‘Utopie Dynamit’ (1976) by Gunter Rambow; All images: Museum of Modern Art

When Pedro Gadanho assumed his position as the MoMA’s new curator of contemporary architecture last fall, the country–New York City in particular–was a very different place. The Occupy fever was in full swing, spreading virally from city to city and reverberating in the streets, across public squares, and within university quads. The notion that architecture could actually channel and even shape the frustrations of a populace was, for the first time in a long time, beginning to take hold as viable public opinion. Of course, the opposite is also true–perhaps, more so, as OWS’ Sisyphean struggle to retain Zuccotti Park illustrates. Just as architecture can be yielded toward constructive social ends, so can it be used maliciously as a tool of containment and reprehension.

“Notes and Sketches on a New Museum of Modern Art” (1999) by Yona Friedman

Naturally, architects threw themselves into the fray, boisterously engaging in the debate on blogs and on the ground. Gadanho took notice, but was surprised at the novelty of a politicized architecture being advanced by a new generation of students and practitioners. The origins of architecture, he explained at last week’s press preview of his first MoMA exhibition, were wrapped up in politics, and therefore, diffused in its very fabric ever since. That show, ‘9 + 1 Ways of Being Political: 50 Years of Political Stances in Architecture and Urban Design‘, collects contemporary manifestations of this theme, teasing out the political substratum that has grounded the discourse of architecture from the 60s up to today. Continue.

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Wolf D. Prix of Coop Himmelb(l)au; Photo: Elfie Semotan

Wolf D. Prix isn’t afraid to speak his mind. The celebrated architect and erstwhile avant-guardist formulated his thoughts of the just-opened Venice Architecture Biennale in a scathing 570-word statement that’s more than a little tedious. The document, entitled (!) “The Banal”, voices Prix’s dissatisfaction with the Biennale’s “vanity” and the “boring” exhibitions that litter its grounds. He decries the event as an “expensive danse macabre” that doesn’t, and perhaps, never has fulfilled its founding purpose: to host and provoke “lively discussion and criticism of topics in contemporary architecture”. Read More.

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After several beleaguered months of protestations, Frank Gehry’s plans for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C. will be preserved and allowed to proceed to further design and construction stages. The high-profile project became entangled in a political debate that pitted the Eisenhower family against the memorial commission and the world’s foremost celebrity architect. Several classicist architects and associations, including Leon Krier and the National Civic Art Society, threw their support behind the Eisenhower heirs, who considered Gehry’s memorial inappropriate and an affront to the traditional neo-Hellenic temples which comprise the most visible (and loved) memorial architecture which dots the nation’s capital.

In its present iteration, Gehry’s $112 million memorial will feature parks and sycamore groves framed 80-foot tall columns supporting metal-woven tapestries depicting scenes of Eisenhower’s boyhood in Abilene, Kansas. The tapestries could easily be perceived as crass billboards, the family argued, emblazoned with content that ignored Eisenhower’s military and presidential achievements. Accepting these and other points of critique, Gehry had revised his scheme several times, rearranging the site plan to open up views to the Capitol Building–a point of contention among the engaged parties who feared that such panoramas would be obscured by the towering columns.Yet, little more of the proposal was actually changed, with its form and proportions virtually left intact against the family’s stated objections, which reached their most incendiary in tone at a March 20 congressional hearing when Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of the late president, denounced Gehry’s memorial as following in the aesthetic lineage of not only “Marx, Engels and Lenin,” but also Ho Chi Minh and even Nazi death camps.

Frank Gehry’s design for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial,  facing east down Independence Avenue; Photo: Eisenhower Memorial Commission, via

Despite the uproar, however, the Eisenhower Memorial Commission remained firmly allied with Gehry, whose design they praised as “exciting, creative and inspiring”. In a statement announcing the decision to move forward with the memorial plans, the board reasserted that the Gehry design “captures the life and the spirit, and commemorates the historic achievements, of Dwight Eisenhower.”

[via BDonline, The Washington Post]

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We tend to get an avalanche of angry emails when we publish anything even remotely political on Architizer. But with election season rocketing towards us like a TV playing an attack ad thrown by a campaign manager, we’re broaching a topic many political blogs have been talking about for months: the real estate profiles of the presidential candidates. Who’s got a thing for half-bathrooms? Who’s really, really into exposed timber? Click through.

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New York City taxis. Photo: Scrape TV

The spatial identity of a city is not limited to its buildings. Urban architecture is often complemented by or competes with majestic feats of engineering or lush, elegant landscaping– universally recognizable bridges and parks (such as Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco or Millennium Park in Chicago) often become the defining landmark of a city.

In New York, the competing, ubiquitous icon is the bright yellow cab. With a supporting (if not starring) role in many New York photographs and movies, the taxi is embedded in the identity and culture of New York. In expansive lobbies and through large windows, fine design is admired by looking out onto the surrounding streets. From the tallest, most famous buildings, sightseers peer over the railings to admire the tiny taxi cabs on the avenues below. The architecture of New York is embedded in its street life, of which taxis are often the stars.

After the jump: the new taxi is a missed opportunity.

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Amid the ongoing buzz over artist, designer, lawyer and activist Ai Weiwei’s arrest by Chinese authorities and subsequent forced confession, we bring you photos of his latest work, Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads. The installation, which features twelve large-scale bronze heads depicting the animals of the Chinese zodiac, was unveiled earlier this month at Grand Army Plaza by Mayor Bloomberg and (a symbolic) twelve members of the New York art community.

The work is said to be a modern representation of the zodiac fountain that was stolen from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860 by British and French forces.

More images after the jump.

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The Light Pavilion by Lebbeus Woods in collaboration with Christoph a. Kumpusch, in the Raffles City complex in Chengdu, China, by Steven Holl Architects. Image via Lebbeus Woods.

“I here state publicly that I will not accept another project in China until Ai Weiwei is released unharmed from detention or imprisonment.”

- That’s Lebbeus Woods, referring to the ongoing detention of Chinese activist Ai Weiwei, who was taken into custody on April 31. More>>

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“Certain kinds of tape can leave lasting residues on the marble and wood surfaces of the Capitol if the tape is not removed properly. The Capitol has more than 40 kinds of marble and that the chemistry of those stones and of different kinds of tape can interact differently. The longer the tape remains in place, the greater the chance for some effect.”

– Quoted from Michele Curran, an architectural historian with the National Park Service who was cited on behalf of the Walker administration in Wisconsin following the massive protester demonstration last week in Madison.

In an effort to restrict access to the statehouse (“our house”?) after a two-week occupation by state residents protesting the widespread public-sector budget cuts, Governor Scott Walker’s crack team claimed $7.5 million in damage to the building. In case you’re wondering, that’s an alleged $6 million in damage to the exterior, $1 million to the interior, and $500,000 for “additional” expenses.

Of course, even the architectural historian trotted out for the occasion didn’t know how the state had arrived at its damage figures. Curran said that “only a professional cleaning service experienced in such work and familiar with the situation in the Capitol could accurately estimate cleanup costs.”

Which calls into question the entire issue of the controversial budget cuts — maybe Wisconson’s new administration is just really, really bad at math?

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A lot has been said about the revolution in Egypt since it ended (“ended”) — especially on that hot-button topic, social media.

But it’s really hard to get a holistic picture of what actually happened in late January. Thousands of voices speaking at the same time gave the revolution power, but the network is impossible to perceive or understand at a glance (unless you’re interested in sifting through hundreds of thousands of tweets and seeing what you can come up with).

So if we’re to glean any insight into the role of the “digital mob” in political change, we have to turn to graphic designers who can visualize the uprising’s machinations.

Click through for the best maps, infographics, and visualizations of the ongoing unrest in the Middle East.

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