Articles by Linda C. Lentz

Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center

New York City

October 16, 2011

David Rockwell's new film center invigorates the Film Society of Lincoln Center with first-rate screening rooms, a caf', and a cinema shop.

Flights of Fancy

Four firms apply bold materials to elevate modest surroundings

Linda C. Lentz

October 16, 2011

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Many Architects shun the notion of decoration—less is more and all that.

Linda C. Lentz

October 16, 2011

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There is a misconception among many designers that the top floor of a department store may as well be Siberia. Retailers tend to banish offices up there, far from quick-selling items like cosmetics and handbags on lower floors. After more than a decade designing upper-level hospitality and retail spaces like the OXO Tower Restaurant for Harvey Nichols in London and a dining/food hall emporium for Milan’s La Rinascente, architecture firm Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands (LDS) sees opportunity in the heights. “Most architects don’t understand that the retailer constantly changes what happens on the floor,” says Paul Sandilands, a director at the

Linda C. Lentz

October 16, 2011

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Fusing Art And Architecture, fine artists Edward Lam and Deborah Moss frequently collaborate with architects, interior designers, and other clients to make custom, richly detailed works of art'many of them for international restaurants, hotels, and established retailers such as Sofitel and Louis Vuitton. When commissioned by the South Korean department store Lotte to fill a central atrium in its Seoul emporium, the partners and founders of the Toronto-based design studio created a dazzling seven-story mobile made of reflective gold and silver butterflies, crystals, and glass beads. The atrium, Lam explains, brings light and air down into spaces that are frequently

Linda C. Lentz

August 16, 2011

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A study in urban planning, the Novartis campus manifests a logic and order that facilitates its day-to-day operations. Yet the grounds are neither sterile nor overtly homogeneous. Entering onto Fabrikstrasse, the main boulevard, one is immediately struck by the numerous environments for employees — landscaped piazzette, informal indoor and outdoor seating and dining areas, day care centers, even a supermarket, pharmacy, and health club — all integrated in and around the new and renovated buildings. Art is everywhere. Moreover, while the various architects are given similar briefs and physical parameters, their solutions are, of course, unique. Two blocks east of

Linda C. Lentz

August 16, 2011

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Breaking the bounds of of Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani's master plan, Fabrikstrasse 15 by Frank Gehry stands in a surprising juxtaposition to the serene array of rectilinear buildings that dominate the Novartis campus. It is located at the geographic heart of the campus, in full view of the company's renovated 1939 Forum 1 International Headquarters building, and across the street from a refined stretch of porticoed offices and labs by Adolf Krischanitz, Rafael Moneo, Lampugnani, and Yoshio Taniguchi. The highly visible, independent site gave the architect freedom to exploit his expansive, free-spirited style. Relieved from many of the constraints binding the

Linda C. Lentz

August 16, 2011

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At first glance the Novartis headquarters appears to be an average, though impeccable, corporate facility. Situated on the east bank of the Rhine near the borders of France and Germany in the St. Johann district of Basel, Switzerland, the 50-acre campus is sheltered by trees, old buildings, busy thoroughfares, and the river. But that impression shifts as one approaches the ethereal reception pavilion, designed by Swiss architect Marco Serra, and glimpses the diversity of building forms beyond it. A work in progress, the Novartis campus is the brainchild of Chairman of the Board Daniel Vasella, who began a collaboration with

450 West 37th Street in New York City

WASA/Studio A and H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture

Linda C. Lentz

July 16, 2011

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WASA/Studio A and H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture team up on the Jerome Robbins Theater and Dimenna Center for Classical Music in Manhattan.

Lincoln Restaurant Pavilion & Lawn by FXFOWLE and Diller Scofidio + Renfro

New York City

Linda C. Lentz

June 16, 2011

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Built up on a plinth, and clad in relentless swaths of travertine, Lincoln Center was once considered by many to be a remote acropolis of culture.

LAPD Motor Transport Division + Main Street Parking

New to Downtown L.A.’s developing Gallery Row, John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects’ Main Street Parking + Motor Transport Division building for the Los Angeles Police Department sets a glowing standard for utilitarian civic architecture.

Linda C. Lentz

May 16, 2011

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Part of the three-stage master plan for the Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters (2009), spearheaded by an AECOM/Roth + Sheppard joint venture in the city’s redeveloping Downtown, the Main Street Parking + Motor Transport Division is the kind of ancillary project that could sever a neighborhood by virtue of its sheer mass and typically unattractive aesthetic.