Talk About Adaptive Reuse!

This 13th Century church in Maastricht, Netherlands, was re-purposed as a sensationally beautiful, contemporary bookstore. In the USA, we tend to tear buildings like these down because developers feel that the buildings are too difficult to adapt or that they are simply in the way of the developer's objectives.

Because of the dearth of historic preservation incentives, history and culture goes down with bulldozers and wrecking balls. Our own home town of Baltimore has demolished some fabulous old buildings to make way for such projects as high-rises and hospital expansions (requiring huge parking garages).

We do not oppose development, but we see projects like this as examples of the historical benefits and possible magnificence of reuse. The simple comfort of historical space and the urge to reflection they provide is immeasurable.

Small Sag Harbor Shelter

A great example of creating interior design cohesion even when creating zones within a small space.

Abstract Art Meets Football Stadium Success

Anne Truitt, "Apricots"

In 1975, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) included a number of Anne Truitt's Arundel paintings in an exhibition. "The works were white, starkly white, with a little white paint on top, and some marks in graphite." The first exhibition of abstract expressionism at the BMA, it was vilified by the art critic at the Baltimore Sun. Week after week The Sun expressed its denunciation of her work, even suggesting that all public funds be withheld from the BMA in punishment for its insult to public sense.

The event, including Truitt's diary account of it, is considered by Tyler Green editor of Modern Art Notes in this post. Green reports that the exhibition, today, of abstract artworks in museums, and even football stadiums, has become common and is well received. Perhaps the forcefulness of an art form's rejection may be the measure of its potential for future acceptance.

October 8, the Hirshorn Museum is mounting the first exhibition of Truitt's work since 1974. Ironically it was curated by Kristen Hileman. Hileman is the newly appointed Curator for Contemporary Art at...the BMA.

Link: Anne Truitt's legendary journal, Daybook

Frank Lloyd Wright's Unknown Legacy

Above is a trailer for a film entitled "One Hundred Women Architects." The film premiered at the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in June as part of a Symposium celebrating the 50th year anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum in New York designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Over 100 women architects, designers and artisans worked with Frank Lloyd Wright, many of them going on to remarkable careers of their own. They are Frank Lloyd Wright's unknown legacy, and their practice forms a legacy for all women working in architecture today. The full length 20 minute film features architects Marion Mahony, Isabel Roberts, Jane Duncombe, Lois Davidson Gottlieb, Eleanore Pettersen, and Read Weber.

It is a little known fact that Wright was one of the few architects who hired women to work in his studio. His work force included at least 25% women. This was unheard of in his day. The film pays tribute to this history.

We've dicovered that you can order this 20-minute documentary film plus its backstory, the symposium discussion and an interview with Lois Gottlieb, a Wright Fellow at http://bwaf.org.

Small Homes. Big Deal.

A change in the building code in 2005 has allowed Los Angeles architects and builders to expand housing for first time buyers and middle income families. The new code allows builders to divide small parcels of land to create grouped small houses. They differ from large condominiums, because individuals separately own their homes. Buyers must agree to adhere to certain restrictions, such as not altering the exterior, or painting the facade a different color. These small lot subdivisions promise increasing density without creating large, anonymous complexes. We think it is a smart idea. The Architect's Newsletter has the fuller story.

Expand Your Vocabulary

Nadel Architects with Barrio Planners: Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez Learning Center

viv-id(vĭv'ĭd)

Architectural Record offers The First Word: A Dictionary of New Architecture Updated Daily. The writers take a look at new projects and---in a single word---explain what about each design caught their eye. A nice resource for many different reasons, all good.

Julius Shulman Film in US Theatical Release

The documentary film, Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman, has found a distributor, Art House Films. Yipee! Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, VISUAL ACOUSTICS celebrates the life and career of Julius Shulman, the world’s greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream. Shulman, who passed away this year, captured the work of nearly every modern and progressive architect since the 1930s including Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Frank Gehry.

The film opens in NYC at Cinema Village on October 9. It works its way to the E Street Cinema in Washington DC for an opening on November 6. On October 16 VISUAL ACOUTICS opens in Los Angeles at, yes!, the Nuart Theater. The website link above provides dates for many other cities. This promises to be an enriching and fascinating film. By all accounts, besides being a genius photographer, Julius Shulman was a kind, funny and wonderful human. We could use that kind of role model. Right now. Let's go!

World's First Sustainable City to Be Built in the UAE?

How more ironic could it be that the petroleum rich United Arab Emirates (UAE) will be the first to build an entire city, Masdar, that will be the world’s first zero carbon, zero waste city powered entirely by renewable energy sources. While a substantial number of our citizenry see no need for action of any sort, even the petroleum nations get it. Hmm.

LAVA, The Laboratory for Visionary Architecture, a Sidney, Australia, firm created the prize-winning design.

2009 Shiny, Green Award

Photographer: Anne Gummerson

We are happy to say that our own Carri Beer, AIA, LEED, AP, and Rob Brennan, AIA, CSI, received the Natural Home Magazine 2009 Kitchen of the Year Award. They received the award for the superior integration of green materials, including recycled-paper counter tops; cork and rubber composite tiles; zero-VOC paint, PVC-free nontoxic wall coverings; 100% recycled cabinet material, and recycled-glass backsplash tiles. The addition of energy and water-saving appliances and recessed fluorescent lighting served to further enlarge the project's environmental scope.

Before Photo

Another distinction of the redesign was opening the dark, closed, 1960s kitchen and breakfast area to the living and dining rooms and the expansive view and ample daylight. The project is a great example of how a home owner can take a battered, cramped area and dramatically recreate it as a sunny, open, living space.

5 Shipping Containers + 3,0000 acres = Retreat

Cinco Camp, Roger Black’s West Texas retreat, is made of five shipping containers on his 3,000-acre ranch. “I wanted something that blends into the landscape and could be installed and eventually removed with minimal disturbance to the environment,” he said. Here's the NYT slideshow of Black's retreat.

Here's the NYT article relating the details of the project.

Rare Orchid Discovered on Eastern Shore

The "B'More Green" column in the Baltimore Sun provides this delightful story. Read it slowly. For those environmentally oriented, it is sheer poetry. It's here. Platanthera x canbyi: fewer than a dozen of these plants have been found in the last 70 years.

FAR FOOD

Click on image to enlarge.

A way to consider the real cost of food to the environment. Far Foods is an alternative packaging concept for supermarket produce, highlighting the distances that some foods travel and the resultant carbon dioxide released during the journey. The receipt features a boarding card style tear-off strip. By James Reynolds.

(via swiss-miss.com)

An Incomparable Chair Blog

For all of us who love them, the best chair blog, ev-ah. HERE.

First Floating Wetland Education Center

The Elizabeth River in Virginia is one of the most polluted in the country, but help is on the way. The University of Virgina School of Architecture (UVA) has established the Learning Barge as the first floating wetlands learning center in the country. There is a good podcast interview with founder of the project, Phoebe Crisman here explaining the ambitious goals of project and the dire situation of the river (the Crisman interview begins at 00:15:15).

Where others have placed structures directly on the wetlands, UVA decided to put people on the river. Floating on the river, one experiences the full impact of the river crisis and its effect on the wetlands. One begins to grasp the larger picture. A terrific idea.

One Step Backward for Design and Architecture

Declared unacceptable: A huge yellow sign spelling out “United States”
on the Canada-facing facade of the new border station in Massena, N.Y.,
is being dismantled because of security concerns.

The US Customs and Border Protection agency is removing the yellow text from the border crossing between Canada and the USA. The belief is that the prominence of the words creates a security risk, as if terrorists won't know there is a US border crossing there if they remove the text.

This disconnect between architecture and reason is painful. The effort to upgrade the dismal government architecture of the past decades has required effort and pressure from the design community. The move by the border patrol sets things back significantly. This article in the New York Times puts things in context.

Control Fate with Witchcraft

Christoph Neimann, illustrator, graphic artist and man-who-sews, provides a sweet treat in the NYT today. We think he has an utterly delightful take on life, on the childish superstitions that we teach ourselves, and our own stories about our triumphs over luck, love and life. We're inspired.

Neimann's blog is here.

Art Embedded in Architecture : The Future of Art?

Detail, Barry Anderson AtA award winning installation,
Kansas City, NCDFS Building

Kansas City's American Institute of Architecture (AIA) had a great idea and then did it: Art Through Architecture (AtA). New architectural projects may achieve Gold, Silver or Bronze levels of Art Achievement by dedicating a percentage of the construction budget to collecting artworks, commissioning temporary or permanent artworks, and/or including artists on design teams.

Recently the National Center for Drug Free Sport (NCDFS ) has been awarded highest level "Art Achievement" by Art through Architecture (AtA) for commissioning a new, site-specific video installation by Kansas City based artist Barry Anderson as part of a recent architectural renovation project completed by el dorado ,inc. architects. Said Project Architect, Josh Shelton:

"Anderson's video installation introduces an ambient and shifting horizon line, allowing multiple perspectives and vanishing points to appear and re-appear. His work, and our collaborative dialogue surrounding the work, was necessarily spatial. As a result, our team began to understand the new architecture surrounding us in expansive ways."

As the technology grows increasingly sophisticated, we are seeing video installations become embedded in architecture. There seems to be a sweeping trend developing. We will have to wait and see if it has the long-term life of physical art done with the hand or whether it is a passing fad. As few seem to "draw" architecture any more---buildings being designed almost exclusively on computers---it seems part of the zeitgeist that the art in buildings is no longer "drawn" either.

Bill Viola Commissioned by St. Paul's Cathederal, London

Bill Viola, Ocean Without a Shore, 2007, 3-channel High Definition
video/sound installation.Installation view by Thierry Bal.
Photography Kira Perov. Copyright Bill Viola and Kira Perov 2009.
Courtesy the artist and Haunch of Venison.

Video seems to be in the news stream today. But this news makes you go, "Well, of course. Who but Viola could pull this one off." Internationally acclaimed artist Bill Viola has been commissioned to create two altarpieces for permanent display in St Paul’s Cathedral. The project will commence production in mid 2009 with completion in early 2011.

Viola is an esteemed video artist, having created imaginative and ground-breaking video installations for over 35 years. The St. Paul's commission is to depict two themes, Mary and Martyrs. Says Viola:

“The two themes of Mary and Martyrs symbolize some of the profound mysteries of human existence. One is concerned with birth and the other with death; one with comfort and creation, the other with suffering and sacrifice. If I am successful, the final pieces will function both as aesthetic objects of contemporary art and as practical objects of traditional contemplation and devotion.”

Viola manages to grasp and relate issues that illuminate the mind and heart in a way that is beyond words. His moving exhibits remind us of our humanity in all its fullness from grief to exhilaration and joy. First one to London in 2011, please, send word.

From Hell to Heaven courtesy of video artist Marco Brambilla

Marco Brambilla has installed an astonishing hi-def video in the elevators at The Standard hotel in NYC. Here is a video of the installation followed by an interview with Brambrilla. The work was accomplished in Crush software, the leading-edge in video compiling.

As guests rise in the elevator they travel from hell (the street level), and then closer and closer to heaven (the penthouse?) When descending in the elevator the video is reversed, from heaven to hell! The hedonistic nature of it all is pretty sweeping.

Bye, Bye Birdy. Climate Change Pushes Migratory Birds North.

We recommend this article in Bloomberg press reflecting the impending effects of climate change on birds. A relevant comment by Mike Di Paola, the article's correspondent:

"My first reaction to the findings was, so what? It doesn’t necessarily mean that migratory ranges are shrinking or that bird numbers are dwindling. What we are witnessing, however, is symptomatic of much bigger problems.

The birds are reacting to global changes that ecologists believe presage chaos at the ecosystem level. A warmer climate will alter vegetation, the availability of prey and a thousand other habitat features too complicated to predict.

“Because species respond individually and in very complex ways, we expect that ecological communities will start to tear apart,” says Burger. “This is one of the things we’re worried about.”

Repeat: "...we expect the ecological communities will start to tear apart." This is a very profound issue.

Extreme Showdown

"You've pulled some leftover mac n' cheese out from the refrigerator, glance over at your counter, and see a microwave and a toaster oven. Which do you toss your plate of mac into, if you're looking to be the most sustainable?"

The Answer.

Julius Shulman : A Timely Exhibition

Pittsburgh, PA: Mark your calendar. The Carnegie Museum of Art has announced the exhibition "Palm Springs Modern: Photographs by the late Julius Shulman." The show opens 19 September and closes 31 January. The exhibition, to be held at the Heinz Architecture Center, offers a tour of the mid-century architecture and lifestyles of Palm Springs.

The exhibition features 100 original photographs by renowned Los Angeles–based photographer Julius Shulman of houses designed by iconic Modernist architects, such as Richard Neutra, Albert Frey, and John Lautner. Also presented are 20 original drawings, and renderings of three key projects by Neutra, including the famed Kaufmann House, designed as a winter residence for Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr.

Palm Springs is almost unique in America. For decades it served as a stylish laboratory for architects whose buildings are now being reexamined. The fame of Palm Springs is due in large part to the iconic photography of Shulman's striking and evocative images.

Essential equipment!

One weird leap for design. For the farm, kitchen, executive office, condo, kids room? This invites your imagination. Right here, honest. I'm sure Design Within Reach (DWR) is on top of this.

Walter Cronkite November 4, 1916 - July 17, 2009

And that's the way it is Friday, July 17, 2009. Walter Cronkite, known as the most trusted man in America. Rest in peace.

Thom Mayne Guest DJs!.

Two Toms: KCRW's Tom Schnabel with Thom Mayne

Radio station KCRW's "Guest DJ Project" asks cultural notables to discuss music. In this episode Morphosis' Thom Mayne offers five tracks that have inspired him over the years. We love this idea, and KCRW, which we tune into on iTunes radio.

Photographer Julius Shulman Dies

Above are two of the most famous photographs in archives of architecture. Both were shot by the photographer, Julius Shulman. Shulman, the legendary architectural photographer, died July 15th at the seasoned age of 98. His images brought fame to a number of mid-20th century Modernist architects and made him a household name in his time.

His home town of Los Angeles provides this obituary. It includes a video of Shulman and a collection of his photographs plus a Q&A with him done in 1994. May he rest in peace.

Mental Health Break

Director Claude Lelouch mounted a camera to the front bumper of a sports car, and films it howling through the streets of Paris very early one summer's morning. The film, just nine minutes long, certainly demonstrates his exemplary car control at speeds calculated to be as high as 135mph as he races for his rendezvous with a mystery blonde.

It is an astonishing sequence, filmed in one take as Lelouch runs red lights, mounts curbs, drifts round tight corners, and narrowly avoids pedestrians and will certainly have you on the edge of your seat, if not hiding behind it. Lelouch, was arrested after the release of the film.

Toyo Ito's New Stadium in Kaihsiung, Taiwan

The New York Times' Nicolai Ouroussoff reviews the Toyo Ito's new stadium that will serve as the World Games 2009 main stadium. Ouroussoff always gives us a perspective on architecture and design that is rich and illuminating.

Like many who came to prominence in the past decade or so, these architects have sought to create structures that explore the psychological extremes that late Modernism and postmodernism ignored. Their aim was to expand architecture’s emotional possibilities and, in doing so, to make room for a wider range of human experience.

Mr. Ito’s stadium is the next step on that evolutionary chain.

Enjoy the read.

Samuel Mockbee and the Rural Studio

The late architect Samuel Mockbee and Rural Studio, the design/build program he co-founded in rural Alabama's Hale County, are the focus of the newly released documentary Snakebit. The 60-minute film, produced for PBS, explores Mockbee's quest to instill in future architects an ethos of compassion and responsibility, as well as the knowledge and passion to improve their communities' quality of life.

Mockbee was one of the first architects whose designs fully integrated materials from the community into the homes his students built. His concept of sustainability and environment responsibility, the unique use of materials and the ingenious designs remain a guiding light for environmentalists. Here are some slides of the Hale County projects to give you the flavor of the Rural Studio's work.

Snakebit draws on never-before-seen interviews with Mockbee. The film takes place in the year following Mockbee's death from leukemia, the film chronicles the studio's struggle to maintain his guiding spirit and documents its affect on the communities it assists and the students it trains.

Ultimately, say the filmmakers, Snakebit offers a dialogue about what it means to be both a successful professional and a responsible member of society. Snakebit is scheduled to air on PBS stations in fall 2009. You wouldn't want to miss it.

17 Words of Architectural Inspiration

We just caught a TED presentation given by Daniel Libeskind, architect for Ground Zero in New York. Liebeskind shares 17 words that inspire his work. He is rapid fire and radical. Here's the video.