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Architects Tapped for Series of Salvation Army Community Centers, Thanks to Generous Joan Kroc Donation. Photo © Halkin Photography MGA Partners designed the Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in Philadelphia. When Joan Kroc died in 2003, she willed the bulk of her estate, $1.5 billion, to the Salvation Army'the single-largest charitable gift in history, according to some accounts. Two years earlier, the widow of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc had worked with the nonprofit organization to build a Salvation Army community center in San Diego designed by AVRP Studios. Joan Kroc, who had contributed $90 million to

After a period of neglect, efforts have grown to rescue the Oklahoma City theater that Harvard Five architect John Johansen considers his masterwork. Click on the slide show button to view additional images. In Oklahoma City, John Johansen’s 1970 Mummers Theater has long been one of those love-it-or-hate-it buildings. Now called the Stage Center, the structure is a whimsical assemblage of brutalist concrete forms and brightly colored steel ramps. Hovering above it all are three corrugated metal boxes containing the building’s mechanical systems. A member of the Harvard Five, Johansen, now 95, called the theater “not a building as we

Photo © Skydeck Chicago Related Links:Good Design is Good Business The symbiotic relationship between business and design will be recognized on March 9 at the American Architectural Foundation’s Accent on Architecture Gala at the stately Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. Architectural Record will present its first Good Design is Good Business Lifetime Achievement Awards to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for architecture and to Haworth for its patronage of design excellence. The Ledge at Skydeck Location: Chicago Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Pop-up architecture helps boost spirits in earthquake-devastated Christchurch. Re:START is constructed of colorful, stacked shipping containers.  Related Links: In Quake-Ravaged Christchurch, Ban's Cardboard Cathedral Ready for Groundbreaking One year after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 185 people, much of the city still lies in disarray. The central business district remains restricted to the public, with guards standing sentry at access points. Within this “red zone,” innumerable residential and public buildings have been earmarked for partial or complete demolition, including the iconic, Gothic Revival Christchurch Cathedral, whose 19th-century spire and tower sustained heavy damage. New Zealand economists speculate

A concept model of Ban’s scheme for the Cardboard Cathedral.  Related Links: New Zealand Herald: Interview with Head of Earthquake Recovery Authority Shigeru Ban Conceives Simple Solutions for Post-Disaster Zones in New Zealand, Japan A year after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake left Christchurch’s central business district in shambles, Shigeru Ban’s Cardboard Cathedral is ready to start construction. Dividing his time between offices in Tokyo, Paris, and New York, Ban has a stellar track record for helping when natural disasters strike. This time, his pro-bono contribution is a temporary replacement for the New Zealand city’s main Anglican house of worship, a 19th-century

With the Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas, David Schwarz brings an earnest take on a historical style to the capital of pastiche. The Smith Center for the Performing Arts by David M. Schwarz Architects  The Smith Center neighbors Frank Gehry's Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. These days, Las Vegas is best known for its themed casinos (Luxor, Paris, New York, New York) and their intentionally cartoonish buildings. Architects tend to be appalled. In that context, it’s easy to dismiss the Smith Center for the Performing Arts as another ersatz vision for Las Vegas. Unlike the

Photo © Yale School of Architecture, Susan Surface Archigram founder Peter Cook gave an energetic keynote address as part of the symposium. Photo © Massimo Scolari In conjunction with the symposium, an exhibition of the drawings, watercolors, and oil paintings of Massimo Scolari opened in the Yale Architecture Galleries. Related Links:Yale Renovation Judging by the number of attendees at a recent Yale School of Architecture symposium Is Drawing Dead?, many architects fear that the computer, and the increasing sophistication of tools for modeling, parametric design, and construction documentation, have made hand drawing obsolete. The event, held February 9 through 11,

In a victory for architectural firms, the Small Business Administration has backed away from a proposed major boost in the revenue a firm can have and still be rated “small.” That ceiling governs eligibility for small-business programs, such as contracts set aside for such firms. Last year SBA proposed hiking the “size standard” for both architectural and landscape architectural firms to $19 million in average annual receipts, from $4.5 million for architects and $7 million for landscape architects. Under the higher caps, small firms would compete against much bigger ones for small-business set-asides. After architects flooded SBA with criticisms about

Henry Urbach Photo © Winni Wintermeyer Henry Urbach, a one-time gallery owner who most recently was curator of architecture and design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, will be moving to New Canaan, Connecticut. He has just been named director of the Glass House, the Philip Johnson estate now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. (He succeeds the interim director, Rena Zurofsky, and founding director, Chisty MacLear.) Fred Bernstein: Did you visit the Glass House while Philip was alive? Henry Urbach: In 2001, when I was running the gallery in New York [Henry Urbach Architecture], I was invited