“We are looking for interns unafraid to question the basic premises of architecture and to operate far beyond its boundaries, in territories more familiar to history, philosophy, economics, and religion. AUDC is a radical architecture practice….Please see our Web site http://www.audc.org/ and our book, Blue Monday, for more about us. Please do not apply if you have not looked at these…AUDC principals will be in the office three to five days a week, but interns are expected to be self-starters…. AUDC is a radical architecture practice that is a labor of love, not a for-profit….We regret that all internships in 2009 are unpaid, … .Please bring your own computers and software (e.g. CS4, CAD, Office). … PCs are acceptable…..We look to fill three positions, one centered on video, one on graphics, and one on research. Application to be submitted as a single PDF (8MB maximum) document including:
Cover letter
Resume/CV
Portfolio
Letters of recommendation”
Good grief, letters of recommendation for an unpaid internship where you are expected to provide your own computer and thousands of dollars of software??
Shaun Donovan, armed with degrees in architecture and public policy from Harvard’s GSD and Kennedy School, is Obama’s nominee for HUD. In 2004 he foresaw the subprime crisis, which means he is a sharper cookie than 99.99% of Wall Street.
Interview with Gwendolyn Wright in the Architects’ Newspaper
And an interview with the Observer.
Matt Chaban writes about the one bright spot in the design economy in the Architect’s Newspaper.
Barcelona Forum, Herzog de Meuron
At 56 Leonard Street in Tribeca, New York (corner of Church and Leonard Streets), Herzog de Meuron and Anish Kapoor are collaborating on a new residential tower. Kapoor will design a site specific sculpture for the ground floor.
Millenium Park sculpture, Chicago, Anish Kapoor
The highest priced new apartment building in New York City, 15 Central Park West. Photo by Todd Eberle, Vanity Fair.
Sting, Bob Costas, Norman Lear, Sandy Weil, and Denzel Washington live in the new Robert A.M. Stern building on Central Park West. In Vanity Fair Paul Goldberger discusses how this retrograde-looking building turned out to be the most successful in recent New York development history:
nothing appeals to people, particularly rich people, like something new that doesn’t look too new. . . . What Stern actually designed, it turned out, was a building in which every apartment looked like an old Park Avenue apartment after someone had renovated it.
Architect Robert A. M. Stern stands on the concierge desk at 15 Central Park West.
Filed under: Architecture
Jean Nouvel
2008 Pritzker Prize winner Jean Nouvel was interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition today.
Architectural billing is still down, although there was a slight uptick in the architectural billing index for June (but this just means the decline slowed, rather than an increase in work).
Jacques Herzog on choosing to build in China:
Only an idiot — and not a person who thinks in moral terms would have turned down this opportunity — would have said no. I know that there are architects who now claim that they would never have even considered building in China. This is both a naïve and arrogant position, one that reflects a lack of knowledge of and respect for the incredible cultural achievements this country has continuously provided over the last 5,000 years and still provides today.
Filed under: Architecture
Nice feature on plans on Archinect:
Often overlooked and recently playing supporting actor in the age of the section, the plan is ripe for rethinking. More recently, plan drawing has been absorbed into representation systems of mapping, diagramming, and indexing, therefore relegating plan drawings simply to plan-making. Frequently assigned the role of orientation device, the plan is subjected to quantitative scrutiny while the section is permitted qualitative indulgence. The conventional system of architectural plan-making predominately presents itself as evidence of area, structure, and territory. But as with all orthographic drawings, plans can never be experienced as such. Demanding near omnipresence, a plan drawing cannot be easily occupied as it privileges a view our vision cannot replicate. Plans are vehicles for transpositional experiences. To overcome the inaccuracy of plans, architects are often asked to “walk us through the plans.” Therefore, though underequipped for the task, plans are employed to act as spatial machines.
From China Daily:
After the Games, the stadium will be redeveloped to include hotels, restaurants, supermarkets and shopping malls, he said.
The reconstruction will cost at least 300 million yuan and after it, commercial buildings will cover about 35 percent of the entire compound.
Wonder what Herzog de Meuron thinks about this. . . .
