Frank Lloyd Wright is generally considered to have been an arrogant, irascible curmudgeon, whose voracious egotism was and remains legendary. But he could be a gingerly grandfather as well. Case in point, the Jim Berger doghouse. As Architects & Artisans reports, Wright designed the canis domus in 1956, after the 12-year old project’s namesake wrote the famous architect asking if he would fashion a house for the Berger family’s then 4-year old black Lab, Eddie. The boy, who specified in his letter that he would cover the expenses of the plans and materials with wages he earned from his bike route, wrote to Wright in June of 1956, saying that he “would appreciate it if you [Wright] would design me a dog house, which would be easy to build, but would go with our house.”
Since launching back in 2000 with Zaha Hadid, the Serpentine Gallery’s annual pavilion series has featured work by some of the most noted architects in the industry — from Oscar Niemeyer to SANAA. Today it was announced that controversial Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will be reteaming with the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron (his collaborators on the iconic “Bird’s Nest” stadium in Beijing, pictured here) to create this year’s temporary structure. What can we expect to see in Hyde Park? Their vision calls for “a bowl-shaped auditorium carved into the earth and protected by a flat, circular steel roof raised five feet above ground level.” Supporting that roof will be “columns that thematically echo the designs of the previous eleven pavilions,” as well as a “wild card” column reflecting their own contribution.
“As we dig down into the earth we encounter a diversity of constructed realities such as telephone cables and former foundations,” the trio said in a cryptic statement. “Like a team of archaeologists, we identify these physical fragments as remains of the eleven Pavilions built between 2000 and 2011.” Look for the finished product to open to the public in June, when the Serpentine Gallery will host a major exhibition of Yoko Ono’s work. [via ArtsBeat]
We’re up to our ears in modern, accessible design. No offense CB2, West Elm, or IKEA. Really, you’re great. You helped us furnish our first apartments, and we love you for that. But, we’re a little older, a little wiser, and we want more. More substance. More soul. Which is why we’re migrating en masse to intermittent flea markets, scouring Craigslist and enrolling in classes to learn everything from upholstery to blacksmithing to the lathe.
It’s not the first time we’ve resolved to roll up our sleeves and make more of our world. The last time, a New Age was upon us and the Western saga that produced the hipster’s predecessor was embracing simple living and imaginative expression. Art Boericke and Barry Shapiro, two builders living in Northern California, the movement’s epicenter, set out to explore what was happening in the woods and valleys around them. Boericke writes that it was a time that saw houses with “tiles that have never been in a store because the tilemaker’s kiln is just beyond her kitchen door.” Now out of print, The Craftsmen Builder and Handmade Houses, A Guide to the Woodbutcher’s Art document what they found.
We’ve rounded up the best of what these two tomes have to offer thanks to Mr. Chum’s comprehensive scans. Now, put on some Vashti Bunyan, grab a kilim pillow and click through to revisit these inspiring collections of handmade houses.
In the late ’70s, a series of Futuro-style homes were constructed in the Sanzhi District of New Taipei City, Taiwan. The pod-shaped houses were part of an intended vacation resort, apparently set to be marketed to U.S. military officers who lived in East Asia part-time. The development was abandoned before anyone could move in — mainly for financial reasons it seems, but there are superstitious stories about the land being a burial ground and talk of several accidents happening on the construction site. The Sanzhi UFO pod houses were demolished a few years ago, but many curious visitors have photographed the strange flying saucer-style abodes. Get a closer look in our gallery past the break.
The Parisian suburbs are known for their grands ensembles, massive suburban apartment complexes built in the 1950s and 1960s. Square, monofunctional and surrounded by open spaces, they are the materialization of the reigning Modernist ideology of the time and are the first view foreign visitors get from Paris as they arrive from Roissy Charles De Gaulle or Orly Airport, as in the view of Sarcelles below.
When architect Louis Sullivan began cultivating Chicago’s vertical growth with some of the world’s first skyscrapers, he famously cloaked his steel high-rises with images of vegetation. Embellishing the tops of his multistory buildings with iron-cast flora, Sullivan sought to evoke the image of a novel breed of architecture sprouting upwards from the fertile American soil. He quickly recognized how the skyscraper would change the experience of the city, how a soaring building would be read from street level, and how Americans could gaze upwards and project their nation’s values of collective advancement onto the towering facades of his “form follows function” designs.
A post over on Gizmodo tipped us off to the new Altmay Metro in Kazakhstan, a project that, thanks to a long delay following the fall of the Soviet Union, took a whopping 23 years to complete from start to finish. Apparently now that it’s finally open, it has become quite the attraction for tourists looking to take advantage of the photo opp. And who can blame them? Look how clean and shiny those marble floors are! How about those sharply-dressed attendants? Even the microchip-enabled fare cards make us inexplicably happy. They look just like casino chips. Click through to take a tour of the underground, and if you’re like us, prepare to experience some serious public transportation envy.
Most people wouldn’t expect to see Romanesque Revival architecture, fancy pants Guastavino tile, and brass chandeliers in a New York City subway station, but the City Hall stop (opened in 1904) along the Lexington Avenue Line features all that and more. Longer trains, longer platforms, and low ridership caused the city to close it off to the public in 1945, but its elegant architecture has endured for over seventy years. You can still catch a glimpse of it while rounding the loop heading back uptown, or during a tour (book ahead). We felt inspired by the ghost station to take a look at other secret stops along the underground: houses, societies, and entire cities. Head past the break to explore unusual underground marvels around the world.
It would be superfluous to go on about the conceptual and social vacuity of “The World” in Dubai. That much has become the standard, even knee-jerk critique of the project – expounded by notions such as the ideological perils of “Google Earth Urbanism” and the woeful exploitation of migrant workers – of which matters little to the absurdly wealthy patrons who will shore up on one (or two!) of the project’s three hundred man-made archipelagos. The large, vaguely urban scheme, which spans an area of 6 by 9 kilometers, was debuted nearly 10 years ago, yet has been stalled periodically ever since due in part to the global recession. Despite the setbacks, the first attraction to be completed, the World Island Beach Club on ”Lebanon Island,” is set to open in a matter of weeks. No, the following images were not photoshopped.
While One World Trade Center (aka the building formerly known as the Freedom Tower) is still under construction, we can already see that the giant, 105-floor skyscraper is going to have some seriously breathtaking views thanks to the WTC Progress Twitter account. Here’s a peek at the city from the 80th floor, looking east into Brooklyn. Find some additional, equally postcard-perfect images over on BuzzFeed.
