Welcome to China! And to a new world for Architectural Record. Throughout its 113-year history, this magazine has featured work by American architects, and with increasing frequency, informative, inspirational, or provocative work by architects from around the world.
Wait. That single word may be one of the most difficult to achieve in our frenetic age, but concerning the memorial at the World Trade Center site, the best advice is to slow down, allow time to pass and our perspective to clear, and then to build: We are simply too close to events to commit to such a seminal urban monument.
Last night, the winds howled. We awoke to find that trees had fallen when velocities reached 66 miles per hour, and that outside Rochester, a woman’s death was attributable to the onslaught.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall, which recently opened in Los Angeles, culminates and synthesizes several strong directions in contemporary architecture: a new freedom, unleashed by digital technology; society’s need for cultural expression; Los Angeles’s advancing urban trajectory; Frank Gehry’s personal maturity as artist and architect, and the increasing mastery of the men and women who practice with him.
Now that we’ve shaken off the dust from the spate of annual summer conventions, it’s time to take a breather and reflect on which conferences made a difference for us, and which were merely exercises in stamina.