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Photo © Oliver Helbig When SFMOMA gave J. Mayer H. a show, the Berlin-based studio couldn’t have been expected to do anything tame. No framed drawings, no models here. After all, this is the firm that designed a Danish science museum in the shape of a hot rod flame, and stretched out an old German house like silly putty to make a new one. The buildings wouldn’t feel out of place in a Dr. Seuss book. So when J. Mayer H. designs a museum show—Patterns of Speculation: J. Mayer H., curated by Henry Urbach and up now through July 7—this

Image courtesy Peter Morris Proponents of green buildings have a long list of persuasive arguments they can use to convince clients and developers that green is the way to go: Build green, and your employees will be healthier, happier, and more productive! Build green, and you will use less water and energy, benefit your local environment, and promote global environmental responsibility! Build green, and you will save money over the long term! But with U.S. economy in shambles, the question looms: How will the recession affect the green-building market? RECORD put the question to Peter Morris, principal of the construction

Image courtesy of the New Museum Urban China editor, Jiang Jun Image courtesy of the New Museum New Museum curator, Benjamin Godsill Cities are four-dimensional universes. Places and spaces at once, they’re always too big to fully grasp, and they’re always changing. If the contemporary apex of this incomprehensibility is anywhere, it’s in China, where cities are blurs of government control and ground-level commotion. They’re huge and sprawling, overpopulated, misunderstood, and growing fast. And a new show at the New Museum in New York packs all that into one room. Jiang Jun edits the Shanghai-based magazine Urban China, and his

When the last monograph surveying Daniel Libeskind’s work was published—some eight years ago—the New York architect was riding a wave of praise for his Jewish Museum in Berlin.

Photo © Elfie Semotan “You can take possession of it by describing it,” says Wolf Prix of Coop Himmelb(l)au’s Central Los Angeles Area High School #9. “If I asked a student, ‘Can you describe your school? Where do you go to school?’ He’d say, ‘The school with the crazy tower and the round windows,’ not, ‘just a building downtown.’” Los Angeles floats its landmarks on a sea of faceless highway, like peanuts in peanut brittle. Downtown, the two-block stretch of Grand Avenue that straddles the 101 is a satisfying bite. In a single chomp, you get Frank Gehry’s Disney concert

Photo courtesy Page Southerland Page “Then there’s a little buffer of green space, which is very, very important because that makes them not feel like they’re on the sidewalk,” says Lawrence Speck of the Dunn Center’s outdoor space for Houston’s homeless residents. Lawrence Speck, FAIA, has worked with well-off clients on many residential projects, but he has also spent a lot of time talking about architecture with people living on the streets. A few years ago, the architect and professor at the architecture school at the University of Texas in Austin won the commission to design a $19.1 million expansion

Photo © Jonathan Becker “It’s sort of amazing that Rudolph’s building was never really acknowledged as well as it should have been. Now it’s rediscovered—the wonder of the world! And now our building is up for the critique,” says Charles Gwathmey. As he tells the story, when Charles Gwathmey, FAIA, first learned that Yale University had commissioned his firm to restore Paul Rudolph’s 1963 Art and Architecture Building and design an addition, he turned to associate partner Thomas Levering, AIA, and said, “This is going to kill us.” Gwathmey is no stranger to the challenges of a joint restoration and

Image courtesy Storefront for Art and Architecture “The beauty of a competition that calls for ideas is that they remain ideas,” says Joseph Grima of the Storefront for Art and Architecture’s White House Redux competiton and exhibition. “It’s difficult to remain faithful to ideas in reality.” It was winter in New York, and Joseph Grima was thinking about change. Along with plans to renovate the Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Vito Acconci/Steven Holl-designed sliver of a gallery Gima runs on Kenmare Street, he also announced a contest to redesign the White House. Storefront reopened on October 3, and its

Photo © Ben Benschneider “It’s an instrument that the curators play,” says Brad Cloepfil of his Museum of Arts and Design. When Brad Cloepfil, AIA, founder and principal at Allied Works Architecture, unveiled his design for the Museum of Art and Design in New York, he added fuel to a heated and unusual preservation debate. His plan to alter a 158-foot marble edifice on the south side of Columbus Circle prompted some preservationists to rally behind an exemplary, but widely disliked work of late Modernism. Two Columbus Circle was built in 1964 and designed by Edward Durrell Stone for the

Photo courtesy Predock_Frane Architects “It’s like zoning gone wild,” says Hadrian Predock of California’s Inland Empire region. Design runs in Hadrian Predock’s family. The Santa Monica, California, architect is the son of celebrated New Mexico architect Antoine Predock, FAIA. Not only did the younger Predock inherit an interest in the profession from his father; his family also passed down an approach to practice that combines traditional design work with other art forms. Antoine Predock trained as a painter before going into architecture, and Hadrian’s mother is a dancer. “When I was growing up in Albuquerque, they would collaborate on pieces