A new sun-simulating lighting system by CoeLux is on the verge of U.S. distribution. Photo © Michael Loos CoeLux units were installed at a hospital in Milan. The sense of daylight and shadow was so pervasive at the Milan-based firm Argot ou La Maison Mobile’s exhibition at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, visitors thought that the architects punched skylights through the Arsenale’s historic ceiling. But what appeared to be a brilliantly daylit room was actually an illusion created by a new lighting system that simulates natural sunlight with unprecedented levels of fidelity. The technology—developed over the last 10 years by

A new film series at BAM offers a rare view of a country in transition. Cuba: Golden '60sThe First Charge of the Machete, 1969. A gentleman, nattily attired in a slim suit and sunglasses, saunters through his bustling urban environment with cosmopolitan ennui en route to his achingly modern apartment. It’s an image we’d expect to find in a 1960s Italian film, with actor Marcello Mastroianni gliding through scenes directed by Antonioni or Fellini. But when it appears in a post-Revolution Cuban film, like Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s 1968 masterpiece Memories of Underdevelopment? That’s unexpected. It’s a view of Havana and

Photo by Sean Hemmerle, via Graham Foundation Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center, the embattled, hive-like structure in Goshen, New York, moved closer to being partially demolished. On March 5, County legislators failed to take action to invalidate a contract with Clark Patterson Lee, an upstate New York architecture and engineering firm, that calls for tearing down a large part of the building, renovating the remainder, and adding an 86,000-square-foot wing that bears little relationship to —and will obscure much of—Rudolph’s design. “That means they can go ahead and begin demolition at any time,” said attorney Michael Sussman, a partner

Someone’s got to do it, if New York City is to have well-maintained parks beyond destination showplaces like Central Park and the High Line—and his name is Geoffrey Croft. Crain’s called him “an army of one.”

March 2015 Even though the U.S. economy is steadily improving, growth in the public-building sector has been stymied by the fiscal condition of federal, state, and local governments. Only a slight uptick in spending is forecast for 2015.  Click on the image above to view a full presentation of these stats [PDF].

“La Sapienza,” opening March 20 at New York's Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, is a rarity: a fictional film about real architecture.

The Obama Drone Aviary would transport Presidential artifacts to the public. The drama surrounding the siting of President Barack Obama’s future Presidential Library has unfurled like a juicy tabloid story, with the minute details making headlines and stoking fierce debate. Most recently, speculation abounded when the Barack Obama Foundation, the organization charged with selecting a site, polled the Windy City’s residents—and no other prospective cities—on their feelings towards the project, while Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has lobbied to build the library on city parkland if Chicago is indeed selected. Now, with the Chicago mayoral race in serious contention, the Foundation