Image of A+ Award by Snarkitecture

Last night on the West Side of New York City we celebrated the first annual Architizer A+ Awards. Altogether 55 winners flew in from all over the world to be with us to celebrate architecture.

But this wasn’t your typical architecture award event. We skipped the typical conversations of architects speaking to architects and, instead, had a diverse crew of honorees and presenters get up on stage to fete the world’s finest buildings. We had developers giving awards to architects, we had architects giving awards to presidents… it was an architecture love-fest!

Last night we introduced six special achievement awards designed to remind a world that loves buildings that architecture belongs to everyone. Great architecture takes advocacy to be relevant, and it takes patrons with visions to create spectacular projects. That is why we are proud to announce the 2013 Architizer A+ Awards Relevance Award, Advocacy Award and Patron of the Year Award. We also announced the Do Good Award, Lifetime Achievement Award, and Building of the Year.

And our Special Award Winners are …

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A note from Marc Kushner, CoFounder of Architizer

Hot off our A+ Awards Gala last night in NYC, I am proud to announce a new partnership with Kinja, the Gawker Media platform that is revolutionizing commenting and interaction online: Architizer on Kinja.

Maybe you have noticed the banners at the top of the page on Architizer. We are relaunching Architizer this summer. You can expect bigger pictures, better search, and more integrated product and firm information. It is a brand new platform, built from the ground up to be the perfect tool for architects to browse and find inspiration.

But we know that architects aren’t our only readers. Part of what makes Architizer so powerful is that our readers span a spectrum from casual fans to working professionals. Partnering with Kinja means that we will continue to serve all of our readers. More after the jump!

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A note from Marc Kushner, CoFounder of Architizer and a practicing architect.

Last night we threw a party for architecture. Architecture needed a good party.

At a venue on the West Side of New York City we had entrepreneurs, developers, fashion designers, the CEO of a major sports team and the President of a nation. All of them at an architecture event.

Bjarke Ingels at the Architizer A+ Awards Gala

We had our partners from the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, and Coolhunting there, along with our sponsors, Emirates Airline, Audemars Piguet, Audi and Perrier Jouet. All there to celebrate architecture.

Of course we also had architects: 55 of the 87 Architizer A+ Award winners flew in from all corners of the world to be with us at the the first ever Architizer A+ Awards gala. This party was for them, to celebrate the inaugural year of the Architizer A+ Awards.

12 months ago we launched the Architizer A+ Awards to change the game, to break architecture out of its echo chamber and to change how architects are rewarded for their hard work. 1,500 entries from 100 countries, 200 jurors, and 50 categories later we succeeded.

Last night two people said things to me that made me realize we are on the right path:

First it was Thom Browne, the fashion designer, who said to me that he was so happy to attend an architecture event because all of his fashion is inspired by architecture. He never goes to architecture events because he had never been invited before!

Shame on us architects! We have fans out there that want to love us. Last night we broke architecture out of its shell and invited everyone to come and celebrate architecture with us.

Fashion designer Thom Browne at the Architizer A+ Awards Gala

The second person was President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia who said to the 400 guests that taking risks is the only way to build good architecture. He told the room proudly that he had been criticized for commissioning progressive architecture. He advised every architect that if you aren’t being criticized then you aren’t real.

President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili with Architizer Co-founder Marc Kushner

Last night we took a risk. We put architecture on a stage that it was unaccustomed to. We put it in a global spotlight.

Last night we broke out of the echo chamber where architects speak exclusively to architects, and we reminded the public how important our profession is.

Last night we held our heads up proudly and said to the world: We are architects! We design every space you live in, work in and play in. We are the people that design the backdrop to everyday life.

Last night we told the world that architecture is ready to be recognized for its contribution.

Congratulations to all of our winners. Congratulations to every architect in the world. This is just the beginning.

Stay tuned for more coverage and make sure to sign up to be a beta tester for the New Architizer, launching this summer

Photo credits: Matteo Prandoni/BFAnyc.com 

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All images courtesy of Danny Cheng Interiors

Hong Kong architect Danny Cheng’s new project for Discovery Bay rises from an enveloping reflecting pool like a mirage. The White Chapel deserves its name, because in order to give a reading of unity and purity, the designers made every single surface of the chapel’s interior a brilliant white.

With an overall form reminiscent of the US Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel, the Hong Kong project juts up in a series of A-frames, a pyramid of white before a back drop of mountain, sea, and sky.

Of course, it’s easy to be elegant when you’re sticking with one color, but the use of form and views prevents this project from being boring. Far from it, it’s one of the most dynamic uses of white since the heady days of the New York Five. More photos after the jump!

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Believe it or not, some of modern architecture’s most storied white boxes were never meant to remain so white. While Adolf Loos was skirmishing with Vienna’s Secessionist architects and descrying the whipping, stylized vines of their nature-inspired ornament, his 1930 Villa Müller in Brno was designed to be partially concealed in actual, living vines. Like Loos, Mies van der Rohe intended for some of his plastered white facades to be covered in vegetation. Few have paused to contemplate how this affects modernism’s clean, hard-edged historiographies, but with all this in mind, Act Romegialli Architects’ renovation of a disused garage on the slopes of the Raethian Alps — which uses raw nature as its primary form of exterior ornament — can be considered quite modern. More after the jump.

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“Burning Calories” is a collaboration between Henry Hargreaves and Amirah Kassem. All images courtesy of Henry Hargreaves.

The traditional way to determine the calorie content of a given food was to burn it; a (kilo)calorie is the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celcius. “Burning Calories,” a collaboration between photographer Henry Hargreaves and Flour Shop baker Amirah Kassem, takes this science to a new level, by literally setting food aflame.

Kassem baked cakes to look like common American fast foods; these were then ignited using a lighter and photographed. As a commentary on the Great Obesity Epidemic, the piece substitutes the body with metallic foil, subliminally holding up a mirror to our eating habits. “Burning Calories” also highlights the waste inherent in our ever greater consumption of food. More photos after the jump!

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All images courtesy OODA

OODA (Oporto Office for Design and Architecture), in collaboration with AND-RE, has unveiled its design for the Pristina Central Mosque. Meant to be the main mosque in the capital of one of the world’s newest independent countries, this sanctuary carries a heavy symbolic weight. The designers (and, indeed, the selection committee) had to balance historic mosque precedents with the need to build a new image for the formerly war-torn Kosovo.

The architects were quite diligent in this regard, researching mosque forms while separating the absolutely necessary from the merely traditional. The result is sensitive to the overall morphology of mosque design, especially in the Balkan context, where it is typified by large domes and thin minarets. The designers plan on sourcing traditional local materials, such as cut stone for the walls and what might be lead sheets for the dome’s exterior surface.

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Skyline Residence by Belzberg Architects in Los Angeles. Learn more about this project here.

Summer blockbusters are here! It’s that time of year when Hollywood puts out the sequels, prequels, action flicks, and star-studded vehicles that it hopes will break box office records. If The Great Gatsby or Iron Man 3 aren’t your speed, there’s always Star Trek Into Darkness or The Hangover III coming up. But whatever your movie taste (we won’t judge), you’re sure to love this collection of unconventional, modern movie theaters. No banal multiplexes here! So grab some popcorn (because we can’t guarantee these venues offer concessions) and enjoy.

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We’ve probably all seen a video or two of some adrenaline junkies base-jumping off the tops of skyscrapers and other monuments (and if not, here’s one to start you off). Part of the allure of such spectacles is the fact that these landmarks were never intended to be sites for such high-flying stunts; one can easily imagine the thrill of seeing monumental icons like the Burj Khalifa or Christ the Redeemer flash before your eyes as you race towards the ground at however many miles per hour at which these things occur.

The same could be said about these abandoned cement silos on the outskirts of Warsaw, which were certainly not originally built for extreme sports, but could function perfectly as a skydiving and scuba diving recreation center if Moko Architects have anything to say about it. What’s more, the Polish firm wants to retrofit the structures with a facade of shipping containers. Holy adaptive reuse, batman! Click through to see more.

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Hitting the A+ Awards Red Carpet tonight are (clockwise from top left): MoMA’s Paola Antonelli, David van der Leer, Elizabeth Diller, and Yves Behar

Our first gala for the Architizer A+ Awards starts in … a matter of hours! And we’re putting the finishing touches to make sure we look all pretty and polished for our guests, who are, needless to say, pretty distinguished. So, who’s gonna be on the red carpet tonight (you know, besides the President of Georgia)? From architect giant Juergen Mayer H. to intrepid photographer Iwan Baan, here’s just a sampling of the many glamorous names attending our fete!

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