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
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) honored the winners of its 2006 Design Awards at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., today. The agency bestows these awards to recognize public projects that exhibit innovative design in range of categories from modernization and preservation, to sustainability and engineering.
With a wave of redevelopment rolling toward Boston’s old industrial waterfront, Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s much lauded new home for the city’s Institute of Contemporary Art (RECORD, March 2007, page 108) has established a beachhead for ambitious modern design.
The expansion of Newcastle Region Art Gallery marks Lab Architecture Studio’s first major building commission in Australia since 2002, when the firm—with collaborator Bates Smart—completed the massive Federation Square cultural center in Melbourne.
Starchitects Join Abu Dhabi's Big Cultural Gambit For architecture lovers its name seems especially apt: Saadiyat, the “island of happiness.” In roughly a decade, this undeveloped piece of land in Abu Dhabi will be home to an unprecedented concentration of buildings by Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Tadao Ando, and Zaha Hadid. The Saadiyat Cultural District is one of six neighborhoods planned for a harbor island in the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. Spearheaded by Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development and Investment Company, the $27 billion project is intended to increase tourism to this oil-rich Persian Gulf state. It is
Last month’s partial collapse of the Rafael Viñoly-designed David L. Lawrence Convention Center, in Pittsburgh, led to the local Sports & Exhibition Authority facing tough questions at a city council meeting on Monday. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that investigators are questioning a decision made in 2005 to omit protective coverings at the expansion joints where the building’s floor beams meet its frame. Since February, workers have been retrofitting these coverings— according to the original blueprints— in preparation for the Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show that opens today. (See also RECORD's coverage.) The fate of Paul Rudolph’s Blue Cross/Blue Shield office
The Architectural Billings Index (ABI) improved slightly in December, adding 0.1 points for a score of 55.4, extending its gains to three months after a sharp drop earlier in the year. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) notes that December marked the 34th month in a row that the ABI has boasted a score above 50 points—its best performance since its last long-term positive run between April 1998 and December 2000. Any score above 50 indicates growth; the AIA compiles the number based on surveys sent to 300 architecture firms that mainly work in the commercial sector. Another healthy
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