Will Alsop leaves architecture for painting:
“I love architecture but one of the things that gets up my nose, particularly in London, is that doing anything is like pulling teeth… There are so many hangers on and architectural advisers who know nothing and it gets in the way.”
09.08.09 in architects practice
And the winner is… Denton Corker Marshall.
01.08.09 in architects competitions
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DCM’s plans for the Windsor Hotel move a step closer to fruition.
31.07.09 in architects
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The practice continues, but the Clarence Street Alliance Francaise building, which is opening in Sydney, is the last penned by him. I can’t find any pics other than the interior one in the BT article.
26.07.09 in architects
The one day I spent living with a Bogong Moth (clinging to the ranch sliders at Bermagui) was pretty strange, especially what it got up to with the fly screen… So I can only find it strange to hear that this huge scary moth was Callum Fraser’s inspiration for his latest hotel for ski bunnies, Quay West Resort & Spa (previously known as St. Falls).
22.07.09 in architects
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Daniel Watt, jetsetting architect of Wellington, Singapore and Bangkok, passed away a few days ago in Auckland aged 41. Thanks Daniel for living your life to the full, and serving as a bit of a model during Auckland Uni days to a nervous kid like me.
05.07.09 in architects
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Ryue Nishizawa has been terribly polite on his visit to Sydney to launch an installation (at the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation). In 2000, SANAA’s Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa were booted from the MCA competition that they’d won, but now they’re OK with that. MCA head Liz Ann Macgregor opened the show, and Nishizawa is saying nice things about Sam Marshall’s newish design for the MCA (3rd time lucky?). Nishizawa and Sejima must have gotten the MCA out of their systems after doing the New Museum in New York.
03.07.09 in architects galleries
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Libesking + prefab = not cheap. The Berlin-based builder begs to differ: “We never really wanted it to be a prefab… We want to position this as a piece of art.”
17.06.09 in architects
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The brits(?) commenting on Maynard’s Vader House seem to have it in for his red tiles. Apparently red will date! The article is at the snazzy new Architectural Review site (UK) site. Yes that’s my typo-ridden comment, someone had to stand up for red.
17.06.09 in architects
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Beverly Willis launched her new short film, “A Girl Is A Fellow Here”: 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright, at the Guggenheim in New York on Wednesday. Marion Mahoney (1871–1961) gets a mention in this Metropolis article covering the event. She worked with Frank Lloyd Wright from 1895, before later shifting to Australia with her husband Walter Burley Griffin to work on such wonders as the Canberra plan, and Melbourne’s Newman College and Capitol Theatre . Metropolis informs us that she was the first woman to register as an architect in the world.
13.06.09 in architects
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Andrew Maynard’s website has gone all tweety. In a twittering this afternoon, one can sense the anger in the manglish:
09.06.09 in architects
Comment [1]
Ashton Raggatt McDougall have abandoned their plain old website, linking instead to pages at wikipedia , flickr , and youtube . Very Web 2.0, sort of. Very trusting too. So if you’re trying to find anything now on their site, wade through the 24 page PDF, if you can find it. Hint: click on the statement of exclusivity/fact. If you are googling, you’re likely to end up in the old site for a while.
08.06.09 in architects
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‘Architecture of Happiness’ author Alain de Botton, is putting his money where his pen is, proposing five rather expensive rental holiday houses near London. Hi de Hi chalets these are not. Each Living Architecture house is designed by either an established contemporary architect, or by an emerging practice. “The inspiration for Living Architecture came from a desire for people to be able to experience what it is like to live, eat and sleep in a space designed by an outstanding architectural practice.” The first one off the blocks is a wildly cantilevering house by MVRDV, but the most interesting one could be by Peter Zumthor. His rendering is below. Where is the bleedin’ house?
25.05.09 in architects
Arthur Erickson, Canadian architect, died on Wednesday in Vancouver, aged 84. He had been in practice for 55 years. This obituary at the Toronto Star dwells on his low points as well as the high ones (of which there were many). Interesting to hear that Erickson wasn’t crash hot at business, and was declared bankrupt in 1992. “Architecture is a profession of constant disappointment… I’ve been through it so many times. I’m used to the endless disappointment. But I’m still optimistic.”
24.05.09 in architects
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The winner of this year’s Pritzker Prize, and $100,000 from the Hyatt vaults, is Peter Zumthor. Much is being made of his not being a starchitect, and therefore suitable for receiving the first big gong of the GFC. The man himself defends his lack of a glossy mag profile in a Bloomberg interview last week: “To build good houses doesn’t take a lot of publicity; that just gets in the way. I have to stay concentrated on what I want to make. That way I don’t allow myself to get distracted.”
21.04.09 in architects
Bellemo and Cat’s house and office in Northcote, Melbourne, is an Ampelite clad box streaked in apple green. Certainly brightens up the cramped laneway it inhabits. Apparently the streaks are drived from a drawing of the structure of one of their previous works. Dwell magazine recently featured it.
11.04.09 in architects
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Martin Filler, at the New York Review of Books, wades through 8 new books on Le Corbusier, and gives some hint of his inner complexities. He also describes Le Corbusier as a lecturer (Tim Benton has just written a book about this):
10.04.09 in architects
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Frank O. Gehry has just turned 80. But what is his real name? Take the Frank Quiz at The Guardian!
21.03.09 in architects
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