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Questions for Alexandre Nucinovitski
The Times’s longtime architecture critic breaks his silence and reveals what compelled him to come forward with his allegations, how high up the conspiracy goes, and what (or who) is the “Bilbao-12.”
Some have suggested that your dismissal from the paper was imminent and that your recent indictment of your peers is nothing more than a marketing ploy to promote your upcoming book.
I came close to jumping ship several years ago—right after Architectonica opened its new hotel in Times Square—but they threw us a bone and let us go to town on it, sensing that the public would become overly suspicious if we showered it with praise. Then, two years ago, I was all set to break ranks again, following the universal praise for the Morphosis student dormitory in Toronto, but they preempted me by awarding Mayne the Pritzker, thereby making any attack open to attack. My tipping point came following the opening of the addition to the Denver Art Museum. At first they tried to appease me by granting me a paragraph to vent my frustrations—as long as it was limited to something trivial, like its functionality—but the night before I was to send in my review, I had a nightmare that I was trapped in a maze of Serra sculptures while thousands of people looked down from their office windows and laughed at me.
In your letter of resignation/suicide note you make numerous references to the “Bilbao-12.” Can you ex-plain what this was?
The Bilbao-12 was an “informal” meeting of twelve of the top architecture critics that took place just prior to the opening of the Guggenheim. Due to pending legal actions, I’m unable to reveal any names except to say that the meeting was also attended by a high-ranking deputy from the World Bank, an economic adviser from the UN, and a Washington lobbyist from the aluminum and titanium industries. The case was made for using architecture to revitalize the economies of postindustrial cities by establishing a brotherhood of “superstar” architects who would generate spectacles bolstered by our reviews, creating “archi tourism,” or what has become known today as the “Bilbao Effect.” I should mention that we were also handed a list of complex words and terminologies that we were encouraged to use in our writings in the hope that they would find their way into the architectural vernacular, thereby confusing the public and allowing the acrobats to pass through board hearings with minimal opposition.
sure youd like to live there
via zoller
"Yubi" Kirindongo started working as an artist in 1978. Since then he has participated in several international events, like the biennials of Havana (Cuba), of Johannesburg (South Africa) and of Sao Paulo (Brazil). In his own country he was given special recognition through the awarding of the prestigious Cola Debrotprize by the government of Curaçao. Kirindingo works with materials and metals, which when put together with his choice of subjects and the often rough textures of his work, a special energy is brought to what were once lifeless scraps.You can see his 'gallery-home-museum' on the western road from the city leading to the airport, only by appointment.
rago arts spring '08 modernist furniture auctions april 12th and 13th online catalogs
Phillip Lloyd Powell, a self-taught furniture designer who, working largely out of the public eye, produced elegant, sculptural pieces that are today highly prized by collectors, died on Sunday in Langhorne, Pa. He was 88 and lived in New Hope, Pa.images
Mr. Powell’s work has been shown at America House in New York. Mr. Powell died after a fall, said George Gilpin, a friend and business associate. No immediate family members survive.
Though Mr. Powell’s work is often described as midcentury modern, it routinely transcended the cool, clean lines associated with that style. His sinuous, textural furniture, which he painstakingly hand-carved from gleaming woods, often recalled forms from the natural world. A series of large walnut screens begun in the 1960s, for instance, features twining openwork that suggests a modern twist on Art Nouveau tendrils.
electric guitar thread
iron age grates
binisystems
airluce
via vz
cheap stair parts
bare hill barn conversion blog archive
We've featured some nice shedlike homes for birds and cats recently and here are two more animal sheds. Above is David Johnson's Goat tower in Illinois (at 31ft he claims it is the highest in the world) as featured by The Folly Fancier who also points to the marvellous Ohio Barns site which must be one of the finest collections of barn and barnlike builds on the interweb. And below, as featured on the intriguing Reclaimed Home ('low impact housing and renovation options for thrifty New Yorkers') is a Canine Cave from Scottie's Fine Art Caves.
from the march '08 olde good things news letter:
We are currently carefully removing the vast stained glass window from the American Airlines terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport in NYC... Stay posted we'll have glass from here available soon...from the nyt
last week we discovered urban archaeology's salvage page with the marble slabs recovered from momas sculpture garden renovation. (nice) also found were terrific chicken-wire reinforced corrugated glass panels salvaged from the brooklyn museum. 44" x 28" for $850.00 ea (ouch!) can be found cheeper?
public pianos
Unlike many avant-garde artists of the New York school, the painters most centrally identified with the cool style in California don’t seem to have been trying to revolutionize their medium. An early label for the work of the four best-known practitioners — Karl Benjamin, Frederick Hammersley, Lorser Feitelson and John McLaughlin — was “abstract classicism,” which overstates their conservatism but highlights the formal equilibrium they sought.
opium bed
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
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