Nouvel Takes the 2008 Pritzker

"Jean Nouvel, the bold French architect known for such wildly diverse projects as the muscular Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the exotically louvered Arab World Institute in Paris, has received architecture�s top honor, the Pritzker Prize." His selection is to be announced Monday. - NYT

 

Kahn?s Esherick House Auctioned as Art

Louis I. Kahn's Margaret Esherick House, completed in 1961 in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, and county-appraised in 2006 at about $300,000, went on the auction block May 18. Richard Wright, the president of the auction house, expects it to fetch $2 to $3 million. AIArchitect

 

City of London Timeline

As a map nerd this is cool…

 

The one square mile City of London, London's main centre of finance, has changed dramatically over the years. Here, using Google Earth, you can explore this constructive history via James Stafford's fascinating animation.

 

A home made of straw?

Woo Hoo!

This house, built with straw in five days, is one of a new crop of home-grown eco-homes. TimesOnline

 

Saving Venice

I so want to visit Venice. Let's hope this works…

 

If coastal cities are most threatened by global warming and rising sea levels, none is more at risk than the Italian jewel on the Adriatic. The Globe & Mail looks at a monumental project named Moses that promises to hold back the waters and preserve the city.

 

Problems for Calatrava in Valencia

From October 29, 2007

 

"Spain's premier architect is now embroiled in ugly row with his home town over the cause of recent flooding to the city's colossal €332m (£230m) opera house, the Palau de les Arts. Torrential rain last week damaged the palace's electrical and cooling systems, and left rehearsal areas and a side theatre inundated with mud and water." Guardian

 

Wal-Mart is a virus

Here watch Wal-Mart infect the US…

 

Toby Segaran has used free data to make an animated map of Walmart's growth in the US.

 

Gehry Reveals his Serpentine from Archinect

I think this thing is total crap…but that is just me…or is it?

 

Is April Fool's Day coming early this year? If not, my theory is that UPS dropped the model in transit and tried to fix it themselves. Photos after the jump...

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for LA

"The whole thing is ridiculous. It's the most ridiculous city in the world – but everyone who lives there knows that. No one thinks that L.A. "works," or that it's well-designed, or that it's perfectly functional, or even that it makes sense to have put it there in the first place; they just think it's interesting. And they have fun there." bldgblog

Brave new welt

Jonathan Glancye reviews Coop Himmelb(l)au's new BMW building in Munich. The verdict.... "BMW's new cathedral-like building in Munich evokes perfect German families with toothpaste smiles singing company songs". Via Guardian

 

We'd like 250,000 of these, please

Floating mosques, amphibious cinemas, houses that rise with the water ... as floods return to Britain, Steve Rose meets some Dutch architects who may have the answers.

 

Crown Hall: The New American Bandstand

Dancers take over Mies' Temple of Architecture, Crown Hall this January at IIT... First Crown Hall was adapted into a musical instrument and played, now it becomes a dancing machine. It's Hammer Time! NewCity

 

Ito and Berkeley Art Museum

The University of California Regents Committee on Grounds and Buildings got its first peek at Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects' preliminary conceptual design for a new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) near the main western entrance to the UC Berkeley campus. UC Berkeley News

Arc de Dixie

Modernists are appalled, but neoclassic architecture is staging a comeback. Latest evidence: an ersatz Arc de Triomphe in Atlanta, Georgia. Forbes + Slideshow

 

Ennis House

Can Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House--heavily damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake--be restored and reopened? Not if the neighbors have something to say about it. The Architect's Newspaper.

A planned 75-story residential skyscraper connected to the Museum of Modern Art seems headed for a fight with area residents, who claim the Jean Nouvel-designed tower would be dramatically out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood.