Articles by Linda C. Lentz

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

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

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

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

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.

'I often have the feeling that what I want to achieve is unattainable, but the project that THA delivered is even more than I dreamed I could achieve.' ' Neal Keny-Guyer, CEO Mercy Corps Command central for a global team of 4,000 professionals who run disaster relief and community development programs in over 40 countries, Mercy Corps needs an efficient base of operations. But its Portland, Oregon, “headquarters” was scattered in six leased locations around the city. “We were ready to build a home that would consolidate the different aspects of the organization and reflect our values,” recalls CEO Neal

Director Robert Lepage orchestrates an architectural feat for a new Metropolitan Opera production of Wagner’s Ring cycle. Photo © Ken Howard During the fall performances of Das Rheingold (repeating in March), acrobats stand in for singers to traverse the planks that are raised up above the stage and rotated by computer into fanlike steps. Stage design is typically an ephemeral art. Environments appear substantial, but they are often masterful imitations of the real thing made with lightweight, durable materials capable of continual setups and breakdowns. Enter Canadian director Robert Lepage, whose new production of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle for New