Zumthor on the Chopping Block?
An Ideas Competition in Opposition to a Concrete Design
Entry by TheeAe (Image © TheeAe)
In early 2020, a group advocating a new approach to the design of the Los Angeles Museum of Art (LACMA)—The Citizens’ Brigade to Save LACMA—organized a competition to counter an existing design by the Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor. Already commissioned by the ...
Read more...Connector as Solution
National Railway Museum Central Hall (U.K.)
Winning entry by Feilden Fowles (image © Fielden Fowles)
If one were to search for a railway museum in the U.K., London would seem to be an obvious choice. But, as it happens, its location is in the northeastern city of York, far from the major cultural and economic centers of ...
Read more...Houston Endowment Competition
View to winning entry ©KDA
Foundation non-profits are no strangers to good architecture. Ford Foundation’s forward-looking headquarters in New York City by Roche Dinkeloo was an early example of a non-profit using architecture as a vehicle for serving to brand it as a progressive institution. In 2001 the California Endowment went one step further, staging an ...
Read more...Prince Charles in the White House?
Expressway toll booth of the future ©Paul Spreiregen
Recent news about a new U.S. government policy concerning the design of public buildings under President Trump bears a striking resemblance to the controversy surrounding that very issue in the U.K. in the second half of the 20thcentury. It was then that Prince Charles appeared on the scene ...
Read more...Xingdong New Area Urban Design Competition: City of the Future
Winning entry by Cui Kai (© Cui Kai)
Master plans have been around for ages; but master plans for very large cities with all their support systems are relatively new. Milton Keynes (MK), located in Buckinghamshire in southern England, and begun in the late 1960s, is one of the most successful of the new cities, now ...
Read more...Investigating Chicago’s Most Complex Infrastructure Issue
The O’Hare International Airport Competition
Winning entry – Studio-ORD
The updating and modernization of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport has been well overdue. Aside from occasional problems caused by Chicago’s winter storms, congestion at the airport has led air travelers to avoid the airport when catching a connecting flight is on the agenda. So Chicago, noted for its modern ...
Read more...A Quest to Memorialize a Serious Hate Crime: The Pulse Memorial Competition
Winning entry by Coldefy & Associés (image © Coldefy & Associés)
In these times when political emotions run high and gun violence is the norm, not the exception; and when emotions no longer are held in check, but encouraged by our leaders, minorities become easy targets for those who adhere to ideologies based primarily on exclusivity and ...
Read more...A New State Archive in Kitzingen, Germany
1st Place – gmp Architekten Photo: ©Hans-Joachim Wuthenow, Berlin
As part of a policy to relocate archives of local interest outside of major Bavarian cities, a competition was staged for the design of a new archive in Kitzingen, 12 miles from the provincial capital city of Würzburg, Germany. The competition was open to qualified teams in ...
Read more...Vilnius Concert Hall Competition
Winning entry by Arquivio Architects (image © Arquivio Architects)
The Process
In July 2019 the Vilnius Concert Hall competition jury began its deliberations to identify a suitable design for this major performing arts project. As one might have anticipated, two of the jurors on the seven member panel, Ole Gustavsen (Snohetta) and Andreas Cukrowicz (Nachbaur Architekten) had won ...
Read more...Babyn Yar Ukrainian Memorial Competition
1st Prize Entry by querkraft architekten (Image © querkraft architekten)
Memorials to commemorate atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War II have taken many forms. Holocaust museums such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. by Pei Cobb Freed or the Jewish Museum in Berlin by Daniel Libeskind, all endeavor to paint a broad picture, including narratives covering most of the major events and sites. Former concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Dachau, Theresienstadt and Buchenwald have been frequent tour destinations. In the case of Buchenwald, the local city of Weimar has placed pictures of “Witnesses” throughout the downtown area as a reminder of the Nazi legacy.
