Lighting Lincoln Center

Last night I found myself near Lincoln Center, so I decided to saunter over and snap a few photos of the Fashion Week festivities, focusing on the lighting in the new Diller Scofidio + Renfro interventions around the plaza. According to Lincoln Center's fact sheets, these include "informational LED text" in the treads of the seven stairs of the 170-foot-wide Grand Stair, "sleek glass canopies" that flank the stairs and are uplit with strip lighting set into the ramps, and a reconfigured Revson Fountain "enhanced with new lighting."



The canopies (above) act like an illuminated overhead plane from the uplighting that can be seen at the base of the railings on either side. Yet, the glass cover is not opaque, as the large cylindrical chandelier of the Koch Theater can be glimpsed above the uprights.



From across Columbus Avenue (above), the overall impression is a mix of old and new lighting, be it large fixtures, downlights, or the new LED ticker-tapes in the treads of the Grand Stair.



Getting closer to the steps (above and below), the text notifies passersby of current and upcoming events, among other things. The LEDs certainly activate the stairs, even if people pay scant attention to what they say. The night I was there, an increased police presence due to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks meant the white LEDs mixed with flickering red siren lights, perceptible slightly below and more so on the right side of the above photo.



The reconfigured fountain (below) was quite a popular place on Friday night. The uplit ring seems to hover above and around the water feature, and the people sitting upon it were doing the same, with their feet dangling above the paving.



It should be mentioned that Tillotson Design Associates is the lighting designer for the plaza (as well as the Columbus Avenue portion of Lincoln Center), and they have received numerous awards for their contribution.

Ten Years Later

As just about everybody knows, Sunday is the 10th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Most of the attention is focused on New York City, specifically on the opening of the National September 11 Memorial and the ongoing redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. Below is just a smattering of some coverage on the memorial and the redevelopment. I'll add items as they become available over the weekend.

» Architectural Record's September 2011 issue is devoted to what's transpired in New York City in the last ten years, at Ground Zero and elsewhere.

» ArchNewsNow's Friday newsletter is devoted to the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

» Engineering Ground Zero, a Nova special that aired Wednesday on PBS is available to watch online.

» Ground Zero Now, an interactive graphic that is part of The New York Times' special online coverage of 9/11 ten years later, which also includes The World Trade Center Towers As They Were.

» Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero by Discover Science will air on Sunday. Clips are available online. A sample:

» A marketing video from Silverstein Properties:
(via A/N Blog)

» Studio 360's show Artists Remember 9/11 features memorial designer Michael Arad and much more:

Today's archidose #523

Here are a few photos of the Palace of Arts in Budapest, Hungary by Zoboki - Demeter and Associates Architects, 2005. Photographs are by Sebastien Gac.







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Four Magazines

After my end-of-summer vacation with power outage, I'm slowly catching up on many things: news, my inbox, work, and reading. Falling within the latter is a number of magazine issues I've recently acquired. Below are some comments from my quick reads of each.



ArchitectureBoston, Science Issue
ArchitectureBoston is a quarterly publication of the Boston Society of Architects, one of the oldest chapters of the American Institute of Architects, having started in 1867, ten years after the AIA was formed. The magazine itself started many years later, in 1997 with editor Elizabeth Padjen, FAIA. Each issue revolves around a theme, and Fall 2011's is Science, made evident by the test-tube sculpture on the front cover (Pattern Recognition, Helmick + Schecter, 2007). Inside, the theme is addressed from a variety of angles in features that look at the integration of science-based research into practice, Building Performance Evaluation (BPE), how architects can learn from how scientists think, the science of buildings, and a photo essay on environmental change. Not surprisingly, science is seen to address architecture most directly in terms of sustainability, in both quantifiable and theoretical ways. Yet as Padjen warns, science as the latest metaphor of choice for architecture runs the risk of becoming another trend like linguistics decades ago. Instead she calls for the development of "a culture of true research and shared knowledge" in architecture, something especially pertinent now as green building products veer even further from the profession's knowledge base.

Mark No. 33
Previously I've reviewed the Dutch architecture magazine Mark a few times, most recently with No. 27. This year's August/September issue is the second with a brand new design by Mainstudio, though the content sections are pretty much the same as before: Notice Board, Cross Section, Viewpoint (it's "Men of Mark" subtitle now gone), Long Section, and Service Area. The most notable design change is the cover, which hints at the changes to the text and photos inside, and the binding, which is a simple strip of tape, in this case orange, meaning the color stands out on one's bookshelf as Mark, not the magazine's logo/title. Inside the illustrations and text appear to be larger than in the previous design; this is certainly good for photos and drawings, and it gives the text a prevailing boldness. All "floats" on pages free of the lines that previously structured the content. All in all the layout is simpler and easier to read. The featured projects continue Mark's focus on cutting-edge architecture all over the world, with J. Mayer H.'s popular Metropol Parasol in Seville, Spain and the Jeongok Prehistory Museum by X-TU Architects on the cover, among others. But not everything is pretty pictures of innovative architecture. No. 33 also features a "Letter from Sheffield" by Steve Parnell, an interview with lawyer Larry Gainen on "some 'architectural' horror stories" from his practice, a piece on structural engineer Niccolo Baldassini's (RFR) work on some starchitect designs, and of course I'm drawn to the interview on books, in this case with Momoyo Kaijima of Atelier Bow-Wow. At just under 20 bucks, the six-times-a-year magazine is the equivalent of the monthly Architectural Record and Architect Magazine, and about twice as big as each. Sounds good to me.

PIN-UP Magazine, Issue 10
The subtitle of PIN-UP Magazine is the "magazine for architectural entertainment." While this is a phrase that I find a little odd (is architecture entertaining? to who? is entertainment missing from other architectural publications?), the impression I get is of a publication with the heart of a zine, a foot in academia, an appreciation of the naughty, and an insider's view of architecture. The "Pin-Up Board" that starts the issue calls itself a "grab bag," but the same could be said of the longer features that comprise the rest of pages. The board includes short pieces on Philip Johnson's Brick House, vertical urban factories, RO/LU's front yard of grass and Cor-Ten, and Arno Brandlhuber discussing the design of porn sets, for example, while the features present ten questions with ten young New York City architects, a photo essay of Rogelio Salmona's brickwork, an interview with Santiago Calatrava, and specially commissioned side tables by various designers. In its embrace of design and fashion (some features include details on the clothes the pictured architects are wearing, much like fashion magazines), as well as its willingness to features sometimes crude photography, reminds me of Nest Magazine, the defunct but much-loved magazine on the wide-range of residential interiors, many quirky. PIN-UP is less restrained to a specific type of architecture, and I think its content can be appreciated by more than just architects; it may be "for architectural entertainment," but it's not entertainment only for architects.

Volume #27: Aging
Back in 2005 I reviewed Volume No.1, a then much anticipated project by Archis + AMO, and C-lab, the three protagonists of the "independent quarterly magazine that sets the agenda for architecture and design." Between that first issue and #27 I've only obtained the special issue bootlegged for the Urban China exhibition in 2009, so my early questions as to the influence of Volume is hard to say, but it's clear from #27 that things have changed just as they've stayed the same. In the former camp, the design and page layout have simplified so the content is at the fore, not buried under saturated color and graphics; in the case of the latter, the desire to push the limits that "challenge the mandate and self conception of architecture" towards "new modes of operation" seems stable. The theme "Aging" could be thought of by architect to simply mean "the design of nursing homes" -- a few are presented in the pages of issue 27 -- but the contributions by the wide circle of writers (much wider than the first issue, but a fairly closed circle nevertheless) cover the topic in many ways that are less direct towards traditional architectural production. These range from looking at how cities address and ignore aging populations to graphing how long materials last to questions about reconstructing cities and even how the nuclear industry looks ahead billions of years. I grabbed the issue because of Deane Simpson's pieces on The Villages, the world's largest retirement community, a place I have been to many times. I've always thought the place deserved some study, since it's been overshadowed by the nearby Florida community Celebration and offers more lessons on the reality of planned communities rather than one Disney ideal. Simpson's well-illustrated essay hit on a number of things I've witnessed, but it opened my eyes to its history and its economic and political characteristics. Coming after a piece on Iranian bazaars, it's a good illustration of Volume's broader take on architecture, culture, and politics.

Tuesday, Tuesday

My weekly page update:

This week's dose features Urban Reserve 22 in Dallas, Texas by Vincent Snyder Architects:


The featured past dose is House at Sagaponac in Southampton, New York by Marwan Al-Sayed:


This week's book review is The Embodied Image: Imagination and Imagery in Architecture by Juhani Pallasmaa and Thinking About Architecture: An Introduction to Architectural Theory by Colin Davies:


american-architects.com Building of the Week:

Ottmers Residence in Gillespie County, Texas by Vincent Snyder Architects:


Unrelated links will return next week.

Half Dose #94: Stone Barns

[Looking south from road adjacent to vegetable fields, #25 (see key map below for reference #s) | all photos by archidose.]

Last week I visited the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, a non-profit farm and educational center in Pocantico Hills, New York. Housed in 1930s dairy barns built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and designed by Grovsenor Atterbury (source), the structures were converted by Machado and Silvetti Associates and completed in 2004. As can be seen in the map below, the buildings frame a central court, the heart of the project, amid the Center's 80 acres. The above photo shows a first glimpse of the Center's architecture, as it is seen from the entrance drive on approach to the parking lots.


[Stone Barns Map, modified by archidose (Note: north is towards the top-right corner) | original image source.]



[The east-facing facade of the Blue Hill Restaurant, #4]

The architecture is a simple palette of stone, wood, shingles, and glass, yet it is the landscape that roots the buildings in their place. The style and scale of the barns transports one to a small English town. At first glance it is difficult to see what Machado and Silvetti actually did to the existing buildings.


[The approach between #15 and #17 from the parking lots to the south.]


[Looking the opposite direction from the above, from within the central court.]

Walking into the central space from the parking lots, the Hay Barn is the most overt piece with contemporary expression, as large expanses of glass are found in the lower floors, particularly in the center of the symmetrical facade.


[Looking north towards the Hay Barn, #2.]

The impression of the glass areas in the heavy stone walls is slightly disconcerting, given the large windowless expanses of walls above. With the building's conversion to an educational center, the windows must have been desired; with their presence on this facade and the rear (photo at bottom), the ground floor becomes an open and transparent floor within an architecture defined by walls and small spaces.


[Another view of the Hay Barn.]

Yet when visiting I can't say I was really drawn to the Hay Barn over the other buildings, since the contemporary interventions are minor; the importance of the project lies in the reuse of the structures and the prioritizing of the whole over the various parts.


[Rear facade of the Hay Barn, with the Silo Lobby in the foreground.]

Stone Barns is certainly a pleasurable place to visit, but it is ultimately a product of its place, about 25 miles north of New York City, specifically in the combination of nature and money. The Center is sited in the beautiful landscape of Westchester County, on what used to be the Rockefeller's 4,000-acre weekend retreat (the main house, Kykuit, is a Hudson Valley landmark that these barns formerly served). Much of that land is now preserved as forest, one among a number of preserves that pepper the area. While the Center serves to educate people about food sources and production, the presence of Blue Hill is just one indicator that that knowledge is currently something not everybody can afford. Nevertheless one can venture around the buildings and about much of the grounds without spending a penny (parking is free during the week, only $5 on weekends), experiencing what history and today's growing concerns over responsibly growing and making food have created.

Today's archidose #522

fronheim, originally uploaded by lisa.empunkt.

Seidlung Fronheim in Zurich, Switzerland by Müller Sigrist Architekten AG, 2010.

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