architecture

Way back when in 2007, we were one of the first outlets to tell you that Robert A.M. Stern had been hired to design the George W. Bush Presidential Center, then again earlier this year about its sudden increase in size and Laura Bush finding a landscape architect for the project (who, while we're mentioning Michael Van Valkenburg, was also just hired to work on Chicago's Grant Park). But other than those little bits and pieces, there hasn't been much news coming out of Southern Methodist University, where the center will be built. But now you can expect a lot more talk in the coming years, as this week Mrs. Bush revealed the plans for the new building and its surroundings. Personally, our review of Stern's work is that, well, it's fine. Perfectly pleasant, but likely nothing that future generations will be studying or getting excited about. That seems to be the consensus among most professional critics too. Christopher Hawthorne starts his review "George W. Bush was a lightning rod of a politician. His presidential library is meant to be anything but" and seems to keep to that theme throughout. Here in Chicago, Blair Kamin reports mostly on the news of the release, but does offer some small bits of evaluation, saying that the plans are slightly less than traditional, but "they are by no means as boldly modern as the bridge-inspired William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum in Little Rock, Ark." We're not anxiously awaiting its completion, like we are with some projects, but we'll hold off on any complete judgment until the building is finished, which is currently projected to be around 2013.

We pick you up and then drop you back down. Sorry, but that's just how we roll around here. As positive as that last post was about the Billings Index rise, that doesn't necessarily mean much to a project that's getting shut down. So it is for UC Berkley, who wanted to build a swanky new building for the Berkley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive, designed by Toyo Ito and "estimated to cost $143 million" according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Unfortunately, as plans had moved forward since its original conception more than three years ago, it was decided that they just hadn't raised enough money for it and the whole thing would have to be shut down. However, while that building itself might now be just a memory, the university hasn't given up entirely and hopes to at least do something new (albeit on a tighter budget):

"The creation of a new home for the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in downtown Berkeley continues to be a crucial step in UC Berkeley's longstanding commitment to the visual arts and to engagement with our broader community," said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. "While the architectural plans will change, what will not change is our shared goal of building a dynamic, welcoming, and seismically safe new museum at the corner of Center and Oxford streets."

Have we survived? Have we really put these dark days behind us and come out alive? So it might seem when you hear the news that the AIA's Architecture Billing Index is finally back to the levels it was at in August of 2008, right before the world fell apart. Granted, it's only three points higher than it was back in late-August of this year, and at 46.1 it's still below 50, indicating that there are still more building jobs finishing than starting, but it's still a positive sign. Though certainly no one wants to make the mistake of thinking things are good before they rapidly plunge again, like what surprised everyone with back in July. Here's a bit from the AIA's always-leery-to-predict-anything Kermit Baker:

The increase in billings could be "an early signal towards a recovery for the design and construction industry," said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker.

"On the other hand, because we continue to get reports of architecture firms struggling in a competitive marketplace with a continued decline in commercial property values, it is far too early to think we are out of the woods."

Does this all mean, short of just a couple months, that Marvin Malecha was right all along with his predictions late last year? After occasionally poking fun at his more happy vision for the future, this writer feels a little dumb in doubting him. But it's hard to see any sunshine through a full year of gloom, Marvin. Please understand! Apologies to people we don't know personally aside, if you want to read more about this latest uptick, the LA Times has some additional conversation with Baker about things maybe getting better.

The Burj Dubai might not be ready to open until next year, but that doesn't mean that there's no one inside already. Or up top. And armed with a video camera. The clip below has been steadily making the rounds this week, showing the vantage point from the very top of the world's tallest building. If you don't like heights, you're likely not going to like this (we only made it about a minute in), so be warned.

As an added bonus, and if that weren't enough to terrify you of tall things, here's a clip we found of the first base-jump off the building. What's wrong with you people, being up so high?

Not to brag, but we have it all figured out now. Remember how you, like us, thought it was curious when you learned that the epicenter of stadium design is Kansas [or Missouri, see below]? You have Populous there, which is clearly the biggest player in the game (metaphor!), but there's also Ellerbe Beckett, who grabbed the Atlantic Yards ball from Frank Gehry and is now running it to the end zone (another metaphor!). But how exactly did the city wind up with control of the stadium-building universe? We don't want to go too far with this, but it's clearly a statewide brainwashing experiment, either purported by the government or some Bilderberg-esque group, with Earl Santee pulling the strings. You ask for an evidence? We have your evidence right here. In this story about Kansas State University's quarterback, a young man named Grant Gregory, the focus is on how he knows every possible thing there is to know about every single stadium in America. His teammates call him "Rain Main" because he can rattle off tons of information about any stadium you can think of to quiz him on. Clearly this has been done before, with these minions weeding their way into the upper echelons of professional sports, putting the state's name out there wherever possible, creating this Kansas-based monopoly on stadium contracts. And now with Gregory, we're guessing he's their latest model, who they'll push to get into the pros, then a lengthy television commentator position, then finally, accepted as the NFL's commissioner. From there, we will all be helpless in the face of this total, overwhelming domination! Either that or it's just kind of an interesting story about how much this guy knows about football stadiums.

Update: A reader points out in the comments "Populous is in Kansas City, MISSOURI, among other places. I imagine that's where Ellerbe Beckett has an office, too." This either completely debunks the conspiracy theory, alters it slightly so that it also includes any state with a "Kansas"-named town, or proves that we've touched a nerve and this conspiracy's agents are trying to stop the truth from getting out.

Adrian Smith's Burj Dubai tower might be the tallest building in the world, but what use is the title if no one can even enter it? A while back, we'd heard that the Burj was set to open in September. Then that was moved back to early December. And now the latest update puts its opening on January 4th, delayed to help mark the anniversary of Dubai's ruler's appointment as head of the emirate. Given their track record, we're not going to hold our breath. In other Dubai news, despite what has seemed like a total collapse of their economy, with construction stopping and developers fleeing and the aforementioned ruler of the emirate calling for massive investigations into bounced checks, Dubai has announced that they will begin discussing putting in a bid for the 2020 Olympics. Seems like maybe not the wisest move, considering all the troubles they've had over this past year and a half, but they certainly do have ample lodging available and what we hear are lovely beaches and other bits of scenic, so who knows?

It's hopefully an established fact by now that when you want a Mies van der Rohe fix, you head straight to all around good guy, Edward Lifson. We've certainly posted our fair share of links to his writing about the brilliant architect, and have always enjoyed running into him around town and hearing what new things he has to say about van der Rohe's work. So again we make the leap over to Hello Beautiful for this recent look at all the finished restoration to 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, one of the architect's most beautiful high rises. We drive by the two towers nearly every morning on our way into the office and had seen the construction for what seems like years, but now it's apparently all done and ready to be fawned over, which Lifson does in spades, sharing not only some great photos of the newly improved structures, but a rundown of what was fixed as well. Here's a sampling:

All the stainless steel around the lower eight feet of the building was replaced. Much of the rest of the stainless steel was spot repaired and polished. Doors on the south elevation of 880 that had been moved to the center were restored to their original positions.

We also wanted to post this so we could remind you of what we called back in August, "The End All-Be-All of Architecture Critics Panels." The Chicago Architecture Foundation has their program A Conversation with the Critics: Imagining the Future of the City tomorrow night at 6pm. It looks like Jonathan Glancey won't be there, as was first announced, but he's been replaced by the LA Times' Christopher Hawthorne, so that isn't a bad trade at all. Plus, you'll still get to see Paul Goldberger, Blair Kamin, and Sarah Williams Goldhagen. And to pull this all together, full circle, it's hosted by Lifson. We'll be there and we've heard there are tickets still available, so what are you waiting for?!

Leaving school but staying in the same place, we turn to this great story in New York about David Burney, an architect many people might not know, but whose work is helping transform New York one small project at a time. Burney is the commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction, and in his past half-decade on the job, he's been actively trying to update and modernize (in a design sense) many of the new building projects the city decides to push through. With new procedures like altering the hunt for architects so that the best plans are chosen, not who can do it the cheapest, and convincing firms that building for the city isn't always a painful, fruitless endeavor. And it appears, at least through the lens of this piece, that he's finding success (the included slideshow of new buildings he's been involved with are beautiful, modern, and don't read at all as "government designed"). It's a great read, particularly if you've never heard of Burney and had wondered how it happens with the city (any city really) decides to build something not horrible to look at.

Beautiful as our architecture is here in Chicago, a lot of it wasn't built with the green, LEED-happy practices we use today. Fortunately, there's been movement toward revising some of those negatives, as Julie Wernau reports in her piece about architect Sara Beardsley's efforts to turn the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) totally green. The project, which would make the US's tallest building energy efficient, is through local super firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture and is expected to run somewhere between $200 to $300 million, doing things like replacing all of its windows and adding all sorts of green rooftop additions some hundred stories above the ground. It's an ambitious project, to be sure, and hasn't picked up full steam yet, with plans for funding this massive endeavor still in the works, but here's to hoping it all works out and inspires other older buildings to do the same. Here are some of the details on the changes:

In design plans, the "green roof" project would be expanded to the building's multiple roofs, along with wind turbines and solar panels. But those rooftops would be more symbolic than anything else. The real energy savings will be culled from the 16,000 windows that will be replaced and from lighting automation and reduction.

The window project is estimated to be enough to cut heating needs by 50 percent and allow for new, smaller mechanical systems with a significantly lower environmental impact. A plumbing upgrade is expected to reduce water usage by 24 million gallons a year.

Despite the hopefully-misguided beliefs of apparently a lot of people in China that starchitect Rem Koolhaas wants nothing more than to mock them with his buildings' designs, there's some positive news coming from the neighbor to his "controversial" CCTV Tower, the badly charred Mandarin Oriental hotel he also designed. It was one of the big architecture tragedies at the start of this year, when an errant firework found its way inside the building, setting it totally ablaze almost instantly, taking with it a firefighter's life and nearly $800 million poured into the about-to-open project (here's our report on personally seeing the damage up close back in May). But now Koolhaas' firm, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, has been back to the scene and have announced that despite its utterly-apocalyptic appearance, the building still seems structurally sound and that the damage might all be fixable. OMA hasn't said that they will for sure be working to rebuild, plans to move forward do seem likely, and that means that maybe the worst option has been diverted, that the Mandarin would have to be demolished completely.

"The preliminary findings are that the building can be repaired," said architect Ole Scheeren, the building project's leader. "It's still intact and safe. There will mainly be a repair effort, but not a complete rebuilding."