AA investor watchdog group is questioning Norman Foster’s recent buyback of shares in an employee trust, which occurred prior to the proposed sale of his practice to private investors. The U.K.’s Telegraph reported on April 1 that the deal could net Foster “hundreds of millions of pounds.” But the Employee Share Ownership Centre wants to investigate how the trust was valued, and whether or not all of Foster’s employees knew of its existence. The Telegraph reports that Foster’s practice is estimated to be worth as much as $1 billion. The Boston Globe came out swinging in favor of developer Steve

Efforts to take Boston’s skyline spectacularly vertical have snagged in political and business realities.

In a move that it touts as “predestined,” the Kimbell Art Museum today announced that it has engaged Renzo Piano to design an expansion. Early in his career, the Italian architect worked for Louis I. Kahn, who designed the original structure that opened in 1972. The Kimbell is widely viewed as a masterpiece, displaying Kahn’s genius for infusing interior spaces with soft daylight. But at 120,000 square feet, the popular Fort Worth museum is now unable to house both its permanent collection of modern art as well as special exhibits. In 1998 it purchased land across the street, which will

While Beijing’s urban reinvention for the 2008 Summer Olympics is attracting plenty of attention now, similarly large-scale preparations are under way in Shanghai, China’s largest city, for the 2010 World Expo. Compared to the Olympics, which lasts just a fortnight, this event will extend six months and is expected to attract 70 million visitors, according to the city’s projections. Given the Expo’s theme, “Better City, Better Life,” Shanghai has already started huge infrastructural upgrades, including the construction of four new underground train lines that will nearly double the capacity of its mass-transit system. Work has also begun on a second

As interest in green design keeps building, a pioneer of sustainability, McDonough + Partners, continues to capitalize on the trend. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, the firm blazed a trail in sustainability with projects such as its grass-roofed headquarters for Gap Inc., in San Bruno, California. After this influential building was completed in 1997, demand for work slowed in the Bay Area. But things are looking up again—so much so that McDonough opened an office in San Francisco last year. It has won three major commissions in the region, including two for technology-sector clients, and now is setting its sights across

Hitoshi Abe begins his new job today as the chair of the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

The latest European architect to hop the pond for a U.S. debut is Will Alsop, a Brit who hopes to transform a long-unused power plant along the Hudson River in Yonkers, New York, into a sweeping residential complex featuring a museum, restaurant, and park. Courtesy SMC Alsop Under the plans, which Alsop unveiled to a 50-member audience at a public hearing in Yonkers last week, the hulking 80,000-square-foot power plant will lose its two smokestacks and gain a large residential tower. A third of the 400 units will be luxury condos and the rest rentals, with some reserved for low-income

If you think that Richard Rogers winning the 2007 Pritzker Prize is akin to his receiving a lifetime achievement award, the 73-year-old architect contends that his finest work is yet to come. “One’s best building, one hopes, will be the next building. The next mountain range is very exciting,” he told the U.K.’s Independent on March 30. And though the Pritzker was the only remaining architecture prize he hadn’t already won after a much lauded career, Rogers modestly claims that he wasn’t expecting it. “It was a wonderful surprise,” he told the Financial Times on March 29. Santiago Calatrava unveiled