Articles by Aric Chen

Venice Biennale: First Impressions

Aric Chen
August 27, 2012
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Aric Chen digs through the multiple layers of David Chipperfield's Common Ground exhibition in our first post from Venice Anupama Kundoo's Feel the Ground. Wall House: One to One at the Arsenale Despite beginning and ending with gusts of rain, yesterday’s first day of previews at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale mostly cast a sweltering sun over Common Ground, the main exhibition at the Arsenale. At first reckoning, the theme, chosen by exhibition director and UK architect David Chipperfield, doesn’t sound all that different from Kazuyo Seijima’s intriguingly prosaic People Meet in Architecture from 2010. But while Seijima’s Biennale will
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Nouvel Said to Win Big Job in China

Aric Chen
August 20, 2012
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Zaha Hadid's proposed aerodynamic, scrolling form. According to multiple sources, Jean Nouvel has been selected to design a mega-sized new building for the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) in Beijing. If reports are true, the Pritzker Prize–winning French architect has beat out Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid to snag the highly coveted commission. One well-placed source (who, like others, asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record) says all three architects were informed of the decision on July 18. The source added that an official announcement will not come until November, after
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K3 for Kukje Gallery

Medieval Armor for Modern Art: Architects Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu mesh an expanding gallery's third building into a tightknit urban community, creating a singular work in its own right.
Aric Chen
July 16, 2012
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The art world debunked the myth of the neutrality of the white-box gallery long ago.


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Beijing Now

Aric Chen
June 1, 2012
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The Beijing National Stadium Photo © John Gichigi After the Deluge How have past Olympic cities measured up for reuse, post-Games? Barcelona Now Athens Now Sydney Now Atlanta Now China's powers that be probably wish it wasn't Ai Weiwei—the artist, activist, and, after his nearly three-month detention by Chinese authorities last year, international cause célèbre—who collaborated with Herzog & de Meuron on the design of Beijing's Olympic National Stadium. But at first glance, the Bird's Nest, as it's better known, is the gift that keeps on giving: Four years after the Beijing Olympics, crowds still flock to the Olympic Green
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Daeyang Gallery and House

Water Music: Packed with references to music, math, and more, a hybrid building finds a way of disarming visitors and dancing lightly above a rippling surface of water.
Aric Chen
May 16, 2012
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It's not exactly a house, nor entirely a gallery, but it does have a wine bar'and might best be described as 'semi-public.


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National Museum of China

From Mao to Modern: On vast Tiananmen Square, one of Mao's “Ten Great Buildings” becomes the world's largest museum.
Aric Chen
February 15, 2012
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Completed last spring at the northeast corner of Tiananmen Square, the world's biggest museum stands up to the enormity of Beijing's central public space.


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Standardarchitecture

This firm pursues multiple narratives in projects of very different scales, attitudes, and settings.
Aric Chen
December 16, 2010
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When architect Zhang Ke set up Standardarchitecture in Beijing, he chose the name because “it sounds neutral. It doesn’t imply any specific form,” he says.
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BAM's Next Wave: A Forward-Looking Institution Updates Its Own Look with a Nod to the Past

Aric Chen
May 16, 2008
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Since the 1970s, Hugh Hardy’s work for the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) has run the gamut, spanning new cinemas and a café for the experimental film and performing arts venue to, most recently, a faithful restoration of the 1908 facade of its historic Peter Jay Sharp Building. But one job was left unfinished: “We needed to install a permanent entrance canopy,” says Hardy, FAIA, the principal of New York–based H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture.


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