Features

Creativity and the Brain

Sun, 01 May 2016 09:20:00 -0400

It was 60 years ago, at the start of his career, but the architect and educator John P. Eberhard remembers the very moment the idea came to him for what would be his seminal creation: the modular church.

Genesis of Genius: Excerpts from Pierluigi Serraino's New Book, The Creative Architect

Sun, 01 May 2016 09:10:00 -0400

In 1958, the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR) at the University of California, Berkeley, embarked on an ambitious endeavor to closely study 40 of the most creative architects living in the U.S. or working in the country at the time.

The Creative Process Observed: Thomas Demand

Sun, 01 May 2016 09:00:00 -0400

German photographer Thomas Demand has frequently created his own art by interpreting the creative process of others.

Eureka! Creative Voices in Architecture

Sun, 01 May 2016 08:50:00 -0400

Designers from five firms share their very different creative processes, from research to playing with clay and camping out.

Experimental Children’s Architectural Studio in Moscow

Sun, 01 May 2016 08:40:00 -0400

Two teachers have been bringing out the inner architects in Moscow children since the Soviet era.

Musée Unterlinden

Sun, 01 May 2016 08:30:00 -0400

Rumor has it that the quaint town inspired the architecture in Disney’s animated film Beauty and the Beast. But in a recent renovation of the city’s Musée Unterlinden, Herzog & de Meuron made a conscious effort to avoid the preciousness of a Disney film.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Sun, 01 May 2016 08:20:00 -0400

When it was founded in 1935, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) occupied one, then two floors of the War Memorial Veterans Building in the Hayes Valley neighborhood before moving into its purposebuilt, Mario Botta–designed home in nearby SoMa in 1995.

Valletta City Gate

Sun, 01 May 2016 08:10:00 -0400

The completion of Renzo Piano Building Workshop’s (RPBW) Valletta City Gate comes 30 years after the architect was first invited to remodel the main entrance to Malta’s walled capital.

Speed Art Museum by wHY

jim@jamesgauer.com (James Gauer) — Sun, 01 May 2016 08:00:00 -0400

Topped by cantilevering walls of folded aluminum, a bold addition opens up this Louisville museum to its surroundings.

Critique: 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial

Sun, 15 Nov 2015 23:30:00 -0500

Chicago's first biennial speaks to sustainability, social justice, and the public realm.

Interview with James P. Cramer: Top Architecture Schools of 2016

Sat, 14 Nov 2015 00:00:00 -0500

In an interview accompanying the 2016 rankings, RECORD asked James P. Cramer, editor in chief of the publication DesignIntelligence (DI) and the chairman of the Design Futures Council, to address these and other changes he sees confronting architectural education today.

Making Places: Public Spaces in Chicago

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 12:00:00 -0400

Every night, as I walk along the Chicago Riverwalk to my commuter train, I witness scenes that were unthinkable a year ago: young office workers sipping drinks at a packed wine bar, big powerboats tied up at dockside, clusters of kayaks scooting along the water.

Sheltering Chicago

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 12:00:00 -0400

In 1993, 12-year-old Rachella Thompson and 13-year-old Kimberly Davis sat down with a fistful of Magic Markers to reimagine where they lived—a 10-story high-rise in the Cabrini-Green Homes, one of Chicago’s most troubled housing projects.

Interview with Stanley Tigerman

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 12:00:00 -0400

Stanley Tigerman has died at age 88. RECORD remembers the "Mr. Chicago," revisiting a 2015 interview with the architect about his hometown and its place in architectural culture.

Take It from the Top

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 12:00:00 -0400

Since entering office, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (third from right) has stepped into a surge of public-space revivals, including the opening of the 606 trail in June. Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel had big—no, huge—shoes to fill when he took office in 2011. His predecessor, Richard M. Daley, was straight out of central casting—scion of a legendary Chicago mayor, more street-smart than book-smart, but nonetheless a visionary who vowed to make his once-polluted Rust Belt burg “the greenest city in America.”

Chicago: The Place Between

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 12:00:00 -0400

A modern masterpiece collides with a literary gem—that's Chicago. Crown Hall, with two of its four plate girders visible. At its dedication in April 1956, Eero Saarinen called Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s crisp, exquisite S.R. Crown Hall “a serene temple of the present.”

High Time: Chicago Skyscrapers

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 12:00:00 -0400

Everyone knows that Chicago is the birthplace of the skyscraper. And it is true—depending on how you define the building type. As Carol Willis points out in Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago, if you go by the technological innovations of the elevator and the metal frame, then Chicago was first, but if height matters most, it was New York.

Chicago's Next Generation

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 -0400

Chicago's Next Generation The inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial (October 3, 2015 through January 3, 2016) is a global event. With over 60 firms or studios featured—representing more than 30 countries across six continents—it is also drawing attendees from all over the world. Titled The State of the Art of Architecture, the exhibition, curated by Sarah Herda and Joseph Grima, reaches beyond the national conversation to generate a larger discussion about the future of the built environment.

Ania Jaworska