October 6, 2011
Image via ARCHIZINES
Starting on November 4th, the Architectural Association in London will be showcasing 60 architecture magazines, fanzine and journals from over 20 countries in an exhibition called ARCHIZINES. The exhibition stems from an online archive begun by curator Elias Redstone, who noticed a recent resurgence in alternative architecture publications. More after the jump.
April 11, 2011
“Not one of them, people like Rem Koolhaas and Nigel Coates, intended to build. When I left, I didn’t know anything about building. You could argue it’s a problem, but it’s also not: it’s the one moment you get to explore your creativity. I learned how to build later.”
– Amanda Levete, principal of the eponymous architecture firm founded after the dissolution of Future Systems and winner of the recent Victoria & Albert commission to re-figure the museum entrance.
In The Guardian UK‘s Sunday interview this week, Amanda Levete discuss her most “spectacular” failures, including a rejected proposal with artist Anish Kapoor to design the Princess Diana memorial fountain, being a female architect, her joint studio with then-husband Jan Kaplický, and the idea of conceptual architecture. Sometimes, architects don’t even want their designs built! Paging Boullée.
October 1, 2010
Fun fact: Gottfried Semper produced a design for the Victoria & Albert Museum that was rejected because of its expense. Unlike his ill-fated project, one of the following six proposals for the outpost of the V & A Museum at the Univerity of Abertay’s waterfront will actually be built. We’ve got beautiful new images of the projects, which interestingly all look a bit alike.
It seems that big, bold geometries clad in textured or fritted glass are the order of the day. It’s a bit like a Venturi Duck folly, housing a museum associated with decorative arts in a giant… ornament.
But the shimmering, luminescent proposals are actually very appropriate. Perched between sea and land, we can only imagine what some of the more reflective buildings would look like in the midst of storm.
Check out the V & A Dundee contenders after the jump.
September 29, 2010
Announcement! Six firms have been shortlisted for the new Victoria & Albert Museum outpost in Dundee, Scotland. Snøhetta with Gareth Hoskins Architects, Steven Holl, Sutherland Hussey, Delugan Meissl Associated Architects, Kengo Kuma & Associates and REX are all being considered for the commission; view their renderings below.[via Building Design Online]
Floor plan porn in the shape of Apple honcho Steve Jobs’s soon-to-be-built manse in place of his former 1920s Woodside home. Gizmodo has an exclusive on the architecture of the house (the “ne plus ultra of utilitarian modesty”), plus details on the 14-bedroom Spanish Colonial he’s demolishing. [via Gizmodo]
Though now vintage mid-century design is often viewed in black-and-white (a la Julius Shulman), the Modernist color palette was more akin to the brighter shades of a crayon box — the evidence is in the paint collection that Swiss architect Le Corbusier created for KT Color in the 1920s. [via Curbed National]
Mazel tov to New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger, whose son Ben, also a journalist, got hitched last weekend outside of Nashville, TN. [via New York Times]
