A tower Daniel Libeskind designed for the center of Milan might not get built because Italy’s prime minister thinks it exudes a “sense of impotence,” reports The Independent. Silvio Berlusconi, speaking to an Italian newspaper, expressed his displeasure with the proposed skyscraper, which appears to lean forward, and threatened to withdraw planning permission for the project. An angry Libeskind fired back in an interview with the same newspaper, comparing Berlusconi’s remarks to Fascist ideology and accusing him of “hating foreigners.” “In Fascist Italy, everything that was not ‘straight’ was considered ‘perverse art,’” Libeskind was quoted as saying. “My tower is

Correction appended June 30, 2008 “Architects are the most educated and have the highest incomes of all artists.” That’s what Chicago Tribune reporter Charles Storch discovered in a new report from the National Endowment for the Arts. The report also says that the architectural industry boasts the highest median income ($58,000) of any professional field. Other findings: 26 percent of architects are under the age of 35; 33 percent are self-employed; and 22 percent are females. Read more on The Skyline blog. Image courtesy Ikan Maas Media On Wednesday, Jerusalem dedicated a Santiago Calatrava-designed suspension bridge that has drawn criticism

On Tuesday, a school board in Sarasota, Florida, voted to raze the Paul Rudolph-designed Riverview High School to make way for a parking lot. The narrow 3-2 vote ended a two-year long battle to save the structure, which opened in 1958, reported the Herald-Tribune newspaper. Preservationists were trying to raise money to convert the building into a community music center, a project anticipated to cost $15 to $20 million. As of this week, pledges totaled a mere $100,000, according to an article in The Architect’s Newspaper. "The time to show me the money was today,” said board member Shirley Brown

An elephant house designed by Foster + Partners for the Copenhagen Zoo, in Denmark, opened this week, marking the firm’s first zoological building. “I don’t know how I can go back to designing office blocks for grumpy humans after this,” John Jennings, a lead architect on the project, told The Guardian newspaper. According to Foster’s office, the design was guided by research on the behavioral patterns of elephants. Because bull elephants tend to wander away from their herd, the designers created two sunken enclosures, both made of terra-cotta colored concrete and topped by glass domes. The fritted glass is meant

Le Corbusier’s famous Ronchamp chapel (1954) in France is the center of a fierce online debate, reports Building Design. Cesar Pelli, Richard Meier, and Rafael Moneo are among the 1,500 people who have signed an online petition to block Renzo Piano’s scheme for new visitor facilities and accommodations for nuns at the landmark site. The Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris initiated the petition. In response, Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), and its client, L’Association Oeuvre Notre-Dame du Haut, have launched a counter-petition—and have collected nearly 250 signatures, including those of Peter Cook, David Adjaye, and Massimiliano Fuksas, according to the

A crane collapsed at a Manhattan construction site this morning, killing at least two workers, The New York Times reports. The accident occurred on the Upper East Side, at 91st Street and First Avenue, where a new 34-story condominium tower, the Azure, is rising. The building,  designed by SLCE Architects, is being developed by The DeMatteis Organizations and The Mattone Group, according to the Azure Web site. The crane allegedly snapped apart and crashed into a building across the street, a law enforcement official told the Times. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told USA Today, “This is just unacceptable

As the academic year draws to a close, several architecture schools have announced changes in leadership. Monica Ponce de Leon, principal at Office dA, which she founded in Boston in 1991 with Nader Tehrani, was appointed dean of the University of Michigan’s A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. She starts her new position on September 1. Leon is leaving Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD), where she is director of its digital lab. She joined the GSD faculty in 1996 after teaching at the University of Miami, Northeastern University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Ponce de

George H. Miller, FAIA, has been chosen to serve as president of the American Institute of Architects in 2010. Miller, a partner at New York-based Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects, was elected by AIA delegates during the institute’s national convention in Boston last week. He is the first New York City architect to hold the top AIA post in more than three decades, since the late Max Urbahn was president in 1971, according to an article in The Architect’s Newspaper. A Berlin native, Miller grew up in the U.S. and received his B. Arch from Pennsylvania State University in

The University of Pennsylvania plans to announce today that Marilyn Jordan Taylor, FAIA, a long-time partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, will be the new dean of its School of Design.

The University of California, San Francisco has tapped Rafael Viñoly Architects to design a stem cell research center, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The 74,000-square-foot facility, to be built on the university’s hilltop Parnassus campus, will be “a silver, terraced structure that snakes uphill along the winding curves of Medical Center Way,” the article explains. Dr. Anrold Kriegstein, director of the university’s stem cell institute, told the Chronicle that the “unusual design” was selected for its ability to accommodate a restrictive building site and to facilitate collaboration among doctors and scientists. The $119 million project was formally announced Wednesday,