Faced with a dwindling birth rate and a rising elderly population, Japan has been closing schools right and left. But thanks to a group of concerned citizens, architects, and academics, the Hizuchi Elementary School—an exquisite example of Japan’s homegrown brand of Modernism located in a small town on the island of Shikoku—was restored beautifully instead. On November 13, the efforts of the Architectural Consortium that spearheaded the historic building’s salvation will be honored when they are presented with the 2012 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Completed in the late 1950s,
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Dutch experts assert that New York needs hybrid solutions for our changing natural surroundings. Delta Twin Town, a design concept for the UNESCO-IHE Delta City of the Future competition, restores the connection between Rotterdam and the sea by creating a new artificial delta. Hurricane Sandy and the devastation it left in its wake were a disaster waiting to happen. That is not only the conclusion of the American Society of Civil Engineers, which warned in 2009 that a storm surge was all but inevitable, but also of Dutch experts who have advised New York
Muji design director Kenya Hara launches a line of starchitect-designed dog houses. Architecture fans and dog lovers unite! Sou Fujimoto - Boston Terrier On November 20, Kazuyo Sejima, Shigeru Ban, Sou Fujimoto, Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, and six other renowned architects will launch the results of a project kept under wraps for months: a line of breed-specific dog houses commissioned by Muji design director Kenya Hara, who has also designed an abode (for the Toy Poodle). Some of the environments—"house" is a loose term here—will be sold through an accompanying website. Others are meant to inspire DIY copies: download a
An old meatpacking plant abutting Manhattan's celebrated High Line park could soon be replaced by what promises to be one of the most talked-about buildings in New York, if all goes according to plan.
Aulenti was arguably the only internationally-recognized female practitioner in the first wave of starchitects, winning commissions in the 1980s alongside Aldo Rossi and I.M. Pei. Gae Aulenti Gae Aulenti, the preeminent Italian architect whose art-infused take on postmodernism elevated such projects as the Musée d'Orsay and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco to works of true resonance, died on October 31st, following a long illness. Aulenti, who lived in Milan, was 84 years old. Aulenti was arguably the only internationally-recognized female practitioner in the first wave of starchitects, winning commissions in the 1980s alongside the likes of Aldo Rossi,
Research for the book On the Water: Palisade Bay by Guy Nordenson, Catherine Seavitt, and Adam Yarinsky inspired MoMA’s 2010 exhibition Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront The exhibition Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront, which ran at the Museum of Modern Art in New York two years ago, provided a look into the future—and this past week, that future arrived, in the form of the catastrophic storm surge from Hurricane Sandy. In the prescient show, MoMA addressed rising sea levels resulting from global climate change. The curators chose five teams, each comprised of architects, landscape architects, and
The American Institute of Architects organized a trade mission to India, whose government plans to invest $1 trillion in infrastructure between now and 2017. Photo courtesy path21 architecture The Gateway Brigade in Bangalore, India, is a mixed-use development with a business tower, hotel tower, mall, hospital, and large residential tower. The cosmopolitan city of Bangalore is home to much of the IT industry in India. In mid-October, more than 30 architects flew from points around the U.S. to Chennai, India, where they began a five-day, three-city trade mission organized by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the U.S. Department
Johansen's Mummer's Theater in Oklahoma City. Renamed Stage Center, the now unoccupied building is under threat of demoltion. For more than 50 years, John Johansen challenged the norms of architecture—designing buildings that looked like no others and teaching students to do the same. The last of the "Harvard Five," architects who studied under Walter Gropius in the 1940s and then settled in New Canaan, Connecticut, Johansen was probably the most experimental of the group. While the other four in the unofficial club—Philip Johnson, Marcel Breuer, Eliot Noyes, and Landis Gores—built more than he did, Johansen played the vital role of
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