mcart denver opens to commoners

[ photo by mark leffingwell]

"black milk; leed gold; recycled monopan; no corridors; idea box; no front door?"-- all after the jump[s]


article at archrecord.com

also at daily camera

and at rocky mountain news 1 & 2

and ucd advocate

hasta luego

gone for a week...don't do anything I would do...

nerman museum

with not as much fanfare as what came with the nelson-atkins, but still a worthy update on mid west culture...

from the kc star, the nerman museum of contemporary art will soon open its doors to the public [Oct. 27th]. located on the jccc campus and designed by architect Kyu Sung Woo from cambridge, it is basically an austere limestone box [the material was harvested from a nearby bluff] which floats quietly above the landscape. see for yourself... [all images from nmoca website]

the architect proves you can create a "beacon" without it being overly iconic, and the museum proves how to get an extension built without having $1000 per ticket parties.

also take a virtual tour.

mcart denver opening

passing on from an email i received earlier this week:

Museum of Contemporary Art Denver -- Inaugural Gala and Exhibition. MCA’s exclusive Inaugural Gala of the new facility designed by David Adjaye, on Friday, October 26, will be the party of 2007! This gala includes a gourmet dinner, fantastic atmosphere and hip entertainment.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s inaugural exhibition opens to the public on October 28. It is entitled Star Power: Museum as Body Electric, and is curated by Cydney Payton, MCA Denver’s Executive Director and Chief Curator. It features seven emerging and established artists including: Carlos Amorales (Mexico), David Altmejd (Canada), Candice Breitz (South Africa), Rangi Kipa (New Zealand), Wangechi Mutu (Kenya), Chris Ofili (UK/Trinidad & Tobago) and Collier Schorr (United States).

Sunday, October 28, 10:00 am –10:00 pm, is the official, free admission, public opening of the MCA’s new facilities and includes a series of activity opportunities to engage and become part of cutting edge contemporary art! Visit http://www.mcartdenver.org/.

as well as the flyer on the mcart's website:

MCA’s exclusive Inaugural Gala will be the party of the year. Come join us on Friday, October 26, 2007 from 6-11pm as we celebrate the opening of our new David Adjaye designed building.

MCA's Inaugural Gala will include a gourmet sit-down dinner for 800 MCA members and friends. In addition to fantastic atmosphere and cuisine. The evening will include entertainment from hip musical acts including Brightblack Morning Light, a guest DJ and a celebrity host.

“MCA always has the best parties.” - Overheard.

Individual tickets are $1,000. Individual tables are $10,000 and corporate tables are $15,000.

peter gluck:..."i don't belong to the AIA..."

“I think they’re the problem, not the solution. It’s a group of people who get together to promote themselves; they’re not interested in really looking at the profession and trying to see where its problems are.”

pete just said what 90% of the profession was thinking...

metropolis magazine delivers another fine article on the practice of peter l. gluck & partners, based in nyc.

ajax housing; aspen, co [metropolis]

gluck has a section to rant about everything from archi-babble to young architects lack of building knowledge and the fallacies of academia. but the biggest chunk of the piece focuses on an affordable housing complex located in aspen. colorado dubbed the Little Ajax Affordable Housing. if you're thinking that these are spectacular for affordable housing, that's because they are. affordable housing in aspen is just barely under market price housing in downtown denver. [see previous post].

ajax housing; aspen, co [metropolis]

ajax housing; aspen, co [metropolis]

one of coolest parts of the building process was reducing the bid of the corrugated metal package by $60K, all with just a little ingenuity of creating a custom-made saw for cutting sharp angles. the project was opposed by almost all the neighbors, which caused the project to barely break even once completed after six years. other time and dollar saving factors became apparent when drawings were sent out for bid to subcontractors. only drawings relevant to each trade were distributed amongst the subs. small portions of the project, but eventually adding up to a more efficient process. this kind of lacking adapatability and exposure to real world problems seems to be gluck's major issue witht the architectural profession:

“One of the biggest problems is that architects spend so many years in such a refined, isolated world—one school environment after another,” he says. “They never really get out into the real world.”

and railing again on education:

"...The poor state of architectural education also explains why after paying more than $100,000 for a degree, graduates are forced to apprentice for three years while other people sign off on their work, and are finally charged another $2,000 to get a license that a professional degree should prepare them for in the first place. “That’s the kind of shit the AIA would do,” he says. “The profession is already built on the backs of young architects—if they were really concerned, the last thing they would do would be to punish young people coming into the field.”

gluck not only loves adding more social projects to his list, but still keeps an impressive roster of private projects on the resume. one in particular is a small library for his wife:

"scholar's library"; olive bridge, ny [metropolis]

and the "bar house"[clad entirely in certified IPE]:

bar house; aspen, co [metropolis]

keep on it pete. we luv ya.

link from architechnophilia

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two zumthor projects

from domus magazine online, the klaus bruder field chapel:

A Saint and an Architect

The votive chapel dedicated to Saint Niklaus von Flüe rises from the flat farmland of the Eifel region in western Germany. [from domus]

Two Swiss (a saint called Bruder Klaus and the architect Peter Zumthor) and a German farmer (the project’s commissioner) converge in the construction of a universal piece of architecture for meditation. Design by Peter Zumthor. Text by Stefano Casciani. Photos by Pietro Savorelli. Peter Zumthor is sitting at 550 metres above sea level in the quiet of his stube (the most beautiful one I’ve even seen) as rain pours down on Haldenstein towards the end of June. There is no truth to the legend of him living the life of a stylite on top of a Swiss peak as he emits sensual oracles of stone and cement that define the condition of architecture. Between his office and his home/office, he smiles, listens, plays music and receives friends. He is preparing for projects and buildings that are bigger (if not more important) than the concentrated, distilled pieces of textural architecture he has produced over the extended amounts of time it takes for work to become art.

A plan sketch by Zumthor [from domus]

Entrance [from domus]

The excuse for our meeting is the votive chapel dedicated to Saint Niklaus von Flüe (better known as Bruder Klaus) that he recently finished in Mechernich, Germany. The building is an ex-voto project commissioned by a farmer who is still alive many years after being diagnosed with heart disease. Marcel Duchamp said that plumbing is the only difference between sculpture and architecture, and in this tower/chapel plumbing is just about absent. The top of the tower is open, so it rains inside. After collecting on the floor a bit, the water slowly, naturally flows away – another reason to call it a sculpture. A very large sculpture that you can enter to pray or simply meditate on your existence, or on that of Bruder Klaus – aka Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of Switzerland. He was a peasant and a soldier who fought as an officer in the victorious wars of the Confederates against the counts of Habsburg around 600 years ago. He got married and had ten children, only to be persuaded by a priest named Heimo am Grund (which in German and Schwiizerduutsch refers to “home” and “ground”) to go into solitary retreat. After requesting and obtaining permission from his wife Dorotea, Bruder Klaus went off to live, and die, in a ravine, in a crevasse. The only Swiss crevasse I remember seeing is the Viamala Schlucht. Touristy perhaps, but in addition to its terrifying name it inspires fear for the fact that the bottom cannot be seen from above. It scares you to death, like the unknown, like what is to come but has not yet been revealed. Yet Zumthor did not think of these things in this project.



The 112 tree trunks that were used for the wigwam-like structure were taken from a wood belonging to the client. The trunks were then positioned in a cone shape, leaving an oculus at the top. Concrete was poured onto the wooden structure at the rate of one level per day, making 24 layers for a total height of 12 metres. At the end, the wood formwork was burnt out. [from domus]

Rain falls inside the Chapel through the opening in the roof and collects in a sunken basin. [from domus]

“After we built the Chapel, a few Swiss people came to me and said, ‘Of course this dark emptiness with only a few strips of light comes from the fact that Bruder Klaus’s life ended in a cell dug into the rock!’ And I said, ‘No, that’s not the reason.’ And they said, ‘Oh, well then it’s like a tower in reference to Bruder Klaus’s career as a soldier!’ And I said, ‘No, that’s not why, I wasn’t thinking of that.’ Rather I was thinking that it would be important for the Chapel to rise up vertically in order to stand out from afar against the open, level fields with their few undulations. It needed to mark out its territory.” “And what about this circular plan inside, and the cusp-shaped exterior? Doesn’t that have to do with the wheel of Saint Nicholas, the symbol he meditated upon daily?” “No, it’s not related to that”.

Ground floor plan [from domus]

Zumthor smiles. Of course it happens that an author writes, paints or builds things that he doesn’t know about, hasn’t seen or heard of, but that are still worth one, three or ten different interpretations. But not because he spent days and weeks studying symbols and symbolism. It makes it better, more interesting, unless you’re not prepared to believe in premonitions, visions, and the poet as a prophet. The only vision that Zumthor believes in is that of architecture. The only language his buildings speak is that of their construction and materials. The hours of the day and the sleepless nights of Bruder Klaus have nothing to do with the 24 visible layers of cement that were applied and compressed by hand on top of a structure made of branches and treetrunks that would later be burnt, leaving its dark mark and intense odour of charcoal inside forever. The layers of cement are 24 because that’s the number of days it took the commissioner and his helpers to make them.

Cross Section [from domus]

Long Section [from domus]

And then: what “expert” would not see Gaudí in this rugged vertical appearance, in the convergence of its walls way up high, in the small marks of light in its cement? Yet Zumthor is no mystic, he’s not like his Catalan colleague who some would like to see canonised, he’s not like Bruder Klaus. He laughs when I ask if it bothers him that people consider him to be a mystic. “Those are just things they’d like to write in the press.” Even so, he did not want to be paid for this project. Even so, his Kolumba Museum in Cologne is about to be inaugurated: a cement castle for contemporary art built on top of religious ruins. Even so, Norman Foster wants him to build the church for the Santa Giulia development outside Milan. Zumthor smiles. He, the layman saint of absolute architecture.

Also-a photo essay by Ellis Woodman at Building Design Online on Zumthor's Kolumba museum in Cologne, Germany:

... "A secret garden, stone ruins, a uniquely dense archaeological site: the ruins of the gothic church in the centre of rebuilt Cologne are the most impressive symbol of the city’s almost complete destruction during the Second World War. In 1949 the chapel of “Madonna in the Ruins” was created within the church ruins by the architect Gottfried Böhm as a near improvised shelter for a gothic Mary figure that had remained unscathed. »Kolumba« is intended to be a place for reflection. The occasion is the new building for the Cologne Diocese Museum, which was established in 1853 and which features an extraordinary collection spanning from early Christianity to contemporary art. A museum as a garden continually bringing a few alternately selected works of art to bloom. The guiding thread of the collection is the quest for overarching order, measure, proportion and beauty which connects all creative work. This quest is the precious material for an aesthetic laboratory which studies the anthropological connections lying beyond mere chronology. Kolumba allows visitors to immerse themselves in the presence of their memories and offers them their own experiences on their way.

“Fold, weld, bolt, screw: fuck you, it’s not that hard.”

phillip nobel writes about one of his favorite [and ours as well] nyc architecture firm:

SHoP architects

METROPOLIS magazine holds the link.

SHoP architects is five architects that graduated out of the tumultuous digital transition at columbia's. their first project to get notice was the "dunescape" at moma ps1 in the summer of 2000. built from individual stick frame construction, the a different sectional quality every 4 inches, the sweeping wave-like canopy and sitting platform [with pool!] elevates a practical approach to "blob-itecture":

with the design and build-it excitement aside, Pasquarelli relishes even more in the numbers game that increased visitors and revenue for the museum:

"...6,000 more visitors ...on a $50,000 budget with a $10,000 fee; he estimates that the popular design, with its secret rooms...brought in an additional $500,000 to $1 million for the institution that summer."

wow. these guys clearly know the other side of the profession as well, and are highly involved with the financing portion of some projects. laterin the article, the firm's penchant for development is revealed further detail...

the next project that thrusted SHoP into the limelight was the parasitic looking "porter house". a mixed-use condominium addition to an historic structure located in the meatpacking district of manhattan. the addition's faces are black modular zinc panels assembled in a semi-random pattern with intermittent flourescent tube lighting behind transluscent white panels. each panel was manufactured straight from the architects' drawings, allowing for a quick and easy construction. and as a punchy quip to all contractors, our favorite quote from the article says it all:

"[Gregg] Pasquarelli described the process: “Fold, weld, bolt, screw: fuck you, it’s not that hard.” The contractors reportedly loved it—no measuring, no cutting."

by the way, if you ever find yourself walking through the meatpacking district at 3am, and see this building, there's a tasty trendy [and slightly expensive] slider and shake joint in the retail space below it.

speaking of-hasn't someone written a thesis on the relationship between architecture and good cuisine yet?
special thanks to epicure of epicures for the heads up on the article.

jackson.wy

sorry for the lack of posts lately. life has been crazy, work has been busy, but all in all delicious. so here's some photos of jackson ['s hole], wyoming during our labor day travels.

[btw-this blog also seems to coincidentally suffer around college football season as well.]

crazybusydelicious projects by nio architecten.

austerity and beautiful emptiness by niizeki studio.

gloriously textural modern boxes by Tham & Videgård Hansson

also, a mouth watering blog links to keep you fat and happy:

architecture. myninjaplease [the inspirational link to the links can be found at the sidebar->]

ghost lab 9: "beulah"

2006 ghost lab 8 studio with "full metal jacket"

third times' a charm blogger gamma rae has a recent post showing some images of the newly completed ghost lab 9 project in nova scotia.

virtual suburbanization

the new york times has done an interesting piece on the emigration of the business class, and technology's ability for more people to work from a "location-neutral" office. in the last decade, colorado mountain towns have seen the most increase in home values along with the population increase.

“You are seeing a transformation of rural communities,” said
Jonathan Schechter, executive director of the Charture Institute in Jackson, Wyo., a nonprofit organization that studies small recreational towns. Into quiet resort spots the migrants have come, laptops on their knees: fund managers from New York, software developers from California, consultants, proofreaders, engineers, inventors. “The same processes that led to the suburbanization of the
United States after World War II,” Mr. Schechter said, “are now producing a virtual suburbanization in places like Jackson or Steamboat Springs.

there is a broad running joke amongst the people here that "no one is ever from colorado...they are all transplants..." ourselves included. the line between tourist and local is often blurred so much that the distinction is impossible. how does this affect communities? politics for one.

“...[routt] county tipped Democratic in the last election. You see the tension in the City Council. It went from being pro-business-and-development to more conservationist.” He added, “Twelve years ago, not everyone you met had a Ph.D. or was from New York. There are still a lot of locals here, but that aspect is changing.”

income is another factor. the emigrants form new york or california bring their own business with them, but not necessarily to the towns they inhabit [global business vs. local economics]. the local industries are service and tourist oriented [ski resorts, restaurants, golf courses], with other local industries being mining, drilling, quarries, ranching, and wild life conservation. the potential hazard with this situation becomes apparent through community participation. the idea of the home office is obviously not new, but the home office with a ski slope as a back yard brings a relatively new demographic to more mountain towns. not only are these people transplanting their business and families, but also their ideals of living [suburbanization]. the most remote towns geographically risk being the most exclusive towns on a sociological level[think gated community where the gate is a mountain range]. this has already become prevalent in towns like aspen, where the service industry employees have been pushed to nearby sprawl towns such as snowmass, due to the expense of living / housing in town. this creates a commute for most workers.

"...In Steamboat Springs, a pawn shop and loan store amid the expensive restaurants on the main drag illustrates the growing inequality in a region that produces few middle-income jobs. Each day 1,500 workers commute to Routt County from neighboring Moffat County, an hour away. Meanwhile, the airport, once filled with tourists, caters to people in business suits."

the fact that more people are moving here seems to indicate a desire for a slower, more relaxed quality of life compared to the urban rush encountered in manhattan or downtown l.a. can we have both inclusive communities and location-nuetral business? it seems like a bid for utopia, but the main ingredient here is technology. most people travel to the rockies to be removed from the presence of laptops, email and cell phones. but the recent proliferation has made even the most remote places have a global connection. once it was a way of life to live isolated in the frontier, returning to civilization for water, whiskey and maybe a bath. now we seek adventure in that isolation, dipping our toes into places outside the range of wi-fi, only to return to the invisible isolation of our communites.

q & a with brian mackay-lyons

cathleen mcguigan did a piece on the ghost lab host brian mackay-lyons in a july issue of newsweek. mackay-lyon's [other] book, plain modern, is an exploration in regionalist modernism, or as mcguigan puts it: "renewed modernism". brian emphasizes the distinction between this type of modernism and the one of the 1950's by addressing context, urbanism and landscape in the north american way.

“Starchitects” are doing more overgrown coffee-table ornaments all over the world, and it’s just making that worse—you know, just dropping something in Dubai and then flying home..."

one of our favorite excerpts is a quip about fellow canadian architect frank gehry:

"...Gehry—funny, you know he’s a Canadian guy, too. [Gehry was raised in Toronto.] I think it’s important to respect your elders in any civilized society, and I think he’s just one of those people who’s off the radar—he’s a genius, I think he’s an absolute genius and I don’t like his work..."

as some of you may recall, we spent a fortnight on the coast of nova scotia last year designing and building a studio space know as "ghost 8". by this time, there should be number 9, and hopefully those images will surface soon. here is an image of last summer's ghost 8:

video-tecture on archinect

video-tecture--one of the latest features on archinect-- spotlights some of the more prolific music video works by contemporary bands including the likes of radiohead, mogwai, feist, roksopp, david byrne, brian eno and many others. the feature focuses on the portrayal of landscape and architecture in music video format to illustrate some unique "spatial experiments".

by now most of you have seen the rap video in zumthor's therme vals, but we thought this one stood out of the crowd [pictured above]:

isan: gunnera

and while not music videos, two clips from the films, 28 days later and vanilla sky [respectively] could be an additional study of spatial experiments in film with music. these two clips contain similar themes of isolation and despair, although two very different atmospheres are created simply by the tone of the accompanying musical pieces.

east hastings - god speed you black emperor!

while jim appears to be completely distraught in a deserted london, signs of a recent massacre are even more haunting as he discovers them through leftover artifacts of the violence. eventually he is discovered by the perpetrators and as the music climbs, jim is chased away from the open public square into the more claustrophobic side streets, escaping what seemed to be a certain grisly demise. the music plays to a more direct fear of an apocalyptic future through the atmospheric feedback in the guitars, manic drumming and relentless staccato notes from the cello-a deeper sound to convey dread.

mint royale - from rusholme with love [w/ intro by radiohead - everything in it's right place]

the latter clip follows david, a wealthy new yorker, as he wakes up to the digitally laced dream-like tune from radiohead. we witness his routine of getting ready for the day; there is no dialogue, no voice narration, which leaves the viewer anxious for some sort of conversation-a reassurance that this is real. to his disbelief upon arriving at times square, he gets out of the car and surveys the landscape only to find he is the only one left in new york. the music fades in with a more playful techno dance number as he begins to flee the scene, hoping to out run his loneliness. the camera turns it's gaze toward the billboards whizzing past from the protagonist's dizzying point of view, only to abruptly cut after a whirlwind shot of david screaming above the phantom ambient voices he cannot find. the scene is more fun than scary and the alien of an eastern techno pop song relieves the anxious viewer and displaces one into a scene of extreme fantasy.

by these two differing scenarios, could one imply that music creates space/place? on film it is almost certain-but what about in our everyday lives?

after all-it was quoted somewhere that architecture is like frozen music...

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get the ink on

located on south broadway in denver, we found a custom t-shirt shop [think tatoo parlor, but on your threads] called indy ink. they also have some great designs for sweater jackets too.

the sand castle

archidose wrote on this earlier this week, but we were delighted to find the the entire program of the sand castle was viewable online. the film documents the process of building n entire city in one of the united arab emirates, ras al-khaimah, from the ground up. the camera takes the perspective of one particular architecture firm competing for the masterplan comission-snøhetta. the stakes are set very high when the restrictions of the project are defined: unlike it's booming neighbor, dubai, ras al-khaimah has no oil, the desert is everywhere, and how do you create a modern middle-eastern city with western european architects? the creative process is displayed throughout the film as romantic, awkward and thrilling-just the way it usually is [or maybe should be] when going after internationally reknown projects.

the short film is engrossing and entertaining, allowing a peek into a region which at the moment appears to hold limitless architectural bounds. the story is concise and reveals some wonderful moments that happen behind the closed doors of architectural practice, but also showing the frustrations and disappointments that accompany them without becoming an emotionally cheap reality tv show.

[spoiler: snøhetta doesn't win the masterplan, but does gain a consolation prize of designing the new "gateway" to the city. view images at their website here.]

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blogo meh!

blogs fade, blogs die, blogs transform, but new blogs are always discovered:



dezeen - "dezeen is edited by marcus fairs, author of the major new book Twenty-First Century Design (published October 2006) and former editor of icon magazine. He is also co-organiser of Pecha Kucha events in the UK."

designfood - uk site to "...feed the imagination of anyone interested in architecture, the built environment and design."

city of sound - cities. design. architecture. media. music. etc. by dan hill

tropolism - "...Tropolism means loving the works of architects, and all the public conversation that surrounds it, while retaining a healthy skepticism for what architects say about their work." a blog by chad smith from NYC.

subtopia - a field guide to military urbanism

all of these are now included at the sidebar->

gravestmor is now super colossal

marcus trimble-author of gravestmor [one of the finest blogs we have ever seen] is in transition to a brand new website: Super Colossal. so far-off to a great start-check the first post-all about prosthetic eyes.

we'll leave the link to gravestmor up at the sidebar until itshuts down, but adding the link to super as well. ->

another blog move: studio109 has been relocated to finding form...

and finally-it looks like werlew is dead...download the commemorative mourning badge here.

also-life without buildings recently posted some images of a troubled denver art museum.

zaha superstar! [and other musings on the state of global starchitecture]

hugh pearman from gabion longs for satire and the ordinary in an exhibition full of tastemakers...

link from the where blog, which is now added to the sidebar ->

a sit-down with david adjaye

new york magazine talks briefly with mcart architect david adjaye about public buildings, tough clients, and his tv show dreamspaces [?]

link from archinect

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clyfford still works preview

the denver art museum will hold an exhibition of selected works created by clyfford still entitled clyfford still unveiled: selections from the estate. the small portion of his [2400 piece] body of work will be scheduled for viewing from july.14 through september.30. 2007.

this is definitely a higher profile way to kick off the hype for the new museum design, due to be unveiled this autumn by brad cloepfil of allied works. the museum opening is projected for 2010.

bush presidential library

image of clinton presidential library by polshek partnership from mitzenmacher , "ranch ramblins"

mary voelz-chandler from the RMN pokes fun at the possibility of a bush presidential library. but she also asks some relevant questions about the place of these particular buildings and their purpose:

"...I know they're basically privately funded and useful to scholars. But besides offering a place in the sun for those who miss the spotlight, what exactly do these places do? Or, today, mean?

...with the introduction of the "interpretive planner," I think some of the (dare I say it) purity has gone out the window. Conversely, I fear these planners don't really exploit the populist ideal. After all, they are between a rock and a hard place: Do they stress reality, as in recording the lows of an administration along with the highs? Or do they hew to the family's desire to present a squeaky-clean statesman who never, ever did anything wrong?

...If I were the interpretive planner for the George W. Bush presidential
library, I know what I'd include. Sure, there would be a copy of the Bible on which he swore the presidential oath, and menu cards from state dinners, and appointment books and e-mails between and among him, his staff and world leaders, including those who used to be our friends.
But get real. What would sell would include a room for his actual library, things like Maxim and the treacly (but aptly titled) The Little Prince.

In light of this week's big news, there'd be the Libby Lounge, a snug
spot stocked with copies of Our Judicial System for Dummies. The presidential closet would include sharply pressed - and unworn -National Guard uniforms. And who could resist an interactive maze on the library grounds, the Find the Weapons of Mass Destruction Labyrinth?"

mary, we never knew you had such a fun sense of humor...

update:

speaking of presidential libraries in regards to their respective legacies-the nixon library just opened...

also this. oh and if you wan to see what it looks like, you can see the country club inspired travesty here [scroll down]...

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