Steven Holl Architects merges architecture, art, and landscape into a unified experience for the Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City
Photo by John Brooke, courtesy Irene Jenks Charismatic, daring, artistic. We don’t always associate these qualities with structural engineers, but the highly esteemed Bill LeMessurier, who passed away June 14 at the age of 81, embodied all of them. Trained as an architect at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, LeMessurier graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in building engineering and construction in 1953—“then all his [Harvard] classmates hired him,” remembers his wife, Dorothy, who married him the same year. Indeed, since LeMessurier started his eponymous practice in 1961, he distinguished himself with a
Margaret Helfand, FAIA, died June 20 at the age of 59. Her death was due to colon cancer. Since she opened her office in 1981, Helfand had created a body of work distinguished for its clean, Modernist vocabulary and skillful use of natural materials, combined with a quiet and subtle inventiveness. Her commitment to the craft of construction, the exploration of materials of varying textures, as well as her attention to details, set Helfand apart from a number of her colleagues. Photo: Courtesy Helfand Architecture Margaret Helfand Except for a brief partnership, Helfand practiced on her own and gradually broke
Richärd + Bauer, a young Phoenix-based firm, has demonstrated numerous times in its 11-year history that it can still advance architectural quality in inexpensive institutional buildings.
The more successful buildings by Rafael Viñoly, FAIA, display distinct athletic gestures—from the smoothly arcing roof of the 1994 Lehman College Physical Education Facility in New York to the exuberant, glass-barrel-vaulted roof of the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts in Philadelphia.
The downtown boutique aesthetic that emerged in New York City’s SoHo loft district in the late 1970s caught on––and stuck around––largely because it showed off arty clothes to striking effect.