The designers’ task was to redesign the museum's grounds, increase physical visibility and transparency, reveal what is happening to visitors, and make the DMA more hospitable and open to all. Additional gallery space will accommodate a collection that is expanding exponentially and hosts several masterworks which remain in storage, unseen by the public due to lack of space. The program also requires reorganizing internal space, circulation, and entrances and a comprehensive modernization framed within a thoughtful sustainability strategy.
Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) Director Dirk Denison and 2023 MCHAP Jury Chair Sandra Barclay (Barclay & Crousse) have just announced the six finalists for the 2023 Americas Prize. The award recognizes the best-built works of architecture in the Americas completed between December 2018 and June 2021. This represents the latest stage of the fourth cycle of the MCHAP, launched in Venice, Italy, in August 2021. On March 24, 2023, the jury will announce the winners of the the 2023 Americas Prize. The authors of the winning project are set to receive a $50,000 fund for research along with a publication.
Los Angeles is a city of dreams. Known across the United States and the world, L.A. embodies both freedom and experimentation, defined as much by its freeways as its diversity. It is also a city of houses. Single-family homes cover almost half of Los Angeles, and as the city continues to evolve, architects have explored new ideas on modernity and daily life through the single-family typology.
Around 10 million people live in L.A. County, and Los Angeles itself has become one of the world's most ethnically diverse cities. The built environment reflects the nature of its residents, home to some of the most iconic residential and cultural architecture in the world. Los Angeles has its own dose of Lautner, Schindler, Wright, and Neutra. It's a city that has long embodied multiplicity and progressive forms, from the Eames House and Gehry's Residence to the iconic Stahl House. Through the lens of photographer Julius Shulman, many homes came to represent not only new residential styles but also the postwar culture of Southern California.
‘Source Books in Architecture No. 15: Johnston Marklee’ includes conversations with the architects and documentation of a range of built and unbuilt works. As the Baumer Visiting Professors at The Ohio State University, Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee engage with students at the school in conversations that range from developing a critical practice to idea formation with respect to projects to the pragmatics of working in the field or architecture today. Documentation of work includes drawings, diagrams, photos, and models.
Four teams have been declared the finalists in the competition to design the Portland Museum of Art campus expansion located in Portland, Maine. The finalist teams are led by Adjaye Associates, Lever Architecture, MVRDV and Toshiko Mori Architect + Johnston Marklee + Preston Scott Cohen. The project includes a 60,000 square feet expansion in the form of a six or seven-story structure planned to accommodate an increase in the number of visits and a growing collection of art. The museum is now asking for public feedback on the designs, as the projects are on view at PMA until December 11th.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected 11 projects as winners of its 2022 Architecture Awards. The annual Architecture Award program celebrates the best contemporary architecture, and highlights how spaces can cater to their residents and context and include a sense of place, purpose, history, and environmental sustainability. The selected projects include commercial, residential, and civic typologies, all designed by US-licensed architects.
UIC Center for the Arts. Image Courtesy of Morphosis, STL & Arup
The University of Illinois at Chicago has announced the shortlist to design a new $95 million Center of the Arts for the College of Architecture, Design and the Arts. Chosen from 36 teams, the shortlist includes OMA with KOO Architects, Johnston Marklee with UrbanWorks, and Morphosis with STL Architects. The new center will include a 500-seat concert hall, a 270-seat reconfigurable theater, an exhibition hall, rehearsal spaces, and a combination cafe and jazz club. The 88,000-square-foot building will be primarily used by the UIC’s School of Theatre & Music as the new public face of UIC’s East Campus.
This issue focuses on the second edition of the annual Chicago Architecture Biennial, 2017, that featured the participation of 140 artists from 20 countries, under the theme Make New History. Guest edited by Sharon Johnson and Mark Lee, Artistic Directors of the Biennial, the first part looks back on the Biennial through a conversation with architectural historian, Michael Hays. The second part introduces built work and projects selected with reference to the exhibition's theme by the guest editors and participating architects.
Johnston Marklee has rapidly become one of the US’ most exciting practices. After years of completing sensitive and complex domestic-scaled works in Los Angeles, the office vaulted to prominence after being selected to curate Chicago’s 2017 architecture biennial. Since then they’ve completed and embarked on numerous significant projects - none more so than the Menil Drawing Institute.
https://www.archdaily.com/906058/johnston-marklees-menil-institute-is-a-quiet-triumph-for-a-quiet-artKatherine Allen
The Harvard Graduate School of Design has announced the appointment of Mark Lee as Chair of the university’s Department of Architecture. Having taught at Harvard GSD since 2013, Lee is also a principal and founding partner at Johnston Marklee Architects. He will succeed K. Michael Hays, who has taught at Harvard GSD since 1998.
Lee has previously held the position of Frank Gehry Chair at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, as well as Cullinan Guest Professor at Rice University School of Architecture. He has also been a design critic at Harvard GSD since 2013, where he himself earned a Masters in Architecture in 1995.
https://www.archdaily.com/891227/harvard-gsd-appoints-mark-lee-as-chair-of-department-of-architectureNiall Patrick Walsh
This article was originally published on the blog of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the largest platform for contemporary architecture in North America. The 2017 Biennial, entitled Make New History, will be free and open to the public between September 16, 2017 and January 6, 2018.
The Tribune Tower has stood at the heart of Chicago’s cultural heritage for almost a hundred years. Like the spire of a secular cathedral, it still symbolizes the rise of the “city of big shoulders” and its defining role in the American Century. But the building is more than a Chicago icon. The story of its origin has proved to be one of the most enduringly influential narratives in 20th Century architecture, key to understanding the skylines of cities all over the world.
"We are at a moment of great cultural transition," Jorge Otero-Pailos argues. "The kinds of objects that we look to to provide some sort of continuity in that transformation is often times architecture, [...] one of the most stable objects in culture." This short film, in which an number of participants of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial reflect on their work and those of others, tackles the theme conceived by artistic directors Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee: Make New History.
https://www.archdaily.com/880402/how-architects-in-chicago-architecture-biennial-2017-are-making-new-historyAD Editorial Team
While architecture exhibitions have a tendency to be drab affairs with poorly displayed poster boards and reams of intellectualized text spouting pseudo-complex ideas, the Chicago Architecture Biennial stands out for its undeniable sense of playfulness. From its central HQ to the fringe performance events, this exhibition is bright, fun and Instagram-ready.
Chicago, like Venice, is blessed when it comes to architecture, making the city an ideal home for a recurring architecture show. The importance of this year’s iteration, the second after its inaugural event in 2015 (thus confirming its status as an actual “Biennial”), is clear. And the curators, Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee from LA-based practice Johnston Marklee, seem determined to grab people’s attention.
With the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial in full swing and open to the public until January 7, 2017, we've scoured the galleries, halls and corridors of the Chicago Cultural Center to bring you our favorite fifteen installations. Documented through the lens of Laurian Ghinitoiu and assembled by our Editorial Team on location, this selection intends to shed light on the breadth, scope and preoccupations of Make New History– the largest architecture event in North America.
Understanding the trace of history is more important than ever. Maybe now it's a good time to take stock and reevaluate to see what architecture could do better, and there are certain issues that other disciplines address better than architecture itself.
https://www.archdaily.com/879750/curators-johnston-marklee-introduce-the-2017-chicago-architecture-biennial-make-new-historyAD Editorial Team
In this episode of GSAPP Conversations, ahead of the opening of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial, co-curator Mark Lee (of Johnston Marklee) and Dean Amale Andraos discuss the theme of the show—"Make New History"—and it's relevance to the field today.
https://www.archdaily.com/879401/ahead-of-the-2017-chicago-architecture-biennale-mark-lee-discusses-its-contemporary-relevanceAD Editorial Team
Farnsworth House. Image Courtesy of Flickr CC user Jonathan Rieke. (Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0)
The Chicago Architecture Biennial and it's artistic directors, Johnston Marklee, have revealed a collection of Special Projects designed to harness the curatorial vision of the event—entitled Make New History—and bring it to a number of significant landmarks in the city and in it's surrounding area. Featuring a SO-IL and Ana Prvački collaboration, a Francois Perrin installation, a new performance artwork by Gerard & Kelly at the Farnsworth House, photographs by James Welling, and films by Gerard & Kelly, the projects will inhabit some Chicago's greatest "architectural gems."
https://www.archdaily.com/876117/chicago-architecture-biennial-special-projects-to-inhabit-a-series-of-architectural-landmarksAD Editorial Team
Two months before the much-anticipated opening of the Chicago Architecture Biennal, this video collaboration between Berlin-based PLANE–SITE and Chicago-based Spirit of Space offers an insight into what is to come this fall. The first video of the series delves into the core message that curators Mark Lee and Sharon Johnston of Johnston Marklee have established as the groundwork for contributions from over 100 international participants. One of the youngest biennials in the architectural scene, the Chicago Architecture Biennial is only in its second edition and is still defining the unique and independent traits that will help it stand out from other similar events.
The series from PLANE–SITE and Spirit of Space will unravel some of the Biennial's main themes, and delve into its program, reporting on such projects as the reinterpretations for Howells & Hood’s 1925 Tribune Tower; 3D responses to historical images of building interiors; a labyrinth of galleries that will host larger installations; and some of the biennial's anchor sites across the city of Chicago.
https://www.archdaily.com/876061/johnston-marklee-explain-what-matters-for-this-years-chicago-architecture-biennialAD Editorial Team
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