out the more, ahem, ego-centric designs of his competitors.

[via Jing Daily]

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As Archispotter blazes a trail across the United States, we at Architizer wanted to explore the architecture along her route. Previously, we covered projects between Boston and Chicago, and this week we cover the next 1,000 miles across the northern Plains between Chicago and Rapid City, South Dakota. First, we take a tour through Frank Lloyd Wright’s home state, Wisconsin, before moving on to Minneapolis, one of the most fertile grounds for architectural exploration in the country with projects by the likes of Herzog & de Meuron and Jean Nouvel. Finally, we cover the wide, flat, and endless plains of South Dakota. Here, we feature a couple of that state’s amazing national parks, which feature sculptures of sand and stone that reach architectural proportions. Travel across the middle of the United States with us, and enjoy some great architecture along the way. Continue.

Taliesin.

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425 Park Avenue; Photo: flickr user d. guija

A new Manhattan skyscraper is an event. We are far removed from the days of the city’s erstwhile competitive tower builders who manically thrust their stone edifices up in an intense race to the top. Things have changed, and the skyline must now be protected from the invasion of the new indignant glass towers, whose very materiality, it seems, is inherently inferior to that of their stone and brick forebearers. Yet, it cannot be said that there has been insufficient opportunity to produce a contemporary tower that at least approaches the exemplariness of New York’s greatest skyscrapers–few of the towers built in the last generation can be described as good, let alone great. But that may change, as 11 world-famous architects will be given their chance to recast the typology on their own terms.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, developer L&L Holding Co. has shortlisted Zaha Hadid, Foster + Partners, Herzog & de Meuron, Jean Nouvel, Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano, Richard Meier, and other top international firms to develop ideas for a new office tower to be built at 425 Park Avenue, which, ironically enough, is situated near the Seagram Building–easily the greatest structure to be erected on the island in the last half-century. The list will be soon narrowed, and those remaining will have till next month to present their proposal. The city hasn’t seen this many architectural egos since the (ongoing) disputes forged during the World Trade Center competition or when the UN Building committee pitted Wallace K. Harrison and Le Corbusier against one another in a battle of wills. Who will triumph and who will retreat, their prestige battered and bruised?

The site is currently inhabited by a 32-story building dating from 1957. Given Park Avenue’s peculiar zoning laws, leveling the structure in its entirety would prevent L&L from constructing the iconic skyscraper that they hope will rival Seagram and nearby Lever House both in height and quality. To work around this obstacle, the developers are planning to leave 25% of the existent steel structure intact, atop of which the new tower will rest.

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Frank Gehry’s design for the Guggenheim Museum Abu Dhabi

Construction of the new outlets for the Guggenheim Museum and the Louvre being built in Abu Dhabi has been delayed. According to the National, the Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC), the agency responsible for the Guggenheim and overall Saadiyat Island project, recently recalled the tender for contracts, effectively putting an end to the pre-construction process. Nonetheless, the TDIC stressed to reporters that despite disconcerting push backs, “the developer insisted that all projects on the island will be completed.”

Jean Nouvel’s design for the Louvre at Abu Dhabi

The company’s decision to push back completion dates for the Saadiyat projects–which include Jean Nouvel’s design for the Louvre Abu Dhabi, whose completion has been delayed from next year to 2013–and to re-tender contracts as a way to cut costs. It didn’t say when it would again seek bids. While some continue to fear that the Saadiyat project, which has been described as the world’s largest single concentration of premier cultural institutions, will never see completion, some view the recent events in a more positive light. David Dudley, the head of the Abu Dhabi office for the property consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle, believes that a more rigorous evaluation of large-scale development will allow only the projects that “achieve strategic benefit for the emirate” to progress.

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The “traveling toolbox” that is the BMW Guggenheim Lab packed up and left its humble spot on New York’s Houston Street yesterday with a closing party, and the mobile lab is now on its way to Berlin, where it is scheduled to reopen in spring 2012. Where are enthusiasts of pop-up architecture to look to in the interim? 1024 Architecture, the French collective most known for their audiovisual architectural light shows, has recently built a temporary open-air restaurant on Île Seguin in Paris. The extraordinary structure is part barge, part greenhouse, part oil platform and part wooden house, a peculiar hybrid that will soon disappear without a trace. More after the jump!

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