For admirers of the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, the 73-year-old’s death on October 12 culminated a year of disappointments. In April, Kurokawa lost an election bid for the governorship of Tokyo; then, in July, he and his wife, actress Ayako Wakao, were both unsuccessful in their campaigns for seats in Japan’s Upper House of parliament. Concurrent with Kurokawa’s candidacies, plans were announced to raze Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower, completed in 1972, which was an icon of the Metabolism movement; it closely follows last year’s demolition of Kurokawa’s Sony Tower in Osaka. Photo Courtesy Kisho Kurokawa Architect & Associates Kisho Kurokawa
A pledge by Harvard University to cap carbon emissions from a new cluster of science buildings, heralded last week, coincided with a bit of green news from the second-oldest Ivy. Yale University announced that Foster + Partners is designing a LEED-certified building to triple the size of its business school. Harvard’s news comes as part of its six-year-old Green Campus Initiative, which has guided Cooper, Robertson & Partners’ plans for a 341-acre expansion campus into Allston, near its historic home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The university is pledged last week that its new Allston Science Complex will emit no more than
Following his successful sale of Case Study House #21, Chicago’s Modernist-design auctioneer Richard Wright is putting another mid-century residence on the block. But instead of a Pierre Koenig icon, the lot up for grabs on October 7 is an arguably kitschy work by Marcel Breuer. Photos Courtesy Wright and Brian Franczyk Photography) A porch spans the south elevation of the Wolfson house; its design features Marcel Breuer’s trademark cable material. At the request of his client, Breuer incorporated a Spartan Trailer into the house. The trailer’s interior includes a kitchen. The idiosyncratic house, located in Dutchess County, New York, is
When Public Architecture launched The 1% Solution in 2005, it tapped into the architecture community’s altruism: The San Francisco–based practice and public-service advocacy has since signed up 157 firms to pledge 1 percent of their time to nonprofit organizations that could not otherwise afford design direction. And yet Public Architecture executive director John Cary admits that some of those promises have been “more symbolic than anything.” A three-pronged initiative, to be unveiled September 4 along with a name change to simply “The 1%,” will help architects realize their best intentions. Image: ' MendeDesign A mockup of The %’s new handbook
Classical music, ballet, musical theater, opera—the acoustician Russell Johnson, who died August 7 at age 83, loved them all. Johnson read about the musical arts voraciously, attended performances regularly, and, as the founder of the 37-year-old acoustics and theater-planning firm Artec Consultants, raised the visibility of acousticians in the design and construction of performance venues. Photo by Chris Lee, Courtesy Artec Consultants Russell Johnson Johnson relied on more than just his enthusiastic spectatorship to determine the acoustics for some this generation’s most renowned concert and recital halls, theaters, and opera houses. “He was not a fly on the wall,” says
Nadel-designed skyscraper to blossom in Saudi desert Second time’s the charm for Nadel Architects. The Los Angeles–based firm placed second to Norman Foster in a competition to design Al Faisaliah Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 14 years ago. Now the same client, the philanthropic King Faisal Foundation, has commissioned Nadel to design a 2.3 million-square-foot mixed-use building on 10 acres adjacent to Al Faisaliah. Images: Courtesy Nadel Architects Like its predecessor, the new building features a retail plinth; the two will be connected to form a mega-mall. While Nadel’s project will showcase major evolutions in retail design since Foster’s project
In the wake of several failures to preserve well known Brutalist buildings around the nation, preservationists in Baltimore are readying themselves for an August 14th hearing that will decide the fate of this city’s own cast-concrete progeny. The Morris Mechanic Theater, designed by John Johansen, will come before a public hearing at the Baltimore Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (BHAP) for the recommendation of Baltimore City Landmark status; the meeting will also set a six-month delay on new construction permits at the building’s site. Photos: Courtesy Michael V. Murphy Architect John Johansen’s 1967-vintage Morris Mechanic Theater, in Baltimore, is
