Among last year's winners of the International Photography Awards Competition, were some fantastic night photographs of Oscar Niemeyer's Brasilia taken by architectural photographer Andrew Prokos. The awarded photos, and more photographs taken by Andrew in Brazil, will be exhibited in "Brazil: Night & Day", at Banco do Brasil, 11 W 42nd St., New York.
Construction is officially underway on 610 Lexington Avenue, a 700-foot ultra-thin condominium tower designed by Foster + Partners in New York City. Designed as a contrast to its neighboring landmark, Mies van der Rohe’s midcentury Seagram Building, the slim 61-story tower will feature 91 luxury units encased within a pure white glass facade.
Almost 400,000 New Yorkers live in floodplains, a number that should double by 2050 due to sea level rising. After Hurricane Sandy, the waterfront neighborhoods in which they live were dramatically re-envisioned, taking into account the heavy downpours and high winds that come with coastal storms. Is it possible to live safely while enjoying life at the water's edge?
The School of Visual Arts MFA Design Criticism invites you to join them for a two-week intensive to research and write about design. Participants will be introduced to a range of techniques for constructing compelling narratives about images, objects,and spaces. You will experiment with different research methods, writing formats, and complete several projects across media, including a collaboratively produced publication.
What unites contemporary design? What is the through line that connects designers between continents and across decades? This spring, The MA program in Design Studies at Parsons The New School for Design presents a two-day symposium that will bring together a rare interdisciplinary group of professionals and academics to explore narratives surrounding the field of design, and attempt to answer these questions. The conference, Narratives and Design Studies: A Task of Translation, will be held March 7 – 8.
Livia Corona (b. Mexico, 1975; based in New York) / From the series: "Two Million Homes for Mexico / 47,547 Homes for Mexico Ixtapaluca, 2007 / Archival Chromogenic Print / 30 x 40 inches / Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Agustina Ferreyra, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Beyond the Supersquare brings together a select group of contemporary artists whose insightful work addresses the remnants of the Modern Movement in Latin America and the Caribbean. While the exhibition will address how Modernism defined a number of decisive aspects related to contemporary architecture, urbanism, and art in Latin America, this exhibition will also examine the larger political and social underpinnings of these cultural and environmental developments.
View of Woolworth Building and surrounding buildings (ca. 1913), via Wikimedia Commons
The Woolworth Building, an innovative and elegant early skyscraper completed in 1913, endures today as an iconic form on the New York City skyline. A historicist exterior sheaths a modern steel tower, embodying both the era’s modern spirit of progress and its hesitation to fully break from the past. Cass Gilbert, selected as the architect, believed the designer should “weave into the pattern of our own civilization the beauty that is our inheritance.”[1] An ornate monument to the growing economic dominance of New York City, the building was dubbed the “Cathedral of Commerce.”
Located on a small and irregular shaped island at Columbus Circle, one of the busiest intersections in Manhattan, lies 2 Columbus Circle, formerly known as the Gallery of Modern Art. Famously described as a “die-cut Venetian palazzo on lollipops” by Ada Louise Huxtable, the New York Times architecture critic at the time, the 10-story poured concrete structure has been a source of consistent controversy and public response since the 1960s. Designed by Edward Durell Stone, an early proponent of American modern architecture, 2 Columbus Circle represents a turning point in his career. Uncharacteristic of Stone’s prior work, his use of ornament on an otherwise modern structure can be seen as an important precedent of the development of the soon-to-emerge Postmodern movement.
Foster + Partners has released new images of their revised, 19-story luxury condominium tower planned for West Chelsea in New York. Named after its address, 551 West 21st Street, the cast-concrete and glass structure plans to open its 44 residences, and three penthouses, to occupancy in the Fall of 2015.
Richard Meier & Partners–Jesolo Lido Condominium, Jesolo, Italy | Photo: Roland Halbe
Each year The Architectural League in its Current Work program presents the work of significant international figures who powerfully influence contemporary architectural practice and shape the future of the built environment. Richard Meier will present his work in a public lecture to be followed by a conversation with a moderator and fellow partnersBernhard Karpf, Reynolds Logan, and Dukho Yeon in honor of fifty years of independent practice.
Tianfu Proposal, Chengdu, China. PHOTO CREDIT: Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture
Join architectural historian Judith Dupré and renowned architects Adrian Smith and Rick Cook to explore the latest environmental innovations in skyscrapers. The look of cities is changing as designers and builders realize that the best tall buildings arise from working, as the ancients did, hand in hand with nature. Tapping into the elemental forces of the sun, wind, and water, today’s green skyscrapers are pushing the extreme frontiers of environmental, structural, and creative possibility. That sensibility is also strengthening bonds between architects and engineers who, more than ever, are joining forces to find aesthetically pleasing, environmentally astute solutions.
Opened to a full house, last year, at the Design Exchange in downtown Toronto, Considering the Quake: Seismic Design on the Edge, explores the elegant, and oftentimes, elusive intersection between the aesthetics of architectural form and the technicality of structural design, through the lens of earthquake engineering. Curated by Professor Ghyslaine McClure, P.Eng and founded/curated by Dr. Effie Bouras, of the McGill University Department of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics, this exhibit emerged from their research on the resiliency of emergency shelters and civil protection buildings, such as schools and hospitals, in earthquake zones throughout the world.
Envisioned as a "science center" for design, the exhibition, which is tailored not only for the architecture and engineering communities, but an invested public as well, will feature full-sized seismic technology utilized in buildings, architectural and structural models, seismic testing videos, including clips from Tomas Koolhaas’ new documentary titled REM, and a 500N shake table from North American Wave Spectrum Science and Trade Inc.