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Photo courtesy Wikipedia In Los Angeles, the historic May Company Building (1939) will be turned into a museum for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Photo © A.M.P.A.S. The Academy announced today that architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali will design the museum. Related Links: Resnick Pavilion at LACMA The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has owned the Art Deco building at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue—home of the May Company department store from 1939 to 1993—for almost 20 years, but has never quite known what to do with it. And the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and

Funding shortfalls could hinder ambitious waterfront schemes planned for several U.S. cities. Image courtesy Michael Maltzan The Lens, St. Petersburg, Florida. Click to view more images. Related Links: Brooklyn Bridge Park Toronto Waterfront Vision Focuses on Tourist Dollars A Stunning Revival for Hamburg’s Old Port Waterfronts get architects—and politicians—thinking big, and sometimes too big. Even Daniel Burnham (he of “make no little plans”) proposed festooning Chicago’s lakefront with five massive piers, of which only one was ever built. Now that structure, the 3,300-foot-long Navy Pier, is about to get a face-lift that residents hope isn’t too large a financial burden

In the ongoing debate over whether memorials to commemorate political and military events and leaders should embrace architectural modernism or stick with classicism, several conservative groups have taken a firm stance in favor of classicism. Photo courtesy Wikipedia The National World War II Memorial (2004) was designed by Friedrich St. Florian. Related Links: Gehry Modifies Design for Eisenhower Memorial Gehry Hopes to Meet With Eisenhower Family to Allay Concerns A Monumental Debate On May 18, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a right-wing think tank focused on public policy, teamed up with the National Civic Art Society (NCAS), an advocacy organization

Image courtesy Dreamhub The 620-m-tall Landmark Tower, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, will dominate Seoul's 3.4-million-sq-m multibuilding Yongsan International Business District. Unusual double-helix external bracing will stabilize a 620-meter-tall tower at the center of the 20-building Yongsan International Business District, planned for a 3,000-hectare site next to the Han River in Seoul, South Korea. The conical skyscraper is among the first of the major buildings scheduled to start construction soon, now that conceptual designs for the 3.4-million-square-meter brownfield development have been completed. Teams of local and international architects and engineers announced their concepts for each of Yongsan's planned buildings

Courtesy of Hirsch Bedner Associates No one sleeps at Antilia, a $1-billion residence built for India's richest man, because it violates the tenets of Vastu Shastra, an ancient version of feng shui. The ballroom is one of many spaces used by the family during the day. The 27-story "house" has 168 parking spaces, nine elevators, three helipads, a health spa, a 50-seat theater and more. A lavishly decked-out 27-story residence in the heart of South Mumbai—built for India's richest man and the ninth wealthiest person in the world—is swathed in secrecy. All are mum about the details of how the

A new leading indicator by McGraw-Hill Construction points to a boost in spending. Related Links: Billings Index Dips Below 50 Forecast 2012: High-Rise Construction Forecast 2012: Residential Construction The Dodge Momentum Index is a new 12-month leading indicator of construction spending for nonresidential buildings. The unique information is derived from proprietary, first-issued planning reports in the largest database of construction planning projects in the United States–McGraw-Hill Construction’s Dodge Reports (McGraw-Hill publishes Architectural Record). One-third of the projects in the Dodge database are in planning, and those projects feed the new Dodge Momentum Index. The strength of the new index is

RECORD sits down with the new architecture critic of the New York Times to discuss his plans for covering the designs of buildings, New York, and the wider world. Michael Kimmelman Photo: © Marco Tambara Last fall, Michael Kimmelman, the longtime chief art critic of the New York Times, became the architecture critic at the paper and immediately set a new agenda. Rather than write about the latest starchitect building, he began with a piece on a mixed-income housing project in the Bronx by Grimshaw Architects and Dattner Architects called Via Verde, and followed up with articles that focused largely

According to construction-economics data from McGraw-Hill Dodge, U.S. tall-building construction is down significantly from its 2006 peak. However, a handful of high-profile projects continue to move forward. Source: McGraw-Hill Dodge Analytics Click the image above to view a full presentation of these stats [PDF].

While Kingdom Tower awaits groundbreaking (read more here), other skyscrapers around the globe are now under construction. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat ranks the loftiest.

Image courtesy of SWA SWA has designed the public open spaces for Suzhou Center. Click to view more images. Related Links: China News Old Factories Get New Wrapping in Shanghai EMBT Designs Zhang Da Qian Museum in Neijiang International landscape architecture firm SWA has been working in the city of Suzhou since 2003, providing landscape design and planning services for a number of projects, including the Gao Xin District and all 45 acres of Suzhou Industrial Park Times Square. Having proven its ability to weave contemporary, pedestrian-friendly design into a city with a rich 2,500-year history of canals, gardens, and