Wednesday, July 11th, 2012
In a Design Observer article reflecting on MoMA’s “Foreclosed” exhibit (pictured at left), Tom Angotti tackles ‘the housing question,’ arguing that “The problem is that we can’t design our way out of the foreclosure crisis…We need to stop looking for the next technological or spatial fix, because it will inevitably reflect and reproduce the entrenched economic and social inequalities that have led us to our current crisis.” Ronnette Riley spoke to the Times Observer about the comparable qualities of architecture and fashion, saying “Architecture is like fashion. There are trends, and they last longer, but it’s constantly evolving.” Robert A.M. Stern joked with the New York Times about his ‘starchitect’ appellation. “That’s a term used for a lot of people,” he said. “But since my name is Stern and “Stern” means star, I think that’s perfectly good. It’s all the other people that are intruding.”
Tags: Design Observer, MoMA, New York City, New York Times, robert a.m. stern, Ronnette Riley, starchitect, Times Observer, Tom Angotti
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Friday, May 18th, 2012
On Sunday, “Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City” opened at Socrates Sculpture Park with work by Mary Miss; this Friday, 5/18, Nina Rappaport’s “Vertical Urban Factory” exhibit both closes at NYU and opens at MOCAD in Detroit; Ronnette Riley and Richard Rogers will participate in the “Guess-a-Sketch” competition and benefit at the Center for Architecture on 5/22; also on 5/22, Tom Angotti will be at the AIA San Francisco to discuss his new book, Service Learning in Design and Planning; Linda Pollak speaks about Marpillero Pollak’s new Dutch Kills Green park at a “Public Space Potluck” in Long Island City on 5/23 (pictured above); Craig Dykers will be in Prague on 5/26 to give a keynote at the reSITE Festival; Jack Nyman’s Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute hosts a day-long symposium entitled “Battery Park City: Coming of Age” on 5/31; that evening, June Williamson will be at Van Alen Books to discuss the design and culture of parking; an exhibit of Patron Steven Holl’s work at the Meulensteen Gallery closes on 6/2.
Tags: AIA New York, AIA San Francisco, AIANY, Baruch College, Battery Park City, Battery Park City Coming of Age, Center for Architecture, Civic Action A Vision for Long Island City, Craig Dykers, Detroit, Dutch Kills Green, Forking Time, Guess-a-Sketch, Jack Nyman, June Williamson, Linda Pollak, Long Island City, Marpillero Pollak, mary miss, Meulensteen Gallery, MOCAD, Nina Rappaport, Noguchi Museum, NYU, Prague, Public Space Potluck, reSITE Festival, Richard Rogers, Rogers Marvel, Ronnette Riley, Service-Learning in Design and Planning, Snohetta, Socrates Sculpture Park, Steven Holl, Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute, Tom Angotti, Van Alen Books, Vertical Urban Factory
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Friday, April 27th, 2012
In an Observer article about New York City’s Economic Development Corporation, Tom Angotti commented, “They pass for being a government agency, and in fact they have more power than many of the line agencies under the mayor.” In speaking about his Seaside, FL development (pictured at left), Robert Davis speculated that the future “push for new urbanism will be in cities on urban renewal land and in the suburbs where former shopping centers will be redeveloped.” Ken Greenberg wrote about the need for new urban manners in Planetizen, asserting “the real measures of successful urbanity may be in the demonstrations of mutual respect while living at close quarters, the degree to which we are comfortable with each other…and the accumulation of small acts of kindness.” On the importance of aesthetics in architecture, Michael Stepner said “I use a quote from Garrison Keillor. He said the response to, ‘Why should we build something so nice?’ is, ‘It’s to lift our hearts and to inspire us.’”
Tags: aesthetics, EDC, Florida, Garrison Keillor, Ken Greenberg, Michael Stepner, new urbanism, New York Observer, NYC Economic Development Corporation, Planetizen, Robert Davis, Seaside, Tom Angotti, urban manners
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Monday, April 2nd, 2012
Eight Fellows and Board Members, including Carmi Bee and Winka Dubbeldam, participated in the Design for the Rising Tide charrette at New York’s Center for Architecture (3/23); tonight in New York, Sudhir Jambhekar will speak on a panel about ‘Building in the Middle East’; Patron Steven Holl will engage in “Discussions in Architecture” tomorrow at Harvard’s GSD; on 4/4, Tom Angotti will be a special guest for Studio-X’s design charrette about gentrification; also on Wednesday, Sara Caples will lecture about “Social Justice-Aesthetic Judgments” at the University of Maryland; Board Member Claire Weisz (pictured at left) will discuss “Urban Planning for Community Building” at the Noguchi Museum (4/8); the week after, she’ll be with Lyn Rice at the Center for Architecture to examine “The Civic Action Planning Model” (4/12); Board Member Toni Griffin invites you to celebrate the launch of the J. Max Bond Center on Design for the Just City on 5/1 at City College’s Spitzer School of Architecture.
Tags: AIA New York, Building in the Middle East, Caples Jefferson, Carmi Bee, Center for Architecture, City College, Civic Action, Claire Weisz, Design for the Rising Tide, gentrification, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, J. Max Bond Center, Lyn Rice, Noguchi Museum, Rice + Lipka, Sara Caples, Spitzer School of Architecture, Steven Holl, Studio-X NYC, Sudhir Jambhekar, Tom Angotti, Toni Griffin, University of Maryland, Winka Dubbeldam
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Thursday, March 29th, 2012
In an article looking at the politics of New York’s MTA subway construction in The Indypendent, Tom Angotti commented, “from a long-term planning perspective, the only rationale is real estate development.” The most recent issue of MAS Context features an essay by Patron Denise Scott Brown, who writes that “America is far more different from Europe than most visiting Europeans realise. This is in part due to the emigrants’ search for a new world, which they defined as the counterform to the unsatisfactory old world.” As the New York Times examined the strange bedfellows of starchitecture and the recession, Board Member Enrique Norten opined, “Developers were not just looking for architecture brand, they were looking for any brand. Of course I love Mick Jagger, but does that make a good apartment?” In a Times op-ed exploring architectural writing, Board Chair Michael Sorkin’s 1985 description of the Whitney Museum (pictured at left) – “to which are affixed the winning ‘eyebrow’ windows, apt symbols of museum going” – is lauded as an exemplary piece of criticism.
Tags: Alexandra Lange, criticism, Denise Scott Brown, Enrique Norten, Las Vegas, MAS Context, Michael Sorkin, Mick Jagger, MTA, New York, New York Times, recession, starchitecture, The Indypendent, Tom Angotti, Village Voice, Whitney Museum
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Thursday, March 1st, 2012
Meta Brunzema will discuss her contribution to the new book “Feminist Practices” at Van Alen Books tonight (3/1) and at Bluestockings Bookstore tomorrow (3/2); also this evening, Tom Angotti will give a lecture at Parsons, as part of the new “In the Urban Crisis” series; Theo David will lecture at Pratt tonight, in advance of the opening of his exhibit, “Built Ideas: A Life of Teaching, Learning, and Action,” at the Hazel and Robert H. Siegel Gallery in Brooklyn; Olympia Kazi’s Van Alen Institute will hold its next Open House Brunch and Design Speed Dating event on 3/3; on the same day, “Los Límites de la Forma”, a new exhibit of work by Board Member Enrique Norten, will open at the Museo Amparo in Puebla, Mexico; on 3/8, Board Member Claire Weisz will be at the National Building Museum in D.C. to participate in a panel entitled “Architecture and the Great Recession” organized by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (lead by Wanda Bubriski); the next day on 3/9, Weisz will be at The Cooper Union in New York to introduce the latest “Emerging Voices” lecture; an exhibit of work by Craig Dykers‘ Snøhetta is currently on display at the Reykjavík Art Museum and will close on 4/3; and back at the National Building Museum, the exhibit “Unbuilt Washington” features work by Board Member Thom Mayne (picture at left) and is on view through 5/28.
Tags: Architecture and the Great Recession, Beverly Willis, Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, Bluestockings Bookstore, brooklyn, Built Ideas, Claire Weisz, Craig Dykers, Emerging Voices, Enrique Norten, Feminist Practices, Hazel and Robert H. Siegel Gallery, Iceland, In the Urban Crisis, Los Limites de la Forma, Meta Brunzema, Mexico, Morphosis, Museo Amparo, national building museum, New York, New York City, Olympia Kazi, Open House Brunch and Design Speed Dating, Parsons, Pratt, Puebla, Reykjavik, Reykjavik Art Museum, Snohetta, The Cooper Union, Theo David, Thom Mayne, Tom Angotti, Unbuilt Washington, Van Alen Books, Van Alen Institute, wanda bubriski, washington dc
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Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
A study by Tom Angotti and Picture the Homeless revealed that New York City is home to enough vacant lots and buildings to house its entire homeless population–with room to spare; Deborah Berke’s Yale architecture students are designing an urban bourbon distillery in downtown Louisville; Rick Bell was profiled by the Epoch Times; the latest episode of CUNY-TV’s Citywide program features Ken Fisher interviewing Working Families Party leader Camille Rivera; Chadwick Floyd is designing the expansion of Waterford, Connecticut’s Eugene O’Neill Theater Center; MLive.com interviewed Board Member Toni Griffin about the long-term strategic planning initiative she’s leading for the Detroit Works Program; Patron Steven Holl was selected to design the expansion of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Dallas Morning News walked through Board Member Thom Mayne’s almost-complete Perot Museum of Nature & Science with the architect; Board Member Enrique Norten gave a presentation on how sustainable architecture can catalyze community development at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos; Gregg Pasquarelli’s firm has just released its first monograph, SHoP: Out of Practice; Matthias Sauerbruch’s Low2No complex in Helsinki’s former docklands (pictured at left) is cited as an exemplary mixed use project in a Telegraph piece on the greening of residential architecture; and Achva Benzinberg Stein’s dazzling new Moroccan Courtyard at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is featured in this month’s Landscape Architecture Magazine.
Tags: Achva Benzinberg Stein, Architecture, books, bourbon, Camille Rivera, Chadwick Floyd, CityWide, Connecticut, CUNY-TV, Dallas, Davos, Deborah Berke, Design, Detroit, Detroit Works, education, Enrique Norten, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, green buildings, Gregg Pasquarelli, Helsinki, homelessness, Housing, Houston, Kenneth K. Fisher, Landscape Architecture Magazine, long-term planning, Louisville, Low2No, Matthias Sauerbruch, Metropolitan Museum of Art, mixed-use, monograph, Moroccan Courtyard, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, museums, New York City, Perot Museum of Nature & Science, Picture the Homeless, profile, redevelopment, residential, Rick Bell, Sauerbruch Hutton, SHoP Architects, SHoP Out of Practice, Steven Holl, strategic planning, Telegraph, Texas, Thom Mayne, Tom Angotti, Toni Griffin, vacant space, Waterford, Working Families Party, World Economic Forum, Yale SoA, Yale University
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Thursday, February 9th, 2012
There are two new titles out from Tom Angotti, including Service-Learning in Design and Planning, co-edited with Cheryl Doble and Paula Horrigan, and Accidental Warriors and Battlefield Myths, Angotti’s first collection of short stories; Richard Sennett’s Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Collaboration was excerpted in Salon, reviewed by the New Scientist, and called “a whirlwind of big ideas” by the Washington Post; Frederick Steiner’s latest, Urban Ecological Design, is now available at a bookstore near you; and Barbara Wilks‘ West Harlem Piers Park is featured in John Hill’s new Guide to Contemporary New York Architecture (Update: Hill’s guide also includes several recent works by Thomas Balsley!)
Tags: Accidental Warriors and Battlefield Myths, Architecture, Barbara Wilks, books, Cheryl Doble, Frederick Steiner, Guide to Contemporary New York Architecture, John Hill, manhattan, New Scientist, New York City, Paula Horrigan, Richard Sennett, Salon, Service-Learning in Design and Planning, short stories, sociology, Thomas Balsley, Together: The Rituals Pleasures and Politics of Collaboration, Tom Angotti, Urban Ecological Design, urban planning, West Harlem Piers Park
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Friday, February 3rd, 2012
The Wall Street Journal spoke to Tom Angotti about the Bloomberg-era evolution of zoning in New York City, and published a wonderful profile of Michael Arad; Architect talked to Board Member Tami Hausman about how architecture firms can (and should) use social media strategically; Luca Farinelli’s “53 Questions, 265 Answers” in Log 23 features interviews with Patron Steven Holl and Board Member Thom Mayne; the WSJ features Stephan Jaklitsch and Mark Gardner’s renovation of Marc Jacobs’ private Soho showroom; Patricia Lancaster expressed surprise at Related’s decision to hire a California contractor for the massive Hudson Yards project in Manhattan; Gregg Pasquarelli’s Pier 15 opened along Manhattan’s East River Waterfront Esplanade; Linda Pollak’s new Elmhurst Branch of the Queens Library, which is wrapping up construction, was featured on NY1; and Rosemary Wakeman was quoted in a Corpus Christi Caller-Times article about the relationship between streetscapes and civic pride.
Tags: Architect Magazine, civic pride, construction, contractor, Corpus Christi, East River Waterfront Esplanade, Elmhurst, Gregg Pasquarelli, Hudson Yards, interview, Linda Pollak, Log, Luca Farinelli, manhattan, Marc Jacobs, Mark Gardner, Marpillero Pollak, michael arad, Michael Bloomberg, New York City, NY1, Patricia Lancaster, Pier 15, Queens, Queens Library, Related, Rosemary Wakeman, social media, Soho, Stephan Jaklitsch, Steven Holl, streetscape, tami hausman, Texas, Thom Mayne, Tom Angotti, wall street journal, waterfront, zoning
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Friday, January 27th, 2012
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.”
Tags: Artforum, brooklyn, Crain's New York, Development, diversity, Governor Cuomo, Hell's Kitchen, Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association, Hudson River Park, Javits Center, manhattan, Meta Brunzema, New York City, occupation, Occupy Wall Street, public space, Saskia Sassen, segregation, Tom Angotti, waterfront
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