Celebrity Really Can Get You Anything

For years now I’ve heard of Brad Pitt’s interest in architecture and his friendship with Frank Gehry but I’ve always just dismissed it as a celebrity’s passing fancy. Well, I guess I was wrong. The Guardian reports that the unlikely pair will be collaborating on a restaurant and penthouse in Britain. Besides [...]

"Ah, it’s the fucking enemy."

BD has some kind words for Alsops newest - the Queen Mary Medical School Building in Whitechapel - but the architect doesn’t exactly return the favor.

Alsop has found a subject that generates the sense of awe and puzzlement that many feel about his architecture. Art and science: for Alsop it could be a happy [...]

Whitney Plan B wins Approval

I actually like it better. The new entrance is more graceful and it reads as a clear part of the city fabric. I agree with Piano’s rationalization quote:
“In some ways it will be even more surprising, what you see after the compression - to have a kind of expansion.”
Although when you look at the plans, [...]

Chabon’s lost architect’s tale

Apparently, one of my favorite writers, Michael Chabon - author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - had at one point intended to write a book about an architect (among other things)
From today’s Writer’s Almanac:

He started working on his second novel. He had seen a picture of [...]

Whitney readies plan B

Today is the Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing for the new Whitney Museum of American Art expansion. The expansion, designed by Renzo Piano, involves the controversial demolition of a two neighboring brownstones - one marked as a “contributing” building, the structure is “considered to have artistic, cultural or historic value in a designated historic district.” Fearing [...]

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