10(+) MORE architects i have been thinking about

Generally agree with the above - although I think DS+R are a pretty darn good firm and have less of a "branded" feel to their work. There are certain devices that recur, yeah, but they do seem to actually care about the specificities of site, or at least of architectural context. Landscape maybe not so much, but they seem to favor urban contexts, at least in the stuff that I've seen.

Absolutely! With DS+R I think it's more a case of "we did this before and it worked really well" rather than a branding element.

Here are before & after images of a high end restaurant I finished this past summer. It's in a former auto garage in an alley and it's hard to tell from the photo but the kitchen is a series of open islands in the middle with tables all around, so no seat is more than about 10 feet from the cooking. One of the goals was trying to figure out how to make a 4 star experience in a raw space and we decided to keep the shell as rough as possible while everything at a tactile level during the course of the meal (chairs, carpet, table finish) would be very refined. Got a bunch of other projects I need to have shot and some more opening soon.

http://i41.tinypic.com/23kw6ld.jpg

http://i41.tinypic.com/vg4gns.jpg

I DIED, that's lovely! The exposed ductwork seems like a nice mediator between the raw oldness of the wall surfaces and the shiny newness of the kitchen hood etc. Adds up well to me.

thanks!

I may slap the next client who says they're going for a "farmhouse aesthetic". Unless they're doing a farm.

Have these people actually been in farmhouses? I could unload some genuine farmhouse paraphernalia if they need some.

Amateur Architecture principal Wang Shu won the Pritzker Prize! First winner I've really been stoked for in my time of being an archinerd - we got to visit a bunch of their stuff on this last trip and it was all awesome.

So unexpected and great! Glad the Pritzker committee seems to have moved to recognizing people doing great work when it's actually being done rather than as a lifetime achievement award.

Yeah, I think this was a pretty great choice for pretty much the exact reason I DIED mentioned.

http://places.designobserver.com/feature/how-to-be-an-architecture-critic/32278/

So I made a point of uploading all my Amateur Architecture (Wang Shu/Lu Wenyu) photos last week to celebrate/capitalize upon the Pritzker excitement... full set here and here's a few faves...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7178/6940309289_d3907f59e2.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7043/6950798251_ebe54391b6.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7040/6937397041_75ef3bc94b.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7196/6940260785_778fbe38f1.jpg

(If you follow the link, my apologies - I've recently gone digital and while I love lots of things about it, it seems to be weakening me as an editor, that's a lot of pictures!)

Photos still great! I showed some of your recent pics to an architect friend at the bar last week. On my phone so... not the presentation they deserved, but good.

Aw gee thanks! I hope to soon be famous at bars across the nation.

great photos. particularly like the bottom two.

Thanks - yeah, their firm has a really nice handle on texture, for lack of a better way of putting it.

http://furrrocious-forms.tumblr.com/ geeeenius

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1xz1p2Gfa1rsiucno1_500.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1w1ca9Kyv1rsiucno1_500.jpg

Meaohaus

put a cat on it

Is Daniel Libeskind the worst major contemporary architect? Cheap looking if not cheap to build structures that are notorious for user complaints. A few decent projects mixed in with a ton of shlock.

http://daniel-libeskind.com/sites/default/files/styles/fixed_width_10/public/Key%20The%20Ascent%20at%20Roeblings%20Bridge.jpg
http://daniel-libeskind.com/sites/default/files/styles/fixed_width_10/public/sm1%20%28c%29%20Kim%20yong%20Wong.jpg

http://daniel-libeskind.com/sites/default/files/styles/fixed_width_10/public/Key%20Denver%20Art%20Museum%20Residences.jpg
http://daniel-libeskind.com/sites/default/files/styles/fixed_width_10/public/IMG_3031%28c%29%20Zumtobel%20Lighting%20GmbH_0.jpg

fyi that last lighting sculpture is called "masterpiece"

Libeskind is such a tragedy to me because the Jewish Museum is kind of great (kind of badly flawed but kind of great), and at the very least a kind of definitive study on the idea of trying to use a building to produce certain emotional and perhaps bodily effects - - - and each subsequent piece that reuses the language to no effect at all just cheapens the impact of the one good building. That one in Cincy just blows IMO although I've talked to people that liked it.

Worst major name, I'd have to think about for a bit. There's plenty of people where they are just not to my taste at all but I believe they are competent builders who have something interesting they're trying to do so it's hard to say they should just be tarred and feathered. Hmm.

yes he's the worst by some distance. "competent builder" is the last way to describe him.

I think part of it may be that he just tends to accept the types of projects with questionable clients and budgets that others at his level turn down. But only a part of it.

I do not like those buildings.

so it may read different in person but the photos of the H&dM/Al Weiwei Serpentine pavilion sure are disappointing :(

it looks totally joyless from the pics. i could have forgiven the somewhat forced/undergrad nature of the "excavation" (even though there was nothing to excavate, as it turns out, which should have been obvious) if the result had some sense of fun or any other spatial interest.

having said that the nouvel pavillion seemed fun from the images but was kind of oppressive to spend time in.

architecture photography is a hell of a field

I'm pretty stoked by the concept of the pavilion but it definitely pushes up against the limits of a "statement" versus material/space/promenade/detail/whatever else might actually make up an architectural experience. I'm a fan of everybody involved so I want to give it a fair shake... we're taking the students to see it later this month hopefully.

^ yeah I think my high expectations where part of why I found the result so disappointing. Seems like they felt the need to create a sort of anti-pavilion but SANAA already stripped it back about as far as it could go.

I'm breaking my own rule of trying to ignore things called pavilions or viewing towers in architectural discourse as I generally think just providing shade or a platform is too low a bar to clear in terms of dealing with actual challenges of buildings.

Ha yeah - - they can be nice experiments for ideas though, and at their best they really can have as much thinking and care as a building, in the way that, I dunno, a haiku can take as long to write as a novel (or whatever) but it really is a whole different order of challenges.

(Viewing towers are the worst though, somehow!)

architecture photography is a hell of a field

― mh, Thursday, 7 June 2012 20:27 (2 months ago)

Might I recommend the pretty (if boring) Julius Shulman Documentary Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman?

Also since I've spent a couple of days up and down by this building this weekend I have been thinking about (and cussing the budget panel that approved such an ugly monolithic building):

http://www.theccd.ie/images/rotate/ccd-day.jpg

Kevin Roche, you should be ashamed. Actually that entire stretch at the moment is a bit shameful with the empty Anglo Irish building...

http://politico.ie/images/politico/economy/anglo-shell.jpg

I really loved the Kevin Roche exhibit I saw at the National Building Museum last month but it really glosses over some of the terrible things he's done and influenced (on the planning side even more than the aesthetic side).

http://www.dezeen.com/2012/09/01/united-states-pavilion-at-the-venice-architecture-biennale-2012/

USA pavilion at the Biennale is I guess a wry commentary on the difficulties wheelchair users face in the built environment

I already hawked this to I Love Photography, but FWIW I am finally starting in with the 2012 "adventure" photos, this time beginning with a chronologically-organized look at Alvar Aalto. This means opening with the "awkward early stuff for fans only" material but maybe it'll be of interest to some people here. First image here, following ones to the "left" in the Flickr interface. (I only recently realized you could just use the arrow keys to get around - whee!)

Highlights of the limited stuff posted so far:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8456/8025427165_2ccc1065a0_z.jpg

Seinäjoki Defense Corps Buildings, 1924-1926

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8456/8025614912_27c6e26a16_z.jpg

Villa Väinölä, 1926

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8038/8030089021_488d462781_z.jpg

Turun Sanomat Building, 1928-1930

(2010 and 2011 "Adventure" collections coming, uh, someday. Just ordered a new film scanner the other day...)

that Turun Sanomat photo is great! Did you make it to the Savoy restaurant?

Thanks! And nope, sadly. On the trip it felt like we must have seen every Aalto building known to man, but, turns out, guy built a LOT....

I watched this film over the weekend: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233611/

I'm kind of considering a desert/Palm Springs road trip/architecture tour sometime. Has anyone been out that way? It looks like a lot of Palm Springs city buildings are of the period.

I also ended up watching Urbanized (finally) and the contrast between people in the two films who have a love of architecture and an interest in its relation to the surrounding environment juxtaposed with a Phoenix, Arizona house arrangement is depressing.

There is a Modernism Week they hold out there, next one is Feb 2013. this past one included a lautner house tour that looked good, but i just couldn't work up the enthusiasm to go out there (also, the weekend tour sold out pretty quickly).

https://www.modernismweek.com/

thinking of taking my ridiculous architect friend, doing the reverse F&L In Las Vegas drive, go see some architecture

Looks like a lot of the home tours are already sold out. There's probably a guide (or maybe use the Gerbhard/Winter So Cal one) that you could do on your own.

Gebhard, that is. It's about a 2-2.5 hour drive for me, but I've never tried just driving out and looking around.

Sounds like a good thing to do if you're bored on a Saturday!

http://www.sfmoma.org/exhib_events/exhibitions/509

upcoming Lebbeus Woods exhibit at SF MOMA

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/oscar-niemeyer-brazilian-architect-died-17890045

Rest in peace, Oscar Niemeyer - 1907-2012. The last heroic Modern.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/arts/design/ada-louise-huxtable-architecture-critic-dies-at-91.html

damn, Niemeyer and now Ada Louise Huxtable, all the greats I thought would live forever are going. When all is said and done I don't know if there will be any 20th century architects seen to have changed architecture more than Huxtable's writing.