TROPOLISM

Title: House: Black Swan Theory

Author: Steven Holl

Publication Date: May 2007

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press

ISBN: 1-56898-587-9

Title: AT-INdex

Author: Winka Dubbeldam

Publication Date: June 2007

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press

ISBN: 1-56898-535-5

Not only do the folks at Princeton Architectural Press send us lots of books to review, but they have a sense of humor.

Recently we received copies of the two books listed in this review. The two books are polar opposites, and all but begged us to do a comparative review.

Click Continue Reading for the goods...

[Editors note: For our inaugural Film Series, Summer 2007, we invited architect/cinephile Saharat Surattanont. Our only terms: the films must be interesting to architects, but have a common theme that is atypical of architectural film series. Enjoy.]

We often overlook the mundane in film.

Architecture film series tend to follow two basic trends: A monumental urban vision that reinforces “larger than life” characters or an “over stimulated” reality that symbolizes a confused and schizophrenic existence.

This film series examines non-contiguous spaces--inhabited by “dysfunctional” characters. Our protagonists never rise above their surroundings nor are they fully dwarfed by them. A more integrated and symbiotic relation develops between them and their world.

No grand conclusions can be drawn from these films. Mostly, time just passes. In the end, we’ve seen a fractured reality--reframed by those that are often ignored, dismissed or marginalized. All we can finally say is that we’ve shared their world and are reminded to acknowledge the spaces (and people) that are too often overlooked.

Click Continue Reading for the complete film list...

Dear Diary,

Next time I do a master plan for anything, please be sure to run it by Lockhart Steele first. Just the other day, I was looking at Curbed, and I saw his brilliant, whithering criticism of the beyond-stupid Hudson Yards Draft Strategic Framework Plan. Of particular note: he noticed the glaring stupidity of the Plan's attempt to compare a development site with the size of the open spaces in New York, as if the entire site would be open space. What can we say, Lockhart is good.

He didn't mention one important point, but he's probably just leaving something for me to write about. That the Plan is obviously constructed so that one conclusion can be reached: building around the High Line is too expensive, and therefore it should be just knocked down. What architect can't see that this is the most interesting part of the High Line? FxFowle, we had so much faith in you up to now.

Prouve's Maison Tropicale was designed for the African climate, but for a little while, it has a new home in Queens, New York. And, it's for sale. The New York Times gives us the details on the restored house, as well as details on the other two surviving specimens. The house is open today to the public, and is located in Long Island City, on a plot just south of the Queensboro Bridge.

Update: After running over there today, I can report that the dates the house is open are May 17-June 5, 2007. No hours were posted. It was locked at 11am today.

And yes, we've been away for a while, celebrating our second anniversary.

Yesterday's New York Times served up some technicolor imaging of Frank Lloyd Wright's cracking Guggenheim facade. For anyone that has seen a set of historic preservation documents, this kind of documentation is routine. However, the image from the times takes it to a whole new level of awesomeness.

Our Midtown sidewalk correspondant Sah Surattanont captured the wonderful moment of a Richard Serra sculpture being hoisted into place. In this case, into MoMA's courtyard. Click Continue Reading for the full filmstrip.

From Tropolism's inbox comes this:

I wanted to tell you about AdHoc: a 6 hour fast-and-dirty charrette competition for students resulting in the actual construction of a small-scale element for the school.

We're doing this to promote actualized design in an otherwise hyper-theoretical environment. We want to encourage students to think towards building instead of presentation boards. Vito Acconci is going to act as head juror in conjunction with a jury of faculty.

Next year we're going to expand the competition to include other schools in the hopes of spurring interactions among otherwise isolated institutions.

The charette is Saturday, March 31st, starting at noon, Princeton, New Jersey.

Today's New York Times gives us a road trip to Paul Rudolph's work between here and Boston, and includes updates on the conditions of the buildings. It also divulges a lot of details about the people who inhabit them. It also includes, shockingly enough, actual addresses and directions to said buildings. Time to call the garage and have the car ready.

Ever since Modern Architecture In Europe went out of print, and the internet, er, happened, guidebooks to famous buildings have been few and far between. The AIA produces a few for major cities, but they are hardly comprehensive. Road tripping across the country means long expanses of no handheld device internet access, which means all that online information is useless, unless you print it out. Until someone finds a solution for this, we'll have to print out articles like this one.

A report on a lecture at the NAI appears in translation at Eikongraphia. Of particular interest is the discussion around Olafur's focus on being critical of the marketplace, and the difficulty he has working with architects.

Via Greg.org.

We've often expressed our admiration for Enric Miralles. Long overlooked in our praise has been his former partner, Carme Pinos. The early design brilliance of projects like the Igualada Cemetery are of equal credit to Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos. As a distant observer of their work, and as someone who knows people in their milieu, we surmise that Miralles had the surrealist imagination, and Pinos tended toward rhythmic ordering, modularity, and beautiful material connections. Miralles' work seemed to devolve into indulgent shapes (the Scottish Parliament's execution is a great example of this) without the regulating force of Pinos. Together, they were amazing.

Somehow we missed, until now, the Torre Cube in Guadalajara, Mexico (pictured). The project is an office building with natural ventilation. Offices are arranged in staggered prismatic volumes supported by three curved concrete cores. The atrium and openings between the volumes create a natural ventilation effect. In addition, there is a double skin to the building: the offices are enclosed by glass and are shaded by a sliding wood panel system. These panels can be manually moved to create optimum shading for different work environments and times of day/year.

And, it's beautiful as all get out. Carme, it's time to get a website already.

Tipped off by Via Arquitectura.

The Louvre is going franchise. For $520 million, Abu Dhabi has licensed the Louvre name for its previously-titled "classical museum". Read all about it in the New York Times today. While the article is full of details like art exchanges, price tags, and a cursory overview of the financial and political relationship between France and the United Arab Emirates, what really interests us is the new rendering of the underside of Nouvels' dome (pictured), previously reported on here. For us, the global branding of art, a result of the commoditization of art, is of little interest. We want that amazing building to be real.

On Gridskipper today: an article asking writers about architecture what they think the ugliest building in New York is. Of course, we picked the Whitney, but as we make plain, ugly has never been a perjorative for us.

Photo by Hagen Steir on flickr.

This Abu Dhabi wonderland update we are showing off pictures of the models for the designs by Jean Nouvel (pictured) and Zaha Hadid.

Nouvel's scheme for a "classical museum" (possibly a branch of the Louvre) features a huge, flattened dome over an open-air arrangement of smaller buildings. It's like a village, shaded with a space dome. We think it's gorgeous.

Click Continue Reading to see a close-up of the Nouvel dome, and to experience the Zaha model goodness.

A few weeks ago we mentioned a new design by Zaha Hadid for a planned arts supercomplex in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. A special UAE correspondant has provided us with photographs of the exhibition. We weren't prepared for the amount of detail and vigor that went into the models and design of each proposal, and for our correspondant's wonderful close-up photography.

Click Continue Reading for amazing pictures with the Tadao Ando and Frank Gehry proposals.