What's All This Then?
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What's All This Then?
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Architecture
Pinc House's Black Barn.
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I am in love.
Sony World Photography Awards 2020: Architecture.
Dreaming of self-isolating here at the Home Farm Cottage.
"I've always had an obsession with straight lines and perspectives." Bucharest's crumbling modernist heritage.
OMG. 11,700 photos from John Margolies' Archive of Americana Architecture. Download, Use & Re-Mix.
Gorgeous.
I did take English Saddle riding lessons growing up so think this place is perfect for me.
Do not start this if you have anything to get done in the next little while. IsoCity.
Belmont Hall Court.
Great piece by Thomas de Monchaux on architectural photographer Ezra Stoller, who Turned Buildings Into Monuments.
The Unexpectedly Tropical History of Brutalism.
Rakotzbrucke Devil's Bridge in Gablenz, Germany.
Ancient ruins, reconstructed.
Gorgeous, St. Stephen's Yard.
Lovely, the St. Stephen's Yard home.
"After 137 years of illegal construction, the city of Barcelona has granted the Basilica of the Sagrada Família legal permissions... with a projected completion date of 2026."
The first example of a self-shaping wood construction process, Urbach Tower, in the Rems Valley of Germany.
Thomas Phifer and Partners Glenstone Museum in Potomac Maryland. Sublime.
CCCP (cosmic communist constructions photographed).
Acoustics plus aesthetics.
Library Porn.
#SOS Brutalism is "a database that currently contains over 1,100 Brutalist buildings. But, more importantly, it is a platform for a large campaign to save our beloved concrete monsters." Via Things.
Sea cabins on Manshausen Island in the Arctic Circle.
Vancouver will get the world's tallest wooden skyscraper, by Perkins +Will.
"A concrete bunker doesn't often inspire thoughts of a welcoming home, yet architect Matt Woods and his clients found an unexpected muse in brutalist architecture while renovating this minimalist apartment in Sydney's Camperdown suburb."
This modernist swimming pool in the French hills is a geometric masterpiece.
WUtopia Lab's incredible design for a a bookstore in Suzhou, China. Yowza.
TWA Hotel inside Eero Saarinen's JFK Airport terminal open for reservations. Count me in.
Super-tall, super-skinny, super-expensive.
UNESCO names Rio de Janeiro the first World Capital of Architecture.
The Wave in Vejle, Denmark, by Henning Larsen.
Facades, Markus Brunetti.
Crane Pavilion By GBBN Architects.
A Groovy Look at Mid-Sixties Interior Decor.
23 photos of The Imprint by MVRDV, in Seoul. Yowza.
Shed of the year 2018 finalists announced!
Ice Cube celebrates Charles and Ray Eames.
The Liebian International Building in Guiyang, China incorporates a dramatic 350 foot waterfall on the facade.
The top five designs in NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Centennial Challenge.
A new way out.
Preserving Frank Lloyd Wright's legacy through digital innovation.
Local note, The Chicago Architecture Foundation's New Riverfront Center. Woot!
A 1:250 scale model of ancient Rome, the Plastico di Roma Imperiale is the life work of a single archaeologist, Italo Gismondi.
The world's smallest house.
Japanese architect Kengo Kuma's latest work is the Comico Art Museum.
Proposal video for Utrecht Centraal, the worlds largest bicycle parking facility. Damn.
"New photographs and a movie reveal Zaha Hadid's only completed private residence— a house in the Barvikha Forest near Moscow, for a man she called the 'Russian James Bond.'" Woah.
"Rosebery House is a 2,699-square-foot Australian residence that's thoughtfully layered to create a powerful sense of transition, transparency, and enclosure."
Just Brutal.
Brick pyramids, indoor pools, and outdoor baths on Copenhagen's waterfront. Water Culture House.
1:250 model of ancient Rome. Sweet.
Big buildings, very big.
How building codes and taxes shape regional architecture.
A look inside the lighthouse on Bishop Rock, the smallest island in Britain.
A documentary about a couple traveling in a room with a different view every morning.
"Perched on an idyllic hilltop site, the Foothills Modern residence is composed of four structures--the main house, guest house, pool house, and caretaker's residence--each with striking horizontal lines, flat roofs, and bold overhanging eaves."
"Designed within the footprint of an existing 1950's rambler, this home was completely transformed to create a light filled open plan with easy and direct connections to the outdoors."
"Spanish furniture designer Fernando Abellanas has carved out a new creative home in a section of Valencia that isn't the typical artist neighborhood: he's built a studio affixed to a highway underpass."
Grain Kings.
From architecture firm Studio MM, the gorgeous Creek House, Kerhonkson, NY
Awesome Control Rooms. Gotta build something like this for Field Notes someday.
Desert Tombstones, monolithic architecture shot in UAE.
Brutalist architecture in Chicago.
Dream houses drawn by kids and rendered by professionals.
Stay at Mr. Anderson's House.
Bird Nest Villa at Segera Retreat in Kenya.
Lewis Arts Complex at Princeton, by Steven Holl Architects. More here.
"A cluster of white cargo containers emerging like a starburst from a rocky site."
Code Space, by Full Scale Studio. Whoa.
All I need is $10 million bucks and my new address would be Barnhouse, Highgate, London N6
Local note, the second Chicago Architecture Biennial kicks off this weekend.
Lego NYC.
Nathan Hill's novel The Nix sent me down a great internet rabbit hole: University of Illinois at Chicago's "Circle Campus," a brutalist '60s experiment that didn't make it through the '90s.
A look at the gorgeous offices of our pals at Bellroy.
Too cute? Yes. But still pretty sweet.
The world's largest bike parking garage.
Rendering for the proposed new Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in DC.
The Wind Cathedral.
Gorgeous home in West Hollywood with a surprising nod to The Smiths.
Cheap old houses.
The rise of verdant architecture.
As Canada turns 150, a look back at the 1967 Expo. Thanks Marshall.
Lovely modern Brooklyn brownstone.
The Wedge House in Athens, Greece, by Schema Architecture & Engineering.
"...not all social problems can be solved by design—even very good design." Broadacre City, a suburban plan by Frank Lloyd Wright.
"The Fosun Foundation is the centerpiece of the Bund Finance Center, a new mixed-use complex designed by Norman Foster's architecture firm and Thomas Heatherwick's design studio." The facade of this building is in motion.
Crazy, beautiful bookstore in Chengdu, China, designed by x living.
"Marion Mahony Griffin would probably spit on Frank Lloyd Wright's 150th birthday cake if she had the chance. So let's get that out of the way." A great read about Lloyd Wright's best frenemy and one of the first female stars of architecture (that you might not have ever heard of, by her design).
An illustrated guide to Frank Lloyd Wright's signature buildings.
"Chicago is the city America built when it turned away from Europe and asked itself what it really wanted to be." Thomas Dyja on the razing of The Mecca and the building of S.R. Crown Hall, by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Basically my dream home. I'd put a few chairs in the library but that is about it.
After months of renovation, New York City's beloved Campbell Apartment bar is now open.
ArchDaily updates their list of the world's 25 tallest buildings.
Dream world: "Were do you live?" Assington, Suffolk. In a Barn.
Kulum Eispavilion, St. Moritz, Foster + Partners.
30 Rockefeller Plaza and St. Patrick's Cathedral, circa 1939, photo by Herbert Matter.
What became of America's drive-thru Fotomat?
Gorgeous conversion of a Victorian school building.
If you thought it would be a good idea to hire the firm that designs Apple Stores to design your house, you'd be right.
It would probably take thousands of years to draw, and its architects needed a supercomputer to visualize just a fraction of it. This is the most complex architectural structure In history.
Architectural illustrations by Andrea Minini.
Vanke Pavilion for Beijing's 2019 International Horticultural Expo.
"Leaning on the hotel's social stay concept, the design encourages locals and guests to cross paths and interact in a laid back context. The space offers an atypical hub of activity, with little to no separation between the diverse mix of services available. A small bike hire shop and a cafe sit side-by-side on a 27ft long wood workbench. The guest laundromat is juxtaposed with the reception with large leather banquettes where guests can enjoy a coffee while catching up on their laundry."
The architectural beauty of spiral staircases photographed by Nancy Da Campo in Barcelona.
Power Stations operated by The National Power Company of Iceland. So you know. Via Darran Anderson.
Concrete Feats is a curation of Brutalist structures from around the world.
"Probably the best Modern house in the world" is how this incredible property was described in an article in The Sunday Times by the architecture critic Hugh Pearman. Designed in 1962 by Jorn Utzon, best known for his world-famous design of the Sydney Opera House, it is understandably one of the most admired residences of our age.
Ignant visits the National Library in Paris. Beautiful photos of a beautiful piece.
This ranch house in the Coachella Valley is covered in mirrors.
Lovely modern vacation home in Barbados.
Would I live in a barn? Yes, if it is this one.
Architect turns an old cement factory into a gorgeous home.
Drooling over this San Francisco houseboat.
"The Hidden History of the Laundry Chute"
The Hague is now the largest Mondrian painting in the world.
Tokyo Shop Fronts, illustrated by Mateusz Urbanowicz.
Scaffoldage. Fab. Via P&C.
One Minecraft user spent years building a scale replica of Chicago.
"Various tones of red paint cover the exterior facade, accentuating the contrast with the landscape. Stairs and circulation surfaces, on the other hand, are treated with different tones of blue ranging from sky-blue to indigo and even violet, depending on whether the intention is to contrast with the sky or create visual continuity with it." La Muralla Roja.
The house where Winnie the Pooh was written is for sale.
"Earlier today, on the rooftop of Central Saint Martins, we took a step into the future past." Futuro House.
RNDRD. "A partial index of published architectural renderings." Fab, via Things Mag.
Tiny City explores the world of American architecture through miniature paper craft.
Six small cabins have been built inside the Finnish Institute in Paris so people can experience the culture of Finland.
Five terraces and a garden.
Jeanne Gang's Buildings That Blend Nature and City TED Talk.
A look inside Chicago's historic (and currently shuttered) Congress Theater.
Architecture geek alert, The Brutalist Coloring Book.
An aerial tour of the new Apple campus.
Fabulous, Tiny Hut in the Sky.
Gorgeous Sonoma County farmhouse.
Lonesome Grain Silos Of Hobson Montana.
"That's when patrons will notice that the black, gray and white counter, resting on a simple wood and cement base, is actually inventively constructed out of millions of Lego blocks..." Designer Yusuke Sek's interior for the new Bake Cheese Tart store in Kyoto is wildly inventive and fun. Also the product looks delicious, "The best cheese tart in your life ever for you. We have so much passion for cheese tart SERIOUSLY."
The making of London's new Design Museum, by Rebecca Fulleylove.
DREAM: "Hey MS, where do you live? "Kew House, Cambridge Road, Richmond Upon Thames." *sigh*
Layered House in Saroma-Cho, Japan, by Igarashi Architects.
Another addition to my dream house portfolio, the Lafayette Loft.
Drop-dead gorgeous modern Glass Wall house. Dibs for my dream house portfolio.
"...the city's landmarks commission required any rooftop addition to be invisible, a significant challenge considering that the building is located on a prominent corner plot with a low, two-storey structure across the street." WORKac's stealth penthouse.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Glass skyscraper, model, unrealized project, 1922. Photo: Curt Rehbein. Vintage. gelatin silver print.
Seven years late and 10 times over-budget, the €789m Elbphilharmonie concert hall by Herzog and De Meuron is finished. "We thought it was going to destroy us."
At 56 feet, the Brick Khalifa is claimed to be the tallest building in the world made out of LEGO.
Early construction photos of Mount Rushmore.
The Cardboard Cathedral by Shigeru Ban.
Yes please, drop-dead gorgeous modern home in Costa Rica.
In Residence: Casa Gilardi a film by César Pesquera. Casa Gilardi is the last house built entirely by legendary Mexican architect Luis Barragán.
"To be a Graduate is to be part of a well-curated, well-crafted collection of hotels that reside in the most dynamic University towns across the country. Every site and property celebrates and commemorates the youthful optimism of school days and cultivates the spirit of each community in a bright new way."
"Real scale drawings enable us to simply take a stroll through our projects, even before they are built." —Oslo architecture firm Vardehaugen AS.
Tadao Ando's New Mexico Ranch for Tom Ford is incredible and is now being promoted for sale in this over-the-top film. "Price upon request." If you have to ask...
Once were churches. Via Things.
The unique architectural features of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Life in a Box, the summer house of Swedish architect Buster Delin.
The unique glass-walled Flexhouse.
Gorgeous duplex in Sweden.
How Marina City started the reclamation of the Chicago River and the city's downtown boom.
Related to the last, PS1 House built into a rock wall.
The disappearing romance of Russia's window art.
Olguín House in Mexico.
Twisted buildings around the world.
This house built on a single column can rotate 360 degrees.
Train to Nowhere, Andrew J. Hawkins on Cincinnati's "ghost" subway, with photos by Andrew Spear. Thanks Marshall.
Loving all the glass and greenery in Start Today's new Tokyo office.
Sebastian Weiss is passionate about concrete aesthetics and the beauty seen in city shapes.
Seven of the best new buildings and interiors in Rio that have nothing to do with sports.
Gorgeous restoration of IV century nunnery
"In 2013, C.F. Moller Architects revealed plans to build a 34-story wooden skyscraper in Stockholm. Since then, a number of innovative projects have been released, some conceptual, while others are currently under construction." A roundup of wooden skyscrapers.
On an undesirable lot in Mexico City, architect Yuri Zagorin Alazraki created a stacked home and lush garden.
Tour Deckard's apartment from Blade Runner. (And please buy me a pair of Deckard's whiskey tumblers!)
Interiors by Aim Architecture for the Soho Bund Hotel in Shanghai.
LEGO Loop.
Dancing about architecture.
Lots of shots submitted to Geometry Club's Instagram and assembled as a gif. Fabulous.
Rachael Steven reviews This Brutal World by Peter Chadwick which celebrates "the power and beauty" of Brutalist architecture through images of iconic buildings from around the world.
Development Aesthetics, marketing on constructions site barriers, annotated. Fantastic, via the always observant Things Mag.
Random architectural fragments.
"There's the door —right there." Michael's cave.
Sublime, the Integral House. Thanks Marshall.
If you, like me, love his buildings, you're def going to want to peek into his studio, Inside the Concrete Atelier of Tadao Ando.
Bruce Campbell lives in "a Boeing 727 that functioned as a Greek airliner in the 1960s." He purchased the retired aircraft in 1999, and keeps it parked in a forest clearing near Portland, Oregon." Via John Dickerson.
A Chicago Sojourn on Louis Sullivan copies/homages throughout the city: "Sullivanesque Revisited."
Gorgeous loft in Spitalfields. Yes please.
"When architectural sculptor Corrado Parducci arrived in Detroit in 1924, he left his fingerprints on hundreds of buildings during the building boom. Parducci's story is of an Italian immigrant who overcomes hardships throughout his life, and without seeing notoriety for his work, becomes one of our country's top architectural sculptors." Parducci: The Man Who Made Detroit Beautiful.
Sebastian Weiss is passionate about concrete aesthetics and the beauty seen in city shapes. Via Aisle One.
The surviving post-fire buildings in Chicago's Loop.
Local note, nice article on the chaotic architecture of the old Chicago Stadium, by Alex Bean.
London's The Toothpick, an planned 80-story skyscraper made of wood.
"Distinctive to its neighbors, the exterior of House Pibo is defined by the continuation of the soil, creating one continuous lifted green roof."
White Cave House is a massive lump engraved by a series of voids interconnected in the shape of a kinked tube.
Gorgeous house in Sardinia.
"This model of Don Draper's apartment shows a life built on divided ground, perhaps suggesting that it's impossible be good at everything — a bachelor and a father, a husband and a lover — and to feed off the dreams of others, and remain sober yourself. Go ahead and refurnish Don Drapers apartment."
Tree in the house.
Dreamy 18th-Century English cottage acquires an inspired glass box kitchen. Lovely.
"The sensational LEGO structures and hands-on challenges in Brick by Brick reveal the power of play as a gateway to creating greatness."
For Marshall.
Casa Meztitla.
Bro-tastic dude! (Please don't let any of these end up in our new space).
"To step inside is to enter a time warp." 2055 S Joshua Tree Place.
As a city, we Chicagoans are comfortable coming in at #2 at things, but being runner up to Dallas for USA Today's Best International Skyline really stings. It helps that it also makes no logical sense.
Yes, I can see myself living here. Just don't see the money to do so in my bank account.
So you know, the grid system for London that never happened.
Fabulous glass box house in Dutchess County NY, by Desai/Chia Architecture. More here. Via Dezeen.
I'd like to think I'm a good dad, but I'm not this good.
Concrete Cut, a residence in Israel by Pitsou Kedem.
The year in drone video real estate, architecture, and cities.
"Moonrise kingdom: why North Korea's buildings echo Wes Anderson film sets.
LEGO skyline building kits.
Muji Hut.
Steelhenge is a recreation of the prehistoric English stone circle built out of shipping containers.
After 17 months of meticulous renovation funded by the fashion house Fendi, Rome's famed Trevi Fountain is gloriously restored and open for business.
An illustrated history of architecture over the past 750 Years in Paris. Via Fubiz.
Nestled in a dense Japanese forest is the stunning Nasu Residence.
Yes, please.
Water levels in a reservoir in Mexico have dropped 82 feet to reveal a church.
DIY mezzanine and loft kits.
The Motives of Russian Architecture, published from 1873 to 1880, featured drafts and sketches of ornate homes and public buildings.
Frank Gehry designed a yacht.
"Chicago is again and always the city of the future."
How Chicago became the country's alley capital.
The Spindle, Windamajig, Pinto Pelt, and floating McDonalds. Sadly Berwyn's Cermak Plaza is not nearly as interesting these days.
Gah! Drop dead gorgeous house and views, The Edge house. Via Uncrate.
"...a training-wheels urbanism that dates back to when American cities were fitfully trying to attract suburbanites who'd abandoned them long ago." Whet Moser on Chicago's Navy Pier.
A glass-bottomed swimming pool will bridge two buildings in London.
"The TWA Flight Center at JFK is a marvel of mid-century design in the Jet Age, a sleek, futuristic place that evokes a bird in flight. It's been largely off-limits to the public since 2001, but architecture photographer Max Touhey got a rare look inside."
"As fears of overpopulation took hold in the 1970s, NASA began giving serious thought to building space colonies. In the years since, they managed to solve Earth's population problem by sending everyone to live in my neighborhood in Manhattan so that the landlord can keep raising my goddamn rent. But before finding that solution, there were a variety of space colony design renderings produced."
Unforgotten New York looks at the ghosts that haunt the city's most influential venues of the 20th Century
Drawing Architecture. Bookmarked.
Tablet gives us their picks for the Best Motels in America.
Lovely design for Law Winery in Paso Robles, by BAR Architects.
"From 17th century Postmedieval English abodes to 19th century Tudors all the way through the 'McMansions' of the 1990s, this detailed diagram of hand-illustrated domiciles brings together 121 American houses in all, sorted into seven major categories and 40 subdivisions."
Lots of details behind none, the architectural drawings of Minty Sainsbury. Via This Isn't Happiness.
The app-powered Skysphere. Via Contemporist.
Gorgeous conversion of an old garage in Amsterdam.
Four sweet shortlisted designs for a new pedestrian bridge from Nine Elms to Pimlico in London.
Great sketches of New York architecture by James Anzalone.
If I can scrounge up about 1.5 million, I am totally moving to Devon.
A church made from live trees in New Zealand.
Behold the saddest Amtrak Stations in America. Via Five for Friday.
Check out this great modern treehouse.
Wish I had an extra $5.8 Million laying around so I could buy this castle.
The 19-day, 57-story skyscraper.
Looking into flights right now.
A modern farmhouse from Scottish ruins.
The stunning mansion in Ex Machina is (mostly) real, and you can spend the night there.
Related to the last, Barozzi Veiga's Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The Szczecin Philharmonic Hall, erected on the grounds of a Polish concert hall destroyed during the Second World War, has won the Mies van der Rohe Award for contemporary European architecture prize for 2015. Beautiful work by Spanish studio Barozzi Veiga whose wite has more photos.
Bar Luce designed by Wes Anderson.
"Miniature beacons to all humankind, elevating the wonder of innovation and excellence!" Mini Paper Pavilion Club. Thanks Neal.
An ambitious plan to rectify "one of the greatest civic blunders ever committed", rebuilding New York's Old Penn Station.
A massive yet tidy collection of Legos
An architectural review of NYC's new Whitney Museum of American Art.
"Scalies."
Inside Abbey Road, a cool interactive tour of the studio.
A "special moment in space that rivals a child's treehouse or a fort." The Lightbox, Point Roberts, Washington, by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson.
A tour of Cards Against Humanity's Chicago digs.
A full-time home for a family of four; consisting of a 'day pavilion' and a 'night pavilion'. Two Hulls House by Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects
Gorgeous studio apartment in London.
An airy new city hall for Buenos Aires.
Paperholm, ingenious papercut building models by Charles Young. One every day.
A mirrored highrise hotel in the Swiss Alps.
Wonderful, the Renzo Picasso archive. Via DRB.
Lego-inspired structures to help restore coral reefs.
Building skyscrapers on Chicago's swampy soil.
"If a tornado sliced through the Midwest, picking up a cheese shop in Wisconsin, a White Castle restaurant in Kansas, and Chicago's Marina City, shrunk them to 1/500th their sizes and deposited them within a single square mile, that is roughly what you would see in a room on the second floor of River North's Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts." Midwest Culture Sampler.
So you know, an architect's guide to turning the living room into an epic pillow fort. Knowledge is power.
Hello beautiful.
What's the oldest city in the world?
Waffle Shop.
Local note. Now, when you're on the river at 300 South Wacker, you are here. Smart work from ESI Design.
The building Jay Maisel bought for 102K in 1966 and just sold for 55 million. Thanks Marshall.
Spora Architects' designs for two metro stations on Budapest's newly-opened Line 4. Sublime. More on the project at ArchDaily.
Save the Okura Hotel, a petition that, judging by the photo set alone, is well worth signing.
A collection of paper cut-out models representing brutalist architecture of London from 1960s-1970s.
Room on the Roof, an artist in residence program in Amsterdam.
Gorgeous attic apartment in Sweden.
Gah, want.
Artist-designed suites at the 25th rendition of ICEHOTEL in Sweden.
"Chicago Architecture Data is a new citywide survey that is documenting the city's built environment. Our mission is to document the history and characteristics of all interesting buildings in the city."
Now an annual tradition, former Guest Editor, Jeremy Quinn has put together new calendar for the new year, this time using photographs he and his wife had taken of Le Corbusier's capital building at Chandigarh, India. Beautiful.
"Once upon a time, there was a house in the trees, surrounded by the lights of the forest fairies, where the lodgers never grew up... and it came with wireless internet for a minimum two night stay on AirBnB!"
Canadian ice huts, coast to coast.
My Dad would love this, a floating green.
Sweet interactive feature from The Guardian on how London's skyline is set to change?
The beautiful geometry of 18th century forts, built by Britain in the American colonies
Office Romance, a video love-letter to a building by Kathy Ryan, director of photography at The New York Times Magazine.
Branding and architecture for Redberry, by Mexico's Anagrama.
"A blog about architecture, studying it, things related to it, things related to studying it, and other things." Less Adjectives More Verbs.
Browse the Home Sweet Home archive at Big Chief for lots of interior inspiration.
The restaurant of 10,000 bones.
Tsubomi Home by Flathouse.
Hong Kong's densely-packed and vice-laden Kowloon Walled City was demolished in 1993, but Japanese researchers documented it with detailed drawings. Also check out the Japanese arcade styled after Kowloon, and the 3-D model. (Via Heather Parker)
A detailed cross section of the Kowloon Walled City by Japanese researchers.
Good Lord, look at the view from the breakfast bar alone. Via Uncrate.
The Minecraft megacity that took 2 years and 4.5 million blocks to construct.
The footbridge over the Grand Union Canal in Paddington, London folds like a fan.
Modernist gas stations.
Once the burial site of Richard the Lion Heart, Abbaye de Fontevraud is now a hotel, designed by Jouin Manku. Splendid.
The (absolutely terrifying) glass floor is just one addition to the new visitor center in the Eiffel Tower.
The Underground Wind Bulbs of Utah.
Where I'm from: Architecture students from Rwanda present works inspired by George Ella Lyon's poem "Where I'm From".
Stunning Astronomical Architecture from India, built in the 1700s. Didn't find many extensive photo collections online, so here are some of my shots from last winter. Also picked up this great info-graphic poster about it, seems to only be available in India so far though.
One of the things often separating architects from everyone else is a love for Brutalism. Take a look around here and here to see where you stand.
Pics of five new airport terminals. Check Terminal 3 at Shenzhen. Via Om.
A look at the gorgeous Amangiri Resort and Spa in Utah.
Renderings of old dead baseball parks, including the two from Chicago history - West Side Grounds and South Side Park. There Used To Be A Ballpark, by Jeff Suntala. Sweet.
Everyone today wants open floor plans and granite counters. Back in the day, rooms were as plentiful as allowed by space. Check out these elaborate floor plans from Pre-World War NYC apartments.
Scottsdale Desert Courtyard House, by Wendell Burnette Architects.
Related to an earlier post, Chicago is the movable bridge capital of the world.
LA's midcentury Silvertop estate is for sale. Someone loan me $7.5M.
"Each letter stands fourteen feet tall and seven feet wide. BUS is a place to enjoy, interact, and meet while waiting for the bus."
The minimalist Hotel Zenden.
"Set to be built in Tromso in Norway, Krystall will be a glass-roofed floating hotel wedged between two fjords."
An animated look at Iconic Houses.
The Lotus Building in Wujin, China.
It's inconceivable that we never posted this before, but just in case: Ice Cube Celebrates The Eames. (Thx HP)
"It's difficult for anyone to imagine the future. But what if you were largely unfamiliar with the present?" Commissions for Utopia.
The Life and Times of the American Motel, from If Charlie Parker...
Coober Pedy, the town that went underground.
Gorgeous Modern houseboat for rent just outside Berlin.
I don't camp, but if I did, I might consider getting the VW Bus Tent. Who am I kidding. I'd be more likely to go for something like this with a visit first by these guys.
Nice feature from Berlin-based Ignant focusing on architecture, design and urban homes.
My dream vacation home. *Sigh*
Paso Robles, California residence by Aidlin Darling Design.
Take a look inside Detroit's secretive Masonic Temple.
A spaceship command bridge meets a retail bank branch at SMBC Shukugawa in Japan.
Starbucks' retail design and "flow."
Gorgeous getaway in South Africa, the Lion Sands Game Reserve.
Pretty interesting, 15 famous landmarks zoomed out to show their surroundings.
Yeah, think I'll just leave this for the tourists.
For your next summer BBQ, you can now host it at Frank Lloyd Wright's Emil Bach House, which has opened up as a vacation rental, following a couple of years of extensive renovations.
Local note, Phew.
Gorgeous restoration of a simple garage. Want badly.
"Look down in the right parts of town, and you'll see them." A Chicago Sojourn on the terrazzo entryways of Chicago.
Secret rooms in hidden doors.
"This site is dedicated to the study of World War II airfields in in Great Britain." Via Things.
(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here... I wish I was here... I wish I was here.
Sweet ten minute doc on Johannesburg's iconic Ponte Tower by Phillip Bloom. Thanks Marshall.
Marina City, as photographed by C. William Brubaker. Bet you've never seen this angle before.
Gizmodo takes a look at 9 of the most beautiful buildings we ever tore down. Makes my heart hurt.
Stunning modern home in Laguna Beach.
The architecture of Alfred Hitchcock, from Steven Jacobs' new book, The Wrong House.
Elvis Presley's abandoned Tiki paradise.
Mesmerizing trailer for a film, by Sarah Morris, Points on a Line, which examines form and context in Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House and Philip Johnson's Glass House.
Architectural illustrator Chris Dent.
Where my daughters spend every day after school.
Line Rainville lives in the USS Enterprise.
Loving this small box house.
(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here... I wish I was here... I wish I was here.
A look at the Pinterest headquarters. Where are all the brides and babies?
1 Infinite Loop (Apple HQ) recreated in Minecraft, Yowza, via Andy Baio.
Not only is it named after me (I pretend), they actually spelled it right. I need to get there. stat.
House I.
Hello beautiful.
Qbic is an affordable pod style hotel for the budget savvy traveller. A look at their new location in London's trendy Shoreditch neighborhood.
FLW presents his design for a mile-high skyscraper. Chicago, 1956.
Cool Hunting chatted with designer Marc Brickman, the man behind the Empire State Building's elaborate light shows.
I got to visit their offices while I was in Portland for XOXO and now you can too, via this post, The Panic Office. In case you missed it, here's Cabel Sasser's most excellent talk from the festival.
Oscar Niemeyer's Brasilia as photographed by Andrew Prokos.
Soviet-era cinemas are falling apart.
Tangentially related to the last. Terrific sketches of 14 Major League ballparks, 1946-47 by Gene Mack.
Gorgeous superyachts by Zaha Hadid.
Architect Elizabeth Diller leads a construction tour of The Broad, L.A.'s next contemporary art museum.
Archery Hall and Boxing Club at Tokyo's Kogakuin University, by FT Architects, Via Notcot.
Drop dead gorgeous modern house in drop dead gorgeous Whistler BC.
"...to go just outside centers of population, pick up land cheaply, build a whole community, and entice people into it. Then go back into the cities and tear down slums and make parks of them." Jim Hughes on Greenhills, a Utopian New-Deal era project near Cincinnati.
You had me at the fireplace.
For SD, Houses of the Hobbit Diaspora.
South Korea's Tower Infinity uses technology to render itself "invisible."
If I only had 7.4 million bucks to spare, I could own Steve McQueen's Ranch. Helllooo Kickstarter!
Gorgeous apartment with killer views and design, the Skybox Apartment.
Hank bought a bus.
Gizmodo visits filmmaker Casey Neistat's "wildly functional" studio.
An on-going research project, started in 2011, that aims to document all the abandoned houses on the southeast coast of Iceland. Via The Fox is Black.
Here's an interesting new free-form kit from Lego Architecture, The Studio. You can download the "instructions" here, the Set Number is 21050. Via Things.
The largest man-made structure in the world has opened in China's Sichuan province, housing hotels, offices, a beach resort and an artificial sun.
Amazing Villa in Majorca. Via Materialicious.
April 1963 issue of the magazine Popular Science with a cutaway diagram of Marina City by illustrator Ray Pioch." Great. Via Dmitry Samarov.
"In 1993, while browsing in a junk shop, artist Oliver Croy discovered 387 model buildings, each neatly wrapped in its own garbage bag —the architectural creations of Austrian insurance clerk Peter Fritz."
Mini golf meets sculpture park.
Cool Hunting has a look at the new Delta Sky Deck soon to open at JFK airport.
Coast Modern looks great. "From LA to Vancouver, a legacy of inspired living by the pioneers of West Coast Modernist Architecture." Local note, it's screening on the 25th at Chicago Filmmakers.
Zaha Hadid's Guangzhou Opera House.
So you know, houses architects live in. 1977.
Short documentary about the Sheats Goldstein House, John Lautner's modernist residence, owned by the eccentric billionaire basketball fan, James Goldstein.
Gah, yes please!
Coolest grandparents ever.
For DW, the ultimate apartment for a Star Trek fan.
Isbjerget, sweet waterside apartment development in Aarhus, Denmark.
(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here... I wish I was here... I wish I was here.
The NY Times' obituary for Paolo Soleri, the architect and former Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice who had spent the last half-century constructing Arcosanti, a settlement outside of Phoenix "that became a symbol of hippie-era utopianism and a prescient environmentalism."
Selexyz Dominicanen. It's hard to argue with the claim that this is the world's most beautiful bookshop. Via The Paris Review Daily.
To support the increasing number of cyclists in Zurich, Switzerland, the government--with the help of designers--has unveiled a 'drive-in' for bicycles.
Local note. A Chicago Sojourn series, The Trail of Churches visits four churches in our neighborhood and is full of historical and architectural details. Via Gapers.
In 1957, writer, public intellectual, lifelong art aficionado, and self-described "aging anthologist" Selden Rodman collected several dozen of his informal, lively, amusing, and insightful interviews with iconic artists and architects -- including Frank Lloyd Wright, Willem de Kooning, and Saul Steinberg -- in Conversations with Artists.
CONTACT 1: A 200,000 piece LEGO masterwork.
Villa L, a residence in Utrecht, The Netherlands, by Powerhouse Company.
Saw this building over the weekend, standing proud and sad. The Michigan Central Station building, vacant, in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood.
The Life and Times of the American Motel, images collected by Tom Sutpen in an archive category of If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger...
Pleasant Family Shopping, a blog about "supermarkets, discount stores and more from the past."
Gorgeous apartment in Stockholm.
Totally want to live in The Rieteiland House.
My kind of camping, Rolling Huts. Via Bless This Stuff.
Here is your dream house made real... The Alcoa Care-Free Home.
I've driven by this likely 10,000 times, but don't think I've ever seen Bertrand Goldberg's classrooms at the Brenneman School.
Gorgeous, Slim House.
Kengo Kuma museum on a mountain.
Got a cool 135 million bucks? You can buy your own American Downton Abbey. In Dallas. Dowager not included.
I wonder if they offer spider-free options?
"Wait, are those ants?" No dude, those are other skyscrapers.
Anybody want to lend me fifty million bucks?
Architect Frank Dixon's famous pole house in Melbourne is being torn down in order to build a new house on a pole. Via Doobybrain.
NYC's plans for affordable micro-apartments. Related: the NY Times' feature from over the weekend: "What is Middle Class in Manhattan?"
(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here... I wish I was here... I wish I was here.
The firm CODA has landed this year's PS1 Young Architects Program commission, allowing them to build their temporary "Party Wall" structure.
Want.
Kosmograd on the story of Fallingwater and Franklin Toker's 'biography' of the house, Fallingwater Rising.
The ABC of Architects. Via MeFi.
From Psychopath Lairs to Superhero Mansions: How Cinema and Modernist Architecture Called A Truce, by Charlotte Neilson. Via Things Magazine.
The water/fire outdoor feature is ridiculously cool.
Oddly fascinating collection of correspondence concerning details of the construction of the Miller House in Columbia, Indiana, designed by Eero Saarinen. More on the house here. Via the always observant Bobby Solomon.
My Modern Met collects selections from Corpus Christi, a photo series by Fabrice Fouillet that "highlights the architectural aesthetic of the new places of worship and their hymn to minimalism." Beautiful.
An Architizer top ten, sexy staircases.
eleven eleven, a short documentary about the popular Miami parking garage.
Daily Icon takes a look at Caroline Zaleski's illustrated architectural history, Long Island Modernism 1930 - 1980.
A Chicago Sojourn on Elmwood Park's Sullivan-esque Bungalows.
House in middle of Chinese motorway demolished.
Graphic printed African dwellings.
The Wiley residence in New Canaan, Connecticut was designed by Philip Johnson in 1952, and was recently restored and expanded by Roger Ferris + Partners. Fabulous. Via Daily Icon.
I'd take this one as well.
Want.
Skidome Denmark.
A look inside the amazing headquarters for Urban Outfitters.
The Dynamic D*Haus, a proposed residential structure that changes shape throughout the day to best utilize sunlight. Missing in these prototype films are the gigantic signs you'd have to have everywhere, warning "Do not approach tracks or this ever-moving house may crush you."
Mid-Century Swank Interiors Across America.
House T.
Mid Century Ship Interiors.
For my bro-in-law Matt, Smashit.
Want.
Kathryn Yu's excellent photos of the now closed Eero Saarinen TWA Flight Center at JFK. Via Subtraction.
Cloud: an interactive sculpture made from 6,000 recycled light bulbs.
Endesa Pavilion, Solar House 2.0 is a fully-customized, modular, solar house that is also 3D-printed prefab.
Basically here's how it works. Jim Hughes uploads a new post to Codex 99. We link it up here. Case in point. The Architectural Forum.
Mistral Wine & Champagne Bar, Sao Paulo, by Studio Arthur Casas.
"The railway station in Szabadka is the building which all the foreign rulers unanimously declare to be ugly." Is it weird to feel sympathy for a building? Particularly one that everyone seemed to hate?
As part North Korea's increasing openness to foreign tourism, the first photos from inside the Ryugyong Hotel have been released. Looks like they still have a ways to go.
Recent video from the construction site of the Shenzhen International Airport, by architect Massimiliano Fuksas. Yowza.
The Norwich Cathedral's brand bible, by The Click Design Consultants.
Wistfully checking in on Cabin Porn. "Inspiration for your quiet place somewhere."
Related Hobbit House.
Twin icons rising.
Marcel Gautherot's beautiful photographs of the construction of Brasilia in the 50s.
Tree house bird apartment.
*Sigh*.
Local note, Open House Chicago is October 13 and 14. Via Gapers Block.
A single black dot identifies buildings available for illegal squatting in Venice.
Chicago Avenue at Franklin, looking east in 1968. So cool.
"The Chicago Spire would have been built and standing for almost a year by now, had all gone according to plan..."
How much to build House K in Chicago?
The coolest treehouse ever built.
Plans for a conceptual urban banana garden in Paris.
(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here... I wish I was here... I wish I was here.
Oh, wait, I thought it was made out of chocolate.
Local note. Old Chicago is a tumblr full of interesting historic photos like Marina Towers under construction and The Water Tower without The Water Tower. Via Dmitry Samarov.
A sculpture that's a skatepark that also glows in the dark, by Koo Jeong A.
A stunning restaurant built in a cave in Southern Italy.
Colossal on Xiying's Rainbow Bridge. Fab.
"Wait a minute, I swear our hotel was right here when we left this morning." The Snoozebox. More information here.
Cincinnati Society of Rubber Architects Box of Italianate Trappings Required for the Construction of a
Paper Neighborhood. Cha-ching. Via Chris Glass.
(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here... I wish I was here... I wish I was here.
Crate and Barrel, 1968, on Wells Street.
Air France Business Lounge at CdG by Brandimage and Noe Duchaufour-Lawrance. Sleek and space-age-y.
A descriptive illustrated catalogue of sixty-eight competitive designs for the great tower for London. So great. Via DRB.
"This colossal sculpture recalls the figure of Atlas in Virgil's Aeneid, and also the architect Dinocrates' proposal to shape Mount Athos into a man in honor of Alexander the Great. With seemingly all the might of his hand, he squeezes the head of a monstrous beast, which spills a cascade of water out of its hell-mouth and into a fish pond."
Things Magazine on Gustave Eiffel and the Victorian "Tower for London" competition.
First the Sears Tower, now this.
A Chicago Sojourn on the city's residential storefront additions. Now on my list to some day check out Parky's Hot Dogs in Forest Park.
Oui, s'il vous plait.
A beautiful barn renovation in Soglio, Switzerland.
Related to the last: Playboy's view of the future in 1961 includes "posh plans for exciting modern living."
Here's a pretty interesting minimalist staircase.
Mid-Century Home Brochures.
A Chicago Sojourn takes a trip down Lincoln Avenue's Motel Row. That same street back home in Phoenix was/is Van Buren.
Images from Jean Errard's Fortification Réduicte Art and Démonstrée (Paris, 1600), a seminal work in fortification theory.
"The result is less success or failure than cautionary tale." Christopher Hawthorne's review of the new Barnes Foundation museum, which opens this weekend after years of controversy. Highly recommended viewing about all of it: The Art of the Steal.
(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here... I wish I was here... I wish I was here.
On the shore of an idyllic white sanded beach in New Zealand's Coromandel Peninsula rests an elegant hut.
Revisiting Finnish architect Matti Suuronen's 1968 Futuro, "the ideal home that wasn't."
Renderings have been released for the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, this year designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei; their first collaboration since the 2008 Olympic's 'Bird's Nest' stadium.
Coming to Antwerp this summer, the Badboot Lido, one of the world's largest floating, open air swimming pools.
Saw models and sketches of this when I visited his studio in Bergen two years ago, and now its been completed: Todd Saunders' Tower Studio on Fogo Island in Canada.
A Chicago Sojourn's collection of church conversions, when a place of worship becomes a place to hang your hat.
Stunning apartment in London for sale. Wow.
Popping in to wash your hands, flipping on the light, and suddenly you're in the middle of my worst nightmare. A bathroom situated atop a 15-story elevator shaft.
A look at the new NoMad Hotel in NYC.
Tattoo shop, sports bar and Banksy, in Lego.
Holly Golightly's house has sold for $6 million.
The Aquaria Grande apartment complex in Mumbai will have swimming pools instead of balconies.
"The real winner of the 1992 downtown Las Vegas redevelopment competition was NOT the FREMONT EXPERIENCE - it was the STARSHIP ENTERPRISE from STAR TREK. But no one knows this - until now."
Relink. Peter Guthrie's 3D renderings of van der Rohe's Farnsworth House present an idealized vision of one of the most important buildings of the modern era. The images are lush and the attention to detail is staggering.
In the second weekend of April, Budapest opens its gates and invites people in.
A series of Life Mag photos of MvdR by Frank Scherschel, The Poetry of Purpose. Love the first one. Via Daily Icon.
"Where once they placed a couch in a living room, the Swedes now want to place you and 6,000 neighbours into a neglected corner of your city, design an entire urban world around you, and Ikea-ize your lives." Welcome to Ikea-land.
"Deep in secluded woodland, an abandoned quarry reveals a landscape seemingly untouched since the dawn of the last millennium. Out of this wood and stone, using 13th century building techniques, a castle is being created." Trailer for Benoit Millot's La Voute Guedelon.
A vintage home with "no air conditioner, furnace or central heating system" that stays at a constant 73 degrees even through Connecticut winters, retrofitted using passive housing standards.
Mies van der Rohe's Tugendhat Villa was recently restored. "Using family photographs, archival material, visiting Mies' other buildings in the U.S. and Europe, the Tugendhat redesign team focused on, as Villa Director Iveta Cerna said, identifying authenticity."
Kelly Malone redesigned the offices of Bold Italic in San Francisco and for her it was a "dream project where I'd use dozens of ideas from my personal inspiration files, and where everything in the office would be handmade. I would also source all the supplies, materials, and help locally." Fab. Via Yewknee.
The first phase of Alésia Museum in France marks the position of the Roman army, under Julius Caesar, and its encampment surrounding the Gauls in 52 B.C. The cylindrical structure is encased in a wood herringbone facade referencing the Roman fortifications of the era.
Caterpillar House, in Carmel, California, by Feldman Architecture.
Small House.
The inspirational Kenneth Laurent House by Frank Lloyd Wright in Rockford, Illinois was just sold at auction for $578.000.
For SD: Hogwarts!
Gorgeous modern renovation of a barn.
Small Churches, a splendid photo series by Kevin Bauman.
A fascinating illustrated post on the stylish interiors of The Hindenburg. Via Kottke.
Air traffic control towers.
Not really related to the last, but worth a look. How to move a 100 year old church. Great track, cinematography and editing.
A unique approach to maximizing views and dividing functions. The Four Eyes House by Edward Ogosta Architecture in California's Coachella Valley. Via This Isn't Happiness.
Chicago Past. So great. Especially this. Via Gapers.
Broken Houses, by Ofra Lapid. Based on photos of neglected houses, scale models are made. Think of them as "mock-ups of destruction." Via Things Magazine.
Gorgeous contemporary home in Madrid.
Chalet Béranger in the French Alps, by architect Noé Duchaufour Lawrance. Sublime.
Gorgeous conversion of a old railway tunnel in Italy into a public promenade.
Scouting NY takes a look at a seemingly normal house in the Adirondacks that quietly happens to have an abandoned nuclear missile silo as its basement. Via Doobybrain.
"Mitterfirmiansreut opened its snow church to commerate the 100th anniversary of the erection of a similar structure in the mountain village in Bavaria, Germany."
An impressive animated look at Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater.
The otherworldly architecture of Michael Jantzen.
"Philipp Meuser's two-volume book set, entitled 'Pyongyang: Architectural and Cultural Guide', is an architectural guide to North Korea's capital. Volume 1 is perfect for the suitcase and should pass muster with even the most switched-on border guard. Volume 2, which contains the real meat of the matter, presents a sober analysis of a society paralyzed by propaganda, secrecy and insularity."
My dream home.
Abandoned Japanese Love Hotels. Via Mental Floss.
Christopher Borrelli on Adam Reed Tucker, the guy behind the terrific Lego architecture series. I am resigned to the fact that I am powerless to stop from buying and building every release he creates.
Some stunning photos of the construction of Brasilia.
The narrow Nishizawa building in Tokyo.
Geoff Manaugh writes at BLDGBLOG, "In the desert 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles is a suburb abandoned in advance of itself --the unfinished extension of a place called California City." Somehow when I see this landscape of broken, empty roads and parkways all I can think about is Chariots of The Gods.
Some amazing photos of NYC tweeted over @WTCProgress.
If I were driving in Hong Kong, I would like to park here.
"On December 5th, 1931, at noon, Russia's largest church, the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow, was blown up."
Ikea goes to the Opera.
Things Magazine on the sad story of Battersea Power Station: a graveyard of architectural visions.
Monocle on The Nordic Embassies, a building shared by five nations in Berlin by architects Alfred Berger and Tiina Parkkinen.
Luis Urculo's "Covers," architectural landmarks recreated with household items. Thanks, Andy!
Chris Glass described this as "Amazeballs," so you pretty much have to check it out: Decorating a Living Room with Video Mapping.
Related to the last, this.
LEGO wants to know which architecture model you want them to make next.
The Shiba Ryotaro Memorial Museum and Library by CP hero Tadao Ando. Magnificent.
Proving once again that there's a blog for everything, The Obscure Hollow, dedicated to "Haunted Film Decor."
Peter Guthrie's 3D renderings of van der Rohe's Farnsworth House present an idealized vision of one of the most important buildings of the modern era. The images are lush and the attention to detail is staggering. We've always maintained that to truly understand a piece of design one should tear it down and try to remake it. Putting yourself in the original creator's place provides insights that no amount of study and observation can match. Using digital tools to do this in the realm of physical buildings and their environments is quite a step.
Stunning. The Bauhaus Residence in Haifa, Israel.
Architect Guilhem Eustache's The Fobe House in Morocco. Video of the construction and the finished product, here.
Sandi Vincent on R. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House.
After the Final Curtain. "My hope for my work is that it will shine light on beautiful, dated architecture and on the equal yet sinister beauty in decay." Via TMN.
Lovely new site for London design firm dn&co. Great work and a cool studio space too.
Stunning: the new Stuttgart City Library.
A Chicago Sojourn looks at the city's white brick mid-century towers. On a cloudless day from the park, they can be gorgeous.
Adidas "Laces." The architecture, signage and interior design for Adidas corporate offices. A beautifully conceived and executed system in which type takes a primary and active role. Via Fontblog.
Cabin Porn. Brilliant. Via Jason Koxvold.
"We're simplifying the Fifth Avenue cube. By using larger, seamless pieces of glass, we're using just 15 panes instead of 90."
I wish I had a backyard.
The Barndominium by Logan & Johnson Architects.
(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here...I wish I was here.... I wish I was here.
Villa Rotonda in the Netherlands by Bedaux de Brouwer Architecten.
"A cross-shaped window in the sliding door of this Belgian pharmacy transforms into a green sign during opening hours." By CAAN Architenten, check their site, it's full of inventive, modern work.
Related to the last, the demolition of the old Champlain bridge.
One of my favorite new structures in the Northeast, the Champlain Bridge by HNTB at Chimney Point connects NY and Vermont. Here's a time-lapse of the pre-constructed span being lifted into place on August 26th.
More about Chicago's Uptown Theater in this 2006 documentary, Uptown: Portrait of a Palace. Footage from inside the building starts at around 14:30.
Hans G. Conrad's sleek Braun Pavilion from the Frankfurt Radio Exhibition, 1959.
A Chicago Sojourn on the now-abandoned Purple Hotel.
The Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea, which FotA Eva Hagberg once called "the worst building in the history of mankind" has finally opened after 24 years of construction.
Charles Le Brigand slips the owner a few bucks to allow him to tour and photograph the Atrium, the veritable palace sitting abandoned in Manhattan, made popular by this piece last year in the NY Times and a look by Scouting NY. Via Doobybrain.
Great story in today's Trib about the effort to save the Uptown Theater. Related: Undercity's photos of the building in its current state.
Say goodbye to the Sundrome: JFK's iconic Terminal 6, masterfully designed by I.M. Pei, is set to be demolished.
Piccadilly Lights, via Things.
Poppenvilla Dollhouse.
360 Leti is a "mountain hut" located 2,300 meters above sea level at the foot of the Himalayas and sure looks like a swell place to stay.
Tobias Rehberger's "Slinky" Footbridge in Oberhausen, Germany.
BNKR Arquitectura's plans for an underground skyscraper in Mexico City.
Some interesting hypothetical plans for repurposing a former lead and zinc mine in Picher, Oklahoma and turning it into a massive, sustainable park: the Tar Creek Pilot Project. Via Bldgblog.
"Almost a hundred small square windows scattered across the walls, ceilings and roof of a house in Tokyo allow its occupants, a deaf couple and their children, to sign to each other through the walls even when the children are playing outdoors."
With copycats springing up across the country, a look at what NY's High Line hath wrought.
Video describing architect Andrew Berman's design for a writing studio in the woods. Lovely. Via Dan Wagstaff.
UNStudio's plans for an observation tower in the Netherlands. Via Archinect.
Reiulf Ramstad's Trollwall Restaurant in Norway has finished construction and is now open. I saw it being built last spring and it was gorgeous. Located next to the most terrifying road ever.
Every building in Detroit has a story.
"Open House London celebrates all that is best about the capital's buildings, places and neighbourhoods. Every September, it gives a unique opportunity to get out and under the skin of London's amazing architecture, with over 700 buildings of all kinds opening their doors to everyone all for free."
Really need to get one of these for the studio. Arrghh!
Now available, Lego Robie House.
Local note. Whet asks, "What is the oldest house in Chicago, anyway?"
A look inside David Lynch's just-opened Mullholland Drive-themed nightclub in Paris.
(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here...I wish I was here.... I wish I was here.
Hotel Yunak Evleri in Turkey is made up of six cave houses and 30 rooms dating from the fifth and sixth centuries.
ArchDaily on the best looking modern gas station anywhere. By Damilano Studio architects in Italy. Via My Modern Met.
Related to the last. 860-880 LSD appear in this nice music video for Efdemin.
Daily Icon on Mies van der Rohe's McCormick House in Elmhurst, Illinois.
I liked the film Up as much as the next guy, but building a faithful reproduction of the house from it seems a bit too weird.
Build a theme park in and around a never used nuclear reactor? Sure, why not?
Gorgeous contemporary home for sale in lovely Savannah, GA . Via Materialicious.
An abandoned underwater billiards room built by Whitaker Wright in an artificial lake in the grounds of Whitley Manor, Godalming, Surrey, c1890.
SD, you should go here on vacation!
Turning an historic 1907 Ellis Island Ferry into a home and studio.
Photos of an abandoned abandoned Japanese Amusement park.
The UK UE Urbex Urban Exploration Forums, there goes the afternoon.
Norman Foster's plans for the new Apple HQ have been released.
Photos of the London Aquatics Centre designed by Zaha Hadid.
Wow, take a look at this gorgeous apartment in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Buy a mansion for your dog.
Ever New...New York, 1962.
Dubai builds the world's highest tennis court.
German architect Susanne Nobis built this two-part house for her work and family. Spectacular.
Wieden + Kennedy's Portland HQ by Allied Works is an amazing and modern transformation of an abandoned 1908 warehouse. The central atrium meeting space is gorgeous. Perhaps even more surprising, it's described on a sweet, functional web site from an architecture firm. Via Shelby at ISO50.
So you know, a look at the world's weirdest hotels.
A look at the stunning Pathe Tuschinski Movie Theatre.
Photos of the full-scale prototype of Air Architecture's PAS Skateboard House, currently being built, for real, for the founder of Etnies.
Ever wonder what it would be like to ride the world's steepest rollercoaster? Wonder no more. Freeze frame at 2:00 and try not to lose your lunch.
Not for me but maybe some of you might be brave enough to try the Plank Walk at Huashan Mountain once it is completed.
The ongoing restoration of the world's only Frank Lloyd Wright-designed gas station, located in Cloquet, Minnesota. Photos of the station, here.
(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here...I wish I was here.... I wish I was here.
Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed.
Four years, 26 miles and 5,000 pillars later, China opens the world's longest sea bridge.
Tilburg University's Faculty Club by Dutch firm Shift Architecture Urbanism "is designed as a carved-out-monolith, one simple box in which transparency and massiveness melt together." Sublime.
Too bad I don't have an extra 23.5 million dollars laying around . *Sigh*
"...they shot time-lapse footage of lower Manhattan being disassembled—always easier than putting something together—then ran it backwards to give the illusion of super-smooth construction." Building a City in Reverse, from Core 77.
Inside 1948, Nike's newly redesigned retail and creative space in London. Via It's Nice That.
Sculptural faces of Paris, photgraphed by Marco Gervasio. Via @bengreenman.
Unconventional and beautiful modernism, Long Island House by Thomas Phifer and Partners. Via The Fox is Black.
(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here...I wish I was here.... I wish I was here.
Better Homes & Bunkers: The Fallout Shelter for the Nuclear Family, by Susan Roy.
The "one myth about the Capitol Records building that refuses to go away."
(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here... I wish I was here... I wish I was here.
We've previously linked The Cube, a restaurant that is temporarily installed in various spectacular locations. Here are some photos of
the current placement at Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels.
Scottish ruins transformed into a modern low-impact home. Lovely.
If you're a bat or a moth, then you should be hightailing it to the UK, where construction will soon begin on the country's first bat station.
The new, daring Bella Sky Hotel in Copehagen, by 3XN. Via The Fox Is Black.
Parts from a 747 airplane were used to build a Malibu cliff house. Via Materialicious.
Related to an earlier post, Christian Schallert's 258 square foot flat in Barcelona.
Dr Mike Page from the University of Hertfordshirt takes you on a tour of the Cube, a 3x3x3m eco-home in which one person can live with a minimum impact on the environment.
Checking under sofa cushions for an extra 14.9 million. Holy cow.
"Alex and Seonaid Maclean-Bristol's house on the Isle of Coll in Scotland was built in the ruins of a house abandoned 150 years earlier." Via This Isn't Happiness.
Gorgeous renovation of a 1959 Airstream into a mobile studio.
A Zombie-proof home. Stylish too.
Gorgeous home in Paradise Valley, AZ.
Wow, the highest hotel in the world is now open.
Have an extra 5 million bucks laying around? Put it to good use by purchasing the lovely Millard House by Frank Lloyd Wright.
A look inside the secret rooms of the Frick mansion in NY.
The blue town of Morocco.
The "Swimsuit Issue" of contemporary residential architecture. AR's Record Houses 2011. Via Things.
Be careful what you "audaciously propose" because sometimes it might wind up actually happening. Berlin will soon have its own artificial mountain, "to be used by Alpine climbing enthusiasts."
Gatsby's mansion is being razed "to accommodate five $10 million custom homes."
"Traveling across Belgium, Italy, Russia, Switzerland and Sweden, two spectacularly designed restaurants will be popping up at some of Europe's most famous landmarks, inspiring guests with wonderful meals, events and once-in-a-lifetime views." The Electrolux Cube Restaurant. Via Moco Loco.
Norman Mailer's apartment is for sale.
Stunning conversion of a convent in France to a home. Via Materialicious.
Building out Core77's Hand-Eye Supply Store in pictures. Hey Portland, there are Field Notes in there somewhere. Thanks for that.
If I was going to live on a farm, it would be here.
The Wisconsin Historical Society has acquired a set of rare photo proofs of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesen I and II, in Spring Green, 1911-24. Via Andrew Abb.
Oh to be a child in Oslo: the newly completed Fagerborg Kindergarten by architect Reiulf Ramstad, who, on a personal note, is a fun guy to have a meal with.
Related to the last, creepy abandoned amusement parks.
75 abandoned movie theaters, via Josh Berta at Quipsologies.
Stunning home for sale in San Francisco. *Sigh*
Chicago 1977 - 2011 from the perspective of Big John. Via Gapers.
The Grand Large District in Dunkirk, France. Wow. More background and photos.
Gorgeous, the Santorini Grace Hotel.
Let's go to the movies and I don't much care what's playing so long as it's at The Bio Rio in Stockholm.
A Chicago Sojourn takes a look both inside and out at Lane Tech High School.
Edward knows what he wants for his birthday. Me too. It will look nice next to my Fallingwater.
Marshall: Your new office? MS: Yes please!
"A dense fabric of organically woven and undulating panels compose the space and
starkly contrast the medieval environment that surrounds it." Metropol Parasol in Seville, Spain.
This year's winner of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture is Eduardo Souto de Moura.
Local note, Happy Birthday Mies.
I'm tired of this 30 degree weather. If anyone needs me, I'll be at the Santorini Grace Hotel, co-designed by the Greek architecture firms Divercity and mplusm. Via Yatzer.
Not from a Kubrick set. The Sofia and Varna Air Traffic Control Center in Bulgaria. Or, our model for redecorating the HQ at Coudal.
On March 28th, Project Cabrini Green will place 134 LED lights in each apartment within the last remaining building of the infamous housing project. The lights will remain lit throughout the tower's four week demolition, until they're all destroyed.
Gorgeous, a look inside a Russian nuclear power plant control room.
I wonder if this would fit on my deck.
I hereby volunteer to start up the overseas branch of CP in one of Europe's Starter Castles.
A look at the stunning Como Shambhala resort in Bali.
Proof that urban decay isn't only relegated to Detroit: Owen Hatherley's well written and photographed, Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain.
The ongoing project,
27, "a journey through contemporary architecture in Europe." Beautifully shot.
ArchDaily on a house in Leiria, Portugal by architect Manuel Aires Mateus. Fantastic.
A regular dose of "skeletal archiporn" at Scaffoldage. Via Doobybrain.
A sculptural staircase that seamlessly flows into the rest of the house.
Las Vegas Studio. Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, a great illustrated review of the book by Claus Richter of Stylepark. Via ISO50.
The folks over at National Geographic have created an actual Up-inspired floating house.
The Architecture of Convenience, an interesting read from the Denver Post about 7-11's buildings and how they fit into their various surroundings.
Gorgeous renovation of a vintage 1970's Airstream trailer.
Arrrgggghhhh!
Related to below and a possible relink: a great story on what it was like growing up in Case Study House No. 22.
"The cantilevered living room appears to float diaphanously above Los Angeles." Yep, you know that iconic photo.
That is some pied-a-terre. *Sigh*
Christian Pottgiesser designed the combined headquarters for two French companies, Pons and Huot. If you have lots of natural light, why not have trees inside? Via Core77
Gorgeous, the Guangzhou Opera House.
Imagine you were a kid living in a house like this.
Scans of student architecture projects from the early 1970s in the LA Times' Home magazine. Via Archinect.
"The Illinois playhouse is inspired by the Modern Movement from the middle of the 20th century. Its design is characterized by simple shapes, the absence of adornment and the perfection of its details." Gorgeous.
A look a the first completed venue for the 2012 Olympics, the London 2012 Olympic Velodrome.
The Bridge At Hoover Dam, amazing photos by Jamey Stillings, and also an interview with him at TMN.
Want.
A few trees and we're all set, Honey we're moving.
Midget & Giant, an ingenious installation by architect Ryuji Nakamura. Material: paper. Site: on the top of a Mac display.
Stunning, a concrete factory converted to a castle home.
Architect Ricardo Bofill's cement factory turned studio and residence in Barcelona.
A look at Google's Pittsburgh office, in the penthouse of a 100 year old Biscuit Factory.
National Geographic shows us what's under Paris. Which calls for a re-link to Porchez' examination of the typography found in Paris' catacombs.
The Goddard Mandolene residence by Arthur Witthoefft from 1957, impeccably restored. Via Daily Icon.
Trailer for Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julian Shulman.
The Querosene House is stunning but my favorite thing about the house is all those bookshelves. *Sigh*
Argentinian JD House by BAK Architects.
An abandoned Men's Club is now a home. Thanks Michael!
Mike Cozart's Aloha Lanes, a circa 1960 Southern California bowling complex in a South Seas setting, at 1/8th scale. Via Dinosaurs and Robots.
Living in an egg in Beijing.
The inspiring and just-exactly-right new site for The Mies van der Rohe Society. Our favorite building anywhere never looked better. Huge props to Scott Thomas on the work. Local note. A party.
"The modern home has six rooms including a living room, kitchen, library/office, master bedroom, bathroom and child's bedroom. With its large, open floor plan and floor-to-ceiling windows, the Emerson House enjoys year-round sunlight." The Emerson House modern dollhouse. Gorgeous.
"Do these people come to you? They must. I have never gone to them." Frank Lloyd Wright on a 1956 episode of What's My Line? Via Archinect.
Finalists' proposed plans for a wildlife crossing over the I-70 freeway near Vail, Colorado.
Winner of this year's World Architecture Festival award for best interiors and fit out award, the stunning ANZ Centre.
Jesse Walker on the The Geodesic Homes of Idaho Falls, Idaho.
This is the blue print to the Millennium Falcon.
"Of course we repeat; we repeat what we like! It's not because we are lazy people; it's not because we want to repeat ourselves. But as an architect, you rely on your own experience." Edward Lifson chats with Renzo Piano about his new pavilion at the LACMA,
A database of modernist architectural theory, Modernist Architecture.
Totally cool, Brooklyn to New York on a train, via the Brooklyn Bridge in 1899. Via MeFi.
"We are prepared to be radical." Short documentary by Dan Lowe on The "Sliding House" in Suffolk UK. Alex de Rijke of dRMM is the architect.
Nightingale House, stunning.
Oliver Charles' award-winning conceptual CGI rendering for the Stockholm Library.
Amazing. Fantastic. L'usine on Kotaro Ide's Shell Residence.
A rendering of Lucasfilm's sleek new studio building planned for Fusionopolis in Singapore looks like it's straight out of Coruscant.
Fortport on Autostella, an intimate showroom for the Fiat 500 being sold in Thailand.
Alissa Walker visits 37signals new space for Fast Company.
"Begun in the 1930's, the Stalin-era underground was the USSR's largest civilian construction project, with stations built as 'people's palaces.' Employing outstanding architects and artists, it still looks amazing after all those years." Moscow Metro.
These photographs of residents of Lafayette Park, a residential community in Detroit designed by the architect Mies van der Rohe, were shot in the same room in each of their townhomes.
Spectacular photos by Jamey Stillings of The Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge, which is 1900 feet long and 900 feet above the Colorado River and set to open to traffic this week. Enjoy this in full-screen mode. Here's an ATC piece by Ted Robbins on the project.
"If you were dancing to the Chrysler Building, it would be a Jazz Age foxtrot. Mies' Crown Hall would demand something far more stately." Zulkey interviews Blair Kamin, the Trib's resident architecture critic.
Alas, it seems Chicago will never get its unicorn horn.
A whole slew of photos of the beautiful Public Library of Mexico in Mexico City. Via DDoA.
Spain on the edge.
So you know, the world's largest skatepark.
For MS: a look inside 1430 W. Berwyn, the eccentric house in Andersonville that you'll find is even more eccentric once you've gone through the front door.
"At the top of Mt. Olympus in San Francisco, on what was once thought to be the geographic center of the city, is a pedestal for a statue that isn't there. There's no marker. You can just make out the word 'erected' on the stone surface, but there's nothing that lets anyone know that this was once the site of San Francisco's own (much, much smaller) statue of liberty and light."
A great piece on architect Todd Saunders and his beautiful Fogo Island Arts buildings in rural Newfoundland.
Skyscraper, interrupted. 12 Stalled projects around the world.
Stairs to nowhere.
Seems like an excellent set for 72°. Peter Dazeley's photos of Battersea Power Station. Via CR.
FotA Rob Walker has founded The Hypothetical Development Organization, a project that will create convincing renderings for buildings in New Orleans that have fallen into disrepair. Nothing will be built, but "a new form of urban storytelling" will be born. Here's the project's Kickstarter page if you'd like to help out.
From my new favorite blog, A Chicago Sojourn: "the painted concrete artistry of Jerome Soltan." A great post about the architect who built the the midcentury entryways to many of the apartment buildings in my neighborhood.
So you know, 10 unique, one-of-a-kind homes.
"RECESS began 2 years ago when I made my home in the southwest United States. Like much of the West, our reliance on the continuous import of vital resources (food, water, medical supplies) is unsustainable and untenable. Crisis preparedness is vital, and RECESS is my answer." Via sub-studio.
An absolutely stunning houseboat. Yes, I said houseboat.
The mid-century Sunday Barbecue cut out set.
The secret sounds of Stonehenge.
The Foot Patrol Concept Store in London, designed by Wilson Brothers. Via Spaceinvading.
Pleasant Family Shopping, a blog about "supermarkets, discount stores and more from the past." Bookmarked. Thanks Peacay.
Architect Rick Joy's beautiful Woodstock Farm in rural Vermont. Video of it here.
Want.
The top 20 urban planning successes of all time.
For your backyard, Poliedro Habitable. Via Contemporist.
"Synchrophasotron, an accelerator built in Dubna in 1957, has become the biggest and the most powerful for his time."
Abandoned houses of real-life super villians.
This design transforms mundane electrical pylons into statues on the Icelandic landscape by making only small alterations to existing pylon design.
A crowd-sourced global directory of buildings, OpenBuildings.
"A huge and previously unknown trove of archival material from Philip Johnson's architectural practice --including his hand-drawn sketches for towers that helped define postmodern architecture -- is to be put up for sale by one of Johnson's former partners, who has had them in storage for years."
"After dinner I said to my wife, 'How would you like to have this guy build us a house?'" Adelman says. "'Wow,' she says. 'You kidding me or what?'" Interesting story of how Albert "Ollie" Adelman talked Frank Lloyd Wright into building a home for him.
Follow the demolition of Owen Luder's brutalist Trinity Square Car Park on both Twitter and in this Flickr pool. A great side-by-side comparison from 2005 between it and matching stills from Get Carter. It's part of a great, larger collection retracing the film's locations.
Gorgeous artist workshop in Boeotia, Greece.
Tiny Houses.
Nice summer house.
Indefinite in number, but of certain fixed shapes, another great find from Geoff Manaugh
The 9 Hours Capsule Hotel in Kyoto, Japan. Sleek and 2001-ish. Via Daily Icon.
The City That Never Was, an exhibition of unrealized architecture plans for Berlin. Via Archinect.
Herman takes a trip to photograph Rochester, NY's abandoned trolley tunnels. More info here.
Dumpster diving on Park Avenue in New York City. Literally.
The Treehotel in Sweden. Four rooms/mini-houses are finished so far, with more coming. Thanks Claire.
Roger Ebert on Chicago architecture. Homesick, it makes me.
Frank Gehry's house, at Arch Daily.
Fascinating audio and visual tour of the abandoned Ducor Hotel in Liberia.
Secret stations and boyhood love on the Paris Metro.
"During the Depression and the war, Americans had learned to live with less, and that restraint, in combination with the postwar confidence in the future, made small, efficient housing positively stylish." When Less Was More.
Local note: the Chicago Architecture Foundation has started Mies & Modernism: The IIT Campus Tour, a guided walking tour around the campus, "with a special emphasis on the years 1938-1958, the time of Mies' tenure as the head of the School of Architecture."
Vanity Fair takes a look at Architecture in the Age of Gehry.
Love the look of this macaroon shop in Mexico.
Just looking at the pictures made me break out into a cold sweat. The new Marina Bay Sands development in Singapore features an infinity pool 55 stories up.
"...it's been a discovery... late in a career—of the luxury of nondesign as a method for dealing with issues rather than the always serious effort of intelligent invention or insertion." A fascinating interview about museums with architect Rem Koolhaas in Artfourm.
The Karel Appel House in Amsterdam. Could also function well under the name "The Mondrian House."
Video tour of projects made with Suicidator City Generator, software that allows you to create whole cities just by setting a few variables. Via Things Mag.
"Even an idiot can carve a statue of Lenin...but for building a stable and strong base, the knowledge of the old school was indispensable." Looking at the bases underneath Soviet statues.
Kevin van Braak's staircase was made in one piece and placed over a tree.
House on Lake Okoboji in Iowa. Min/Day architects.
A look at a stunning abandoned palace on Beekman Street.
A Daily Dose on Andy Warhol's "Silver Clouds" installed at Crown Hall. Edward Lifson has a few more photos.
Spending the night tonight at the Juvet Landscape Hotel which is almost uncomfortably scenic and modern, that's how cool it is.
Soccer City Stadium 2010.
Photos showing the dramatic changes in the skyline of Shanghai from 1996 to 2010.
3-D tours of all of South AFrica's 2010 FIFA World Cup football stadiums.
"The world's first hotel made from rubbish has opened its doors in the Italian capital Rome."
Gorgeous photos of the Museum of Islamic Art.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has released their list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.
Get your fish a condo.
"These men who stare at IKEA furniture have been tasked to design a store that can snare cool hunters into a continuous delirium of consumption."
Love this concrete house in Madrid.
Take a tour of the UK's World Expo pavilion, the amazing Seed Cathedral.
Living Architecture, vacation in one-of-a-kind, modern buildings, designed by leading architects. A sweet idea, but watch out for the first step out the door of "The Balancing Barn." Via @bobulate.
The Danish Pavilion at EXPO 2010.
It's Not a Crack House, It's a Crack Home but in real life.
James A. Fitzpatrick's Traveltalks 1948 Chicago the Beautiful. Sweet. Thanks Pop!
"Planes are shifted off the orthogonal to accommodate function; as a side effect it relieves inhabitants from a harsh Euclidian geometry." Couch Cushion Fort Architecture; A Critical Analysis. Via C-Monster.
Shanghai's World Expo is nearly ready. Wow.
Gary's 344 square foot apartment in Hong Kong has 24 rooms.
House Beo is sleek, modern and sort of an aquarium, especially at night. Via Daily Icon.
I wouldn't mind parking my car here every day for work, would you?
Wooden Churches, Travelling in the Russian North, a photo series by Richard Davies. Via Conscientious.
Gah! A huge and utterly fabulous collection of work from the famed 1960's futurist architectural group Archigram. Find out more about the group here.
Local note: "The Society of Architectural Historians has created an innovative walking tour that enables Chicagoans to download building histories on their web-enabled cell phones." Point, Click, Learn . Very cool.
For my Dad, because he needs to move his wine collection out of the closet he has it in and into something like this. Sorry Mom.
"The simple truth is that successful city-building is less about big moves and more about perseverance and day-to-day management." Interesting piece by Witold Rybczynski on the future of urban planning. Via Archinect.
"For the first 40 years no one seemed to notice the man collecting bricks. Almost invisibly, the scrap material mounted on a patch of land outside Madrid- a pile of crooked bricks, a tangle of steel wire -until, eventually, something remarkable began to take form." Don Justo is building a cathedral.
Just a tad taller than the Statue of Liberty, Anish Kapoor's ArcelorMittal Orbit in London.
BldgBlog on The Klip House. a futuristic, imaginative, quick construction system.
"Through the process of decay, ruins offer an aesthetic experience that bypasses the normal designs of the city, often over-regulated, boring and too smooth. In ruins, we can come across unexpected sights, weird vestiges of the past, unfathomable artifacts, cryptic signs, unfamiliar textures and large, impressive objects." British industrial ruins.
Transforming The Tate. Watch as this is built. Via Things Magazine.
For SD, Hobbit houses of the real world: Welcome to the Shire.
Related to the last, Restoring Modernism, a video interview with Ron Krueck, lead architect on the project.
Mies van der Rohe's 860-880 Lake Shore Drive refurbishment by Krueck & Sexton, a spectacular job, nicely photographed and presented by Dezeen. Via a guy who has lives there, Edward Lifson.
RIP Bruce Graham, architect of The Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center.
Am amazing house in the trees.
The secret cities of Yemen.
"The general view that every square inch of land is worth a bazillion dollars is just not true. There are gaps in the façade that whole towns have fallen into, along with bizarre abandoned theme parks, ruined U.S. Air Force bases, and the tawdry remnants of pay-by-the-hour love hotels." 10 Japanese ghost towns.
Book Patrol on the beautiful new modernist library in Lausanne, Switzerland by SANAA.
The structures of the house and every piece of furniture inside are constructed entirely from used plastic. La Casa de Botellas.
So beautiful, Arkinet on the wooden churches of the Russian North.
For BB: a tour of Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne's house. Looks sort of exactly how you'd expect it would.
Take a look at some Vancouver's Olympic venues.
The 9 Hours, a brand new take on the capsule hotel concept, designed by Fumie Shibata of Design Studio S.
"Ice House Detroit is an Architectural installation and social change project currently taking place in Detroit. Photographer Gregory Helm and Architect Matthew Radune will use one of 20,000 abandoned houses and freeze it into solid ice, referencing the contemporary urban conditions in the city and beyond." .
Marks Barfield Architects' Villa Hush Hush residence, a whole quarter of which can be raised and lowered at a "gentle and steady" 10cm per second.
"I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies."
Related to the last.
The house of a football star or a Teletubby? Manchester United's Gary Neville blurs that line. Via Archinect.
Atago House.
Mammoth makes their case for the best architecture of the past decade.
Concrete House in Mar Azul Forest.
London's Olympic stadium to be made out of recycled guns and knives
"Searching for sites within architecture with a possibility for confusion or misuse, Snarkitecture aims to reconfigure these existing elements to make architecture do things that it is not supposed to do." Snarkitecture.
So you know: All about The Candela Structures, inconspicuous architecture in Queens.
Geoff Manaugh explains how a Bruce Willis action flick "cinematically depicts what it means to bend space to your own particular navigational needs."
Never mind, James May's Lego house was demolished months ago. I'm woefully out-of-date on James May Lego house news.
James May of Top Gear fame is trying to get rid of his Lego house.
Nice survey of worldwide subway architecture.
O House.
"Several of the best known names in architecture have created gas stations, around the world, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van der Rohe, Willem Dudok, Jean Prouve, Arne Jacobsen and Norman Foster, but nobody created a design package that was as enduring and comprehensive as Elliot Noyes for Mobil." 15 mid-century modern gas stations.
"A vast biological folly in the shadow of desert over-development, the project of Biosphere 2 seems particularly poignant in this unkempt state." Remnants of the Biosphere. Great post by Geoff Manaugh with photos by Noah Sheldon.
Edward Lifson went driving in Las Vegas and found this. Lucky for us.
"Now that it's gone, of course, we want it back." The Gobbler, the Grooviest Motel in Wisconsin, by James Lileks. Via PCL.
Architects Carlo Santambrogio and Ennio Arosio's concept building: Glass Home (insert stone throwing adage here).
Lovely, the Bridge House.
Former Sun Times' critic Lee Bey on Chicago Architecture 2000-2009.
A variety of ski jumps and info on the architects who built them.
Clicking around on a 2.3 gigapixel photo of the Burj Dubai, the world's tallest building, which opens next week. Thanks Edward.
"Praised by the poet William Wordsworth in 1820 as 'this immense and glorious work of fine intelligence.' King's College Chapel in Cambridge, England, is the product of an extraordinary combination of royal commitment, turbulent religious politics, violent civil wars, vicious labor disputes, superb medieval craftsmanship, and engineering that has never been replicated and is still not fully understood today." What The Late Middle Ages Wrought.
More than twice the size of the Mall of America with only ten tenants. The South China Mall.
Photos of the construction of the Eiffel Tower.
Alissa Walker on John Seabrook's profile of architect Zaha Hadid: "The New Yorker has done a fine job of examining Hadid as the lone Arab woman at the top of her field. We examine her work as it relates to a greasy, sour cream and onion-scented heap of Frito-Lays."
The Tote Mumbai by Serie Architects. A beautiful space at the Mumbai Racecourse.
A Mathematician's House, designed by Tetsuya Nakazono.
A kitchen island made entirely from Legos.
Abu Dhabi's Yas Hotel, "covered in a grid of 5,300+ diamond-shaped steel panels that contain nearly 5,000 LED fixtures."
Subway architecture from around the world. Hey Chicago, you looking at this?? Thanks Michael.
Nice birdhouse.
"Something we see too often, and then forget to see." Tokyo Blues, a photo essay by Do Projects. Also available as free download. Via Mefi.
I had a playhouse when I was little, a black and white gingerbread-style house that my twin sister and I would play in for hours. It was awesome but these playhouses are insane.
Geoff on Support Structures (dig that cover type) and "a social philosophy of buttresses."
This Ain't No Disco. Ad and design firm spaces around the world.
"Just about every inch of those walls is covered with delicate ornate decorations, looking much like applied frosting." The Sugar House in El Paso, TX. Would makes a nice companion to Mr. Lee's house in Phoenix, don't you think, MS? Via I Like.
For KG, a Simpsons fan built his very own real-life Simpsons home.
The Cloud, "an entirely new form of observation deck" for London 2012. Just wow. Lots more from Dan Hill at City of Sound who is working on this amazing and ambitious project.
In Spanish, but even if aren't bilingual, that shouldn't stop you: Living in Famous Architecture, what it's like to live in "housing by architects like FOA and MVRDV, and also older classics, like Casa Mila." Via Archinect.
Grand Teton National Park Discovery and Visitor Center by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Perfect.
"A century-old shed with a wall of rusting steel panels sits in a back alley –this is not, to most people, a recipe for a dream home." Elena and Jorge thought differently.
If I was going to live on a houseboat, this would be the one.
The Death of The Drexel Shaft, sad but beautiful footage of a steam plant's demise in Philadelphia. Via Cynical-C.
The Langley Academy by Foster + Partners.
Local note. Chicago tears down a Mies, a letter from Edward Lifson.
Start them young with Minimii's dollhouse. Via Inhabitots.
Edward takes a drive. I call shotgun!
Have a few thousand dollars you've been looking to put to something interesting? Donate to The Fallingwater Window Legacy Fund and you'll receive "a commemorative piece of the old Fallingwater glass." Via Archinect.
Zlín - Model Town of Modernism.
Saving the South Pole Dome.
Do you enjoy clean modern spaces? Are you a bear living in Finland? If you answered 'Yes' to both, then we have the house for you. Via bblinks.
"While big and wealthy cities in many parts of the world challenge the limits of possibility by building gigantic hotels with fancy shapes, erecting sky-high office towers or constructing hovering philharmonic temples, Berlin sets up a decent mountain. Its peak exceeds 1000 metres and is covered with snow from September to March..." The Berg.
Jonathan Glancey's picks for most architecturally-focused movies. Need to see those last two on the list.
Fab Sports Center outside of Paris, designed by KOZ.
Waterpleinen, innovative stormwater management for Rotterdam makes for cool parks.
"Mom, can I be the Guggenheim this year?" Architecture Costumes. Via Archinect.
Love all the angles of House Bierings in Utrecht.
Yeah, pretty sure that I will not be traversing the Hoover Dam Bypass bridge when it's complete. An amazing feat of engineering that someone else can have the joy of testing out.
Local note, related to the last, Edward Lifson moderates an architecture critics summit on Thursday at 6.
Edward was at the opening of the new Cambridge, Massachusetts Public Library by William Rawn Associates and Ann Beha, and lucky for us he brought his camera.
An old Catholic church in Utrecht transformed into a minimalist home.
For JC, the Wilco loft.
Dubai's Technosphere.
The Tigers Nest monastery at 10,200 feet.
An amazing renovation of a a water pumping plant in Berlin. Fab.
"Architectural Fantasies: 101 Compositions --101 compositions in color and 101 in black-and-white-is the last and, probably, the best book published during Chernikhov's life and summarizing his search for the forms and images of new architecture."
Just got back from a couple of weeks spent in Iowa and while most of what I saw was endless miles of crops, the series of gigantic yurt-like barns Dick Schwab has been building just outside of Solon are just amazing. Sadly, there aren't many photos online, other than these couple. Well worth visiting if you're ever in the neighborhood.
3D rendering of the Farnsworth House by Peter Guthrie. Beyond belief. Via Edward.
One more reason to love Chipotle.
Mark Bennett's blueprints for fake places. Via MeFi.
"After the construction is done, it'll be the biggest airport in Moscow with the ability to serve about 20 million passengers per year."
A photo tour of the new Facebook headquarters.
Edward Lifson had some remodeling done at his house. Now normally that's not the sort of thing we'd link up here, until you consider where he lives.
Travel and Leisure picks their choices for the world's ugliest buildings.
The World of Lifeguard Towers. Via Mental Floss.
If was going to live in a barn, this would be the one. *Sigh* Via Materialicious.
Chicago 2018, a proposal for the first wholly urban Winter Olympics.
At home with Charles and Ray Eames in their Pacific Palisades home. From the Life mag archives, via Daily Icon.
Volume B Store in Sao Paulo, Brazil, by Marcio Kogan.
Neat birdhouse by Emilie Cazin.
As attendees from the third Seed Conference at Crown Hall know, when Edward gets going on Mies, it's time to pay attention.
An audio slide show of the United Nations.
Wow. The Conrad Maldives Hotel.
Wishing that my piggy bank was a little bit bigger. Well, actually a whole lot bigger. *Sigh*
Dust to dust, as observed by Edward Lifson in Tadao Ando's Church of the Light.
Japan's love hotels.
Trevor Patt's photos of the new academic building at Cooper Union in New York. It's all kinds of futuristic. Via Archinect.
Sarah Balmond visits the AP Moller School in northern Germany for Monocle. Beautiful transparent and practical architecture.
Love the Pachacmac House in Lima.
Two faves. Edward Lifson visits with Tadao Ando.
A house by Karim Rashid.
Wondering if this will fit on the back deck, Suburban Tipi.
Perhaps the spastic birds that have been terrorizing me could move here?
James built himself a house. Out of Legos.
Related to the last. Tons of interesting features at the Architech Gallery.
Architect Bertrand Goldberg's office materials for the design of Marina City. Fab. Thanks Whet.
Here's what the future looks like: Raquel Welch as Space-Girl dancing in front of sculptures built for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Via Archinect.
"It tends to look unreal, like an architect's rendering or a scale model, unless it is framed by something else." Just because it's the world's third largest mosque doesn't make it any less incredibly gigantic or impressive. Quite the contrary.
The LALALA hotel in Sopot, Poland. Via Dezeen.
Now available, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Lego.
KCMODERN, "your one stop shop for all things Modern in Kansas City," is helping to put together the terrific-looking REEL Design Film Series.
For Spencer, ask your dad to make you one of these.
For MS, Brick Habitats, bricks with built-in gardens and minihomes for animals.
Thomas Heatherwick's series of brass newspaper kiosks in London. Fab. Also see his Rolling Bridge. Via City of Sound.
The New No. 2's shots of the Burnham pavillions here in Chicago. Via Daily Dose.
The Scout's sneak peek of Saipua's new digs including a nice shot of Field Notes.
Stunning, the Opposite House in Beijing. Via Materialicious.
A striking triplex penthouse apartment in a clock tower overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge and New York Harbor has gone on the market for $25 million.
"A postcard series documenting the New York city break of some indescribably horrible tourists."
The root bridges of Cherrapungee.
The Bodegas Ysios Winery by Santiago Calatrava in Laguardia, Spain. Lovely annotated photos.
Remodelista's Fire Pit Roundup.
The Remota Hotel in Patagonia, Torres del Paine, Puerto Natales-Chile.
The roof of the Vancouver Convention Center is now made up of six acres of living, native grassland.
The WISA Wooden Design Hotel.
Gorgeous, the Universe Beach House.
The feral houses of Detroit.
For DW: the Blu Apple Yoghurt Cafe in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Reconstructing entire cities from images harvested from the web. Rome built in a day.
Wow, the Palabritas Beach House in Peru.
The gorgeous oak-clad Skybox House.
Dinner with amazing views of Paris: the temporary Art Home structure on the roof of the Palais de Tokyo gallery.
So you know, what NASA's return to the moon may look like.
A vision of the Berlin Wall as a giant garden.
Cruise down the Danube on a floating beach.
Phoenix-based photographer Michael Lundgren's series Mid-Century Marvels. Growing up, I used to see this one (a bowling alley) and this one (a carpet store, I think) almost every day. Lots more from the mid-century over at the wonderful Modern Phoenix.
Second Home, a fab new restaurant space in Denver by Andre Kikoski.
Lovely illustrations of NYC storefronts and signage by Bryan Christie. Via the Ministry.
A collection of futuristic mobile homes
"My grandfather told my dad, 'You'll never get your money out.' The whole family thought my parents were crazy." The Stahl childrens' memories of growing up in Pierre Koenig's Case Study House No. 22 and about who exactly deserves credit for its design.
"It is believed to be built in 1845 by Henry Horner, the son of the Late Illinois Gov. The Building maybe the only surviving South Loop property of the Fire of 1871. Throughout the years it has been many things: Red Path Inn, Pickwick Cafe and during Prohibition a secret speakeasy. It's also the smallest Building in the Loop." 22 East Jackson is for sale. Via Neil Arsenty.
Get your very own Mid-century modern ranch dollhouse.
Stunning modern cabin in the woods.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House (the Blade Runner house) is for sale.
So you know, 11 beautiful train stations that fell to the wrecking ball (and the crappy stuff built in their place).
A look inside The Michelberger, a new budget hotel in Berlin designed by Werner Aisslinger. Via Byrdhouse.
Across the Great Divide.
Beautiful restoration of an 11 x 11 foot cabin in Sugar Creek, Wisconsin.
The Architects Journal picks the top 10 Star Wars buildings.
Monoscope on the "submerged" offices of Selgas Cano in Madrid.
A look inside Slade Architecture's new Barbie flagship store in Shanghai. That's a lot of pink. Via Denver Egotist.
A look inside Chinese artists' studios. Cool to see Wang Qingsong's space, where he likely shot Follow Me, which now hangs proudly in my house. Looks like he also has Competition leaning against that back wall.
Built in an old concrete silo in Amsterdam, take a gander at the gorgeous offices of Ruigrok/NetPanel.
Local note: this Thursday the 11th from 9pm to midnight, IIT and the School of the Art Institute will be hosting Jan Tichy and Bauhaus Lab's multimedia installation Lighting Crown Hall, using "the structure as a massive light box." A CP field trip for sure.
Remodelista's roundup of wood panelling done right.
My fave new Chicago building isn't actually in Chicago. Andrew Metter's Serta International Center in Hoffman Estates. Kamin's take.
Gorgeous mid-century modern home, 26 Oak Mountain Court. Via Design Milk.
Posted in response to a totally unnecessary threat from an bloke named Michael. Check this amazing use of the iconic Opera House as a screen for The Sydney Smart Light project. Wow.
Made quick a trip to see Rem Koolhaas' CCTV Tower in Beijing on Sunday, but wound up spending more time looking at the fire-destroyed Mandarin Oriental Hotel next door. Had never seen anything that large and that decimated before. Really tragic.
Alissa interviews filmmaker Eric Bricker on his new doc on iconic architectural photographer Julius Shulman.
Awesome, Lego Architecture.
Across the street from the Chrysler Building. Via Your Monkey Called.
Local note. Renzo Piano's Modern Wing opens Saturday but you can make a quick visit today with Mr. Lifson.
Vauban, Germany. A suburb without cars.
Without Bounds or Limits: An online exhibition of the Plan of Chicago. Via GB.
If I win the lottery this week, I am buying this house immediately .
Architecture's endangered species: National Trust for Historic Preservation just released its list of America's 11 most endangered historic places. Via World Architecture News.
Beautifully minimal: House of Inclusion by FORM/Kouichi Kimura Architects.
The Ghost Buildings of 1929, planned architecture projects that were never or only partially built after the last big financial crash.
"The punishment for being caught visiting Hashima Island is 30 days in prison followed by immediate deportation. But the other week, after getting up before sunrise and cutting a secret deal with a local fisherman, some friends and I went there." Via Archinect.
Lovely sample pages from Ben Murphy's book on The U.N. Building at Daily Icon.
A dollhouse for adults? The Shed/Shelf from Studio Gorm brings new meaning to compact storage.
Serene, light filled, interconnected Cabins on Hooper's Island by architect David Jameson.
Gorgeous, the Archipelago House.
Currently on the market in the Bay Area: two houses by iconic arts and crafts architect Bernard Maybeck. In Berkeley, the 1925 Cubby House was Maybeck's garage (where he housed his Packard); later it was converted into a 724-square-foot cottage featuring redwood paneling, a cast-concrete fireplace, and Douglas fir floors. In San Francisco, a much grander Maybeck-designed four-bedroom house in Forest Hills features beamed cathedral ceilings, lead-paned windows, and forested views from every room.
This week's announcement of Peter Zumther as the winner of the 2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize is reason enough to re-visit the Zumther-designed Therme Vals Spa in Switzerland.
Sexy Italian meets Birkenstocks: Valcucine, maker of sleek, high-end kitchen systems, has been getting attention for pushing the envelope on eco-sustainability in its product design. Next week in Milan, Valcucine will present gReenaisance - the first 100% recyclable kitchen.
Selected spreads from Architectural Review 1967-72, art directed by Bill Slack, including these three beauties on the then new John Hancock Center.
Design Tavern on Fro Yo and retail interiors. Yowza.
Cute and environmentally friendly to boot, Ecopods. Via the newly redesigned Materialicious.
Distrito Capital, a sleek new Mexico City hotel, interior design by Joseph Dirand.
Lovely, the Putney house in Vermont.
Admired recently at the Ace Hotel & Swim Club in Palm Springs; wall murals of Montparnasse glazed brick tiles from Design and Direct Source, a new venture from Ann Sacks (founded after she sold Ann Sacks Tile & Stone).
The White Hotel in Brussels offers White and Super White rooms and a shop where you can buy objets and furniture by Belgian artists (Mocus Vivendi Bowls by Pieter Stockmans, the Pile-Poile clock by Thierry Bataille).
Some nice night shots of Aqua in Chicago.
Spectacular stained glass window designed by Czech artist Alfons Mucha in 1931 for St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.
An entirely different but no less spectacular one by Gerhart Richter for the Cologne Cathedral. Make sure to look at the large sizes.
Envelope Architecture and Design recently completed the interior of Contigo Restaurant in San Francisco; the furnishings, fixtures, and surface materials are not only aesthetically appealing but also environmentally friendly.
The Modern House Estate Agents lists architect-designed property for sale or rent in London and the UK; including the sensational Dairy House by Charlotte Skene-Catling.
Wow, not your average hut.
For minimalists everywhere: the bare-bones Yawn House by Koizumi Studio in Japan is a great mix of contemporary and traditional Japanese style.
A little bit more trivia/detail about the Ref's coin flip above. The street it was shot on is called Alta Vista Terrace or "A Street of 40 Doors" and was created by developer Samuel Gross and architect J.C. Brompton in 1904 to replicate the look and feel of the London district of Mayfair. Lots of photos here.
Demolition Art: Seattle architecture firm Hutchison & Maul devised the Hole Houses Project as a temporary exploration of the qualities of light. The architects drilled holes into the facades of two houses slated for demolition and slotted in colored acrylic rods; at night, the houses glowed like a starlit sky. "We had a big party and demolished the building the next day," the architects said.
Where there's smoke: Admired recently, the Smoked Oak Dining Table with Oil Finish from German designer Rainer Spehl (creator of the wooden MacBook case) and Smoked Oak Engineered Flooring from German flooring company Parador.
Another excuse to travel to Europe this summer: the Bauhaus Bed & Breakfast allows you to stay in the same rooms students lived in in the '20s.
Wooden Forest Apartment, gorgeous.
Daily Icon on The Metla Timber Building on the campus of the University of Joensuu, by SARC.
The restored Thunderbird Hotel in Marfa, TX is the place I'll stay when I finally check it off my list of places to visit. Via Remodelista.
Every inch of this place is beautiful and perfect. The 6x11 Alpine Hut in Slovenia by OFIS Architects.
Container Cinema.
Architect David Mastalka and sculptor Vojtech Bilisic designed a gorgeous tea house for Prague.
"Strip away all of the excess and you may just end up living in a box." The Box House Named Paco, ultra-minimal pre-fab living by Jo Nagasaka & Sschemata Architecture Office Ltd.
Five architecture firms design buildings using Legos for the Scottish Design Awards. Via Archinect.
A big collection of Flickr collections for architecture buffs.
"Using authentic blueprints, young builders create foundations and make representations of actual skyscraper--or they can design their own buildings!" Wow, the UberArc set. Via PrairieMod.
Designed by architect Gunnar Asplund, the gorgeous Stockholm Public Library. Via Grow a Brain.
So you know: Frank Lloyd Wright's Fawcett House in inland northern California is up for sale. Via Materialicious.
Noted, Sears Tower to become Willis Tower.
"We have found the architectural equivalent of the middle finger." In search of "spite houses."
Architectural Digest's 100 Great Spaces.
I sure hope Dan Meth keeps this series of charts going. #2 is Sit-Com House Floor-Plans which is a sweet follow up to his Trilogy Meter.
Absolutely stunning home in Kuala Lumpur. *Sigh*
A full scale replica of Le Corbusier's vacation home in Cap-Martin on the Cote D'Azure.
Townhouses for bikers.
Blocked by a zoning issue, "he built the tallest, most modern home he could design for the space." The 12 Foot Wide Residential Tower.
The abandoned Kawaminami shipyard in Japan.
For those in the market: the LuxPod has been put up for sale (all 140 sq. feet of it). Via Materialicious.
"All over town, there are interesting but unused premises that are being converted into hotel rooms in conjunction with this urban development and architectural project." Brilliant idea, the Pixel Hotel. Via Cool Hunting
"A fantastic example of architectural speculation: genuinely massive --and impossibly cantilevered." BldgBlog on Viktor Ramos' final student project at Rice,
The Continuous Enclave: Strategies in Bypass Urbanism. Yowza.
The Guardian on restoring the Midland Hotel and I Like's recent visit to check it out. Reminds me a little of the great work in restoring The Varden Hotel in Long Beach, which comes highly recommended if you're ever in the area (some additional photos here).
A 15,000 sf. cave home in Missouri is for sale on eBay. Via Archinect.
"Could nearly 4000 oil rigs soon to be decommissioned in the Gulf of Mexico be retrofitted into an American Dubai of offshore luxury hotels?"
One of the finalists in the Evolo Skyscraper Competition is Eric Vergne's spiraling skyscraper farm for a future Manhattan.
FLW's Fallingwater "more or less complete" out of Lego. Via Edward Lifson.
I'm doing a little work on an idea for Field Notes. This collection never fails to get me in the proper frame of mind,
Wheat Kings.
7,300 square foot Prairie style school for a $1. Got an another buck? Buy this one, too.
I want one, the weeHouse. Via Materialicious.
Nice barn remodel.
Edward asks, "Do art museums make you climb the walls?"
Daily Icon on Arne Jacobsen's Danmarks Nationalbank.
Photos of Akkerwinde Bridge in the Netherlands. Via Contemporist.
The Frightening Beauty of Bunkers will be of particular interest to aficionados of the doomsday architectural style.
"At 755 feet from the ground, it's the highest clock in the world. Its face is 40 feet tall and 100 feet wide. My neighbors can read it from their windows, a mile and a half away, through the fog." The odd, somewhat kitschy clock tower in Moskva-City.
So you know, 30 phenomenal and funky modern fireplace designs.
Great photos of Hyllie water tower in Sweden.
The complete archives of The Concrete Quarterly. As Spencer might say, "awesomeness has arrived." Via Things.
Photos from inside the abandoned Uptown Theatre here in Chicago. Drive past it all the time and had no idea how incredible it still looks inside. Let's hope the effort to save it is successful.
A durable $5000 house made out of recycled paper.
Slade Architecture's magnetic steel wall inside their super modern Kenig House. The wall of shoes is also impressive (though less for the architecture and more for the sheer number of shoes these people own).
Intrepid architecture critic Andrew Blum on writing slow.
Blair Kamin on how Daniel Burnham's work in Chicago remade the National Mall in Washington D.C..
Sliding house? How about a moving church? The opening sequence is absolutely sublime. Stay with it til the end, when the chorus returns.
Dezeen on a brilliant residential design from dRMM in London, The Sliding House.
On an inauguration episode of public radio show DnA: Design and Architecture, Edward Lifson talks about Obama and Chicago architecture, and Todd Boyd, the "Notorious Ph.D," traces the Obamas' fashion sense back to jazz.
JSA Architects' Juvet Landscape Hotel. Where's my room key?
"New construction from 1953."
Our occasional co-conspirator Edward Lifson has posted a nice preview of Renzo Piano's new Art Institute of Chicago wing that's due to open in May.
Images from Simon Henley's book The Architecture of Car Parks.
Gorgeous modern home in Brooklyn.
"A colony of bats had taken up residence on the third floor so they had to be relocated. That was the easy part." Architect Tracey Overbeck Stead renovates a building in absurdly bad shape.
The best houses of all time in L.A.
Allison Arieff on abandoned McMansions and outgrown box stores.
Who needs marble when you can put Snickers ad on it?
"A door in the woods." A short film about a Long Island writing studio designed by Andrew Berman.
For BB: a tour of Zooey Deschanel's home studio. Though he'll probably want to just skip to the photo shoot outtakes.
Getting quickly married in style on the cheap no longer requires a flight to Las Vegas: the newly renovated Manhattan Marriage Bureau.
Chicago and its Architecture Through the Eyes of Google Books, a collection of great old architecture book scans.
Expanding Architecture: Conversations on Design as Activism, a multi-city salon organized by Metropolis.
A tour of architecture firm Fantastic Norway's rural Trondheim Cabin. Via Remodelista.
The Ultimate House, clips and photos of some of the world's most impressive examples of modern residential architecture.
Cindy LaFerle's short personal story of restoring Frank Lloyd Wright's Carl Schultz house in western Michigan.
Top 10 awe-inspiring treehouse designs.
A new hostel in Stockholm in a converted jumbo jet.
Photos, drawings and technical details on Lovegrove Studio 2's Alpine Capsule project.
Inspiring illustrated post by Peacay on Art Deco California and the sketches of S. Charles Lee.
Underground, automated bike parking in Tokyo. Sweet!
An architectural firm believes backyard swimming pools should be emptied and transformed into subterranean granny flats. Via Worldchanging.
Nice redesign of Waingels College using only timber construction.
Great photos of old Siberian houses. Via Materialicious.
On a day like this, with the wind chill down to just two degrees, a trip to the world's largest swimming pool in Chile's southern coast sounds just about right.
James Langenheim's "Theme Building" at LAX scaffolded. More on the iconic building here.
Plans for the redesign of Slussen, Stockholm's city center.
Stunning, the Sensamare bathroom. *Sigh*
Two panoramas from inside the newly remodeled National Museum of American History.
A photo essay on what happens when big box retailers close and their gigantic buildings get re-purposed: For Sale: 200,000 Square Foot Box.
Related to MS's last. Video scenes from Holl's Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins in KC. Cool in pictures. Sublime in person.
"For three decades Steven Holl has used watercolor--drawn each morning, before the deadlines kick in--as a springboard toward the creation of architecture." Really great inspirational peek at a creative mind at work, The Painted Building. Be sure to view the slideshow of the drawings. Lovely.
Inhotim, a gorgeous Brazilian museum complex surrounded by tropical gardens.
Jason Fried points us to a set of Mies Van Der Rohe photos in the new LIFE Magazine archives. Very nice, especially this one of the man.
From planning to sketches to building to completion, everything you need to know about the Yellow Treehouse Cafe. Via Inhabitat.
The renovated Tel Aviv Port.
The Daily Icon on "Wheat Kings," spectacular images selected and annotated from the I Love Grain Elevators Flickr pool.
Oobject picks their favorite moving building facades, complete with video of said movements in action.
"We went to see it that first night, and I thought, This is the biggest mistake I have ever made in my life." The story of restoring Astor Courts, the 40,000 square foot house designed by Stanford White in 1902.
Wow. Some really strange buildings.
Totally creepy, a collection of abandoned hotels, hospitals, and churches.
Got 35 million dollars laying around? This could be yours.
Winners of AIA Chicago's Awards for Excellence in Interior Architecture.
The Jested Telecommunications Tower and Hotel. A short film from the V&A's Cold War Modern exhibition about an iconic Eastern Bloc structure, built in 1963.
"Based on our data, it would appear that the typical architect dies from heart failure at the age of 73." Death Does Come, of This We Are Sure. An interesting look at the deaths of famous architects. Via Archinect.
The sleek Garden and Sea House.
Fab, a temple made with over a million recycled bottles.
The black and white Hotel Habita Monterrey, designed by Joseph Dirand. That hallway is amazing.
Sarah Vowell on Louis Sullivan and Chicago architecture. Via The New Modernist.
Digging JetBlue's T5 at JFK, especially the screens. Via Airbag.
Michelle Kaufmann modernizes the farmhouse, mkHearth.
The Walking House in action.
I'm sure the view is breathtaking but I'd just pass out.
Holy cow, inside Terminal 3 in Dubai's International Airport.
The winning design for the Sherwood Forest visitors center.
Contemporary movie theaters are by and large, sterile, boring places. DTA Architects is having none of that. Check their spectacular Light House Cinema in Dublin, listed under "Public Projects." More at CubeMe.
"Five new towers have been proposed for the Middle East recently with each claiming the mantle 'world's tallest building,' but which is likely to be built?"
A series of tunnels that run underneath central London and were used for communications during the Cold War have gone on sale for an estimated £5m.
Elite Laundry, then and now.
The Monte Rosa alpine hut.
Stunning, the Johanna house. Via Design Milk.
Architect Francois de Menil's gorgeous OneTwo Townhouse. Make sure to check out the photos.
Nakheel aims for the sky, announcing a new Dubai building over 1km tall. Yowza.
House on the beach. *Sigh*
"In the centre of Copenhagen, on the sixth floor of the Royal Hotel, a single room preserves a microcosm of the definitive masterwork of Danish architect and furniture designer Arne Jacobsen." Room 606.
There's still time to book your stay at Jan Konings' Hotel Experimenta. Check out the flyer for more details (pdf).
The Casa de Cobre house in Talca, Chile. Via Materialicious.
Short video tour of the Reversible Destiny Lofts in Tokyo. More info on them here.
Enter the World of Eichler Design.
Collection of photos of the winners of The Chicago Anthenaeum's International Architecture Awards.
Fab, we need more stores like this.
A pyramid for Paris. Via Archinect.
Gorgeous, created for the new Crawley library in the UK, typographic tree columns. Via Pan Dan.
House N in Oyta, Japan by Sou Fujimoto Architects.
The 72-Room Bohemian Dream House. Amazing. Don't miss the photos.
Los Angeles under construction.
A fabulous place to swim, Les Bains des Docks.
FLW on "What's My Line?"
Everything you ever wanted to know about Sears mail-order homes. Via Tiny House Design.
Seven rotating houses and towers.
Modernist gas stations.
Simply stunning conversion of a church to a home.
After reading JC's post yesterday on the moiré façade, I was reminded of the fascinating Café Wall Illusion (check out the applet), first noticed on a café wall in Bristol.
City of Sound on a fascinating moire facade on a school for girls in Brisbane which changes as you move past it. Here it is demonstrated with a model created by the architects.
Designboom on the Herzog and de Mueron design for 56 Leonard Street, their first residential tower in NYC. Fab.
"The old China Town renders all of our cities boring and alike. It is nothing more than restaurant streets and fake traditional buildings representing a kitsch image of contemporary China, with no real life inside." The solution? Superstar, a mobile Chinatown.
So you know, 70 amazing houses from around the world.
Nice roundup of some natural swimming pools.
Related to below: the place Calexico is playing at in that video is The Hotel Congress. Spent more than a few hours in their Tap Room way back when. If you're in the area, don't skip a visit. Lots more photos here.
Nice water tower house.
So you know, 10 homes that defy gravity.
Modernism in Australia.
Stair porn, totally SFW.
The House Vote, "a daily ballot on furnishings, architecture, and residential design." Via Remodelista.
Moving the Richard Neutra Maxwell house. Via Things Magazine.
Nice vacation home. Via WorldChanging.
Vegas Dream Projects and Failed Renderings, the buildings you'll never see on the strip, like the Beverly Hillbillies Resort and The Moon.
X House. Gorgeous.
Controversy over counters and cash registers in Calatrava's Milwaukee Art Museum entry hall.
The beautiful Kielder Observatory and a visit to check it out.
Interiors from MUFG, a Japanese Bank. How can I open an account?
The Shipping Container Hotel opened this weekend in London. More info here. Via Arbroath.
Manhattan in miniature using balsa wood, Xacto blades and nail files.
The Extra Small (XS) House. A shotgun-style 500 square foot home constructed on a budget of just $25,000.
"How Alfred Hitchcock and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer put a Frank Lloyd Wright house on top of Mount Rushmore in spite of common sense, Frank Lloyd Wright and the United States Government. Sort of." Via Daily Icon.
The Dome House. Cute, sign me up. Via Materialicious.
Vintage color photos of US cities, a thread at SkyscraperCity.
The Allied Health Care building, "2001 meets late 19th century Victorian."
Beautiful photographic essays on specific buildings by Kim Høltermand.
224 Buildings from 43 countries have made it on to the first ever World Architecture Festival Awards shortlist.
Villa Peet.
Gorgeous 24-hour time-lapse of the Uspenskiy Cathedral in Ryazan, Russia. Via Rashomon.
The new pavilion at the Kivik Art Centre in Sweden.
Great read, VF looks at the incredible changes in Beijing in preparation for the Olympics, Mao to Wow.
Some very cool office spaces.
Wallpaper Q&A with hero architect Tadao Ando.
Nina Tolstrup's Beach Hut and how she built it.
The NYT takes a look at how China's unabashed embrace of new architecture is changing the face of Beijing. A must view accompaniment is the interactive map with commentary.
Pentagram Architects' James Biber's new Harley-Davidson Museum opens Saturday in Milwaukee.
Estes/Twombly Architects' "Quiet Modernism," as they call it. Via Remodelista.
Relink by request.. Hotel Everland, Paris. A one-room, super-mod hotel, temporarily situated on the roof of the Palais de Tokyo overlooking the Eiffel Tower. Check the visite virtuelle and background information in English.
This floating swimming pool in Berlin, by AMP, looks even cooler in the winter. Via Daily Dose.
Arch Daily's roundup of their favorite architecture blogs.
A Richard Britt home in Scottsdale is up for sale. Sweet.
Passed by the renovations all the time in my old neighborhood, but was too shy to poke my head in to take a look. Luckily, the internet has provided: Inside the Krause Music Store, Louis Sullivan's last building and now a design studio.
Seven color tile mosaic artwork in the restrooms of the restaurant Tranan, in Stockholm.
Remodelista visits some gorgeous barns.
"The interior and exterior of the structure are covered with translucent, orange fabric so the building appears solid in daylight but reveals its internal structure when illuminated at night." The Zenith music hall in Strasbourg, France.
Geoff on RoboVault.
So you know, some superb examples of architectural adaptive reuse. Seriously, a plane?
Not your average cabin. Via Materialicious
There's still time to plan a summer road trip to Spring Green, Wisconsin and The House on the Rock. More of this one-of-a-kind location from Mark at WFMU.
Taipei 101's 728-ton stabilizing ball in action.
360 of Tadao Ando's new Shibuya Station.
Four ancient colorful cities.
Kuro by Takuya Hosokai and Hiromasa Mori.
Right in my parent's hood, the gorgeous Planar house. Via Materialicious
A subtle way to countdown to an impending deadline? Realities:united's installation at ArtistsSpace. Check the video.
Gorgeous, the Ring house. Via Coolboom.
Explore forgotten Detroit. Via BoN.
A house on the road to Farellones in Chili, by Nunez & Valdes. Via Notcot.
Great article profiling the Dutch architecture firm MDRV, Crowded House. Slideshow of some of the buildings discussed in the article here.
The electric home of the future from 1939.
The most awesome tree houses in Germany.
Sweet, love this amazing vacation home in Greece.
Sweet, the bungalow in a box. Via Materialicious.
Yes, sheep in the Netherlands have a cooler house than you.
The estates and villas of Nurai located off the coast of Abu Dhabi.
The Kew Gardens Treetop Walkway is now open.
Pentagram Paper 38: "The story of the design, construction and renovation of Richard Neutra's 1934 Sten-Frenke House... complete with original estimates, change orders and punchlists." Fab.
London's Tower Bridge on Twitter. Via Waxy.
Flip Flop Flying loves architect Oscar Niemeyer, and what's not to love about the Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Niteroi?
A house made out of pallets.
Neat four story home that's just eight feet wide.
Um, yeah for me? Not ever.
Pictures of the world's first billion dollar home. Yes, I said billion.
Centerpiece of the 1958 World's Fair, The Atomium in Brussels is fifty. Via The Cartoonist.
Now you can pretend you're part of the rat pack.
The five winners of the Great Indoors Award 2007. Make sure to scroll down to the R Lopez de Heredia Winery visitor centre, tasting room and cellar by Zaha Hadid.
Geoff on space as a symphony of turning off sounds.
So cool, a camera obscura that you stand in. Via Materialicious.
Hotels in the Afterlife, half-finished resorts abandoned on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Mini Moscow. Gorgeous.
Interior renderings of the 100K House.
Nice read on lessons learned from 1960s-70s counterculture architecture.
Creatively converted sea forts of Great Britain. Via C-Monster.
Abandoned mid-century Taiwanese vacation homes.
Mile-high skyscrapers and floating cities that never were.
A "a collection of promised skylines we never got to see." Frankly, that mile-high skyscraper in Chicago scares the beejeezus out of me. Via PrairieMod.
Sweet, the mod-prebuilt house. Via Materialicious.
C-1 Office in Tokyo by Curiosity.
Remodelista's Stairway Roundup. And dozens more over at Pushpullbar.
So you know, 10 annoyingly brilliant office interiors.
This is what I love about design in The Netherlands. Via swissmiss.
If I lived here I'd never leave the house. Stunning.
The plans for the new Guggenheim museum in Lithuania are out of this world. Via PrairieMod.
Plans for the frighteningly pointy Universitas Leadership Sanctuary, a "private getaway for stressed-out presidents and prime ministers who want to 'reconnect with their unique purpose in life.'" Something feels a little hoax-like about this.
Apropos of nothing. Parking garage, looking south along 3rd Ave. between Stewart and Pine Streets at night, Seattle, Undated. Thanks Geoff.
The stunning Strata Hotel in the Italian Dolomites.
"Oh yeah, did I tell you our new offices were in a Tube carriage?" Set of offices built inside old subway cars. Via I Like.
Homes that Defy Gravity.
Wallace: You feel nothing when you go into St. Patrick's? FLW: Regret.
Frank Lloyd Wright: The Mike Wallace Interview. Required viewing. Via Mr. Lifson.
Related to the last, seen at Steven Holl's sublime Bloch Building at N-A in sunny Kansas City. Going later to see it at night.
"I don't want to encourage more cars onto the roads, but if topology and beauty mean anything to you, get out there and enjoy I-95/695 now. It may soon be too late."
The Art Institute of Chicago's Chicago Architects Oral History Project.
Lovely, the Travella House.
While chatting about how excited we are to be holding our Third Seed Conference in Mies van der Rohe's Crown Hall, we got to wondering if we could do future Seeds only in his buildings. Maybe the next one could be at the Seagram Building, Neue Nationalgalerie or Toronto Dominion Center?
"Q: Would you like to design in Chicago? A: Sure, sure. It's territory chosen by the gods of architecture." Blair Kamin interviews Jean Nouvel.
"Each entry will be judged on innovation, aesthetics and "wobble factor". Sounds fab, get your entry in for the Architectural Jelly Design Competition.
zeroHouse.
The Pritzker Prize for Architecture has been awarded to Frenchman Jean Nouvel. When something big happens in architecture it's usually a good idea to check with Edward Lifson.
Back from a few days in New Mexico, and I'm still thinking about this amazing adobe church, San Francisco de Asis in Rancho de Taos. I failed to get a decent shot of the famous back of the church, but how could I possibly go up against Ansel Adams, or Paul Strand, or Laura Gilpin? What an amazing building, amazing images.
"This is our story about building a vacation house - not the traditional wooden 'swiss chalet'- style weekend cabin - but a modern almost all glass and steel house.." Constructing a steel and glass cottage.
Link of the month. A movie about a Rem Koolhaas designed "transforming" house in France. Houselife. Kubrickian, and not just because of the waltz on the track. Thanks Marshall.
Business Week on the transformation of Chicago's Merchandise Mart into the largest green building in the world.
Serero is extending the Eiffel Tower observation deck for the 120th anniversary.
Architecture in Tokyo, Omotesando Steet II.
The Chanel Contemporary Art Container by Zaha Hadid has made its debut in Hong Kong.
The Gateshead Get Carter Car Park Demolition Project, attempting to collect the history of the famous film location before it's destroyed. Via I Like.
100 villas, 100 days, 100 architects.
Following JC's post yesterday, here's more about the Rem Koolhaas Death Star in Dubai.
Slide show of the soon-to-be-opened Terminal 5 at JFK, which wraps around Eero Saarinen's iconic TWA Flight Center.
"Take the fused nomadic home designs of the yurt, tipi, and igloo and slip the straitjacket of suburban values, materials, and methods of construction over them." The Suburban Tipi.
With a total of 300 square feet, it's more like a play house than a real house. An itty bitty tiny house in Toronto.
"In the green landscape, the library rises up eight stories, clad in black natural stone." Giancarlo Mazzanti's Biblioteca Parque Espana.
Sweet, the pre-fab Nomad Home.
"The spread of tuberculosis in Finland between the wars led to the construction of a number of sanatoria throughout the country. One of these was the Varsinais-Suomi tuberculosis sanatorium which had broad-based financial support from 48 municipalities and four towns. Paimio was chosen as the location for the sanatorium and there was a competition for its design, which was resolved at the end of January 1929." The history and design of the Paimio Sanatorium designed by Alvar Aalto.
Totally need one of these for the deck this summer.
Redesigning the Holmenkollen ski jump in Oslo. "At night, a focused beam of white light will project from a viewing platform at the jump's apex to suggest that Holmenkollen stretches infinitely to the sky."
Neat-o: Forgotten Chicago. The highlights are too numerous to list, just dig in.
Eero Saarinen's spectacular IMB Research Lab in Yorktown Heights NJ is empty and for sale.
NYT Mag feature on the architectural office of David Yocum and Brian Bell, created in a former automobile electrical-parts business in a transitional part of Atlanta. So cool. Here's the firm's site.
The Museum of Contemporary Art of Castilla y León by Mansilla-Tuñón.
"Nearly all of the buildings are low rise, most of houses are detached and have a small garden." Iceland Architecture. Via 2 or 3 Things.
The folks over at Dezeen have some photos of the recently renovated Rossio railway station in Lisbon.
Fab home for sale.
Nikolai Sutyagin's homemade wooden skyscraper.
Living in a fairy-tale of a shell.
Great photos of the National Centre for the Performing Arts.
Sublime, JaG's House. Via Materialicious.
I'd vote for the "apple turnover" moniker over "taco" or "clamshell": Living in a Sculpture, the Sculptured House by Charles Deaton. Here are some more photos.
63.02°
Buy your very own Richard Meier designed bathroom. Via Remodelista.
Gorgeous pre-fab homes from Brio54. Via Inhabitat.
Gregory's got a swinging pad.
Serpents, whales, sharks and sea shells. The bioarchitecture of Javier Senosiain.
Disney's bringing back the House of the Future concept. Here's what the first one looked like.
Pruned on the subterranean farms of Tokyo.
The Architecture of Polygamy. Found after a conversation last night about driving through the very strange polygamist town of Colorado City, AZ as a kid. Every house there looks like this.
Not only stunning in it's design, it is a house after my own heart. Click through the photos until you get to the one that shows you the outdoor movie theater.
The Guardian takes a look at Beijing's Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium.
Coolest bird feeder ever.
Walk the Bloch with Steven Holl, architect of the Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in KC. Via Edward Lifson.
Who wouldn't want to live in a tree?
The perfect little prefab home from Swedish firm Grasshopper.
Lovely, I think the K3 actually might fit on my deck, the KitHaus.
Container House overlooking San Francisco. Via Inhabitat.
Custom prefab homes by Marmol Radziner. Check out the Utah House 1.
Sami Rintala's gorgeous Boxhome.
Fab, if I checked in, I'd never leave. The Ace Hotel.
Beijing's National Aquatics Centre, aka The Water Cube, debuts.
"As they approach the bottom of the staircase, spotlights light up underneath their car, which begins to rotate on a platform." Slideshow on the BMW Delivery Center in Munich.
The 84 Square Foot Dream Home. Via 2 or 3 Things.
Seoul's $31B Yongsan international business district. Simply gorgeous.
Troika's 'Cloud', a digital sculpture at Heathrow for British Airways. So cool. Lots more on how it works here and in this illustrated post at Pixelsumo.
A builder, an architect and a developer attempt to build a house that is both modern and green for just 100K.
Falconcity of Wonders.
The Filberg House designed by Arthur Erickson is for sale. Stunning.
Is it a house? Is it a tent? Looks to be a bit of both. .
A proposal for urban renewal in Atlanta as told by an eleven year old girl, presented in comic book form, enter Willa's Wonderland.
Michelle Kaufmann's mkSolaire is being constructed at the Museum of Science and Industry here in Chicago.
Simple, clean, modern, gorgeous, The Ranch, Refined. Thanks Marshall.
Most people have a tv and a couch. Some people like a little more for their movie viewing experience, 10 Stunning Ultra-Geeky Home Cinemas.
Local note: Hubbard Street Dance company at Crown Hall this Sunday. "A collaborative presentation of movement and design in one of Chicago's landmark buildings." More info here.
A compilation of ambitious ocean arcology concepts.
The world's largest swimming pool. Dubai? No, Chile.
Swatch Group's new Ginza, Japan HQ has seven shops on seven floors served by seven elevators. A bit on the building from Time Mag by Jean Snow.
Remains of the abandoned Amtrak Station on 17th Street in Oakland. Via gmt+9 (-15).
National Geographic explores the ghost towns of North Dakota, The Emptied Prairie. Check out the photo gallery here.
"The utopian ideal of the cultural building as playground." Things Magazine on Cedric Price's 1964 Fun Palace.
Check out FAR's Wall House in Santiago de Chile. (Select specific project).
So cute. The Wee House.
Fab prefab from 1971 by Matti Suuronen. Via ffff.
Port-A-Bach, a portable cabin by Atelier Workshop. Via The Style Files.
Lovely, the official school of languages in Spain. Via Coolboom.
Not your average treehouses.
Wow, modern home designed by architect Jorn Utzon is up for sale.
Wow. 5 Unbelievably Cool Research Facilities.
If you're looking for JC this morning, he's over here.
7 Abandoned Wonders of America.
A large collection of photos of some of the most beautiful libraries in the world.
Finding (and buying) a 16-room mansion in the Bronx, untouched for decades. Via 2 or 3 Things.
Panoramic QTVR of the Sainte Chapelle de Paris. Magnificent. Via Edward Lifson, who will be giving a "working lunch" talk about Mies van der Rohe and Rem Koolhaas at our Seed Conference, a week from tomorrow. 4 seats are left.
Neat little animation showing the construction of Gyre, a retail center in Tokyo.
Wired's got some great options for modular, pre-fab housing, Small and Fabulous; Modular Living as It Should Be.
Check out the latest images of the innovative Antarctic Halley research station.
Simply fabulous, The Alan Family house. Via MoCo Loco.
"Where others saw a big old barn, they saw a home."
Simply spectacular, and I'm not sure that even does it justice. The Baltazar Residence. Thanks Marshall.
140 square feet of simplicity, The Shack at Hinkle Farm.
In the words of Eliza Doolittle, "All I want is a room somewhere..." Loverly.
Stunning, Chapel of Porciuncula de la Milagrosa in La Calera, Columbia.
"The World of Tomorrow." Visions of New York City in 2108.
The fantastic (as in fantasy) architectural drawings of Hugh Ferris who never designed a noteworthy building but influenced a generation of architects. And sci-fi film art directors too. More here.
The Solar Wind Pavilion.
Crystal Island, the world's largest single building. More photos at Inhabitat.
A Clinic for the Exhausted by Michael Spooner is the winner of the 2007 Architecture Australia prize for unbuilt work.
The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, Kansas by Kyu Sung Woo.
Now this is my kind of cabin in the woods. Wow.
Yes Santa, what I really want is a tipi.
The Brains Behind Billionaire Homes. Via Archinect.
I bike past this innovative trailer home all the time and have been wondering about it, then suddenly came across the recent GOOD magazine article. Good to know.
Tangentially related to the last. Space houses on Earth. Sweet.
Boing Boing on Disneyland's Monsanto Plastic House of the Future video.
From DF: America's 20 Ugliest College Campuses. While Gruber agrees with #1 (His alma mater, Drexel), we have to take serious issue with #9, The Illinois Institute of Technology. Even if amazing works by Helmut Jahn, Rem Koolhaus, and Mies van der Rohe don't rate with Campussqueeze, they sure do with us.
The Vanishing Point, "...worlds that are embedded in our urban environment yet are decidedly removed from the collective experience of civilized life." Found among other things.
This amazing book store in Maastricht, Netherlands was retrofitted into an 800 year old church. If that's your sort of thing, you might want to revisit The Nonist's Red Hot Library Smut.
1960 BBC film on the construction of Television Center at Sheperds Bush. Of particular note, the most excellent soundtrack by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Via Cheeseford.
Just opened in Innsbruck, the Nordpark Cable Railway stations by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Creative Review on Dexia Tower in Brussels, "38 floors and 150,000 LEDs equals one hell of a light show."
Looking for a new home? Why not live in a dome?
The 2007 winners of The Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition for architectural drawing & illustration.
Skiing in Texas. Via TH.
Definitely one of the more interesting teahouses I've seen.
Local note. Mies' Social Services Administration Building at the University of Chicago is scheduled to be restored and renovated. The building is a beautiful cousin to our favorite structure anywhere.
Metal Shutter Houses by Shigeru Ban Architects.
Sweet, something nice to pick up, if you have forty million in change.
The world's tallest structure of playing cards.
The Light of Mies van der Rohe, an animated computer modeling of 24 hours of light on Mies' unbuilt "Courtyard House with Curved Elements." Via Edward.
São Paulo ad agency Loducca's new digs.
Walking around Culver City with Geoff Manaugh, proprietor of BldgBlog.
"An old, half flooded and fire damaged derelict mansion built on a small island in the Hudson River." Exploring Bannerman's Island with photographer Shaun O'Boyle.
123 photos of the prewar work of Mies van der Rohe were auctioned in Berlin yesterday. Fab. More information at Kosmograd. Via Edward, of course.
"A laboratory for daylight, and an exploration of how a different awareness of time informs place and experience." Carrie Burke's Timepiece House.
London's Olympic Stadium.
Le Corbusier-The Art of Architecture is currently showing at the Vitra Design Museum. You can view three sections of the show via video here. Fantastic.
The architecture of car parks.
Hotel Everland has migrated to the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and will be perched on top through December 2008.
A 1965 film on Bertrand Goldberg's Marina City. Via Chicago Carless.
Willy Wonka step aside. The Michel Rojkind designed Nestle Chocolate Factory Museum in Mexico.
Slideshow of the new building at The Prado by architect Rafael Moneo. Thanks Mom.
Architectural Record takes a look at the new MCA Denver.
One of the highlights for me at yesterday's Seed Conference was Edward Lifson's "working lunch" presentation on Mies, IIT and especially Crown Hall. Thanks a million Edward. Here's how we feel about that building.
"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast." The Guardian gives us recommended places to view Parisian achitecture.
A model of Scrooge McDuck's money bin. Via Fun Forever.
"Where Gods Yearn for Long-Lost Treasures." Interesting article on the New Acropolis Museum in Athens.
Cabinet Magazine's Minor History of Giant Spheres. But one is conspicuous by its absence.
Inhabitat visits the Solar Decathalon 2007.
$50,000 a day? To sleep in a toliet?
Casa de Pedra, a homemade house made from things thrown away, including cell phones and old printers. Kinda looks like that house in Paradise Valley, doesn't it MS?
For Flight of the Conchords fans: the history of bandshells in NY. Via I Like.
Hotel Q on the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. Found among a slew of other cool projects featured in the Convertible City exhibition.
Take a gander at the process of building Ed's Shed Via Archinect.
Skinny Houses.
For Stephane, a short film on van der Rohe's Crown Hall at IIT, the spiritual home of The MoOM and just across the street from the venue for our Seed Conference, later in the month.
"An egg-shaped recording studio suspended from the top of a 600ft luxury apartment block was unveiled as part of the rock band U2's plans for a skyscraper that will dominate Dublin." Lord Foster and U2 team up to build the U2 Tower.
The Stanley Tigerman designed Pacific Garden Mission is open for business. More info here.
In Search of Lost Vanguards, Excavation and Space Exploration in Constructivist Architecture. Great essay. Via Mr Gibson.
Wow. The Aatrial House in Poland. More about it here.
Simply gorgeous. Rocio Romero's pre-fab LV Home Series.
Sweet, not your average playhouse.
Representing a wide variety of creative vertical transportation, these interesting elevators would be a blast to try. Via Chris Glass.
Cognitive Dwelling, Paul Maich's terrific project for architecture school in the form of a murder mystery.
Before you gag at the extraordinary price tag, bear in mind that it includes Porsche Cayenne Turbo plus driver, personal manager and housekeeper, New Zealand wines and French champagnes and meals prepared by resident chef. Twenty six thousand dollars a night. Nice vacation if you can get it.
Stunning. Photos of the new National Grand Theater in Beijing.
A short history of Alison and Peter.
Will Pearson's London Photography is a must-see. His panoramic series for a new development on the South Bank of the Thames, opposite the Tower of London, basically depicts the future I've been waiting for, More London.
Beautiful photosets of The McCormick Tribune Campus Center at IIT by Rem Koolhaas. This is the venue for our Seed Conference on October 29th where this guy will be keeping an eye on things. Only slightly related, here's my kids there, the day before the building opened in 2005.
For my bro-in-law Matt, down in Phoenix, Notes On Becoming A Famous Architect.
A 26 day event in NYC celebrating art and architecture kicked off with an opening party in the awesome Ring Dome.
Okay, how do I meet these people and get invited to watch the movie here?
Protecting Edward's view.
Reconsidering the Role of Photography in the Survey of Modern Architecture.
"But smart design is part of the overall message: This store has good taste, and by extension so do you."
From houses to sports centers, Building Underground in London.
La Cite de l'Architecture et du Patrimone is open again in Paris after a huge renovation. Find out more here.
The NYT on Arcosanti.
"It's about applying architectural thinking to nonarchitectural fields," Rem Koolhaas' AMO does more than just architecture. Via Archinect.
New over at the TMN galleries, Architecture of Authority.
Wow, take a look at the first photos of Lord Norman Foster's Beijing airport terminal. Much improved over the original, I can say having been there. More information here.
Reminder: Airing locally tonight, check your local PBS listings for Saved From The Wrecking Ball. A documentary on Mies Van Der Rohe's Farnsworth house.
Next time I'm in SF, will check out 1234 Howard Street. Some background on the house here. Wish I could be there this weekend so I could take the AIA Living Homes tour.
Related to the last, Jason's visit to the Farnsworth House and SD's to Crown Hall on the IIT Campus.
Check your local PBS listings for Saved From The Wrecking Ball. A documentary on Mies Van Der Rohe's Farnsworth house, looks to be a must see, click the video to catch a glimpse.
Edward Lifson on the restoration of Louis Sullivan's last building, The Krause Music Store on North Lincoln Avenue in Chicago. Spectacular.
Unveiled August 25th, Gerhard Richter's design for the mammoth stained-glass window of the Cologne Cathedral. Via La Petite Claudine.
Twin Drive-In, Independence, Missouri.
Shibam, Yemen. Home to the world's oldest, surviving skyscrapers?
"At the most banal level, this is a box on the rocks, a seemingly simple pavilion of glass and concrete panel-board perched on a headland pointing toward Nanaimo. What makes the house truly modernist in creative spirit, rather than neo-modernist in style, is its space-making and details." Lovely.
Bldgblog's Interview with Michael Cook, urban explorer. Via Transbuddha.
The Single Hauz from Front Architects. Perfect for the CP field offices. I call dibs on the one with the boat.
Nice interview with Rem Koolhaas
Photos of the new Nestlé Chocolate Museum in Mexico City.
The Best House in Paris. Gorgeous.
"In 2006 Tempohousing, under the local brand name of Keetwonen, finished a 1000 unit student housing project." The catch? It's made of modified shipping containers.
I'll have a Royale with cheese.
Neat home inside an old water tower. Via TH.
Visions of Heaven: The Dome in European Architecture, photographs by David Stephenson.
Fun browse, location options for film and photo at Shootspaces. Via ToRC.
Kitsune Noir on the cool Mykita eyewear shop in Berlin.
All roads lead to Mies. Two recent things, a soon to be announced project with Jason and Carlos and also a contribution for Computer Arts Magazine, have led me back to Crown Hall on the campus of IIT. Last summer Steve was led there too. He brought a video camera.
Are You Done in There? We need more public toilets.
The impressive Bay Bridge repair process, replacing a football field sized portion all in just three days.
Headline of the day, Balloon ban wipes smile off clown's face. Which brings me to post a rehearsal video of one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands, Dear Madame Barnum by XTC.
Home Sweet Earthship. Spencer, doesn't this look a bit like Luke Skywalker's house? Via Popgadget.
"From the roof deck of Sherman Ochs's Mexican-style villa atop a breezy bluff, the entire island of Jalisco, population about 20, spreads out below. It is a picturesque place of palm trees, lush lawns and near-cloudless skies. And, of course, there are the perfect sands around the lagoon, where residents grind their perfect bodies together in an N.C.L., or Naked Conga Line."
Renderings of Transbay Terminal. Wow.
A bit of musing about Futurist-inspired petrol stations.
Architect Shigeru Ban's creative use of cardboard to build a bridge. Via Archinect.
Esquire's The Seven Wonders of the Totalitarian World. Via Cynical C.
David Byrne visited the Phillip Johnson Glass House recently and shares his thoughts. Via Archinect.
If you lived down the street from Todd Oldham, maybe he'd invite you over to check out his treehouse.
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is a reincarnation of the famed ancient library of Alexandria.
Dr. Strangelove Finds Home In Cold War Relic, from Architectural Record. Thanks Dave, prize on the way.
The refurbishment of 860-880 Lake Shore Drive by Mies van der Rohe continues. Edward Lifson keeps an eye (and camera) on the paint choices.
"I pick up my pen. A building appears." Guardian interview with architect Oscar Niemeyer. Required reading.
You might not recognize the name, but you'll recognize some of the buildings of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson.
A growing travel guide for building geeks like me. The Archi-Tourist, created by Chicago's own Daily Dose of Architecture.
Web troubles for a few days - time to finish July with a flurry of links. Rocky coastal home by McKay Lyons Sweetapple. Forest getaway by Cutler Anderson. And the Nowhaus by Locus Architecture.
"The official PR handout is a prime example of how America is blowing green smoke up its own ass." Welcome to the Eyesore of the Month.
As part of artist Jan-Erik Andersson's quest for a doctorate degree in visual arts, he's building a house. In the shape of a leaf. Here's Life on a Leaf.
Interesting design for a new 50 story tower in Melbourne.
Why not spend a moment to take the taste test at Jones, Partners: Architecture?
Film on Expo 70: Colour Diary 36, Osaka 1970. Sweet. Via City of Sound.
Frohn & Rojas, "The project breaks down the 'traditional' walls of a house into a series of four delaminated layers (concrete cave, stacked shelving, milky shell, soft skin) in between which the different spaces of the house slip." Via Createmake.
Edward Lifson asks, "Wanna buy a Breuer?"
Bathing Beauties: Re-imagine the Beach Hut for the 21st Century. Via TH.
Cincinnati's Abandoned Subway, 7 full miles of never used tunnels under the city. Via Dark Roasted.
Long ago and far away, CP sent out a request for travel photos. I sent in a couple pix of the massive Nicholson Viaduct. But nothing like this view during construction in 1912. More views here.
Framing Modernism: Selected photographs by Frank Lotz Miller, from the Southeastern Architectural Archive.
"The ecstasy of having more space in Manhattan." Bldgblog's Extra Room Fantasies will be coming to WFMU and on the web, soon.
Interbau: The Modernization of Germany "opened on July 6, 1957 in Berlin's Hansa neighborhood, and came to be seen as a tangible example of Germany's modernization and a side effect of the Cold War." Thanks Sigmundur.
Auburn University's Rural Studio architectural projects. Link from Todd Wescott, an architect and subscriber to our Infrequent Mailings who, as part of a contest, submitted the winning application to be our Guest Editor for Fresh Signals for the balance of the month.
Photos of cephalopodic playscapes in Japan.
Shanghai may see a floating city on the Huangpu River during the 2010 World Expo.
"I have no idea how to make such a slide show open at one particular slide or another, but I'll suggest that if you get past the first interior image without falling in love with their work, then you don't have a pulse." Thanks Todd.
Monocle plans an interesting urban village in Perfect High Street.
One the reasons I really disliked living in Phoenix was the need to bulldoze anything interesting that had the audacity to be more than twenty years old. For shame.
China's preparations for the 2008 Olympics continue, check out the Aquatics Center.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Duncan House available for weekend rentals.
Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House in Second Life. Via Arch. Record.
Ostel, the DDR hotel. "Travel with us back to the former East Germany... starting with the original furniture, to a city tour in a Trabant vehicle." More at Dezeen.
The SF Chronicle has a nice article on how great design is incorporated by nonprofit urban developers.
"You see how straight and perfect are the reflections today." Edward Lifson on Crown Hall in the Summer Solstice. Crown Hall, not in the Summer Solstice, but looking great all the same.
Dan Havel and Dean Ruck's Tunnel House.
Monocle video feature on James Sanders' Celluloid Skyline exhibition. It's the story of how NYC was constructed, in the movies.
Local note. Just this month the Mies van der Rohe Society have started up their daily guided tours of the Illinois Institute of Technology. If you aren't able to make it, the next best thing is to check out our feature on the reconstruction of van der Rohe's Crown Hall.
Seth Ashley's documentary on Steven Holl's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in KC.
Summertime. Why not spend it in a Fireworks House or perhaps a Book House? Interesting structures by Nendo.
Buildings of New York, photographs by Ezra Stoller.
BB, will you buy me one of these?
Rome Reborn 1.0 showcases the ancient city at its peak in 320 AD.
The top ten green skyscrapers.
This Ain't No Disco, it's where we work. Interior spaces of creative firms. Via Createmake.
"One reason you could feel like a god --a classical hero-- in the old Penn Station was that, going under the river, you were traversing an underworld. The experience of moving through that tunnel and emerging up into that station became an archetypal democratic rite of passage." Notes From the Underground, by Marshal Berman. Va DDoA.
DDoI goes inside the new addition to the Royal Ontario Museum by Daniel Libeskind. Here are Sam's shots of the outside, during the public opening, Thanks Marsh.
Kitsune Noir posts (with tons of photos) on The Best Supermarkets in the World, certainly the best looking. The Mpreis brand from Austria.
The Camouflage House. Thanks Carlos.
"...part of Manhattan is actually constructed from British war ruins." The Manhattan Landfill.
Working directly onto the exterior of the Lyttelton flytower, Ackroyd, Harvey and a team of twenty assistants will plant the north and west face with seedling grass, transforming this landmark on the London skyline into a living installation.
Yakov Chernikhov's architectural fantasies, Palaces of Communism.
Every issue of Ume, the "international architecture magazine," now available as free pdfs. Via Gravestmor.
Zaha Hadid talks with Paul Goldberger about how technology, globalization, and population growth affect architects. From 2012: Stories From the Near Future, the NYer Conference.
Edward Lifson on Chicago's Monadnock Building.
What better way to see a building than to have the architect himself give you a tour. Lord Foster, architect for the new Wembley Stadium, shows you around.
Desert Deathstar and the Little Japanese Radio That Could. Gravestmor on the OMA plan for the Ras al Khaimah Convention & Exhibition Centre in Dubai.
A short video that tries to define the difference between Architecture and Urbanism, mainly by saying that Urbanism is creating potential and Architecture as exploiting it.
Bldgblog on the bright light at the end of the tunnel and architecture.
"If you're confused by this blog, maybe that's ok because it's true intent is to store home ideas digitally while we move about." DO Research by Eric Olson, on prefab house design. Via Happy Accidents.
Built in 1970, the Nakagin Capsule Tower in Ginza Tokyo was a innovative masterpiece by architect Kisho Kurokawa... Complete with appliances and furniture, from audio system to telephone, the capsule interior was pre-assembled in a factory off-site and then hoisted by crane and fastened to the concrete core shaft. Via City of Sound.
Another incredible architectural project by Todd Saunders: the Aurland Lookout. Via Byrdhouse.
"The city of Tel Aviv is literally an open museum of the International Bauhaus Style in architecture." Via City Comforts.
Magnificent decompositions of the city skyline by Mark Napier. A new exhibition, Permutations of a Monument.
Construction shots of SOM's Burj Dubai, which, when it opens in 2009, will be the tallest building in the world. Plus a bit of perspective from Daily Dose of Architecture.
Nokia in Wonderland is a multi-screen video wallpaper that was made for the Nokia flagship store to provide an enjoyable calming experience for visitors. The idea is less about selling product and more about brand-as-lifestyle and getting into the concept of environmental therapy. Via The Supernature.
National Geographic illustration of New York's subterranean landscape. Via Pruned.
Related to the last post, our Crown Hall video, set to Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, and The New National Gallery in Berlin, set to Zeppelin's Kashmir.
When Edward Lifson says this is the best Mies Van Der Rohe video ever, you should listen.
Now I know why my spirit soars when ever I'm inside a Gothic Cathedral. New research into consumer behavior has found a link between the height of a room's ceiling and the kind of thoughts a person will have in that room. Via Thinkingpictures.
A smart, beautiful post on architecture at Eikongraphia, The Endgame of Minimalism.
James Wines, a founding member in 1970 of the SITE (Sculpture In The Environment) architectural group, described the Highrise of Homes project as a "vertical community" to "accommodate people's conflicting desires to enjoy the cultural advantages of an urban center, without sacrificing the private home identity and garden space associated with suburbia."
Phillip Johnson's famous Glass House is now open to the public. May need to plan a little trip up to New Canaan.
Explore this collection of some of the most famous and some of the not so famous urban squares all over the world.
Images from the Stockholm subway, which is cut into solid rock and looks like a sc-fi movie set. Via Table of Malcontents.
From May 29 to June 2 at the Storefront for Art and Architecture gallery in NYC, there's a big, cool thing happening involving some very interesting people. Now if they'd only decide what it is.
Finally, a way to keep my daughter from climbing on the coffee table.
"The design is a retrofitting replacement of the horizontal steel tube that currently holds freeway signage. The replacement will house two horizontal axis wind turbines that will be powered by the turbulence created from the passing cars." Brilliant.
Oh for bigger scans. Michael Moran's photographs of Philip Johnson's Glass House taken over several years. Moran's notes on the privately printed book that came out of the project.
"The Palace of the Soviets" was proposed but never built. What if it had been? Via Rise.
Lovely illustrated post at Eikongraphia about the Beijing Airport by Foster + Partners that is currently under construction .
Casey took some pictures and that was all for the River Roads Mall.
Amanda Levete's bridge design for the Dublin Docklands.
Edward Lifson's NPR story on architectural photographer Richard Nickel is mandatory listening, A Lost City's Lost Champion. Beautiful.
Inspiring workplaces. Dig the Red Bull HQ in London, designed by Jump Studios. Via the Miss who is Swiss.
The next best thing to being there. Dan Hill visits "Alvar Aalto through the eyes of Shigeru Ban," at the Barbican Art Gallery in London
"It was deemed that Los Angeles would become the anti-city. Angelenos would live not in cramped apartments close to their industrial jobs, but in airy bungalows with tidy yards." The 1970 Los Angeles 'Centers' Concept Plan. Via Things.
Briliant architectural and other projetcs from Heatherwick Studio in London, Via FormFiftyFive.
Owen Hatherley on Constructivist architecture in the Ukraine, more specifically, "the complex known variously as Gosprom, Derzhprom, N47 and (gasp!) the Palace of Industry."
A wonderful post by Peacay on the design proposal for the 1962 Seattle Century 21 Exposition including site plans and orginal concept work for the Space Needle.
Investors in a central China city are building a giant $300 million sculpture of a dragon that they say will be the largest in the world.
Nicely designed and built website on nicely designed and built Esplanade Apartments by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
About the same size as my first apartment in Chicago, only a lot more interesting to look at. The Micro Compact Home. Via Reluct.
Tom Lundin's Modeling Mid-Century Modern. "...to show off my love of tech illustration, along with my obsession with mid-century modern architecture." Yowza. Via Scrubbles.
Singapore's floating towers.
"Almost two years late and way over budget, the new Wembley stadium is finally open. And it was well worth the wait."
Spy's Spice on Flughafen Tegel 1967, the Berlin airport terminal as designed by structuralist architect Schulze-Fielitz.
Ruairi Glynn on Gary Chang's experiment with reconfigurable living spaces, The Suitcase House Hotel.
Victorian train station - redone - puts the glamour back into rail travel. Slideshow with audio. Via.
The World's Tallest Wooden House. Looks a lot like the Broken Angel House in Brooklyn. And sounds just as dangerous to be in. Via PSFK.
"My Dad is an architect. He studied in Belfast and later in Leeds 1969-72 around the time most of these photos were taken."
Gregor Graf's Hidden Town photo series. Enigmatic images of Linz architecture, purged of signs. Via vvork.
"...almost like a Disneylandish Gehry gone wrong?" The BP Helios House. Via PSFK.
Living Box is a preefab housing design competition.
Can't believe this passed the local council, but this is a great solution for rebuilding a home while meeting local heritage protection requirements.
Geoff calls for entries for an architectural film festival to be held in LA as a part of Silverlake this May. We're submitting SD's short homage to Crown Hall.
Have you always driven past the Elks National Veterans Memorial in in Lincoln Park in Chicago and never gone in? This amazing photographer did, and here's what it looks like in 360 degree VR. Make sure you move your cursor to see the ceiling. Also on Robert Harshman's site, a 360 VR of the Gasoline Museum south of Taos in New Mexico. Now who would drive past that without going in?
You wouldn't know it by today's howling and icy wind, but spring is heading this way. As evidence I present the snow melting away from our favorite building, in this shot by our current Guest Editor, Edward Lifson. More on Mies' Crown Hall from a field-trip SD took in August.
Good to be here. I love steel and glass, as JC said. But do you think when the homeless dream of a comfy house to live in they dream of exposed concrete? Check out this Modernist "stigma-smashing" "flophouse" by starchitect Helmut Jahn. The brand spankin' new glass steel and concrete SRO devotes half its units to people who are homeless or disabled. Images here.
Not sure I'd ever use it but I like the idea of this image-as-type set, called "Architekt" from Kapitza.
Photoset of architect Louis Kahn's Yale Center for British Art. Via Daily Dose.
Green towers in the park: Seoul Commune 2026.
Habitat '67, Montreal's ultra-modern development built as a "case for city living" turns 40 this year. Via Nag on the Lake.
"If I could live in any high-rise anywhere, I'd like to live in 860-880 North Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Oh, wait a minute, I do live there." Edward Lifson's five favorite buildings in America, that are publicly accessible.
"...a kind of sci-fi skid row has sprung up on the temporarily frozen surface of Medicine Lake, in the western suburbs of Minneapolis." BldgBlog on Art Shanty Projects.
The six finalists for the design of the new Stockholm Public Library. We're pulling for The Book Hill. Via Dezain.
Plans for the doomsday vault opening in 2008.
Things to do: 1) have children, 2) move to Denmark, and 3) enroll said children in the Ordrup School, designed by Bosch & Fjord. Via PSFK.
Architecture Portal's Top 15 Fountains of the World. Though, you know, we've got a pretty decent foutain too.
Michael writes, "A slideshow of 19th century temporary buildings, some amazingly elaborate, made of corregated iron and still standing today."
Photoset of the Toryglen Highrise Demolition in Scotland yesterday. It blow'd up real good. Via I Like.
Not scheduled to open until the summer, the Bloch Building addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in KC is deservedly garnering a lot of attention. The architect is Steven Holl, profiled in this recent Telegraph article. Via Lifson.
"Set in a spectacular water filled
quarry in Songjiang, China, the 400 bed resort hotel is uniquely constructed within the natural elements of the quarry."
Archinect has an interesting feature on Architecture in Second Life.
UNStudio's converted WWII Bunker. Via Reluct.
"Can technology enhance public use and enjoyment? Can it make space more productive, or meaningful?" Not sure, but it certainly can make it cooler. Ruairi Glynn on William J. Mitchell's presentation entitled, the Zaragoza Digital Mile.
Voting is open for The City of the Future. NYC vs CHI vs LAX.
The Grand Canyon Skywalk will be opening March 28th.
"The greatest cantilever ever told," over the Grand Canyon. Via the always observant Edward Lifson.
"A collection of student work from Unit 20 of the increasingly exciting Bartlett School of Architecture in London... I can't find any links to it online, however, so I'll just give you a random walk-through of the book's contents." We love when Geoff does that.
The Art Of Living with Art. Cool exploration of a Soho loft design. Via DDoA.
A luminous interactive installation has transformed London's V&A John Madejski Garden this winter.
Mental note, when in Berlin stay at Arte Luise Kunsthotel. Via Vagablond.
Rotating apartment tower planned in Dubai. Via Lifson.
There are still a few days remaining to invent and submit your home-made sovereignty to BldgBlog for a chance to win a copy of Lonely Planet Guide to Micronations.
Strange Soviet Buildings. Via Byrdhouse.
Jean Paul Ganem, "My agricultural designs are found where art is least expected... are made with plants, therefore, they are constantly changing with time." Via Aeiou.
"Look at it very closely: the details disappear in a funny way." Metropolis Magazine on the reopening of Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canan, CT which is scheduled for April. Plus, a great interview with Vincent Scully about the the house. Via Lifson.
For Finn, here's our film about Crown Hall that you're looking for.
"It's gorgeous, stone simple. But what do you do when it rains? 'You get wet.'" Mies in Miami. Via Archinect.
A Daily Dose of Architecture Ecuador. Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro.
A capital idea. Ironic Sans on a building shaped like Godzilla.
"There was no good reason churches had to cast off a thousand years of tradition and start dressing up like bank branches, but that's exactly what they did." Lileks' annotated photoset of postwar church architecture.
Beijing's 2008 Olympic Stadium under construction.
City of Sound on Typotecture, typography as architectural imagery.
"We enter the master bedroom through the sliding glass door. Here, dominating the room, is without question the Town House's single most dramatic piece of furniture." Via an afternoon update to The Morning News.
Who dreamt it, who designed it, how they built it. Great weblog telling personal stories of houses. including this one which was influenced by the great one by the great one. Found among other things.
Tiberio points us to Figure/Ground, a site about architecture, photography and travel. So cool. For example, this set of pix of Richard Meier's sublime Jubilee Church in Rome and this one of Kenzo Tange's St. Mary's Cathedral in Tokyo.
If your rooms are filled with their lamps, their couches, and everything in between, you might as well just get it over with and buy one of their houses too. Ikea plans 500 homes a year in UK (reg. req'd). Via Archinect.
Studio 804 is a design/build program at the University of Kansas School of Architecture and Urban Design. Their 2006 project is a well-documented twenty-week program to create and construct modular relief housing. Via Netdiver.
House Ray 1 in Vienna by
Delugan Meissl. Spectacular. Via Paul Wagner's sweet new Tenmetal.
Holiday House on the Rigi, Scheidegg, Switzerland by Andreas Fuhrimann Gabrielle Hächler.
Eikongraphia on a proposed building for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai by the Danish firm Plot. The building is named and designed after the Chinese sign "ren," which means "people." Beautiful.
Ken Shuttleworth's Crescent House. Spectacularly simple and beautiful residence, especially for someone who lives with lots of books. Check the brief, as well as the photos, etc.
Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord. A fomer coal and steel plant is transformed into a park and with some amazing lighting, really comes alive at night. More here at the official site of "The Mega Multi Maxi Park."
Montreal's Habitat '67. "The building was realized as the main pavilion and thematic emblem for the International World Exposition." Much like the structure to which it is dedicated, this site is clunky and more than a bit impractical but noble all the same. Via DDoA.
Anyone want to loan me $750,000?
A visual history of Paper Tube Structures. Via bblinks.
Electroland makes urban spectacles. "Enteractive consists of a luminous field of LED lights embedded into the entry walkway that respond to the presence of visitors; a massive display of lights on the building face that mirror the patterns of the entry." Also, check the RGB project.
Zingmagazine on 101 Spring Street, "At first, I thought the building large, but now I think it small; it didn't hold much work after all." Via City of Sound.
Charles Phoenix's Disneyland Tour of Downtown Los Angeles. Via Daily Guilt.
What better than an explosion to get the morning started? The Demolition of the Wachovia Building in downtown Atlanta, by Kevin Byrd.
Prêt à Manger, a workshop on restaurant design, produced some interesting concepts. Via Psfk.
Obsessional on Mies' 860-880 Lake Shore Drive. We love those towers and the soon-to-be-dwarfed IBM building too. But most of all we love Crown Hall at IIT, and its contemporary and cousin
The School of Social Service Administration at U of C. Note to self, arrange photo pilgramage to Hyde Park.
Frank Lloyd Wright buildings recorded by the Historic American Buildings Survey at the LoC. Many with hi-res scans of drawings and plans. Great resource.
Inhabitat on Lovetann's two new prefab homes.
The Delft library is by Mecanoo Architecten.
Rutger Spoelstra's photo of the TU Delft Library, plus some QTVRs of same. Beautiful. First found at Daily Dose but probably belongs in Jaime's red-hot and filthy library smut post as well.
Live like a hobbit in The Shire of Bend, Oregon. Via Brand Avenue.
Two new homes from Løvetann. Via Inhabitat.
Local note. If you can make it over the next couple weekends it's running, try and hit up the Graceland Cemetery Architecture Tour. Sullivan, van der Rohe, and more. It's likely the best Chicago history lesson you'll ever have.
You are an architecture geek. You are particularly fond on individualistic takes on the clean, modern aesthetic from the middle of the last century. Preferably lesser-known ones like Harris Armstrong. You are reading Andrew L W Raimist's Architectural Ruminations. Aren't you? Scanned Dwell article on Armstrong. Page 2. Page 3.
Molo Design's Textile Softwalls look like a nice, clean solution to dividing up an open office space. Click through the pix.
Don Justo has been building his own cathedral near Madrid. He has been working in the Romanesque style, as Gothic is "too complicated" and Baroque "does not please me". Some additional images here. Now, after working without a permit for 45 years, it seems as though he may gain official permission from the planning authority. Amazing.
Roger Dean, the fantasy artist you know from his series of Yes album covers has designed a house and planned a community "for the new millenium." Trippy.
Jump Studios' new headquarters for Red Bull. So cool. Find it under 'projects.' Via Designboom.
Kane on the Braniff International Airways terminal at Lovefield in Dallas. Sweet. George Cserna photos from Wallpaper Magazine.
I wonder how difficult it is to find a building to place a Loftcube on top of.
Kane on futurist-artist Jacque Fresco and his many initiatives including The Venus Project, "a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture." Check this trailer for a new doc on Fresco, Future By Design. Fascinating.
Todd Saunders' Summer House.
Relink, but worth it. "Hey friend, say friend, come on over, if you're looking for happiness, this is the place!" The National Archives of Canada site dedicated to Expo 67 in Montreal. Great collection of collateral material. Add to that, this fab set of snaps from the Expo. I. II. III.
Twists and Turns, a video of the dynamic lit skin of Uniqa Tower in Vienna. Beautiful. Just beautiful.
DC Residence including living spaces of the Swiss Ambassador, representational spaces and staff quarters, by architect Steven Holl.
Some interesting speculative projects using Google's SketchUp. Via Things.
Frank Lloyd Wright in Half Life 2. Via grubbykid.
Vintage photos of lost shopping malls of the '50s, '60s & '70s.
Real Estate, one-hundred aerial drawings by Heman Chong. So simple. So cool. Via Designboom.
Laminata, an innovative glass house by Kruunenberg Van der Erve Architects. Also, check this Daily Dose of Architecture post on the project.
The Quik House is a prefabricated kit house designed by Adam Kalkin from recycled shipping containers.
To follow that last post, and because we were talking about it at lunch, here's some great info on Sullivan's Merchants' National Bank in Grinnel, Iowa. Definitely worth the trip, if you're ever in the area.
Heard this weekend: Hello Beautiful's "The Sound of Architecture". Includes a great piece on the Louis Sullivan building in my neighborhood, the Krause Music Store, which would be his last before his death in 1924.
Sunset Cabin, Lake Simcoe, Ontario. Taylor Smyth Architects. Via WDIK.
Bohemian Modern is a beautiful, new book by architect Barbara Bestor, about Silver Lake CA and the influential style of homes and design there. It was designed and illustrated by Geoff McFetridge, who was profiled in Western State 3. Cha-ching. Thanks to Chuck Anderson for the heads up.
Geoff writes, "This project is so bizarre that I thought your readers might get a kick out of it: it's a 10-mile spiral of interconnected highway ramps located outside Las Vegas, so that families can gamble at 55mph, get their car washed, etc., all while spiraling around and around - and around - inside this weird concrete system of roads in the sky."
Niagara Credit Union building by Philip Beesley.
The Hotel Puerta America Madrid about which Things said, "Perhaps it helps to have design hotels kicking around so that architects can get ultimately doomed ideas out of their system."
Electro Plankton on an abandoned city outside of Taipai.
Louis Sullivan at 150. Via AC PLUS.
Interesting story and photo essay from the Seattle Times about the six years my buddy Rob and his girlfriend Jenny spent living in and doing an eco-friendly rehab on a historic house in Seattle's Ballard district.
Freitag Individual Recycled Freeway Shop. "The store is built with 17 rusty, recycled freight containers."
For MS and BB, the Brady house rendered in CAD. Via Boing Boing.
Wayfinding versus wayshowing. Dan Hill on an interesting looking new book on environmental signage by Per Mollerup.
Proposals for a new extension to The Tate Modern. Check this rendering. Design by Herzog & de Meuron.
Pingmag interview with Joe Nishizawa, whose underground Japan photography depicts a hidden fantastic world missing only mole-people and an evil, stylish despot. More pix here, unfortunately the book, Deep Inside doesn't seem to be available outside of Japan as of yet.
He obviously prefers big, but sometimes you just need to build a small deli: Frank Gehry's Delicious.
This month's Architectural Record Magazine has big photo feature on Tadao Ando's sublime building for the Langen Foundation, on a defunct NATO base outside of Düsseldorf. More pictures here, plus an interview with Ando at Designboom and another from Brutus.
"The various three-dimensional blocks of the different floor plans -or "typologies," as Ingels calls them- put one in mind of an insane megascale Tetris game, in which apartments rain down into big empty volumes and must be rotated to the correct orientation." Via BldgBlog.
"The tube of the tunnel forms its own room and turns slowly along the longitudinal axis around the visitor. The scent pours from the flower pots attached to the tube." The Dufttunnel. Via Ramage.
Inflating the sphere atop Serpentine Pavillion by Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, in London. Via Dezain.
Photos from a Zaha Hadid exhibit in New York. And here's an animation of her Aquatics Centre for the 2010 Olympics in London.
The Metro stations in Stockholm are beautiful. Via land-o-links.
Marmol Radziner + Associates fab prefab desert house. Via aWLN.
Cassandra Complex, the controversial and imaginative Melbourne architecture firm of Cassandra Fahey. Check the Goss House and the Newman House, and yes, that is Pamela Anderson.
Hong Kong: The Densecity, a large collection from the skyscraper capitol of the world.
Sweet interface for viewing details from projects large and small from architect Jonathan Schloss. Via Netdiver.
The Inscribing of Paris Street Names. Via Plep.
Japanese flood tunnels in Tokyo. Via Bunch of Nerds.
From the Weekly Dose of Architecture."The project Seewurfel ('Lake Cubes') is based on a concept of piazzas that were created by the careful positioning of the eight buildings." Nice.
Pingmag interview about the Micro Compact Home with Claudia Hertrich of Horden Cherry Lee Architects.
By 2012, engineers will have constructed a new high tech dam that will once again make Mont Saint-Michel an island.
UNStudio's VilLA NM single family house in upstate New York.
Best Buildings of the Year - As selected by The American Institute of Architects.
"You dock the ship for so long it becomes architecture, an extension of the earth's surface into the sea."
House from winery in Brejos de Azeitão in Portugal by architects Aires Mateus. "The introduction of volumes in this interior becomes related with the light and intends 'to modulate' the main space of the room." Via DDoA.
A bit clunky but worth the effort. A virtual tour of the Weissenhofsiedlung Stuttgart, "With the art director, Mies van der Rohe, 17 architects from Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland created a model housing programme for the modern urbanite."
Local note. the bridge-tender towers on the Chicago River are opening for tours. Finally an answer to "what's in there?" every time we pass by.
Studio804 completes Modular3 in Kansas City's Strawberry Hill neighborhood.
FOVICKS, Friends Of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures. Via GaB.
The new host of Extreme Engineering is a stand-up comedian - and a graduate student in architecture at Harvard University. He now flies around the world cracking jokes in front of the world's largest architectural structures, while studying to get his degree. Dream job? Read this interview and howl with envy.
An entire Swiss valley has won the 2006 International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens. Described as a "real utopia," it is full of "jagged ravines" and many of the houses don't have electricity: more info at Pruned.
What will NYC look like in 2016? New York Magazine gives us a glimpse. Here, for instance, is Harlem. (Via Archinect)
"It was a beautiful enchanted island in the middle of the city... And if it's a quiet night and you listen really closely, you can almost hear the big bands playing there." CRCC reminisces about the Edgewater Beach Hotel. Via Palla.
Can one of London's Tube stations be transformed into a kind of cylindrical power plant, generating electricity from the vibrations of trains and stair-climbing commuters? One architect thinks so: BBC. Via Archinect.
"Innovative lofts with a garden and garage on each floor..." Car Loft in Berlin.
The skyscrapers of Shanghai have become inadvertant climatological devices, generating often-dangerous windstorms at ground level. Via things.
"24 Sony digital projectors, an eight-channel audio system and ultrasonic motion tracking technology": it's the future of the border, the future of war, and the future of simulation. It's The War Room.
Co-conspirator Ken Meier's photosets from the 2006 Yale GDMFA Show and from The School of Architecture End of Year Show, an exhibition he helped design.
"The Toronto Waterfront is an archipelago waiting to be discovered. Once sandbars, the Toronto Islands surfaced over the last century to become the largest car-free community in North America." Find out how they're being architecturally transformed. Via Archinect.
Weird valves and other large-scale hydrological mechanisms. Renaissance waterworks. Water wheels and windmills. Even more here.
Interactive Architecture on 12m4s, a super cool "architectural intervention" created by Lab(au) for the Artefact Festival in Belgium.
Jean Snow's photo set of a new, as yet unoccupied, mysterious and beautiful building in Harajuku Japan.
An old warship has been sunk in the Gulf of Mexico to form the backbone of an artificial reef - even while "a broken chain of tankers, tugs, barges, and patrol boats" now pollutes the territorial waters of Iraq. It's undersea architecture, or the residues of war.
On some kind of architecture streak today: a gigantic collection of photos from construction on the new Zollverein School of Design in Germany.
The New Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart. Gorgeous. Opens this Friday.
If we come in tomorrow to find that the CP studio has been sold and JC is nowhere to be found, I'm going to take a guess that he's bought Mies van der Rohe's Morris Greenwald House.
In case someone wants/needs a 100 year old George Maher home in northern Michigan. CP summer retreat?
A photographic study of small huts for security guards, all found throughout Mexico City.
Glyph Jockey's scans from History of Architecture & Ornament. Via Bibliodyssey.
Drains of Canada.
"If this year's Big Brother house doesn't drive its inhabitants up the wall, the designers will have failed. Even the urinals aren't safe from prying eyes." Tour the architecture of popular surveillance.
Sustainable condos arrive in Chicago? Using "high-performance glass and other new technologies," they're planned for the Gold Coast.
3D buildings printed from Google Earth.
If it looks like a Gehry and talks like a Gehry, it's probaby a Gehry. Gehry's Latest, Revealed, complete with soundbite.
Using an "indestructible mix of ice and wood pulp," could the British military have made "a massive floating island" suitable for going to war? Kircher Society
Are architects hand-maidens to power? Rem Koolhaas has designed structures for the government of China, for instance - as has Herzog & de Meuron. Do architects simply glorify totalitarian egos? Via Archinect
The Mars Citizenship Program is now underway: "robots could set up the first Martian habitats - including a nuclear reactor - in about 10 years, for an initial $2 billion investment. That amount could be raised if 90,000 Earthlings parted with $10,000 each; 10,000 handed over $100,000 apiece and 100 tycoons each donated $1 million." New Scientist.
Little slivers of unused urban space - medians, gaps - are now the focus of a design campaign looking to "beautify" these orphan spaces. (Via Archinect)
Pierre Koenig architecure image archive at USC. Great, mostly glass and steel, residential work. I. II. III. Via gmt+9 (-15).
Construction of Beijing's Olympic shooting range has been suspended due to ancient tombs for imperial eunuchs being discovered on-site.
BOB. "Somewhere between a tent, a house and a Winnebago." Via Inhabitat.
Craneporn. More at DDoA.
Leo Fabrizio, the "bunker hunter," has tracked down and photographed over 3000 bunkers hidden throughout the Swiss landscape. WMMNA. Photo gallery.
Take a tour of the weird, Dr. Seussian world of interconnected belts and machines otherwise known as the basement of the British Library. While you're there, check out the Camden Catacombs.
The most insane intersection I've ever seen: it's Swindon's five-roundabouts-within-a-roundabout, spinning both anti- and clock-wise simultaneously: story (you can even buy a t-shirt!) and diagram. Good luck. (Via Sean F.)
A "vast, moving, wooden elephant, 42 tons in weight" is set to walk around the streets of London for four days in May. Watch out: Interactive Architecture dot Org.
"Deep beneath Moscow a crew of urban spelunkers frolics, hunting Stalin's secret hideaway, Ivan the Terrible's torture chamber, bootleg nuclear weapons, and a little fame and fortune" - it's from 1997... but still fun: Outside Online.
A "cluster of mock Iraqi villages" has been designed "deep in the Mojave Desert." Training there, US soldiers "face insurgent uprisings, suicide bombings and even staged beheadings in underground tunnels." It's DisneyWar, at the New York Times.
Today is the birtHDay of the American skyscraper, with construction starting in 1884 right here in Chicago on The Home Insurance Building. And here's some info on the engineer, William LeBaron Jenny, as well as photos of some of his other Chicago landmarks.
Best-looking City Halls thread, with lots of photos. Vancouver's is sweet.
The construction workers "in Hamburg placed a monumental message in the front of this building - invisible for the supervision of building and architects." Via City of Sound.
Nearest Thing to Heaven.
Steven Clark writes regarding Beijing Olympic stadium construction. "Ross Langdon has some more images - how they're meant to look when they are finished and who designed them."
Beijing 2008 Olympic stadium construction pix. Via Archinect.
The sublime Madrid Barajas Airport by Richard Rogers. Here's a profile from The Guardian and a thread full of big beautiful photos.
A new library in Guadalajara to be created from more than
two hundred discarded fuselages from Boeing 727 and 737
airplanes. Listed under "New Jalisco Library" with tons of other smart ideas and projects at the site of our new fave firm, Lot-Ek. Via Designboom.
"For four years from 1965 until the founding of his architectural firm, Ando Tadao worked a part-time in jobs related to architecture to earn money to travel throughout Europe and the United States. Ando refers to this time in his life as his 'Grand Tour.'"
The New Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth by architect Tadao Ando. Found while looking for photos of his amazing Picture Book Museum.
A great interview with artist/architect, Luke Chandresinghe over at the always fantastic, PingMag.
"...by 1930 three dairy companies dominated the dairy scene. They were the United States Dairy Products Corp., Borden's and Sheffield Farms. Most of those facilities are gone now, but a few buildings have survived..." Via Brownstoner.
Pruned: Landscape challenge #3. "A multiple choice question this time. What is the function of this concrete protrusion on the plains of the Negev Desert in southern Israel?"
"When proposing his West Berlin hotel in 1955, he proclaimed: 'We have hit upon a new weapon with which to fight Communism, a new team made up of owner, manager and labor with which to confront the class-conscious Mr. Marx.'" Molly W. Berger's review of Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture. Via Things.
Concrete Island.
The Future Was So Cool in 1961. Interview with Eddie Sotto, head of design on the Encounter restaurant project. "We wanted the inside to feel like an 'intergalactic in flight' lounge." Via EotG.
Albano Daminato, interior architect, Singapore. I. II. III.
While in Toronto over the weekend I walked by the construction site for the new galleries being added to the Royal Ontario Museum. The final rendering looks amazing.
Interesting, even if you don't live there: a timeline of Greenpoint. Via Brownstoner.
Diserio's Top 15 Skylines in the World v3.0. Via The Presurfer.
"The Trojan Goat has been a show pony for the UVA architecture program, and now maybe a cash cow for the Piedmont Housing Alliance." The self-sufficient house project. Via Daily Dose.
The Therme Vals Baths in Zurich, by architect Peter Zumthor. Sublime. Click the links in the left hand rail for photos. Via Freegorifero.
Fab H-Haus Cube 5. Via AWLN.
Don't date an architect. Via DO.
Designed for Leisure Living, from Design Magazine, 1969. So nice.
Bryan Varney's Jenga Tower Projects.
An architect and a builder responded to the disaster of Hurricane Katrina by designing HELP living modules. Next time disaster strikes, we can only hope there might be a solution like this. These 8 x 12 foot modules are easily assembled and incredibly compact.
Creative Home Engineering adds value to homes by planning and constructing secret hidden passageways. You know, like behind the bookcase.
A stroll through Santiago Calatrava's City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain. Via Paperholic.
Centre Pompidou Metz.
The Hotel Puerta America in Madrid. Start with John's A Daily Dose of Architecture posts, with lots of pix. Parts one and two. Totally fab, especially the Gluckman and Isozaki rooms and Ron Arad's corridors. Then find more photos here.
WMMNA interview with UnitedVisualArtists, interactive installation artists, for lack of a better term. Check the pix and video of their interior for London club Kabaret's Prophecy .
The Detroit slums get a fresh coat of paint. Via we-make-money-not-art.
Following up yesterday's post on the AGO Frank Gehry show, check today's pic at the daily dose.
Video from the current Frank Gehry exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Art In Ruins examines how artists and architecture in Providence, RI are affected as the city expands and evolves.
Continuing on a different previous theme from today, Stephane writes simply, "wicked disco stadium."
Archinect photoset of the Allianz Arena. An image search of the same delivers some spectacular results as well.
"Inspired by the colors and textures of nature, Livinglass is a laminated architectural glass, which captures organic materials within luminous sheets of clear glass." Via Heavy Petal.
"...convey something of the discrete character of elements in the Australian landscape, to offer my interpretation in built form." Architectural sketches by Glenn Murcutt.
Whitehouse and Company are working with really big pixels for an ingenious Children's Museum sponsorship project.
As part of the last MoOM update, sd made this short film about the newly refurbished Crown Hall at IIT, the spritual home of our Museum. I spent some valuable time there yesterday on my way further south to gape at his equally impressive School of Social Science building at the U of C.
Sweet prefab floorplan by Michelle Kaufmann. The Side Breeze. Via, as most of the good prefab links seem to be, aWLN.
"Singing Bridges is a sonic sculpture, playing the cables of stay-cabled and suspension bridges as musical instruments." Via bldg.
Technology takes over the Sassi, an Italian cave city abandoned in the 50s. Via Archinect.
Artist Dhaj Sumner constructed her amazing New Zealand home out of adobe in-situ, a mixture of clay, sand, paper pulp and cement. Now she hosts freeform earthbuilding workshops.
Only been to Detroit once, but would like to go back to explore all the empty buildings: DetroitYES: Home of the Fabulous Ruins of Detroit. Make sure to take the tour. Via Things.
It would be great to see all of these concepts in one go. Walker Art Center's Some Assembly Required showcases the best of contemporary prefabricated homes. I'd like Pinc House's Black Barn, please.
Stunning kitchens from Lineaquattro. Check out Legno, just beautiful. Via Archinect.
Tacoma is losing one of its local architectural anomalies.
We need some of these in the studio. Nice.
"Micro Dwellings is a moveable, modular system which can be configured in an infinite number of ways due to its geometry. They can be built onto existing construction, submerged, or mounted on wheels to create the basis for personalized social settings.". Via Inhabitat.
"Collingwood's Vessel: a Retirement Home for Elderly Fisherman,".
City of Sound on architecture, the big ape, fauna, flora, pixels and paper.
Great, narrated photo tour of VW's Transparent Factory in Dresden. Via Paperholic.
Zulkey's great interview with architectural historian and social critic, David Garrard. Particularly interesting if you're a fan of Chicago architecture.
Seasick video clip of an escalator making its way through one of the aquaria at the Hekkeijimi Sea Paradise.
Using rotating mirrors to bring light to Rattenberg, Austria.
Haiko's The Last Days of Disco, a visit to a disappearing plant.
Quonset: metal living for a modern age.
All the big ones, togther at last. Lots more fantastic models here.
Some good news for New Orleans, free wireless internet.
Winners from the Oklahoma City Bus Stop Competition.
AWL on Luigi Nervi who "liberated architecture from the tree" and built lots of big things and some smaller beautiful things too, like the structural elements under Rome's Olympic Highway.
The new database from the Royal Institute of British Architects: RIBApix. Fantastic. Via Things.
"The highway, called Atlanterhavsveien, runs south of Kristiansund as the coast curves towards Molde. It runs right along the North Sea, known for its dramatic storms and varying light throughout the year." Norway's "Structure of the Century." Via Things.
Masamichi Katayama is Wonderwall Inc. The design projects and store interiors he has produced are truly inspirational. Faves include The Tokyo Towers Sea Sky Lounge, Bapy Aoyama shop and the new Bape Cafe!?. Via Shoepal.
Nice, Japanese modern architecture photo blog. Via Daily Does.
E. Stewart Williams defined the desert modern school of architecture. From the LA Times. Via Archinect.
The Maunsell Army Sea Forts at Red Sands and Shivering Sands. Very cool in a kind of sci-fi-WWII sort of way. Thanks to our man in Toronto.
Tonight, The Chicago Prize Awards 2005, Water Tanks, from the Chicago Architectural Club, "This competition challenges entrants to salvage a part of Chicago's urban fabric, the industrial water tank."
An Anatomy of Megachurches: an interesting essay/slide-show about these huge structures.
This is what dominated the lunch conversation today.
"The things one finds wandering in a landscape: familiar things and utterly unknown, like a flower one has never seen before, or, as Columbus discovered, an inexplicable continent; and then, behind a hill, as if knitted by giant grandmothers, lies this vast rabbit, to make you feel as small as a daisy."
Our Man from Toronto declares that today is Shed Day. I. II. III. Who are we to argue with that?
BlueSkyMod's Prefab Cabin. Via aWLN.
Vito Acconci's The Island in the Mur project from 03. "What makes the island so exciting is not only its combination of interior/exterior but also the new perspectives it provides of the city. Familiar objects in Graz can be seen from a new point of view." Via wmmna.
Henk van Rensbergen's Abandoned Places.
"The problems of older cities in America are many and grave." A fascinating scan of Alfred de Grazia's Metropolis 1976 utopia. Via Things.
You are a geek for architecture. You are particularly fond on individualistic takes on the clean, modern aesthetic from the middle of the last century. Preferably lesser-known ones. You are reading Andrew L W Raimist's Architectural Ruminations. Aren't you?
Renzo Piano's new Peek und Cloppenburg Department Store, Cologne, Germany.
"Tatlin's tower has come to symbolize an impossible project, the Unicorn or Atlantis of the cultural world... Our project is to build the Tower, full size and to the intended specifications from girders and steel guy wires."
Ironworkers Local 580 Training Facility. Long Island City, New York. Building profile from A Weekly Dose of Architecture.
Klein Dytham Architecture's Tokyo 'Billboard Building', an unlovely name for a lovely idea.
An interesting interview with the architecture collective, Studio Sputnik, creators of the beautifully illustrated book, "Snooze."
Metro Arts and Architecture transit station appreciation.
Sauerbruch Hutton Architects' New Building for the Berlin Police and Fire Departments. Via Daily Dose.
LED's as Architectural Lighting. Beautiful examples from Seoul and Tokyo.
Inside Battersea Power Station, courtesy of The Beeb.
Parasitic Architecture. In German, but you'll get the idea with or without translating. Via 1+1=1.
I should post this every day. Tadao Ando. Tadao Ando.
Ruminations on Harris Armstrong's Magic Chef Building and three beuatiful pix, all from Andrew Raimist. Beautiful, unapologetic modernism.
A shade of pink: The Lawn Road Flats are brought back to life. Found among other things.
Nathan Sawaya, Takeda Headquarters Groundbreaking Ceremonies. Via Bezembinder's.
Get yourself to Milan anytime between September 19th and October 16th to check out this exhbit of the work of architect Cassi Ramelli. Some favorites, here.
The Sale House, designed by Johnston MarkLee. Hey Jason, that's the vibe we should be looking for in a new global HQ.
Sure, it's all well and good to preserve historic architecture, but what about buildings of more recent vintage?
The Wall Street Journal continues to crush on our pals at 37 Signals like Joanie on Chachi. Today they actually find a way to feature SvN prominently in a story on old home renovation. The same story also points us to an awesome site detailing the long, slow DIY makeover of an 18th century home in Lancaster County, VA.
Royal Institute of British Architects Awards 2005: Residential Schemes.
OK, you struck a nerve. Check out the pictures from the Herzog & de Meuron gallery. Especially the Ricola building, the Railroad Signal Tower, and of course Tate Modern. Then read Power Into Art.
City of Sound post on Herzog and De Meuron's Allianz Arena in Munich. "...the stadium should glow different colours to indicate which team is playing at home - red for the shirts of Bayern Munich, blue for those of Munich 1860, and white for the German national team."
The Grand Tour, a survey of Renzo Piano buildings in Europe, via Google Maps, at Daily Does of Architecture. Found among other things.
The architecture of Toyo Ito. Not so nicely displayed here but the genius shines through anyway. Inspirational. Here's a Designboom interview, another at The Take.
Keith Milford's Malls of America is a small but beautiful series of photosets of '60s and '70s interiors and ephemera.
Mister Aitch on Jean-Jacques Lequeu, visionary, cantankerous architect with a flair for the dramatic. Great story, beautifully illustrated, as per the usual.
Special Models. The 387 Houses of Peter Fritz, insurance clerk from Vienna. Via Bezembinder's.
London's greatest Twentieth Century vintage Formica caffs. Via Londonist.
Cool construction pix
of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion at Kensington Garderns, London. Via Archinect.
Welcome to our building! We're glad to have you! Now, please, whatever you do, don't even think about sitting here. Via Unbeige.
Ultramodern single-wide trailer by architect Christopher Deam.
The Filling Station is a loft development in Miami notable for the way it presents itself online. I don't necessarily agree that the "building is f---ing cool" but I do believe that's the first time I've seen that headline in real estate advertising.
Zaha Hadid's BMW AG Plant in Leipzig. Via Archinect. More here and here.
"Visionary architects who imagined and planned grandiose buildings that would never be constructed." Mister Aitch on …tienne-Louis BoullÈe and Jean-Jacques Lequeu.
Bauhaus Architecture in Tel Aviv, "During the 1930s, while the modernist movement in art reached its apogee in Europe, the city of Tel Aviv was in a stage of intensive development. Most of the architecs working in the new city at that time were of European background and brought with them the ideas of the modernist movement." Via City Comforts.
"Hmm, perhaps I'll try the fish."
Production and Work. Olivetti and factory design. Found among other things.
Fab pre-fab homes. 'O Sole Mio' is a beauty.
Hhstyle Store Design by Nacása & Partners.
Searchscapes Manhattan. Yowza.
"This strangely graceful, bold and creative building..." The dream of the future brought to reality by Monsanto. Via Scrubbles.
Architect Egon Eiermann, the Continuity of Modernism.
Next time you're thinking of painting a room, consider Anna Sova's paint. It's made with 99% food grade ingredients, so you can snack on some while you're coating that blank wall with some color. Via Treehugger.
Record Brother presents Conversations Regarding The Future Of Architecture, an LP record released by Reynolds Metals in 1956. Saarinen, Johnson, Van Der Rohe, Gropius and Neutra. Awesome.
The Architecture of Moscow from the 1930s to the early 1950s. Spectacular drawings of unrealised projects. Via NT.
Googie Architecture Online. "Googie has also been known as Populuxe, Doo-Wop, Coffee Shop Modern, Jet Age, Space Age and Chinese Modern... Googie often seems like a joint design by the Jetsons and the Flintstones." Via I Like.
Not Fooling Anybody, a Chronicle of Bad Conversions and Storefronts Past. Most excellent. I. II. III. Via Paperholic.
Opening Day for the Red Sox today, and as exciting as the ring ceremony may be, I'm looking forward to seeing the yearly renovations to the age-old park. Fenway had the reputation of being a great place to see a game -- if you wanted to know what it was like during 1908. Check out some of the proposals and documents, or take a video tour of this years changes. Janet Marie-Smith and the team at Fenway have done an amazing job of keeping the old-time feel of Fenway in tact while making amazing improvements to the park and its infrastructure.
The hauntingly beautiful opening to a series exploring the long abandoned Officer's Row houses in Brooklyn's Navy Yard: Written and Photographed. Via Brownstoner.
Someday, buildings will be constructed entirely by machines... maybe.
If you can't keep 'em out, at least make 'em environmentally friendly: Vancouver Vs. Wal Mart. Via Byrdhouse.
A thorough review of airport expansion projects throughout the world. In honor of Boston's new Terminal A. On time and on budget... just like all construction projects in Boston.
La Petite Maison du Weekend is a prototype self-sufficient minimal dwelling.
Renovation of a Paris apartment building by Francoise Coulet architects and tons of other great stuff, like this chapel at Archicool. Via Archinect.
Jack Blanchard's Sun-Times Sunset, very nice time-lapse of the demolition of the ST building.
In lieu of Mass tomorrow, visit Sant' Andrea al Quirinale in Rome today.
The next logical step, The Muji House. More, at World Changing. Via Antipixel.
Not only is Brownstoner a terrific place to visit (even if you don't live in New York, nor really care much about real estate), following the ongoing renovations of their dilapidated-yet-gorgeous five-story house made it all the better.
I want to stay in this place.
Cool. Build Your Own Chicago Postcard Models from the Wurlington Brothers Press. What, no Monadnock Building?
The lighthouses that line the River Thames. Via Things.
Armin writes, "Cool Vegas neon site with facts about each sign. A decent gallery. And, how cool is this?"
An excellent database of the world's longest tunnels. Via Things.
Normally when I stumble upon something like this film, The City Part I and The City Part II, created in 1939 by Lewis Mumford, Aaron Copland and Ralph Steiner, I would write a long enthusiastic post about it, but Dan Hill of City of Sound has done the job already. Brilliant.
Maybe if we redo our studio space we could use the Corydon M. Johnson Co. Advertising Agency of Bethpage NY as a model. The Composing Room. The Consumer Art Dept. The Technical Illustration Dept. And of course, The Conference Room.
"This is not an art project. No vision, no interpretations, no artistic contributions or ambiguities. This is simply a faithful rendering of the decorations of the Moscow metro."
Like something out of a dark and eerie science fiction film, these photos from the Tokyo G-Cans Project, "an underground water draining system to help prevent the overflow of major waterways during the wet typhoon season," are just stunning. Via Josh Rubin.
North Central Freeway: The Initial Study with revised I-95 Northeast Freeway 1963-64. The study evaluated "local impacts upon residential displacement and division as well as parkland." Very important issues to be sure but we're more interested in the the beautiful maps and information design. Via the unstoppable Bezembinder's.
BV Doshi's School of Architecture, Ahmedabad, India as a popup card. Tokyo's City Hall is nice too. Found among other things.
"There are not that many buildings by Tadao Ando in Europe and given the fact that it (The Langen Foundation) is situated in a densely populated area and easy to reach by car, it is bound to become a site of pilgrimage for architecture enthusiasts." More pictures here and an interview with Ando at Designboom.
Modular Dwellings.
Bridging the Drive Pedestrian Bridge Design for Lake Shore Drive. Finalists posted.
More on Millau from the Guardian, via our man in Toronto
Amazing. Foster and Partners' Millau Viaduct. Here's the official site. Via Archinect.
Bijzondere historische tankstations. 'Particular historical filling stations.' Great survey, only Dutch, but the pix will help you choose which to translate. Via Bezembinder's.
Archi.ru hosts a spectacular photo series from 2004 Venice Architecture Biennale. Check this and this and especially this. Via the newly deployed Weblog Paperholic.
"The thing that worries me the most is that everyone wears the same things, eats the same things, lives in the same environments, this is what worries me the most." From a nicely illustrated DesignBoom Interview with Toyo Ito. Also, see the book Toyo Ito: Blurring Architecture 1971-2005 at YWFT.
Classic midcentury residential architecture at Modern Phoenix includes this nice remodel of a Haver home by Michael P. Johnson and lots of links and background material too. Via Scrubbles.
Berlin, 1945-1985. Found among other things.
Scroll down to the entry titled The Sound of One Book at Freegorifero. Yes Fabio, we feel it too.
"Railway stations seem to be open, but are actually closed. They seem to be closed, but are actually open. They are special spaces, unlike the closed package of normal architecture. This work attempts to clarify the special character of railway station space." The Shin-Minamata High Speed Rail Station. Via Free Gorifero.
The Scottish Parliament and The Dubai Autodrome. Just two pix from a great resource for browsing, The Archinect Image Gallery.
Dan Hill of City of Sound calls this "a quick uninformed 'review' in images and words" of Frank Gehry's new Ray and Maria Stata Center. We can only hope to be so uninformed.
A team of filmmakers is in pre-pro for a documentary called Leisurama about Raymond Loewy, vacation homes and "affordable methods of escapism" like this beauty. Via Boing Boing.
"I am a visual man, working with eyes and hands." From a 1959 audio interview with Le Corbusier, answering a question about what makes true architecture?
Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, Barcelonia, 75th Anniversary. The 'virtual visit' pix are harshly lit but give a nice feel for the space. Via Freegorifero. Related: Our favorite building anywhere. Jason's visit to Farnsworth House.
"Since about ten years Theo Jansen is occupied with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic matierial of this new nature. He makes skeletons which are able to walk on the wind." Found with other first-class links, as per the usual, at the new Well Vetted, #26.
The Cooper Union unveils plans for a new academic building, designed by Morphosis as an innovative learning environment. Amazing. Check the gallery. Via Archinect.
"The Archinect School Blog Project. We have recruited representatives from a collection of architecture programs around the world to maintain blogs documenting their experiences and discoveries from each institution during the fall 2004 semester."
"The Water Cube will be one of the most dramatic and exciting venues to feature sporting events for the Beijing Olympics in 2008." From the proposed National Swimming Center. Thanks Carlos. Slow-loading but worth the wait.
If one is going to live in a box, why not make it a really really cool box. via surfstation.
Marshall points us to this photo gallery. "July 27, 2004. My visit to the Villa Savoye, designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Janneret, in Poissy." From Jason Farago's Sapheneia.
Tall Buildings, a new exhibition at MoMA. "A focused study of twenty-five tall buildings... designed within the last decade for sites around the world."
Today's Chicago Tribune features a piece on what's left of the White City built for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition [reg req]. If the Trib piece leaves you hungry for more stories of the White City, there are a few dandies here.
Kristi Cameron's Metropolis Magazine piece on the swell-looking NYC restaurant, Public. Created by the design group, Avroko.
The World's Tallest Virtual Building is Mr. Wong's Soup'Partments. The construction project was terminated long ago but the structure still stands, mighty and tall. Via the Ftrain.
Undercity, a guerrilla historian in Gotham. " Like a living being, a city does not willingly reveal its complexity and secrets to any random stranger." Via Blurbism.
A comprehensive visit (with tons of photos) to Frank Gehry's new MIT Ray and Maria Stata Center. A feature of the recently reconstructed Archinect.
Classic movie theaters: Some demolished, others renovated; in Baroque, Art Nouveau and even Egyptian styles; many in the US, a few in New Zealand. This and more at Cinema Treasures.
Danvers State Insane Asylum. Abandoned since 1992, over fourteen structures currently reside on the highlands and all are scheduled for demolition in late 2004. Lots of interesting history and eerie photos here, some in a gallery called 'Tunnels.' Via the new and improved Blurbism.
3D models of urban Chicago in the Windy City Project.
Link o' the month. Expo-Park from Vasily Bazhenov till Vasily Bychkov, architecture of exhibition pavilions from the collection of the Schusev State Museum of Architecture. Not much text in support of this exhibition and in some ways none needed. Faves: I. II. III. Spectacular. Via The Cartoonist.
The LV Home Kit by Rocio Romero. Prefab modern. Via Blurbism.
Space FX creates and installs intergrated entertainment and electronics systems for intelligent homes. Their site, by Liquidchrome, is terrific and the photos in the 'gallery' and 'case studies' sections demonstrate an amazing attention to detail and a clean, modern aesthetic. Via Netdiver.
Nicely collected, illustrated and documented. The Crystal Palace, The Great Exhibition of Industry of All Nations. Via the Cartoonist.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed a high-rise? Who knew? OK, *I* didn't. Now I have a reason to visit Oklahoma.
15 Rules for rebuilding the world. Or anything else for that matter.
"In an arcology, the built and the living interact as organs would in a highly evolved being." The Arcosanti Project by Italian architect Paolo Soleri . For 30 years, he's funded the project through sales of bells.
The Quik House "can be delivered anywhere in the U.S. eight weeks from the time of your order. During that time, we recommend that you obtain your building permits and build the foundation. From the time of your order to the day you move in should be less five months." Via MarcHDesign.
The Official Souvenir Flash Card Set of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair, ED-U-Cards. Dig the IBM Pavilion and The Schaefer Center. Via Plep.
Norman Foster's new Beijing Airport versus Richard Rogers new Shanghai Airport.
The Mall War continues. Mike writes, "Not to steal anyone's thunder or dare to challenge the commercial history of Wisconsin or Minnesota, but here's some info on what could be dubbed 'the first mall.'"
Andrew from Osaka via Wisconsin, writes "Sorry... Valley Fair Mall in Appleton, Wisconsin was the first enclosed mall built in the US. This is a USA Grade-A argument maker between folks from Wisconsin and Minnesota."
Nearly 50 years ago Victor Gruen began work on what would become the worlds first shopping mall, The SoutHDale Shopping Center, which would lead Frank Lloyd Wright to ask, ìWhat is this, a railroad station or a bus station?î The rest is, as they say, history.
Levittown, Pennsylvania was the largest planned community constructed by a single builder in the United States. The State Museum of Pennsylvania is hosting a big, detailed online exhibition on the subject. It's worth a long look but if you're pressed for time, go right to the kitchen. Found in a list.
MoCoLoco. Modern Contemparary Design. Via The Sachs Report.
From the London-based Foreign Office Architects, a well-designed Flash site on compact architecture. Link via No Sense of Place.
The delicious Blue Moon Hotel in Groningen, Holland, as photographed by Christian Richters for Kultureflash. Via NSOP.
The beauty of the land and the water on the shore of Lake Superior inspired the people who designed and built this cabin and this website, The Tofte Project.
FabPrefab, "a web resource dedicated to tracking developments in the realm of ëmodernist prefab dwellingsí."
"Hoerde Torch is dead. She fell in grace, and she took her time: more than 12 seconds, twice as long as predicted. After inclining less than ten degrees, it seemed as she stood still in the air for a short while." Lovely photo series from Hebig.
"When it was first constructed in Colorado in 1969 by Charles Deaton, the house was considered an eyesore by some of its neighbors, but now it's a landmark." The house from Woody Allen's 'Sleeper,'
The Ontario College of Art and Design is building a new facility. It's er, um, really something. This guy doesn't like it much and I myself don't exactly know what to say about it, except "Thanks" to Marshall for bringing it to my attention and posting a couple pix of it in under construction.
Living inside an elephant. Strange and unusual buildings.
"Before the invention of modern billboards, sign painters used to paint advertisements and company names directly onto building walls. These gradually fading painted signs are known as ghost signs."
"Van Alen had publicly announced the intended height for the Chrysler Building at 925 feet, but he and Chrysler wanted to claim the title of world's tallest structure so badly they planned and secretly assembled the 180 foot needle-like finial inside the tower. When the building was nearing completion, the finial was hoisted into place, making the Chrysler Building the world's tallest and leaving 40 Wall Street in its dust by 172 feet." From Building the Chrysler Building by Emily Zimmerman. Found among other things.
"Fallingwater has only a little to do with architecture and engineering: the quality we perceive here is essentially spiritual." From Jonathan Yardley's review of "Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E. J. Kaufmann, and America's Most Extraordinary House" by Franklin Toker. More info and photos here
A virtual tour of VW's transparent factory.
Decay is beautiful. Art In Ruins.
Presentation of Competition for the Architecture Design of the 2008 Olympic National Stadium. My vote goes to B12. Amazing. Via K10k.
The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's Home House Project in which artists and architects proposed new designs for single family housing for low- and moderate-income families using Habitat for Humanityís basic 3-and-4 bedroom house as a point of departure. Award winning designs are posted and it's a nice browse although the images are tantalizilngly small.
A lot has changed since I visited the City of Bath in England 5 years ago as they prepare to reopen the baths and revitalise thousands of years of spa culture.
Home, A place to live. The Housing Design Awards 1997-2003. A varied collection of excellent projects, well-organized and displayed. The PDF files that accompany most entries are excellent too. Thanks Mabe.
Over a decade of impressive architecture projects at Volker Staab, Berlin, Germany.
Workspheres from the MoMA Archives. "The official office awaits most of us every weekday and typically hosts us for about eight hours." Is it the type of space we would wish for if we could start over and design the environment for the work that gets done and not the other way 'round? Probably not.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by architect Frank Gehry and the new home for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, "will be one of the most acoustically sophisticated concert halls in the world, providing both visual and aural intimacy for an unparalleled musical experience."
The Changing of the Avant-Garde, Visionary architectural drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection, at MoMA. "The Gilman Collection focuses on radical projects from the 1960s and 1970s and includes some of the most famous utopian drawings of the twentieth century."
Loads of signs. Here and here.
Ukranian bus stop shelters.
"Roadside Peek will take you on a roadside journey in time. As you travel, visit old motels, bowling alleys, drive-in theatres, neon signs, petrol pumps, googie sites, tiki villages, and much more."
Dead malls.
If you've read The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson or if you are at all interested in Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893, you may be curious as to what the buildings and landscape of this dream city actually looked like. This should help satisfy your curiosity.
"A weekly dose of architecture looks at contemporary architectural works with architectural and/or cultural significance. The broad focus of the articles is the ideas embedded within the works."
Prospect, a New Urbanist community in Colorado, is a uniquely livable blend of traditional and modern planning concepts, built out in a broad range of architectural styles.
The Best example of deconstructive post-modern architecture.
"Too bad execs at Disney did not have more foresight as The House of the Future would arguably be one of the most popular exhibits there today -- had it not been demolished in 1967."
Brigata Italia #1.0, The RED Issue features a great illustrated piece on architect Louis Kahn.
Modern Ruins by Phillip Buehler. "I photograph modern ruins because I find it disturbing to find familiar objects and technology to be abandoned. I'm reminded that nothing is permanent, that everything is always in a state of transition." Via Blurbism.
Body Movies, a relational architecture installation. Complete and utter genius. An amazing installation and the movie outlining the concept and execution is mesmerizing. Via mefi.
When we build it they will come.
The abandoned subway stations of New York and disused platforms of London — images, mystery and nostalgia galore.
From MIT, a fabulous collection of links entitled Homes of the Future of the Past. Includes lots of great stuff. When living here in Chile, don't throw rocks. A movie from General Motors' 1960 World's Fair Exhibit called Futurama.
Homes made from 727s. Via America's No. 1 website.
Gunter Henn's Transparent Factory, Volkswagon's ultra-sleek manufacturing facility in Dresden can be examined online. Via K10k.
"Hey friend, say friend, come on over, if you're looking for happiness, this is the place!" Our friends at Portage have discovered the National Archives of Canada site dedicated to Expo 67 in Montreal. David recommends that you not miss the Flash animation at the open, and boy is he right.
Want to fire up an argument in a room full of architects? Start quoting Nikos A. Salingaros who says "I have found, to my surprise, that architects are not interested in laws of architecture. They prefer to design buildings on the basis of artistic fashion and ephemeral philosophical concerns." Then he really gets going. Via Archinect.
Over 12 days in 1975 Buckminster Fuller gave a 42-hour lecture on his life's work. This extraordinary site has the complete transcript as well as audio and video of the event. Via BrainLog.
Almost a MoOM link: The Periodic Table Table.
In the future, I predict, every person will have a doppelblogger providing a daily debunking of everything he says or writes. New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp has his already.
These guys have been doing some serious trespassing and we're richer for it. Via blurbism.
An explosion of custom neon typography and an innocent and attractive "modern" architecture is what Early Vegas is all about, baby. To stake your own claim on the strip you'll probably need the Las Vegas Collection, from House Industries.
From 1908 to 1940, Sears sold more than 100,000 ready made "kit houses" through their mail-order Modern Homes program. At the The Sears Modern Homes website you can look at large scans of original catalog pages whose renderings of houses, price listings, and original sales pitches will make you wish it was 1910 and you had $1,500 in your pocket.
Architect Alessandro Cancelliere's beautifully crafted plastic models of buildings.
File this under "underappreciated (until now) everyday stuff." The Holiday Inn sign.
Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in the village of Box, in Wiltshire England. A modern, organic reinvention of an historical architectural design displayed in a thoughtfully constructed site.
Building the Washington Metro. The story of the planning, design and construction of Washington's mass transit system.
Abandoned stations on the New York subway.
The Moscow Metro: The Underground Dream. 'The historical photographs and contemporary documentation on this website illustrate not only the evolution of a rapid mass transit, but also the remarkable attention paid to aesthetic media -- architecture, sculpture, painting and decorative arts -- in a monumental public works project. ' Only the pages for the First Line are completed at the moment, but this is still a fascinating site.
Virtual tours of Tokyo's recent architecture and Prague's twentieth century architecture. From Ellipsis, which publishes wonderful 'travel guides' to modern architecture in major cities around the world.
The Vanishing Wall. The 'East Side Gallery', bizarrely yet beautifully decorated, is one of the few remaining parts of the Berlin Wall.
Marshall Sokoloff writes, "Along the lines of recent Cold War posts: Missile Bases, unique underground properties.
What lies beneath London? As well as the Underground, there are abandoned stations, sewers, buried rivers, Roman roads, bomb shelters and the Post Office railway.
Mall destroyed by Blues Brothers still in ruins, guarded by Dobermans.
The challenge, design and engineering of London's Millennium Bridge, the 325m steel structure links the City of London at St. Paul's Cathedral with the Tate Modern Gallery at Bankside.
The Blur Building is a planned media pavillion for Swiss Expo 2002. "The pavilion is made of filtered lake water shot as a fine mist through 13,000 fog nozzles creating an artificial cloud that measures 300 feet wide by 200 feet deep by 65 feet high." via Textism
Eric Helin writes, "so many countries, so much architecture."
Creepy, yet strangely compelling. A photographic tour of abandoned buildings, complete with directions on how to break in. Stay out of the cellars of the Castle of Mesen. As featured on Metropolis.
The winners of the Archinect Communication Booth Competition are online. The idea for this competition is brilliant and the winning entries amazing. Take some time to pour over these.
Pity I don't speak Dutch. The look and feel of the site for the magazine, de Architect, is inspiring, especially the featured work of Werner Sobek.
Animated Manhattan. "a computer model which simultaneously presents a layered, cartographic history of the lower half of Manhattan Island, and an exploded timeline chronicling the real-estate devlopment of high-rise office buildings which constitute the skylines of Midtown and Downtown Manhattan." Incredibly smart, rich and beautiful, presented by Brian McGrath.
Mies in Berlin, Mies in America.
L.A Obscura: The Architectural Photography of Julius Shulman From USC, a great collection of buildings by the likes of Richard Neutra, who, for residential design, put the "mod" into "modern."
Allied Works Architecture from Portland.
Big Buildings: "Included in this survey are structures that were at one time the world's tallest or that are Jumbos or Super Jumbos, categories invented for this exhibition that describe size measured by volume."
The Futuro House, an ideal weekend cottage for the family of tomorrow.
A photographic tour "through the fabulous and vanishing ruins of my beloved Detroit."
I remember being seven years old and going there for the first time. The walls are glass and angle inwards so that, if you have tennis shoes and get a running start, you can run up the windows and slide down again until your mom finds out.
Do Design Office, an LA architecture firm, has crafted some clean and inspiring spaces and catalouged them in a slick site. Check the Max House if you're fond of concrete.