Alster Swimming Pool Restoration, Hamburg

 

Alster Swimming Pool after restoration (2023)

 

Linking Two Competitions with Three Modernist Projects

 

Hardly a week goes by without the news of another architectural icon being threatened with demolition. A modernist swimming pool in Hamburg, Germany belonged in this category, even though the concrete shell roof had been placed

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An Urban Icon Emerges

 

The Urban Confluence Silicon Valley Competition

 

Urban Confluence Silicon Valley winner: ©SMAR Architecture Studio

 

After several stops and starts over an extended period of time, the winner of the Urban Confluence Design Competition was named in early March, 2021. SMAR Architecture Studio’s The Breeze of Innovation, which prevailed over two other

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An Ultimate Destination for Naturalists

 

Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Competition

 

Aerial view ©Snøhetta

 

Until now, the establishment of presidential libraries at the conclusion of their terms has followed the founding of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library after World War II. The first exception to this was the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, established in 1962.* Now a

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The Eisenhower Memorial: Sending Mixed Messages?

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The Eisenhower Memorial: Sending Mixed Messages? by Stanley Collyer

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Preface

Since this article was written, several events have occurred which have changed our perception of the final design process. Frank Gehry went back to the drawing board and has modified his memorial design, eliminating some of the columns which we objected to at the edge of the site (January 2011, see above). One may only hope that the tapastry design element, which the Arts Commission still has some reservations about, can be resolved successfully.

More recently, a group called the National Civic Art Society in Washington has issued a call for another Eisenhower Memorial competition for the same site. Apparently stuck on the idea that everything in Washington near the Mall should be in the Beaux Arts traditional style, they take offense that the Gehry design does not meet their standards of what a memorial to Ike should look like. Although probably well-meaning, this group evidently would like to turn back the clock on progress in this field. They would like to erase from memory all the advancements in new materials and ideas which have surfaced and been implemented over the past century. Is it then surprising that not one architect on their board is a national name (Most of their members are laypersons). Although their competition will undoubtedly draw some entries, it should hardly be taken seriously, much less receive any attention from the press. What they are doing is adding nothing to a positive dialogue about architecture in this country—only attempting to set it back by decades. -Ed

Frank Gehry’s preferred idea for the Eisenhower Memorial was one of three proposals which the firm presented in March 2010 to the Eisenhower Memorial Commission after prevailing in the earlier selection process. Although not touted as a pure competition by the Memorial Commission, the original selection process in 2009 was typical of the General Services Administration’s Excellence in Architecture program, often used to adjudicate the design process for government projects such as federal courthouses.

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A Tribute to Eisenhower

Night view of the memorial tapestry from Independence Avenue, with Gehry’s sketch of the Normandy cliffs.

 

Explaining the contributions of a World War II hero and later President of the United States on a very modest site on Independence Avenue just off the Washington Mall is tantamount to asking an author to describe

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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

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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

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Transforming Buffalo’s DL & W Rail Corridor

 

 

 

Reconstituting an Abandoned Rail Line

 

 

Aerial view: courtesy WNYC

 

The Rails to Trails program, which gained momentum after the1984 Federal Land Banking Law—supported by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy—has seen over 24,000 miles of trails established where rail lines once existed. Some sites were strictly urban, while others, sometimes

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Spreebogen Takes a Final Lap

Plans for the Final Expansion of Schultes’ Federal Chancellery Building

Aerial view with new addition at bottom of site (Image © Schultes Frank Architekten)

 

The reunification of Germany in 1989 not only had a great impact on the lives of many Germans, especially those living in the former DDR, but together with

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Paying Homage to a Storied Parliament Building

The Reichstag Visitors Center in Berlin/Tiergarten

Winning entry by Markus Schietsch (Image ©Markus Schietsch Architekten)

 

If ever there was a pressing need for a facility acting as arrival feature and processing point for a world-renowned landmark structure, a Visitors Center for the Reichstag had to be at the top of the list.

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