French Architect Rudy Ricciotti recently unveiled his completed Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (MuCEM), a cube of lacy concrete resting at the lip of the Mediterranean Sea. Located in Marseille, the museum chronicles more than 4,000 years of Mediterranean history with a collection of art and artifacts spread over 40,000 square feet of exhibition space. The project also includes a 335-seat theater. A delicate walkway bridges Ricciotti’s building with Fort Saint-Jean, the city’s historic military stronghold built in the 17th century. Click the image below to view a slideshow. Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (MuCEM)Rudy RicciottiMarseilles, France
Minneapolis Midtown Greenway British architect, journalist, and cyclist Peter Murray has embarked on a bike ride from Portland, Oregon, to Portland Place in London. As he makes the 4,347-mile journey with a rotating group of participants, he plans to survey the state of cycling in American cities, meet up with members of the design community, and raise funds for Architecture for Humanity and U.K. relief organization Article 25.Along the way, Murray is filing updates about his progress for Architectural Record. Stay tuned for the final U.S. leg of the journey when Murray arrives in New York City on July 2.
Hotel construction starts dropped precipitously during the recession. But now they are on the rebound, buoyed by consumers’ increased willingness to travel, falling vacancy rates, and rising room rates. Click the image above to view a full presentation of these stats [PDF].
The Palestinian MuseumHeneghan Peng Architects A museum of Palestinian history, culture, and identity, the largest in the West Bank, is under construction following the cornerstone laying in April. The Dublin-based Heneghan Peng Architects, who also designed the Grand Egyptian Museum, were chosen in an international competition. They drew inspiration from the West Bank’s landscape and are embedding the museum in a series of cascading fieldstone terraces. Clad in local limestone, a traditional building material, the structure consists of sleek, wedge-shaped sections. The Palestinian Museum is sited on a nearly 10-acre hilltop plot donated by the adjacent Birzeit University, near Ramallah,
Seven months after Hurricane Sandy devastated the Northeast, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg released two reports, one calling for major changes to the city’s building codes and the other laying out a $20 billion plan to protect the region from the effects of climate change.
Denise Scott Brown will not receive a retroactive Pritzker Prize, said the chair of the award's jury, Lord Peter Palumbo, in a letter released today. The letter is addressed to the two Harvard Graduate students behind a petition to have Scott Brown honored alongside her husband and partner, Robert Venturi, who won the prize in 1991.
In 2010, Moscow-based architecture photographer Alexey Naroditskiy shot Le Corbusier's contributions to the Indian city of Chandigarh, which the architect masterplanned in the 1950s. In 2011 Naroditskiy's photos appeared in an exhibition at the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture in Moscow. We share some of them here in light of Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes, opening June 15 at New York City's Museum of Modern Art. Click the image below.
If you are sitting in a very comfortable chair, you may owe your good fortune to designer Niels Diffrient, who died on June 8 at age 84 after a brief illness. Forbes magazine once called him “the granddaddy of ergonomic design.” He was that and so much more—the co-author with Alvin R. Tilley and Joan Bardagjy of a series of books called Humanscale 1-9, the designer of the Humanscale Freedom and Liberty chairs, Sunar Hauserman’s Helena and Jefferson Chairs, and Knoll Diffrient Chairs as well as of John Deere tractors, Trimline telephones, cockpits and truck cabs, and American Airlines graphics.
After a 12-year renovation, the museum reopens this weekend with a new garden and display spaces. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles CO Architects Los Angeles Are-invigorated Natural History Museum (NHM) of Los Angeles County will welcome the public this weekend in celebration of its centennial year and the two newest elements of its $135 million, 12-year overhaul. Taking a cue from the city’s modernist architecture, the museum blurs the line between indoors and out with the debut of the Otis Booth Pavilion and a 3.5-acre “Nature Garden.” The final two pieces of the museum’s transformation—a new 14,000-square-foot permanent exhibition
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