It may not have been cause and effect, but the 10th anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao late last year coincided with the opening of several new museums that seem intent on being everything Frank Gehry’s Basque bombshell is not. Let’s call it the rise of the Quiet Museum. Among them is Rafael Moneo’s low-key addition to the Prado, which has earned praise for giving precedence to the works on display rather than upstaging them with architectural bravura. But one man’s deferential is another man’s dull. Art critics seem to like the Moneo wing more than their architectural counterparts, some
New York’s powerful deputy mayor for economic development, Dan Doctoroff, recently resigned, something that had been rumored for a time. Doctoroff, who came to the city from a master-of-the-universe career as a private equity dealer, has left—with scarcely a murmur of disapproval—to become head of Bloomberg L.P., the Mayor’s very own multibillion-dollar financial reporting company. While there is apparently nothing illegal about this, it does affirm once again the degree of control of the city by an interlocking directorate of government, finance, and real estate–development interests, and the tendency of players to move seamlessly from one sector to another. This
Green camouflage In listening to one very well attended public presentation by the designers of the five schemes, I noticed another interesting form of misdirection. We are all greatly attuned to matters green nowadays, and each of the teams pressed that component to the fore, often with the landscape architect most prominently featured in making the case. (By the way, the Bloomberg administration has, under Doctoroff’s direction, produced what is, in many ways, a very impressive plan for the city’s sustainable growth, which is clearly having at least a rhetorical impact.) The evening was filled with talk of microclimates and
Six critics examine the state of American architecture from their hometowns. Taking the measure of American architecture depends on where you look. What’s generating buzz in Chicago might not resonate in L.A. And the issues driving design in Miami might not mean much in New York. Although big-name, international architects are working all over the United States—Renzo Piano, for example, has current or recently completed projects in New York, Chicago, L.A., San Francisco, and Atlanta—smaller, domestic firms are playing important roles, too. This mix of big and small, global and regional is shaping the American architectural landscape. The projects shown
Christopher Hawthorne is the architecture critic of the Los Angeles Times. Christopher Hawthorne “L.A. IS THE MOST INTERESTING CITY IN THE country right now, because of what’s happening with its urbanism, more than its architecture,” states Christopher Hawthorne, who has been the architecture critic of the Los Angeles Times for three years. The city that became synonymous with sprawl has “hit the limits of its growth and is turning back on itself,” he explains. “But it’s not just getting denser; it’s having to redefine itself as a city.” This redefinition is affecting everything from mass transit and
Blair Kamin is the architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune. Blair Kamin “We now live in a culture of infinite choices,” says Chicago Tribune’s architecture critic, Blair Kamin. “You go to Home Depot and there are 60 different kinds of floors you can put in your basement, whereas in 1950 you would have had two. A lot of our architecture is like that.” Kamin is explaining how the boxy skylight vaults of Steven Holl’s sensuous Bloch Building at the historicist Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri [RECORD, July 2007, page 92], consist of myriad customized pieces
Paul Goldberger is the architecture critic of The New Yorker. Paul Goldberger “I DON’T SEE THE REGIONAL differences in design that were apparent in the past,” states Paul Goldberger when asked what American architecture looks like from his perspective at The New Yorker. “Trends today are national or even global. Sustainability is certainly one. We should be doing more on this, but we’re doing more than we did in the past.” He also talks about “the democratization of architecture,” a process that in recent years has brought Modernism to the masses, or at least, to a larger
David Dillon is the architecture critic of The Dallas Morning News. David Dillon “Dallas is a very image-conscious place, and it has always been looking to headlines,” says David Dillon, who writes on architecture for The Dallas Morning News. Lately, the headlines have been filled with the starry names of the architects for the Dallas Arts District—an opera house by Norman Foster, a theater by Rem Koolhaas, and a science museum by Thom Mayne will soon join the existing sculpture museum by Renzo Piano and symphony hall by I.M. Pei. “It’s important to set the bar high,
Catherine Fox is the art and architecture critic of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Catherine Fox “Buildings here in Atlanta remain disappointing, with a few exceptions,” states Catherine Fox, the art and architecture critic for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Renzo Piano’s addition to the High Museum is one of those exceptions. “The expansion, which is actually three buildings and a restaurant arrayed around a plaza, opened in 2005. As you’d expect, it’s a handsome project, designed to complement rather than outdo the Meier building, and it offers wonderful spaces for viewing art. The “piazza” at the center of the complex
RSS
