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man do i hate PO-MO (permission to bulldoze it all granted - is that so wrong?)
An exhibition opens this week that celebrates one of the unsung heroes of 20th century design: the structural engineer. The show, titled Unseen Hands: 100 Years of Structural Engineering, will be at the V&A museum in London until September as part of the Institution of Structural Engineers’ 100th anniversary celebrations.
Sarah Buck, IStructE’s president, says: “Generally, galleries focus on aesthetics, but this exhibition is very definitely about the principles and techniques that make world-class structures actually work.” Unseen Hands is a mix of photographs, models, original drawings and videos centred around three themes: building high, enclosing space and spanning voids. Here’s a sneak preview …
Moisei Ginzburg's constructivist masterpiece, Narkomfin, has been attracting international attention ever since it was built in 1930. A classic example of a utopian vision of communal living that slowly backfired into state housing, the principles of its sleek design, where form followed function, were taught in architecture schools worldwide.
In the late 1980s, Narkomfin entered the world stage again, but for reasons less optimistic. The walls were crumbling and the smooth, ship-like facade had faded into an aging mess, where cladding fell away from different parts of the exterior and exposed its steel skeleton.
The building is in an even worse state today, but an exhibition of Ginzburg's work, at the Shchusev Museum of Architecture, opened with good news for preservationists. It was announced that MIAN property group would be restoring the building to its former glory and turning it into a boutique hotel. They will be working closely on the project with Alexei Ginzburg, grandson of the original designer.
lucy leave
via zoller
IBM building 25 destroyed by fire
Until now, it looked like the Arizona desert would swallow a mid-century modern house designed by Phoenix architect Alfred Beadle.
Last month, Lynda Maze, owner of the 1958 White Gates House, convinced a Phoenix court to give her time to renovate her blighted property, which she had considered razing two years ago. The city retracted two blight citations that neighbors had filed against the house.
"I didn't realize it would take possession of my body," Maze says of the White Gates House. "I'm not a historian, but I just got the house, spent some time up there and decided, 'I've got to do something.'"