While the crowds at Design Miami sipped oceans of champagne, there was talk of other bubbles, including the real estate mania that has condo developers learning Portuguese. The Design District, itself frothy with Prada and Louis Vuitton, was also home to the Inflatable Villa, an iconic (and possibly Ionic) installation by designer Luis Pons. The blow-up villa made its debut at the 2005 fair, as a symbol of exuberance. This time it appeared on a Design District construction site, seemingly impaled on rusty rebar, where it was deflated and reinflated daily—Pons' commentary on real estate booms and busts. "It's the
An egg-shaped beach bar pavilion by Los Carpinteros may have been the most popular art intervention at this year's the Art Basel Miami Beach. A wood-slat egg-shaped pavilion on the beach just steps from the Atlantic may be the most popular art intervention of the Art Basel Miami fair, which closes this Sunday. Commissioned for the fair by Absolut Vodka's "Art Bureau," the lantern-like pavilion comes with an orchestra that plays specially-commissioned music by Joan Valent outside until 11 P.M. Inside is a vodka bar, where bartenders wave martini shakers to the beat of the music. The open-air structure literally
The renowned Brazilian architect passed away 10 days shy of his 105th birthday. Click the image below to revisit some of his best known work. National Congress of Brazil. Brasilia, Brazil
The death of starchitecture has been greatly exaggerated, if events in Miami this week are any indication. As Art Basel Miami Beach, Design Miami, and a dozen other art fairs open, Herzog & de Meuron's Perez Art Museum Miami (the recently renamed Miami Art Museum) is nearing completion—Jacques Herzog will be in town to give tours—and sites are being readied for a parking garage by Zaha Hadid and an OMA-designed hotel tower on Collins Avenue. OMA principal Rem Koolhaas is compared, improbably, to Baron Haussmann, the Emperor Hadrian, and Carmen Miranda on billboards promoting the project. Photo by Fred A.
Photo courtesy Architecture for Dogs Shigeru Ban's papillion perch. Click here to view more images: Bow-Wow Haus With Design Miami now held in Miami Beach, Craig Robins, the founder of the annual design fair, has had to work harder to keep crowds coming to the Design District across the water in Miami. Largely owned by Robins’ company, the District is preparing to welcome dozens of fashion retailers, some to new buildings—including at least one being designed by Leong Leong. But during Basel week, the attractions include installations by designer Luis Pons, a mural by the graffiti artist Retna on the
RECORD speaks with exhibition curator Mike Tunkey, founder of Cannon Design's Shanghai office, about UnMade in China. AQSO - Xubeihong Memorial Hall - Beijing, China Sometimes, the biggest architecture firms are also the most courageous. Take Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with its gutsy SOM Journal (an annual publication in which outside critics evaluate the firm’s designs). Or Perkins + Will, with its revolutionary database of hazardous materials, which can’t help but alienate some manufacturers. And now Cannon Design has curated an exhibition, UnMade In China, about projects for Chinese clients that were never built. The show’s progenitor is Mike Tunkey,
United States Artists, the national grant-making and advocacy organization, awarded unrestricted grants of $50,000 to 50 artists this year. Jujuy Redux, an apartment building in Rosario, Argentina (2012), designed by Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich of the Los Angeles firm P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S. United States Artists (USA), the national grant-making and advocacy organization, announced today the 50 recipients of unrestricted grants of $50,000 each. In the Architecture and Design category, the award recipients are: Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich founded their architecture firm, P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S, in Los Angeles in 1999. They recently completed a ten-story apartment building in Rosario, Argentina, and a mix-use
Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC), developer of the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, New York, has officially announced today that the mixed-use complex’s first residential building—a 22-story, 350-unit, metal-and-glass-clad tower designed by SHoP Architects—will be built with modular methods. The developer has estimated that the modular structure, which will have a series of setbacks and cantilevers, will cost about 20 percent less than a nearly identical conventionally constructed tower. FCRC will partner with construction and development group, Skanska USA, to create FC + Skanska Modular. The new company will rely on union labor to assemble the components in
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