architecture

The Rise and Fall of Buildings in The Dollhouse

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There are some pieces that are instantly fun to look at — The Dollhouse by Heather Benning, though only viewed through photographs by us, is one of them. With its whimsical nature of retro and vintage furnishings and solid pastel paint jobs, the larger-than-life exhibition piece is what its name indicates: a dollhouse, though perhaps much bigger than the ones we used to have as children. Built from 2005 to 2007 from a narrowly shaped abandoned building on the plains of Manitoba, Canada, Benning’s house stood starkly alone for six years before being burned down by her. On one side, the building seems entirely normal — old, slightly derelict and covered in dark and worn shingles. But on the other side, a transparent wall replaces the entire side, giving a clean cut view into the home, which was refurnished and renovated with care to resemble a dollhouse.

architecture

Klarman Hall: Disorganized Human Filtration with Soul Mate Finding Potential

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The humble Temple of Zeus has relocated to the shiny new Klarman Hall, and although the soups may never again run out, my patience for people might. Repurposing the small, chateauesque appendage in the rear of Goldwin Smith Hall to house the Temple of Zeus (and direct people into the atrium of Klarman Hall) is a smart idea with visible problems.

The architecture is interesting, the renders deceiving and the humans’ spatial understanding humiliating. As one enters the central and grandiose entrance, it delivers people to the middle of a line with an unknown destination. Inside this clusterfuck of columns, tables and sheep actively debase human development. It’s like you’ve traveled to a forgotten time, where one can see and experience the ancient art of oral tradition.

architecture

GUEST ROOM | Cornell’s Architectural Legacy

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Cornell University has a proud tradition of bringing in world-renowned architects to design its signature buildings. This is evident in the fact that Cornell’s campus contains noteworthy works from numerous Pritzker Prize winners. The Pritzker Prize, I should note, is an annually-awarded honor that the world architecture community bestows upon an individual who has made an important contribution to the field of architecture. To put it simply, the Pritzker is to architecture what the Nobel is to peace. It’s a big deal.

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Turning a Blind Eye in Exchange for Big-Budget Architecture

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For a long time, architecture wooed me with tales of utopia and romance; I believed that skyscrapers, steel girders and curtain walls would herald positive change in the world. The legacies of the most famous architects include visions of perfection – Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin Pour Paris. But the reality of modern architecture is a far cry from these visions. Recently, the industry’s most famous superstars – Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Zaha Hadid and others – have been called out as enablers of slavery.

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AAP Taps Richter as New Architecture Chair

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After a professorship of 20 years at the University of California-Los Angeles, Dagmar Richter, a globally renown architect, has been announced as the new chair of the Department of Architecture in the University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning. Richter will officially replace interim chair Mark Cruvellier on July 1 and Cruvellier will remain in the college as a professor.

Richter was educated in Europe at the University of Stuttgart and the Royal Art Academy in Copenhagen and has taught both in America and in Europe at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Rhode Island School of Design, Cooper Union, Columbia University and the Art Academy in Berlin and in Stuttgart.

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Sustainability Expert Explains Role of Design in Environment

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Sustaining the environment can be stylish. In a Call Auditorium packed with people and filled with photos of biota-full building roofs and solar cell-paneled buildings, William A. McDonough made this claim as he was featured yesterday afternoon as the eleventh annual Jill and Ken Iscol Distinguished Environmental Lecture “Cradle to Cradle Design.”
Named by Time Magazine as a “Hero for the Planet” in 1999, McDonough has served as an alumni research professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, consulting professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and a three-time recipient of the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development — the most prestigious environmental honor awarded in the United States.

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A Gag Order on Race in Architecture

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Race is a painfully awkward topic in architecture, while culture remains the go-to book for, uh, copying. David Adjaye, the Ghanian architect born in Tanzania, said in an interview with New York Magazine in 2007, “If a Japanese architect talks about Shintoism, everyone goes, ‘Wow.’ If an African architect talks about an African village, it is somehow weird in the Western context. I find that hilarious. What’s the difference?” Adjaye, a prodigiously talented architect who last week won the Smithsonian commission to design the National Museum of African American History and Culture, is unfortunately a good example of how uncomfortable the architectural discourse is with race.

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Toilet Expert Separates Form and Function of Bathrooms

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Curious students and faculty trickled into Sibley Hall yesterday afternoon to hear Barbara Penner, lecturer in architectural history in the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, elucidate the relationship between bathrooms, social boundaries and architecture.
As Penner took the podium, the house lights fell to yield the title, “X is for An Expert on Bathrooms: Alexander Kira & Peter Greenaway’s 26 Bathrooms,” brightly projected onto the screen behind her.
The lecture featured a screening of Peter Greenaway’s 1985 film entitled Inside Rooms: 26 Bathrooms.

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Taking it to the Streets

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“It’s not like any other conference you’ve been to,” promised Prof. Lisa Patti, film, speaking of the film conference held at Cornell this past Friday and Saturday. Indeed, the unique structure of the conference was readily apparent after merely a brief glance at the program of events — unlike other conferences that focus on a keynote speech and subsequent panel discussions, this conference had no keynote speech and was structured around a series of film viewings and group discussions which — though led by a discussion chair and series of panelists — included heavy audience participation.

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Architects Have a "Field" Day

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There is a question that plagues architects: “Is the building in the drawing or the built work?” Since much of architecture happens on paper and in scale models, architects have had to confront the issue of scale again and again. Architecture students rarely build their assignments in life-scale, rather opting for more wieldy sizes. A handful of professional architects are as famous for their works on paper as they are for their built works — Lebbeus Woods, notably, as well as L.A.-based firm Morphosis.