News – What’s New at AIANY and the Center for Architecture.

Event: 2007 Temko Critics Panel: A Critical Situation: What to Make of Starchitecture, And Who To Blame For It
Location: Baruch College, 03.28.07
Speakers: Karrie Jacobs and Philip Nobel — Contributing Editors, Metropolis; Jeremy Melvin — Architectural Review, consultant to Royal Academy of Arts Architecture Program, London; Rowan Moore — Director, The Architecture Foundation, and critic for Evening Standard, London; Moderator: Joseph Grima — Director, Storefront For Art and Architecture
Sponsors: Forum for Urban Design and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; hosted by the Newman Institute for Real Estate Studies, Baruch College

“I’ll jump into the deep end: starchitecture isn’t such a bad thing,” moderator Joseph Grima posited to the panel of design journalists and critics. “It’s good for your profession — it gives you something to write about.” Using Frank Gehry, FAIA, as an example of a global brand, he asked, “Are journalists to be blamed or credited?”

Jeremy Melvin, author of Isms: Understanding Architectural Styles (Universe 2006), commented that the conversation has been the same for the last 100 years, and will be the same for the next 100. The problem, as he sees it, is that in the last 15 to 20 years, there’s been more money to spend on architecture, causing “brand inflation.” He cited the Gazprom Tower competition as a “significant” example: “Invite all the same architects, and the winner is RMJM, a firm not that well known outside of the U.K. The design was not very good, but not worse than the others.” But it was a competition where “the quality of design dissolved.”

Philip Nobel asked if there is a connection between celebrity and quality. Melvin responded, wryly, that “celebrity can be achieved without doing anything,” yet there’s also the “irony” of those who reach “hyper-celebrity” because they have huge organizations behind them (he finds Norman Foster looking to sell his firm for £500 million “absurd”). Nobel pointed out that Zaha Hadid came to celebrity through her art and media buzz — which “is problematic — does that mean it’s good or just photogenic?”

Grima wondered if there’s complicity between architects and the press. Rowan Moore sees a “major shift in the scale of the phenomenon of starchitecture” where “clients and architects are controlling access to those they know will be positive; the balance of power has changed.” He said it boils down to “persuasion and charm, similar to the games fashion houses play.” Karrie Jacobs agreed, saying developers are buying into starchitecture in a big way, with “Broadway-style lists of credits in real estate ads. As architecture is recognized by popular culture, it becomes less the domain of a small group of experts and opinion makers.” She suggested someone should draw up a chart of how much a starchitect’s name adds to the square-foot value of a project.

To Grima’s question, “Has any building been killed by the press?” With a devilish grin, Melvin answered, “I’ve done quite a bit of slaughtering. Critics should be in the business of criticizing. Otherwise, what’s the point?” He later said that if the art world has experts who authenticate artworks, “why not have critics to authenticate good design?”

Grima then asked the panel if starchitecture has replaced what used to be “movements” or “isms.” Moore said, “I’d rather have starchitecture than isms or ideologies as style. Maybe it is progress. Or maybe I’m being too optimistic.” Nobel countered that in architectural education, “what might be good about isms is you’d have something to teach — not graphic chicanery. There are victims here — us — when these juniors start building.”

Audience Q&A: Is starchitecture a good thing? Moore: “I don’t think it’s fantastic; it’s open to abuse, but it doesn’t kill people.” Melvin: “You’re being too kind. It can hurt people.” Jacobs: “Ostentatious, over-the-top buildings used to show off nationalism. It beats the hell out of an arms race.”

How do you teach a client to think differently about architecture, to make better choices? Moore: “Call out bad buildings and bad shortlists.”

Would a global economic downturn affect starchitects? Nobel: “They’re trying to build practices that are recession-proof. You won’t kill starchitecture.”

Kristen Richards is editor-in-chief of OCULUS and ArchNewsNow.com.

Event: Emerging Voices Lecture Series
Location: Urban Center, 03.22.07
Speakers: An Te Liu — artist, associate professor & director, Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto; Jared Della Valle, AIA, Andrew Bernheimer, AIA — Principals, Della Valle Bernheimer
Organizers: The Architectural League of New York

“I hate it and I’ve almost rid my life of it,” proclaimed An Te Liu about IKEA furniture. Jared Della Valle, AIA, and Andrew Bernheimer, AIA, have no fondness for the mass-market designs either. For them, buying from IKEA and scavenging from the trash were equally distasteful methods for furnishing their office in their early days.

But Liu confessed to liking the designs better with a few not-so-minor alternations. Ignoring IKEA’s arcane instruction sheets, he assembled the parts for a desk into an angular hanging sculpture; he also reconstituted table panels to form a striped wall mural.

Like Andy Warhol, Liu, an artist and director of the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, is known for using mundane objects as building blocks for new, unexpected forms. Drawn to the cheery colors of 3M sponges, he used them to create walls and pillars in his Soft series. In another project, he constructed totemic pillars out of air purifiers. He appropriated a photo of Levittown as source material for endlessly repeating ornamental wallpaper — an ironic critique of the myth of individual autonomy within a vast built network of sameness, he explained.

Bernheimer and Della Valle, principals of Della Valle Bernheimer, also delight in reinventing familiar forms, but with a highly utilitarian bent. When their firm needed new office furniture, they decided to sidestep stores like IKEA and buy a CNC milling machine to make their own ultra-customizable modular table. The duo’s love of individual variation characterizes their condominium at 245 10th Avenue, whose textured, reflective façade resembles an ever-shifting steam cloud, and a residence in Connecticut that appears to float in the treetops that surround it.

Perhaps the perfect complement to Liu’s Levittown wallpaper was Della Valle Bernheimer’s recent affordable housing project in East New York. The firm strove to break the mold of cookie-cutter design in the collaborative project, built for a mere $108 per square foot but offering a high level of architectural variation. Instead of “I live in the third house down the block on the left,” the owner can say, “I live there,” Bernheimer said.

Though a cynical police officer once challenged him, claiming the houses were “too nice for this neighborhood,” he holds on to the hope that the development may have a regenerative effect on the area. Certainly it’s been a positive step for the first-time homeowners who are beginning to move in, a group of people whose houses are as diverse as they are.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.

New plans to green cities, countries, and the world seem to be popping up everywhere. Similar to Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC, the Mayor of London’s office recently announced its “London Plan.” Although it is difficult to tell how successful these initiatives will be — goals and objectives have only been laid out at this point — I believe a global discussion about reducing carbon emissions beyond the Kyoto Protocol is a step in the right direction.

The two plans were the subject of a recent discussion at the Center for Architecture, 03.27.07, organized by the Forum for Urban Design and sponsored by the AIA NY International Committee. Debbie McMullen, who is heading the planning team in London’s Mayor’s office, and Rohit Aggarwala, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability, agreed that both cities can and should learn from each other as each initiative progresses.

The London Plan — which was generated by 2007 Pritzker Prize-winning Richard Rogers — lays out a series of targeted goals rather than a prescriptive set of rules, allowing for the plan to adjust as the market requires, explained McMullen. In order to reach 30% carbon reduction by 2025, the Mayor’s approach is to educate residents to change their behavior, retrofit buildings to make them more energy efficient, and to design for zero carbon emissions in all future development. The plan incorporates the established congestion charging, and initiates new strategies such as developing radial mass-transit routes, expanding canal systems, constructing new sustainable buildings while allowing for appropriate historical preservation, and providing a range of “social housing” types (50% affordable housing is the current goal). Perhaps most important is that the Greater London Authority (GLA) is partnering with private organizations to help with funding and oversight.

PlaNYC has 10 goals that are divided into three categories. OpeNYC aims to improve travel times, create more affordable housing, and ensure all residents live within a 10-minute walk to a park. MaintaiNYC will provide cleaner water, reliable power, and a state of good repair throughout city infrastructure. Finally, greeNYC will reduce global warming emissions by more than 30%, achieve “the cleanest air of any big city in America” (according to the website), clean contaminated land, and reduce water pollution.

Both plans seem to have the same goals. Questions about their effectiveness remain. Which city will be more successful? Will the GLA’s involvement in the implementation of the London Plan be more effective than a lack of a designated oversight committee in NYC? Will the NY State government impede NYC’s progress — a level of bureaucracy that does not pertain to London? Will the fact that Mayor Bloomberg has a term limit help give NYC an extra push forward, or will a concern for his legacy hinder long-term planning? Will the 2012 Olympics aid or hamper London’s Plan? Only time will tell.

In this issue:
·United Nations Approves Master Plan
·Art Deco Jewel Gets 21st Century Uplift
·Look No Further Than Chelsea’s “Vision Machine”
·A Permanent Dinner Party in Brooklyn
·Historic Waterfront Contributes to New Urbanist Future
·Pratt Institute Provides Modular Homes for Artists
·Friends Seminary Renovates and Expands
·Chic Hotel Has Designer Views to Match

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United Nations Approves Master Plan

More than 50 years after it was built, the United Nations will undergo a $1.9billion renovation. The scope of the Capital Master Plan (CMP) covers over 2.5million square feet on more than 17 acres. Plans include replacing or refurbishing deteriorated equipment and systems, creating more redundancy, improving security and energy efficiency, removing hazardous materials, and achieving code compliance for all the buildings in the complex. Priorities include a temporary 10,000-square-foot conference building, and for the existing buildings, the installation of new curtain walls, a full sprinkler system, new mechanical and electrical systems, asbestos abatement, and landscaping.

In addition, a number of sustainability measures will be implemented. With these improvements, the U.N. is aiming to bring the headquarters — composed of the Secretariat building, General Assembly hall, Conference building, basement and garage, Dag Hammarskjöld Library, and South Annex — to a level comparable to a LEED Silver rating. Several design teams are on the project, including Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture & Engineering, Helpern Architects, HLW, R.A. Heintges & Associates, and Syska Hennessy Group.

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Art Deco Jewel Gets 21st Century Uplift

Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners is planning a comprehensive restoration and revitalization of the Shreve, Lamb and Harmon-designed Art Deco lobby in the Empire State Building, a designated NYC landmark (and #1 on the AIA list of America’s Favorite Architecture). A number of historic features and distinctive architectural details, which have been obscured by alterations over time, will be restored or recreated while allowances for better operations as a modern office building will be made. Included in the plans waiting for Landmarks approval is the restoration of the lobby’s historic ceiling mural depicting a celestial sky rendered in gold and silver leaf, an element that was fully covered by a hung ceiling with fluorescent lighting in the 1960s.

Also planned is the replacement of the long lost, original incandescent uplight fixtures with modern, energy-efficient fixtures supplemented with carefully located downlights. Beyer Blinder Belle will also address important planning and design issues throughout the lobby’s street entrances, corridors, retail spaces, and elevator bank areas, including a fully equipped tenant visitor desk and improved pedestrian circulation while maintaining security, improving signage, and making optimal use of currently under-utilized areas.

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Look No Further Than Chelsea’s “Vision Machine”

A 23-story tower, designed by Ateliers Jean Nouvel with Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, to be known as 100 11th, will feature a highly engineered and technologically advanced curtain wall. Each pane will be set at a unique angle and torque, giving each apartment its won configuration of glass. Across the street from Gehry Partners’ IAC/InterActive Corpration office building, the residence will feature 72 one-, two- and three-bedroom residences ranging from $1.6million to $22million. The building will be ready for occupancy late fall 2008.

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A Permanent Dinner Party in Brooklyn

The centerpiece of the new Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, designed by Susan T. Rodriguez, FAIA, design partner at Polshek Partnership Architects, is Judy Chicago’s iconic installation The Dinner Party (1974-1979), a triangular banquet with 39 place settings for important historical women (from Susan B. Anthony and Virginia Woolf to Eleanor of Aquitaine). The spatial arrangement of the Sackler Center allows visitors to progress through its concentric layers from public to private. Beginning with a linear gallery space featuring The Banners, a series of seven Aubusson tapestries, The Dinner Party is accessed though an aperture at the apex. Upon exiting the central gallery, viewers enter a gallery space that includes The Heritage Panels, which summarize the research done by the artist and her team on the lives and accomplishments of the dinner guests.

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Historic Waterfront Contributes to New Urbanist Future

The Jersey City Planning Commission has approved Meltzer/Mandl Architects’ design for a six-story, 108-unit market rate condo building in a “New Urbanist” community sited within the Jersey City historic waterfront district. The 200-foot-wide building will be distinguished by a curved façade composed of aluminum composite panels, called Alucobond, set against granite façades at the property line. This project is part of the second phase of Liberty Harbor, billed as a city-within-a-city with 7,000-10,000 condo residences, 150,000 square feet of retail space, public parks, and recreation centers. When completed, development will feature the work of 10 notable NY-area architectural firms.

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Pratt Institute Provides Modular Homes for Artists

Garrison Architects, along with Marble Fairbanks, Obra Architects, Narofsky Architecture, Peter L. Gluck & Partners, Architects have been invited to design a new modular residence for graduate art students on the Pratt Institute campus. Faced with the challenge of maximizing units within a relatively small space and abiding by strict zoning guidelines, Garrison’s concept blends living, exhibition, and performance spaces under one (green) roof. A vertical atrium cuts through the center of the building and tectonic shifts in the modular building create a network of porches and walkways within the atrium, encouraging collaboration and exchange among students.

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Friends Seminary Renovates and Expands
The first phase of an ongoing multi-million dollar comprehensive multi-phase renovation and expansion of Friends Seminary School, a 220-year-old Quaker school overlooking Stuyvesant Park on East 16th Street is almost complete. The renovation, designed by Helfand Architects, encompasses approximately 27,000 square feet. Upon completion later this spring, the school will have a consolidated library, five new classrooms, a science lab, new bathrooms, and a vertical circulation core, making it easier for students and staff to navigate through the different properties. The project management firm Levien & Company is representing the owner and will continue to remain project consultant for additional projects slated for the summer.

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Chic Hotel Has Designer Views to Match

The Z Hotel, a new hotel in Long Island City located across from Manhattan’s 59th Street, offers each room a view of the Chrysler, Empire State, and Citicorp Buildings from guest room accommodations — including the bathrooms, where the skyline is framed in a single pane of glass. The 12-story building, designed by Andre Kikoski Architect, is clad in a window wall that also reflects the cityscape; LED’s illuminate the façade, replicating the energy of the city. The hotel’s public spaces have been designed to attract the neighborhood’s clientele (Silvercup Studios for one and Silvercup West on the boards, for another) with a below-grade restaurant and lounge with 25-foot-tall ceilings, and a rooftop bar with a 260-degree view that will be open in the summertime.