In Bilbao, the Guggenheim Museum invented the contemporary strain of iconic, even city-defining, museum buildings, where the architecture threatens to outshine the artwork. But the struggle between collection and container dates back even further to the museum’s flagship building in New York City.
When the last monograph surveying Daniel Libeskind’s work was published—some eight years ago—the New York architect was riding a wave of praise for his Jewish Museum in Berlin.
Photo courtesy Page Southerland Page “Then there’s a little buffer of green space, which is very, very important because that makes them not feel like they’re on the sidewalk,” says Lawrence Speck of the Dunn Center’s outdoor space for Houston’s homeless residents. Lawrence Speck, FAIA, has worked with well-off clients on many residential projects, but he has also spent a lot of time talking about architecture with people living on the streets. A few years ago, the architect and professor at the architecture school at the University of Texas in Austin won the commission to design a $19.1 million expansion
With a history tied to nomadic civilizations and a New York City-sized population spread over more than two million square miles of territory, Kazakhstan may not seem like the most probable site for ambitious urban architecture. British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen went so far as to depict the country as a backward nation of ramshackle hovels in his 2006 film Borat. But the reality of contemporary Kazakhstan may be more accurately embodied by the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, a glass pyramid rising above Astana, the Central Asian state’s capital.
Photo courtesy Predock_Frane Architects “It’s like zoning gone wild,” says Hadrian Predock of California’s Inland Empire region. Design runs in Hadrian Predock’s family. The Santa Monica, California, architect is the son of celebrated New Mexico architect Antoine Predock, FAIA. Not only did the younger Predock inherit an interest in the profession from his father; his family also passed down an approach to practice that combines traditional design work with other art forms. Antoine Predock trained as a painter before going into architecture, and Hadrian’s mother is a dancer. “When I was growing up in Albuquerque, they would collaborate on pieces