Well, we never make promises around here for always keeping things sunshine and rainbows, so here's another downer of a post. Architectural Record has just put up information on a just released AIA report saying that, along with the art market, the architecture world is also getting hit really hard; some are saying the billings are down to a low point at the same extent as financial crises from previous decades, if not well beyond. Here's a bit:

The Architectural Billings Index (ABI), a key measure of the market for architectural services compiled by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), opened the year with a three-month skid, ending the first quarter at the lowest point in its 13-year history. March's anemic ABI score of 39.7 -- a number over 50 indicates an increase in billing activity and below 50, a decrease -- marks a 15-point drop from December's 55.

While some firms are still reporting high volumes of work, even the most optimistic are girding for hard times. The ABI is a reliable predictor of construction activity nine months to one year out, suggesting that the remainder of 2008 and early 2009 will see comparatively little building, according to AIA analysts.

So we're guessing all of this means that you should enjoy your new building openings now, while you still have the time, because you might be in for a very long dry spell.

Hey Copenhagen, get ready to be deluged by rumpled sportswear, elk logos, and scantily-clad youth photographed on beaches by Bruce Weber, because Abercrombie & Fitch is coming to your town! Following last year's opening of a London store, the New Albany, Ohio-based company will open its second European flagship next year in Denmark's capital, Abercrombie & Fitch announced today. After Copenhagen, its on to Asia, where a store in Tokyo's Ginza district is set open late next year. Locations in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden are in the works.

Located at Kobmagergade 11, the 16,000-square-foot Copenhagen flagship location was "designed in the old neoclassical style typically found in Danish architecture when constructed in 1910," the company noted today in a press release. To mastermind the restoration and store design, Abercrombie has hired Selldorf Architects and its principal Annabelle Selldorf. Selldorf designed the company's massive New York City and Los Angeles flagships, although the crowd that lines up every morning outside the Fifth Avenue store and the pumping bass that greets them at 10am sharp always seems to us at odds with Selldorf's sleek modernity.

Now that New York City exists in a post-Patricia Lancaster world, anyone even remotely involved with building, construction, and architecture, are going back and looking over their facts and figures, making sure everything's up to code. After a string of highly unfortunate incidents, including accidents that involved deaths, like the collapsing crane in March, Lancaster, the Building Commissioner for the city, decided to step down just two weeks ago and now the city is doing everything it can to make sure all is up to snuff so, for at least a little while, things appear to be running smoothly and safely again. But hey, it's big city government. So we'll see how long that lasts. Here's one of the particularly interesting bits, proving that things will always be shaky:

For the Bloomberg administration, Lancaster's departure is a chance to lift the city's requirement that building commissioners be licensed architects or engineers—a tactic intended to improve operations. "The rationale is to attract people from a broad spectrum of backgrounds, who have the necessary management skills, to oversee an agency with this number of employees and a large budget," explains John Gallagher, a Bloomberg spokesman. But James McCullar, AIA New York chapter president, thinks the mayor's plan could exacerbate the DOB's troubles. "The commissioner needs to be someone with the hands-on experience to understand what the problems are that we encounter in construction," he says.

Back in February, James S. Russell was talking about how boring and repetitive Renzo Piano's work had become and how it was likely to be more of the same later in the year when his plans for the Whitney Museum's expansion were revealed. Now that said plans have been released, we have no idea what Russell thinks of them, but we think it all looks pretty cool (though we're sure it's "too Piano" for some). And really, when you have someone of his stature working on a project as large as this, you have to starch your shirts pretty tightly to not at least want to check it out and be impressed at least a little. Here's from the Whitney's press on the unveiling:

Mr. Piano's design takes a strong and strikingly asymmetrical form - one that responds to the industrial character of the neighboring loft buildings and railway while asserting a contemporary, sculptural presence. The upper stories of the building will spread freely beyond the base, stretching toward the Hudson River on the west side and stepping back gracefully from the elevated park of the High Line on the east side.

"The first big gesture of the design is its cantilevered entrance, which transforms the area outside the building into a large, sheltered public space," said Mr. Piano. "In this way, beneath the second-story level of the High Line park, the Whitney adds a street-level gathering place of its own. From this public space, visitors will be able to see through the building entrance and a series of large windows on the west side of the building to the Hudson River and beyond. This is one of several ways in which we respond to this remarkable site, drawing on its vitality and trying to enhance it at the same time."

Almost a year to the day, Greensburg, Kans. is coming back greener after being virtually wiped out by a tornado that killed 11 people on May 4, 2007. The terrible twister flattened turn-of-the-century brick buildings, stately Victorians, and prairie-style homes.

Now that a water tower and a traffic light have been restored, neighborhoods are coming back to life. Town officials are encouraging returning businesses to install energy-saving lights and rainwater collection systems. ''It will be a stronger, better, greener community,'' said Erica Goodman, a newly elected city councilwoman. "I think the green initiative is really what will set Greensburg apart from every other rural community in the United States."

Forty residences have been constructed to environmentally-friendly specs. They have additional insulation, double-pane windows, and high-efficiency compact-fluorescent lights, according to an Associated Press article. Some structures have larger, south-facing windows to use sunlight for heating and illumination. Returning homeowners are recycling lumber and bricks salvaged from the tornado. A local farm equipment dealership is building a wind turbine to take advantage of the area's high winds. More are being planned.

Now this writer only hopes the new structures can withstand any future twisters sent Greenburg's way. By the way, Steve Delahoyde will be returning to this space beginning Monday.

New York, California, and even Illinois aren't the only places where you can find stunning examples of Mid-Century Modernism. Try the Hoosier state, Indiana, for example. Since it is Historic Preservation Month, the National Bank of Indianapolis and Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana are sponsoring a tour of five Modernist homes by the state's progressive, 20th-Century architects. These private residences date from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, featuring period furnishings and retro home decor. The cost is $12 in advance and $15 day-of-tour. Historic Landmarks Foundation members pay $10 in advance and on the tour day. Contact Mark Dollase of the Historic Landmarks Foundation (mdollase@historiclandmarks.org) for more information. (The home pictured above was designed by Evans Woollen in 1958; it is part of the tour.)

New development has the caught the ire of preservationists and architects intent on keeping the original, modern look of Palm Springs, Calif., according to the latest issue of Preservation Magazine. One of those architects is Donald Wexler, 82, and
Elizabeth Edwards Harris owner of the famed Kaufmann house in Palm Springs.
"Our cultural identity is tied to some of these places," says Harris, also vice president of the board of trustees of the California Preservation Foundation and owner of the Kaufmann House. "You can only go so far before you diminish your visual identity to the point where people say Palm Springs isn't modernist anymore."
Harris and Edwards are fighting a high-rise that would obscure a downtown landmark. Developer John Wessman says new construction is necessary to bring new economic growth to the city.

No, they should wear jeans. Expensive ones. At least that's the thinking of denim brand Seven for All Mankind, which recently shot its fall advertising campaign at Philip Johnson's iconic Glass House, set on a 47-acre New Canaan estate that is now a National Trust Historic Site (and has a spiffy identity designed by Pentagram). According to WWD, Seven is the first company or brand to use the Glass House as an advertising backdrop.

Acquired by apparel giant VF Corp. last year for $775 million, Seven is now trying to expand beyond denim into sportswear, accessories, and licensed products. And when we think of sportwear and accessories, we think, of course, of Philip Johnson! Managed by creative director Alex Sum, Seven's fall ad campaign at the Glass House was photographed by Patrick Demarchelier and features models Doutzen Kroes and Gabriel Chytry. When asked about the unique shoot location, Demarchelier told WWD, "It's fantastic, it's amazing."

This photo (at left) was taken at last week's San Francisco festivities for the 73rd issue of Colors, the quarterly magazine established in 1991 under the editorship of Tibor Kalman and today part of Fabrica, Benetton's communication research center based in Treviso, Italy. See those two nametagged fellows standing between Academy of Art University graphic design professors Mary Scott and Phil Hamlett? They are Colors editorial director Enrico Bossan and creative director Erik Ravelo, and if they look suspiciously ebullient and curiously jetlagless, we think we know why. They spend their days dreaming up new ideas for Colors (which now encompasses music, books, documentaries, and exhibitions) here:

That's the Fabrica headquarters, an architectural complex restored and enlarged by Tadao Ando, and the editorial offices of Colors are nestled inside it. Benetton's goal was to create a research center for (primarily visual) communications that would have the spirit of a Renaissance workshop or fabrica, and work on the complex, a 17th-century villa near Venice, was completed in 2000. We could go on about the villa's renovated annexes (now housing a warren of workshops and an auditorium), the juxtaposition of antique tiles and wooden floors with stark reinforced concrete, the series of circular columns that reflect in pools of water, but we don't want to make you too feel too bad about your own office. For the masochists among you, we've got three more photos after the jump.

continued...

What do you get when you mix Prada, architect Rem Koolhaas, an industrial site just south of Milan, and some 500 works of contemporary art? The answer was revealed last week at the Milan Furniture Fair, where Prada showcased plans for the new art center and exhibition space for the Prada Foundation. Founded in 1993 by designer Miuccia Prada and her husband, Patrizio Bertelli, the foundation has established itself as a powerful force in the art world, sponsoring projects and exhibitions by the likes of Louise Bourgeois, Dan Flavin, Sam Taylor-Wood, and Francesco Vezzoli.

Prada and Bertelli commissioned the Koolhaas-led Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), longtime Prada collaborators, to transform an early 20th-century distillery south of Milan into the foundation's sprawling new home. The 81,000-square-foot complex will be expanded with 108,000 square feet of new buildings. "We plan to add three new structures that vastly extend the range of its facilities and accomodations," notes Koolhaas. The OMA team dubs the planned additions "tower" (an exhibition space), "box" (an auditorium), and "ideal museum," which "combines the intimate qualities of a traditional museum -- a collection of rooms of various dimensions and qualities -- with a large open daylit hall for exhibitions of larger objects."

continued...