February 2007 For any visitor to Brooklyn in the past 30 years, the future of the area surrounding the confluence of the major streets of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues has loomed like an unanswered question. There, in what could be considered the fourth-largest city in the United States, the Long Island Railroad disgorges in a complex where 11 different subway lines converge, all adjacent to the formidable barrier of the Vanderbilt rail yards. At the heart of what should be vibrant and urbane, punctuated by the optimism of the 1927 Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower, lies a kind of crummy blankness.
January 2007 Call 2007 the year of anniversaries, in multiples of 10. All have significance, none more so than for the 77,000 licensed architects, emerging professionals, and allied partners of the American Institute of Architects, who are celebrating a Sesquicentennial. On February 23, 1857, the architect Richard Upjohn convened a small group of friends (let’s call them out for glory, including a few names you might remember, to wit: son Richard, son-in-law Charles Babcock, H.W. Cleaveland, Henry Dudley, Leopold Eidlitz, Edward Gardiner, Richard Morris Hunt [whom you should certainly know], J. Wrey Mould, Fred A. Peterson, J.M. Priest, John Welch,
Call 2007 the year of anniversaries, in multiples of 10. All have significance, none more so than for the 77,000 licensed architects, emerging professionals, and allied partners of the American Institute of Architects, who are celebrating a Sesquicentennial.
A note of cautious optimism hovered about the group of design professionals convened by the General Services Administration in San Francisco last month.
The Denver Art Museum addition represents both fulfillment and vindication for Daniel Libeskind. While the architect witnessed the erosion and diminution of his plans for Ground Zero, he has been able to realize an enriched, lively urban ensemble on the streets of Denver.
The sight of thousands of passengers in the long lines at Heathrow Airport, JFK, and LAX, snaking through the arrival halls or waiting patiently outdoors in rain slickers on August 10 produced a familiar kind of dread mixed with acceptance: Since September 11, 2001, our world has irrevocably changed.
The AIA convention in Los Angeles exceeded the record books, with more than 25,000 attendees enjoying the cool California air. Members packed the trade show floor, gathered for continuing education sessions, and jammed the Art Mile and other social and artistic venues.
Standing in the construction dust of the megasite near the roaring heart of the city, watching the massive building rising from the scaffolding, then surveying the scene in relation to the urban core, the comparison is inevitable: Beijing is getting what New York should have built: the long-awaited CCTV headquarters.