Displaying items by tag: Architecture

On February 27, 2015, an unprecedented exhibition will open at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. Organized in partnership with Paris’ Galerie Patrick Seguin, the show will feature sculptures by the American artist John Chamberlain in visual conversation with two prefabricated houses by the French designer and architect, Jean Prouvé.  According to a press release from the Gagosian Gallery, both men were “twentieth century innovators who harnessed the strength and suppleness of metal to new potential in their respective fields.”

Since its opening in 1989, Galerie Patrick Seguin has collected demountable houses by Prouvé -- one of the most influential designers of the modern era.

Patience, says architect Annabelle Selldorf, is a virtue she’s acquired over time.

That’s fortunate, as it’s probably going to be at least 2019 before the renovation she is designing for the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego is completed. More fundraising ($50 million for the project; $20 million for an operating endowment), more permitting and more planning has to be accomplished before construction could start in 2017.

“We’re finding our way, and we’ll do whatever it takes, come here as frequently as they will allow us, and develop the design little by little as funds become available, as permits are within reach,” said Selldorf, who was engaged by the museum nearly a year ago. “It’s a long process, but I feel the path is very clear.”

The United States has honored Frank Lloyd Wright -- widely considered the father of modern architecture -- by nominating ten of his buildings for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This is the first time that the U.S. has included works of modern architecture on its ballot and the first time that it has nominated a new site since 2013.

According to UNESCO, to be included on the World Heritage List, a site must be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one out of the ten selection criteria, which includes “representing a masterpiece of human creative genius” and “serving as an outstanding example of a type of architectural building, which illustrates a significant stage in human history.” If added to the World Heritage List, the buildings would join the ranks of such iconic modern structures as the innovative Sydney Opera House by Danish architect Jørn Utzon and Spanish Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi’s sculptural works in Barcelona, including Parque Güel and Crypt of La Sagrada Familia.

Nearly three years after Garage Museum of Contemporary Art founder Dasha Zhukova and architect Rem Koolhaas first revealed designs for the Moscow museum’s new building in Gorky Park, Garage has announced that its new home will open on June 12.

When Zhukova first opened the institution circa 2008 as the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, the art center was housed in the 1926 Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage, an icon of Russian avant-garde architecture designed by Konstantin Melnikov and Vladimir Shukhov. In 2012, the museum announced it would be relocating to the city center, and commissioned Shigeru Ban (this year’s Pritzker Prize laureate) to construct a temporary cardboard pavilion in Gorky Park while Koolhaas and his Rotterdam-based firm OMA worked on the museum’s nearby permanent home.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum director Anne Hawley, whose 25-year tenure began with a notorious art heist and culminated in a successful $180 million capital campaign, announced Wednesday that she plans to step down at the end of the year.

Hawley said she has been quietly weighing the decision for two years now, as the museum completed fund-raising efforts that included $114 million for the museum’s sleek 2012 expansion, designed by renowned architect Renzo Piano, and an additional $50 million to fortify the museum’s endowment.

The Freer Gallery of Art – the Smithsonian’s first art museum – will close for 18 months for renovations beginning Jan. 4, 2016, officials announced Wednesday.

Repairs to the 180,000-square-foot building, a National Historic Landmark, will include updating the climate control systems and installing technological upgrades to its auditorium and storage and conservation areas. In addition, some of the galleries will be returned to the original aesthetic created by architect Charles Platt.

For the third phase of its inaugural program, Paris’ Louis Vuitton Foundation is mounting an exhibition of major works that have been “key to the development of modernity, and have changed the course of art history in the twentieth century.” Keys to a Passion will be held from April 1 to July 6, 2015.

The Louis Vuitton Foundation, which opened in October 2014, was established by the French multinational luxury goods conglomerate, LVMH Group. It is housed in a building commissioned by LVMH’s chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Bernard Arnault, and designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Frank Gehry. Located in the Bois de Boulogne district, the diaphanous glass building spans 126,000 square feet and features eleven exhibition galleries presenting modern and contemporary works from the LVMH Group’s collection as well as masterpieces from Arnault’s personal holdings. The Foundation also hosts temporary exhibitions, artist commissions, multi-disciplinary performances, and events.

During their 30-plus years in the design world, William and Phyllis Taylor, the husband-and-wife team behind the Miami Beach-based firm Taylor & Taylor, have cultivated a lush, tropical aesthetic that has become their signature style. William, a fifth-generation Floridian, creates architecture that forges strong connections between nature and the built environment, while Phyllis, a native New Yorker, designs interiors that complement and respond to the coastal climate and vibrant landscape.

Inspired by the area’s indigenous elements -- both natural and constructed -- the couple believes that Florida is not only a state but a state of mind. Though the Taylors travel widely seeking design inspiration, they always retain their first love -- Florida’s historic architecture -- from breezy seaside bungalows to brightly colored Art Deco hotels and stately Italianate palazzos.

The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by the artists in 1971 and based in Bethany, Connecticut, aims to raise around $600,000 through sales of work by Josef Albers and other artists at Christie’s New York in May. The money will help fund a new culture center due to open in rural Senegal in March.

The new space, which is called “Thread”, will be located in Sinthian, a village in the southeastern region of Senegal, in a building designed by the Japanese architect Toshiko Mori.

The architect Zaha Hadid has settled her case against the New York Review of Books and critic Martin Filler, and donated the settlement money to an undisclosed charity that “protects and champions labor rights,” dezeen magazine reported on Tuesday. Ms. Hadid had filed the libel suit in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan last August.

In his June review of Rowan Moore’s “Why We Build: Power and Desire in Architecture,” Mr. Filler wrote that Ms. Hadid “unashamedly disavowed any responsibility, let alone concern” for an “estimated one thousand laborers who have perished” while building the Al Wakrah stadium she designed for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.