Not long ago, a small midblock building was demolished not far from my office in SoHo. The excision was a revelation. Because of a sequence of low buildings in succeeding blocks, it was suddenly possible to look through a remarkable cut in the city that reconfigured the backs of buildings with their principal facades on the avenues into a long series of fronts. The space is like none other in New York in its proportions and architectonic character, the elegant austerity of the backs of buildings with ornamented facades making a place both lyrical and tough. Looking at it, it’s
The end state of this project will be seriously constrained by its failure to “capitalize” on the spatial possibilities opened up by its strong relationship to transportation and its rare anything-possible beginning state. And although all the actors involved diligently tithe the idea of a mixed-use, green, and design-intensive neighborhood, they all claim to be powerless to achieve anything beyond the alleged market constraints and planning default. Nevertheless, the D.C. planning department—which now has unusually enlightened leadership—continues to struggle to retrofit the unbuilt project with decent streetscapes and a set of secondary uses beyond mere retail. Stay tuned. Renderings Courtesy
Gordon Wildermuth was a young partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, working in Saudi Arabia to build the Hajj Terminal at the King Abdul Aziz International Airport. Today, when he describes that “incredibly stressful time,” the conversation soon turns to the communications infrastructure that existed then.
Known for community service, environmental stewardship, and inventive craft, materials, and forms, this is a firm whose time has come. “Cool” best describes this year’s AIA Firm of the Year, Pugh + Scarpa Architects. It speaks to the casual, unpretentious character of its work, which masks the refinement underlying what appears so easygoing.
The August 1976 ribbon-cutting ceremony for the reinvented Faneuil Hall Marketplace was planned as a modest affair. But a crowd of 50,000 flooded the complex, kicking off an impromptu four-day party with street performers and revelers filling the historic site. The frisson in the air no doubt came from the wide realization that this was the beginning of something new.
Many readers may have come to know the work of AIA’s 2009 Firm of the Year, Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects (OSKA), through media coverage of such projects as Delta Shelter, Rolling Huts, and the much publicized Chicken Point Cabin. Sited in dramatic natural settings, the residences incorporate an abundance of glazing, a raw materiality, and the use of kinetic metal gadgetry that operates apertures and/or propels movement. These projects are the work of partner Tom Kundig, FAIA, whose architecture is both understated and bold, sometimes unpredictable, and always fresh.
There are a number of Campbell’s Laws of Architecture; they tend to take the form of paradoxes. Campbell’s First Law, for example, states: “The faster the means of transportation in any society, the larger will be the portion of the average citizen’s life that is spent in getting from one place to another.” Photo ' Bettmann/Corbis The Moors built the Alhambra in Granada as they were losing control of Spain to the Christians. Peasant’s walk to the fields? Twenty minutes. Commute from the suburbs? Fifty minutes. Plane to the coast? Six hours. Rocket to the moon? Four days. As the
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