MoMA: The Latest Architecture and News

In a must-read interview with Christopher Hawthorne of the Los Angeles Times, Liz Diller defends her firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and their design of the MoMA expansion.

Hawthorne asks some great, insightful questions: from whether or not architecture should be considered ephemeral to whether or not idiosyncratic architecture is more vulnerable to change. Diller responds with some fascinating points, claiming that if DS+R's ICA museum in Boston faced demolition, she'd understand because of the possibility that "at a certain point [a building] takes on another identity." But perhaps the most poignant response is the one that she gives regarding the maelstrom of negative criticism surrounding the demolition of the Folk Art Museum, saying, "We would be on the same side if we didn’t know all the details that we know." To learn more about those "details," read on for excerpts from the interview...

The flurry of criticism that erupted when MoMA announced its plans to demolish the American Folk Art Museum (in its new plans for expansion, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro) has yet to settle. After the break, we offer a more complete round-up of the critics' reactions - including Paul Goldberger's of Vanity Fair, Michael Kimmelman's for The New York Times, and more...

He has made his debut in the MAXXI piazza. As the winner of the Young Architects Program (YAP) in Rome, Turin-based studio Bam! Bottega di Architettura metropolitan has transformed the concrete facade of the Zaha Hadid-designed museum into a visual spectacular with the installation of a yellow, translucent and aerostatic prism.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has collaborated with Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) to launch a 14-month initiative that will examine new architectural possibilities that address the rapid and uneven growth of six global metropolises: New York, Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai, Lagos, Hong Kong, and Istanbul. 

Organized by Pedro Gadanho, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities enlists six interdisciplinary teams of international architecture and urbanism scholars, experts, and practitioners to participate in a series of workshops, with each team focusing on a specific city. 

The entrance to the Museum of Modern Art is tucked beneath a demure facade of granite and glass in Midtown Manhattan. Its clean, regular planes mark Yoshio Taniguchi's 2004 addition to the MoMA's sequence of facades, which he preserved as a record of its form. Taniguchi's contribution sits beside the 1984 residential tower by Cesar Pelli and Associates, followed by Philip Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone’s original 1939 building, then Philip Johnson’s 1964 addition. Taniguchi was hired in 1997 to expand the Museum’s space and synthesize its disparate elements. His elegant, minimal solution presents a contemporary face for the MoMA while adhering to its Modernist roots.

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To mark its 10th anniversary and 29th issue, Log presents In Pursuit of Architecture, a conference featuring recent built work selected from an open, international call for submissions. Join architects and critics for a daylong discussion of architectural ideas, what it takes to build them, and how we measure the cultural value of architecture.

Although critiquing the exhibit for some "critical flaws" - namely the choice of theme and the lack of explanatory text - Alexandra Lange's review for The New Yorker praises the MoMA's Le Corbusier exhibit, “An Atlas of Modern Landscapes,” as a "must-see" thanks to its varied displays, which show "the terrific span of Le Corbusier's career in time, space, and scale [...] If current architects take anything from the exhibition [...] it should be the power of those big, gestural drawings, where visual and verbal argument vividly come together." Read the rest of Lange's critique at The New Yorker.

This AD Round Up is dedicated to unbuilt classics, a selection of projects and ideas that, although never built, contributed greatly to the canon of twentieth century architecture. In 1920, Buckminister Fuller designed the Dymaxion House, which displayed forward-thinking innovations in sustainability and prefabrication. In 1924, Le Corbusier’s radical plan for Ville Radieuse (The Radiant City) had an extensive influence upon modern urban planning and led to the development of new high-density housing typologies. In the same year Friedrick Kiesler introduced his "Endless House", the basis for his subsequent manifesto of Correalism. Eight years later in 1932, Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock curated the “Modern Architecture: International exhibition” at the MoMA, introducing the emerging International Style and laying the principles for Modern architecture. And finally, one of Archigram’s most famous utopian visions, the Plug-In City, proposed by Peter Cook in 1964, offered a fascinating new approach to urbanism and reversed traditional perceptions of infrastructure’s role in the city.

Inspiring builders of all ages, MoMA has released their first storybook, following the adventures of a young, New York City architect and his architect grandfather: Young Frank and Old Frank. The creative pair - with matching bow ties, straw boater hats and, of course, Le Corbusier-inspired glasses - optimistically views the world as an endless supply of inspiration and possibilities. Everything, from macaroni to old boxes, inspires them to create - especially after discovering the works of Frank Gehry and Frank Lloyd Wright at The Museum of Modern Art.

Young Frank, Architect was written by the renowned children’s author and illustrator Frank Viva. More information can be found here on MoMA.

Santiago-based studio UMWELT (Arturo Schiedegger & Ignacio Garcia Partarrieu) has been named as winner of the 2013 Young Architect’s Program (YAP) in Chile. Their winning proposal, ‘AMBIENT 35 60’, which is scheduled for completion in March 2014, will occupy a 20 x 27 meter site in Santiago’s Parque Araucano with a network of 35, climatically responsive spatial frames that will provide a ‘container for artwork and events.’ 

More on ‘AMBIENT 35 60’ after the break...

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Though temporarily postponed due to the Gezi Park protests, SO? Architecture and Ideas has celebrated the opening of their winning entry - Sky Spotting Stop - for the 2013 Young Architects Program (YAP) at Istanbul Modern in Turkey. Offering refuge from the historic city’s busy streets, the fragmented canopy of reflective circular discs invites visitors to “sit, rest, gather, play, or skyspot” while overlooking the mouth of the Bosphorus.

The Museum of Modern Art has kicked off the popular Warm Up Summer Music series in the courtyard of MoMA PS1 with the grand opening of Party Wall. The towering installation, designed by Ithaca-based studio CODA, was the winning proposal of the 14th annual Young Architects Program in which provides emerging architects a chance to construct an innovative project as long as shades, cools and seats visitors.

With a porous skin made of woven skateboard scraps, the experimental structure has successfully met the challenge by providing a shaded refuge for the crowds with refreshing cooling stations and detachable wooden seats. 

See Party Wall in action after the break...

MoMA's new exhibition, Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes focuses on the way in which Le Corbusier focused on the world of architecture. It explores both his most famous architectural projects, as well as the means by which he was able to realize them. Through a collection of early watercolors, drawings and photographs, curatorJean-Louis Cohen provides a peak into Le Corbusier's journeys and developments as an architect, how he explored the world and what he drew from his travels and observations.

The Museum of Modern Art has commissioned Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) to design its controversial expansion that will overtake the former American Folk Art Museum in New York. This news comes after an intense backlash from prominent architects, preservationists and critics worldwide pressured MoMA to reconsider its decision to raze the iconic, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien-design museum in order to make way for its new expansion.

In response, DS+R has requested that MoMA gives them the “time and latitude to carefully consider the entirety of the site, including the former American Folk Art Museum building, in devising an architectural solution to the inherent challenges of the project,” as stated by Glenn D. Lowry, MoMA’s director, in a memo sent on Thursday to his trustees and staff. He added, “We readily agreed to consider a range of options, and look forward to seeing their results.”

More on the DS+R’s commission and the fate of the Folk Museum after the break...

Pedro Gadanho is a Portuguese architect, curator, teacher and writer, appointed as the Curator for Contemporary Architecture at the MoMA in January last year.

When the gym and solarium on the 20-century’s most famous rooftop terrace - elevated 18-stories above Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse - went up for sale in 2010, French designer Ito Morabito of Ora-ïto immediately jumped on the opportunity and purchased the space. With the support of the Foundation Le Corbusier, Ora-ïto initiated a campaign to restore the 1950‘s structure to its original state, by removing an addition that blocked the spaces 360-degree views of the city, and transform it into a contemporary art center, named the MAMO for “Marseille Modulor” - as a nod to New York’s MOMA.

Design saturates every facet of our lives. As the new MoMA exhibition states: design is a fundamental tool in helping people respond to change. Applied Design, running from March 2nd to January 31st, focuses on the various means and methods by which we design and the product of those varied paths that lead to innovation.

SO? Architecture and Ideas’ Sky Spotting Stop has been announced as winner of the 2013 Young Architects Program (YAP) Istanbul Modern in Turkey. Similar to its counterparts - CODA’s skateboard scrap Party Wall in New York and bam!’s buoyant installation He at MAXXI - the shady escape will be constructed in late June in the Istanbul Modern’s courtyard, offering refuge from the busy streets of Istanbul while overlooking the mouth of the Bosphorus.

More on ‘Sky Spotting Stop’ after the break...