news
Hell fire
It’s been a hot, disturbing, and emotional weekend in Melbourne. Two large fires extending 80 kilometres along the rural northern flank of the city, have so far burnt up 210,000 hectares of land, 750 houses, and some small towns. Altogether, Victoria’s 2009 fires are known to have killed 181 people, most of them on Saturday. Many more are still missing as over 4,000 fire fighters continue to battle the fires.
Surface Agitation
Melbourne Recital Centre is to open on Monday, plugging the last gap in a sequence of arts buildings running from Hamer Hall to The Malthouse theatre a kilometre away. The Age was shown through the recital centre by ARM architect Ian McDougall and Arup acoustic engineer Andrew Nicol .
01.02.09 in buildings
Skyway
A sleek 1978 skyway, long detached from a Minneapolis JC Penney store, is up for sale by some architects (who had hoped to do something with it themselves). U.S. $79,500 or near offer – delivery not included.
24.01.09 in buildings
Bowling
Northcote bowl (1963), that one with the arches – the only interesting piece of non-domestic architecture I can think of in that part of town, may be demolished for an apartment development, GFC permitting. A demolition permit is currently moving through the trays at Darebin Council.
Terminal Development
Christchurch International Airport is to be rebuilt big, to accommodate all the extra flights we seem to need to take these days, and all the extra shops we need to walk past. Sadly Warren and Mahoney’s big new building buries Paul Pascoe’s gold medal winning 1956 design. Is that a faint echo of it in the diamond plan? Maybe not.
17.01.09 in buildings
Architect / protaganist:
Future passes
Jan Kaplicky, 71, Czech founder of Future Systems , kaput . His last projects included the routemaster bus in London (he came second to Lord Norman’s entry), and a congress centre for České Budějovice that looks like something Madonna might have worn.
15.01.09 in architects
Architect / protaganist:
SHAC booted
The modern day student squat in Faraday Street, Carlton is to end after the Supreme Court ordered them to leave by January 7th.
So ends five months of a lively Faraday Street, and an earnest discussion about the right to squat. The students had occupied four empty and run-down terrace houses owned by Melbourne University to protest against the state of student housing in an inflated rental market. The students rejected an offer by the university of places in the existing subsidised housing scheme as this would have meant they were displacing other needy students. SHAC has reportedly backed away from further legal action as they might need to cover UniMelb’s legal costs if they lose.
06.01.09 in housing
obits
I wasn’t sure what to expect.. how would the world respond to Utzon’s death? Seeing a full-on Utzon death poster outside a newsagency today, I thought I would have a look around. Journos have painted Utzon as a one-trick pony, albeit with a brilliant Australian trick. Elizabeth Farrelly at the Sydney Morning Herald has done a quick 6 page condensation of Philip Drew’s biography, and it it is quite worth the read. Though it isn’t so much an obit for Utzon as it is for the original Opera house, before it as consigned to a “conspiracy of nobodies” (Drew’s words).
01.12.08 in architects
Utzon
At the age of 90, Jørn Utzon has died of a heart attack in his sleep. In 2005 he said , “I will not see it now, which makes me sad. Every day I wake up and think of the Opera House. It gives me such pleasure that the building means so much to the people of Sydney and Australia – that makes me very happy.” Thanks Jørn, that building does mean so much to us. The lights on the Opera House’s sails will be dimmed tonight and a memorial service will be held there in early 2009.
30.11.08 in architects
Architect / protaganist:
Squat eviction
Now that the student year is done, Melbourne University is evicting squatters from its Faraday street terrace houses – this Friday. The four terrace houses had been empty for three years amidst a student housing crisis. The Student Housing Action Co-operative are going to resist the eviction and ask for your support this Friday at their rally (12-2pm) and dinner, from 5pm. 272-8 Faraday Street Carlton. Trade Hall has threatened industrial action on university projects should the students be forcibly evicted.
caravan
A modest caravan won the Bizarre award at the recent Ho Chi Minh Architecture Awards. Seems that mobile homes are a new thing in Vietnam. Architect and builder Ho Van Tho aims to have these on the market soon for US$3K to US$6K to help alleviate urban overcrowding – the small caravans can apparently sleep four to eight people.
15.11.08 in housing
arkatekcha
This local blog seems to have disappeared off the net, anyone know where it has gone? Will be sadly missed, but for those who missed it it is still cached at google.
05.11.08 in other-blogs
Comment [4]
Demall, remall
Poor old Jonathan Glancey at the Guardian UK isn’t terribly happy about “Australia-owned” Westfield’s new megacentre at London’s White City. Comparing it to an ’80s airline terminal, he thinks it, “is just a tiny step towards our collective desire to undermine the life and culture of the traditional city”. Westfield, no doubt delighted by the opening day surge of consumers into its new palace, suggest that, “once you’re here, you’ll never want to leave…”
05.11.08 in urban-design
Tempelhof closes
Berlin’s Tempelhof airport, designed by Nazi-era architect Ernst Sagebiel, has just closed to flights. The 1.4km long multi-storey building was, according to the Rescue Tempelhof group, the largest on earth when built in the ’30s, and is still the 3rd largest. An attempt to register the site with Unesco has failed, and Berliners have yet to decide what to do with the site, only 10km from downtown.
02.11.08 in buildings
Comment [1]
Architecture of the century
It might be a little early, but Phaidon have released an atlas of 21st Century architecture. Japan impressed the editors the most, with 65 pages dedicated to the country. Switzerland and The Netherlands are deemed next sexiest. South East Asia and Australasia apparently don’t get a showing, the only south hemisphere contenders being from South America.
02.11.08 in architects
Awards time
Melbourne architects gathered the lion’s share at the ®AIA national awards. The Melbourne Age gives a straightforward listing of the winning projects, Elizabeth Farrelly at the Sydney Morning Herald is not taking it as easily . To condense some fruity prose, fashionable Melburnians do things pointy and angled and are rewarded while Sydneysiders wear sensible shoes and keep things sober and orthogonal and lose. Explaining NSW’s low ranking this year, head judge Alex Tannes said that Sydney might suffer, “a cultural issue in terms of the commissioning of the buildings”.
31.10.08 in guilds
