In a Crain’s New York article about growth patterns in Brooklyn over the past decade, Tom Angotti did not mince words, stating that “The development has been very uneven and unequal. Instead of the vibrant city that was more diverse, it’s becoming a city of separate enclaves.” Speaking in her official capacity as the chair of the Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Association’s planning committee, Meta Brunzema cheered Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to tear down the Javits Center: “I hate to say it, but [Hudson River Park's] really inadequate around here and everyone knows it. The Javits Center is an obstacle to it really becoming a great park.” And Saskia Sassen, in an Artforum piece on the sociopolitical conditions that led up to OWS (pictured at left), writes that “The Occupy movements are emergent assemblages of fragments of various national (and global) territories. Their reclamation of public space is also a response to the increasingly palpable insufficiency of the logic of the nation-state.”
Fellows’ Awards & Competitions: Bell, Crispino, Holl, Enquist, Jahn, Norten, Portman, Sassen, & Steiner
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
The AIA’s New York chapter, led by Rick Bell, has just put out the call for entries for the 2012 AIANY Design Awards (deadline: 2/3/12); Francis Cauffman, led by James Crispino, has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing A/E/C industry firms on ZweigWhite’s annual Hot Firms List; Patron Steven Holl was named as the winner of the prestigious 2012 AIA Gold Medal; SOM’s Chicago Office, where Philip Enquist is the Partner in Charge of Urban Design and Planning, received AIA Chicago’s Firm of the Year award; Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin included the opening of Helmut Jahn’s Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago (pictured at left) in his round-up of the best architecture of 2011; Board Member Enrique Norten will serve as a juror for this year’s Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award, which will focus on Cape Town, South Africa (deadline: 2/24/12); AmericasMart founder John Portman will receive a special honor, the “Legend for Life” award, in recognition of his five decades of entrepreneurship and service to the home decor industry; Board Member Saskia Sassen made Foreign Policy magazine’s list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers for her “passionate advocacy of an urban-based society”; and the undergraduate program at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Architecture, led by Frederick Steiner, was ranked second in the nation by DesignIntelligence.
Fellows’ Events & Exhibits: November 1-15, 2011
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
The World Architecture Festival, for which Board President Michael Sorkin chaired the Grand Jury, kicks off tomorrow (11/2) in Barcelona; Steven Handel will deliver the Benjamin C. Howland Jr. Memorial Lecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecture on 11/4; that same day, Board Member Thom Mayne will speak at Architectural Record’s 2011 Innovation Conference; also on 11/4, Board Member Enrique Norten will speak at Yale’s Catastrophe and Consequence symposium; on 11/5, Colin Cathcart will participate in the Center for Architecture symposium Buildings = Energy; on 11/7, Deborah Gans, Matt Blesso, Mark Ginsberg, and Mark Strauss will all participate in the Architectural League’s Making Room symposium; Craig Dykers will speak at La Ciudad de las Ideas in Puebla, Mexico, on 11/11; Board Member Saskia Sassen is co-chair of the Committee on Global Thought’s Ecogram IV: China event on 11/11; Stuart Pertz will join a discussion on Planning the Future of Coney Island’s Amusement District, also on 11/11; the Reconsidering Postmodernism conference, to be held in New York from 11/11-12, will feature Robert A.M. Stern, as well as a session focusing on the work of Patrons Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown; Board Member Tami Hausman is a co-organizer of the 11/14 CfA panel What’s Your Story?; and on 11/15, Jack Nyman’s Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute will host the Zoning the City conference in New York, featuring Rick Bell, Stern, and Board Members Mayne and Toni Griffin.
Fellows’ Events & Exhibits: October 15-31, 2011
Saturday, October 15th, 2011
Board Member Saskia Sassen will participate in the Columbia GSAPP’s Injured Cities Conference on 10/14-15; Barbara Wilks will give a talk at the New York Botanical Garden’s Midtown Education Center on 10/24; Board Member Enrique Norten will speak at the Pratt Institute on 10/24 in conjunction with the new exhibit Breaking Borders: New Latin American Architecture; Richard Sennett will join the Institute for Public Knowledge’s discussion of the new publication Living in the Endless City in New York on 10/25; Jack Nyman’s Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute will host the symposium The Waterfront: A Brooklyn Model for Preservation and Change on 10/26; Deborah Berke will talk about Development, Design and Financing Strategies for Urban Revitalization Using Hospitality and the Arts at the ULI Fall Conference on 10/26; Board Member Toni Griffin will visit Notre Dame University on 10/26 to deliver the lecture Can Planning Save the City: Facing the Challenges of Urban America; Olympia Kazi will host Board Member Thom Mayne at Van Alen Books on 10/28 for a presentation on his new book, Combinatory Urbanism; Board Member Winka Dubbeldam is on the Host Committee for the Storefront for Art & Architecture’s Critical Halloween party on 10/29; and Tom Angotti will participate in the panel Where is New York? Apparitions at Willets Point at the Columbia GSAPP on 10/31.
Fellows’ Awards & Honors: Berke, Boddy, David, Sassen, & Wong
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
The Kentucky Society of Architects presented Deborah Berke with one of their 2011 Honor Awards for the 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville; “Mega + Micro: Canada, Invention at the Extremes,” by Trevor Boddy, has been shortlisted for the best architectural criticism published worldwide in the past three years for the 2011 CICA Awards; Theo. David’s Gladstonos 22 housing development (pictured at left) has been shortlisted in the housing category of the 2011 World Architecture Festival; Board Member Saskia Sassen was named as the first Visiting Fellow of Indiana University’s Framing the Global project; and John Wong’s SWA Group was announced as the winner of a competition to re-design the downtown lakefront in the rapidly-developing city of Suzhou, China.
Fellows’ Events & Exhibits: October 1-15, 2011
Friday, September 30th, 2011
The AIACC’s Monterey Design Conference, scheduled for 10/7-9, will feature talks by Peter Walker and Board Member Thom Mayne; Matthew Berman will speak at Chicago Ideas Week on 10/10; Craig Dykers‘ firm Snøhetta will host the Architectural League of New York’s First Friday reception on 10/14; and Board Member Saskia Sassen will participate in the Columbia GSAPP-hosted Injured Cities Conference on 10/14-15.
Quoth the Fellows: Sassen, Sennett, Solomonoff, & Venturi
Friday, August 26th, 2011
In a co-authored NY Times op-ed that cites cuts to government-funded social programs as an underlying cause of the recent UK riots, Board Member Saskia Sassen and Fellow Richard Sennett caution that “Americans ought to ponder this aspect of Britain’s trauma. After all, London is one of the world’s wealthiest cities, but large sections of it are impoverished. New York is not so different.” In responding to a young woman’s question about whether or not to take time to work between receiving her undergraduate degree in environmental science and returning to school to pursue a graduate degree in architecture, Galia Solomonoff noted that “One of the benefits of working in between careers is understanding the life applications of a given practice.” And while being interviewed about his role in shaping Postmodernism by filmmaker John Thornton, Patron Robert Venturi (pictured at left) advised that: “Modernism is about space. Postmodernism is about communication. You should do what turns you on.”
Quoth the Fellows: Dykers, Greenberg, & Sassen
Thursday, August 11th, 2011
In describing plans for the expansion of SFMOMA’s Mario Botta-designed building (pictured at left), Craig Dykers explained that Snøhetta’s new wing is intended to help people “to experience the city in a completely new way.” Speaking to the Calgary Herald about the future of urban and suburban development, Ken Greenberg asserted that “The status quo is not an option.” And during her introductory speech at the Audi Urban Future Summit, Saskia Sassen argued that “We must think of mobility as a sort of black box that has many more facets than those defined by current technologies.”
Fellows’ Events & Exhibitions: August 1-15, 2011
Monday, August 1st, 2011
IfUD Founder Ann Ferebee and Jeff Byles will speak about their new book, A History of Design from the Victorian Era to the Present, at the Skyscraper Museum on 8/2; AIANY is organizing a tour of Michael Manfredi’s Diana Center at Barnard (pictured at left) on 8/4; and Board Member Saskia Sassen will speak on the notions of comfort and “cityness” at the BMW Guggenheim Lab in New York on 8/12.
Quoth the Fellows: Holl, Sassen, & Williamson
Monday, July 25th, 2011
In a Time magazine article about the advent bookless libraries, Patron Steven Holl noted that “Acknowledging the digital and its speed and putting it in relation to the history and physical presence of the books makes it an exciting space. A book represents knowledge, and striking a balance in a library is a good thing.” Asked what makes a city successful, Board Member Saskia Sassen (pictured at left) argued that it is cities’ “incompleteness that gifts them their longevity. A city does not become obsolete.” (Sassen also sat down with Nicolas Nova for a great interview in advance of Lift Lab earlier this month.) And June Williamson spoke about the future of suburbia in one of Record’s “What’s Next” features, explaining that “We spent 50 to 60 years building it up, so we’re going to have to spend an equivalent period of time restructuring, infilling, and remaking it.”
