The Obama Drone Aviary would transport Presidential artifacts to the public. The drama surrounding the siting of President Barack Obama’s future Presidential Library has unfurled like a juicy tabloid story, with the minute details making headlines and stoking fierce debate. Most recently, speculation abounded when the Barack Obama Foundation, the organization charged with selecting a site, polled the Windy City’s residents—and no other prospective cities—on their feelings towards the project, while Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has lobbied to build the library on city parkland if Chicago is indeed selected. Now, with the Chicago mayoral race in serious contention, the Foundation
The pioneering postmodern architect dies at age 80. Michael Graves Denver Central Library Michael Graves, a pioneering postmodern architect and designer best known for the Portland Building in Oregon and his iconic Kettle with Bird Whistle, died today of natural causes at his home in Princeton, New Jersey. He was 80 years old. Related links Newsmaker: Michael Graves Michael Graves Retrospective As Firm Turns 50 Newsmaker: David Mohney, Acting Dean of the Michael Graves School of Architecture “For those of us who had the opportunity to work closely with Michael, we knew him as an extraordinary designer, teacher, mentor,
The German architect, who died yesterday, will receive the award posthumously. Roofing for main sports facilities in the Munich Olympic Park for the 1972 Summer Olympics, 1968–1972, Munich, Germany German architect Frei Otto, renowned for his lightweight, tensile structures, today was named the winner of the 2015 Pritzker Architecture Prize. The abrupt announcement came a day after Otto died at the age of 89 in Germany. “Throughout his life, Frei Otto has produced imaginative, fresh, unprecedented spaces, and constructions,” wrote the Jury in their citation. “He has also created knowledge. Herein resides his deep influence: not in forms to
The Guardian Art Center, currently under construction, will be equal parts auction house and cultural hub. Ole Scheeren helped create perhaps the most aggressive building on the Beijing skyline — the CCTV tower, which he designed with Rem Koolhaas before opening his own firm, Buro Ole Scheeren, in 2010. Now Scheeren hopes to become known for a less divisive contribution to the Beijing scene — an auction house headquarters that, despite its 600,000 square feet, treads lightly on its site, and which may represent a way forward for foreign architects in China under a culturally conservative regime. Scheeren’s client is the Chinese-owned auction house China Guardian, which wanted
Today, Google unveiled plans for a ground-breaking, 3.4 million-square-foot campus conceived by architecture firms BIG and Heatherwick Studio, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reports. “Tech really hasn’t adopted a particular language for buildings,” said David Radcliffe, Google’s vice-president of real estate development in a video proposal. “I mean, we’ve just found old buildings, and we’ve moved into them, and made do best we could.”Envisioned as both a neighborhood and as a wildlife habitat, the proposed master plan on the fringes of Mountain View, California, features four clusters of buildings draped in a thin, glass membrane. These buildings, rather than being
The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF) hosts its Leadership Awards Gala on Thursday at the Prince George Ballroom in New York City. The Leadership Awards Gala will honor the legacy of Beverly Willis, an architect who fought to give women recognition for their design work, and award firms and individuals who strive to support and advance women in the building professions. HOK will be presented with the Foundation award for its
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