Articles by Suzanne Stephens

Backstory: Soane's Enclave: A Progress Report

February 15, 2011

Sir John Soane’s House Museum in London is in the midst of a much-needed expansion, renovation, and restoration. The legendary Sir John Soane’s Museum, at Number 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London, has been undergoing an intensive expansion and restoration program that is expected to be completed in 2013. With the help of public and private funds, already one significant piece has been has been finished: In early 2008, the museum opened a restored and remodeled structure at Number 14, which Soane designed but never used — as he did Number 12, his first residence, and the more lavish Number

Suzanne Stephens

January 16, 2011

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A Vision by Peter Greenaway at the Park Avenue Armory You had to be there. A hyperbolic production that fuses the hokey theatricality of “son et lumière” (sound and light) tourist attractions with the razzle-dazzle antics of Cirque du Soleil was on view at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City until January 6, 2011. Leonardo’s Last Supper: A Vision by Peter Greenaway, a kitschy, multimedia spectacular (kitschtacular?), is basically a photographic reconstitution of da Vinci’s famous fresco, punched up by films, lighting, music, and voice-overs. Masterminded by Greenaway, the Welsh-born impresario, filmmaker, and artist (with a strong interest

Suzanne Stephens

January 16, 2011

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A film festival highlights the proliferation of design documentaries. For years, documentaries on architecture have appeared mainly on public broadcasting stations in the form of earnest presentations of buildings and their pioneering creators. Often they are too earnest. But a number of factors indicate vibrant growth and change. Perhaps the accessibility of video cameras allows more architecturally minded novices to turn from amateurs to auteurs. Add to that the proliferation of short trailers or film excerpts on YouTube and such online outlets, and architecture on film seems to be everywhere. Photo © John F. Turner (above) TOP: Nicknamed “The Blob,“

Suzanne Stephens

January 16, 2011

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George Baird is a principal in Baird Sampson Neuert Architects and was the dean of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto until 2009.

Suzanne Stephens

January 16, 2011

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Alexandra Lange is a critic, journalist, and architectural historian. She is the coauthor, with Jane Thompson, of Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Rick Mather Architects + SMBW introduce space, light, and calm into a museum.

Suzanne Stephens

December 16, 2010

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Museum expansions designed by prominent architects often result in a new main entrance to the addition’s grand (and new) lobby/party hall.

Peter Buck Center for Health and Fitness, Bowdoin College

Cambridge Seven creates an ethereal extension for exercise on a traditional campus.

Suzanne Stephens

November 15, 2010

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Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, has one of the few consistently picturesque New England campuses where brick-and-stone 19th-and-20th-century Federal, Classical Revival, and Gothic Revival structures are clustered around a large, tree-lined quad.

St. Anthony Hospital

Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects' hospital and medical office building avoids an institutional look through natural materials and evidence-based design.

Suzanne Stephens

October 16, 2010

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In designing St. Anthony, a privately funded hospital in the wooded area outside Seattle, the architects at Zimmer Gunsul Frasca (ZGF) asked themselves, “What would you want to see in a five-star hotel?” says ZGF interior designer, Anita Rossen.

Suzanne Stephens

September 16, 2010

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Ben van Berkel, principal of the Amsterdam-based architectural firm UNStudio, is known for his breathtakingly swoopy designs of sleek surfaces that never seem to end. The gleaming, aluminum-clad Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, with its double-spiral-ramped concrete structure, convincingly argues the case [RECORD, November, 2006, page 128]. After completing that nine-story-high, 270,000 square-foot building, you might think that a 5,840-square-foot (gross) residential loft would be too rinky-dink a commission. Van Berkel argues otherwise: “I’m not interested as much in the scale of a project as with the program,” he explains. In this case, he was asked to design a loft

A World Within a World

Armani Hotel Dubai

Suzanne Stephens

August 16, 2010

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As one more sign of the decline of the West and its dominance in things ultra-chic, Milanese fashion designer Giorgio Armani chose the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai for the setting of his touted debut in the hotel business.

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Credits: 1 AIA LU/Elective; 1 AIBD P-CE; 0.1 ICC CEU; 0.1 IACET CEU

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