Last week the American Institute of Architects announced that Steven Holl, long considered one of the most the most formidable talents in the field, would receive its 2012 Gold Medal, aka the highest honor in American architecture. Known for his ability to effortlessly blend space and light and a fondness for perforated surfaces, Holl atypically develops his designs by painting them in water colors first. He’s also always keenly aware of context in his work. “I believe that architecture needs to be completely anchored in its program and site,” he told Inhabitat earlier this year. “Its meaning must be so deeply rooted in the conditions of its inception that it’s unfazed by fashion.” Click through to take a quick tour of some of Holl’s most well-known buildings from around the world. Read More »
We all have our dark shameful pasts, secrets we’d rather let lie in the closet of our yearbook photos, haircuts that need never see the light of even dusk. The great thing about being completely un-famous, though, is that our pasts, while they may haunt us on Facebook, aren’t physically built. No one has to live in our embarrassing high-school mistakes, and no one has to work in them. The ten architects behind the projects that follow, however, don’t have such a luxury of anonymity. Herewith we present ten projects either explicitly rejected by their designers or so tremendously equivalent to a killer side-scrunchie with Keds, that they probably should have been. Take a spin through the glory that is our Schadenfreude, and let us know about any metalmouths we’ve overlooked. Read More »
So hysterical, these architects and their brethren. Why on earth would an architectural paean to a Nazi sympathizer in the Arctic Circle be controversial? Knut Hamsun is one of the most highly regarded authors Norway ever produced; he also gifted his Nobel Prize to Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propagandist and one of Hitler’s besties. And then there’s the building, constructed in time for the writer’s 150th birthday. We examine the issues after the jump. Read More »
