The American Institute of Architects today announced that Clyde Porter, FAIA, will receive its 2009 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award. Barbara Nadel, FAIA, will be honored with the 2009 Edward C. Kemper Award for Service to the Profession. The association’s Twenty-Five Year Award for 2009 will go to Faneuil Hall in Boston by Benjamin Thompson & Associates. The Whitney M. Young Jr. Award is given each year to an architect or organization “exemplifying the profession’s responsibility toward current social issues.” Both in his present position as the vice chancellor of facilities for the Dallas County Community College District and as
When the late Maria A. Bentel, FAIA, was a member of the Committee on Design (COD) in its earliest days four decades ago, the group decided to organize conferences overseas because “there was a lot of learning we could do to make us better architects.” So recalls Bentel’s daughter-in-law Carol Bentel, FAIA, a partner at New York-based Bentel & Bentel. The COD is one of the AIA’s 24 Knowledge Communities.
As summer ebbed, many U.S. architecture firms were touting how their expansion into foreign markets, which had ramped up in earnest over the last few years, could hedge them against any domestic economic downturn. The reasons? Strong currencies. Non-reliance on foreign trade. Under-housed populations. Robust oil revenue. Image courtesy HKS The HKS-designed Royal Children's Hospital, in Melbourne, is under construction. Despite the global financial crisis, HKS says there's still a demand for healthcare facilities in Australia. Related Links: Brazil: Firms Still Moving Forward China: Stimulus Package Offers Hope Germany: Looking Farther Afield for Jobs India: Bowing to New Realities Japan:
The London-based Arts Alliance Productions (AAP) has been putting on “ID: Identity of the Soul” since 1994. This theatrical work, based on Henrik Ibsen’s epic poem “Terje Vigen” and Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “A Soldier Dreams of White Lilies,” features dancers navigating around five screens displaying graphically manipulated landscapes. The set designs have been equally nimble. The show debuted in southern Norway with AAP improvising a lighthouse as a projection surface; for a staging in Japan in 2006, the group fashioned sails into screens by draping them over shipping containers in Yokohama harbor. Image courtesy Various Architects Measuring 40,900 square feet,
In 1973, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) moved into its 180,000-square-foot headquarters on New York Avenue, near the White House. The Modernist building was designed by The Architects Collaborative, a firm that counted Walter Gropius among its founders. Photo courtesy AIA The AIA is renovating its headquarters, designed by The Architects Collaborative and completed in 1973. Now, more than three decades later, the aging concrete building is slated to undergo its first comprehensive renovation. “The building is 35 years old and it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep the systems operational,” explains James Gatsch, FAIA, who is serving as
Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects will receive the Firm of the Year Award, and Adele Naudé Santos, FAIA, will be honored with the 2009 Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education.
Correction appended December 10, 2008 The UK has drawn fire from UNESCO, the United Nation’s cultural agency, for failing to adequately protect seven of its 27 World Heritage sites from the effects of development. Photo ' Atlantide Photography/Corbis (top); Douglas Pearson/Corbis (above). UNESCO says Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London are threatened by development. The warning, issued by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee after its annual meeting in July, triggered a review that could lead the agency to label the sites as endangered. If sufficient action is not taken, the sites could be removed the World Heritage List. UNESCO’s warning
Announcing a year's worth of events to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2009, Lincoln Center president Reynold Levy admitted that the 16-acre arts complex doesn't give up its treasures easily. 'For 50 years,' he said, 'visitors to Lincoln Center have been rewarded for traversing eleven lanes of traffic.'
Among the cache of architectural treasures in the small-town design mecca of Columbus, Indiana, one has been accessible only to a privileged few: The Miller House, an elegantly understated one-story pavilion by Eero Saarinen with a powerfully geometric landscape by Dan Kiley. But this exemplar of mid-century Modernism is likely to open for public tours now that the Indianapolis Museum of Art has announced it will acquire the 6,838-square-foot house, a National Historic Landmark. Photos courtesy Indianapolis Museum of Art The Indianapolis Museum of Art has announced it will acquire the Miller House, a National Historic Landmark. Completed in 1957