Arts
The premieres of the season create connections to local styles and fresh relationships
Architects Are Coaxing Downtowns Back to Life. Gone are the days when designers made a splash with a shimmering new building torquing this way and that.
Updated 2024-Oct-04 11:00
The Reef, inside the Seattle Aquarium’s Ocean Pavilion, a new immersive exhibit with a giant reef ecosystem.
Pei enthusiasts who can t make it to Hong Kong can discover an intriguing edition of this reassessment in the catalogue overseen by Surya and Chen set to be released on Sept.
10 by Thames Hudson. Alternatively they can visit Syracuse N. Where the Los Angeles architecture firm Millions has discreetly added a bright new cafe named Louise to the 1968 Everson Museum of Art a unique collection of cantilevered concrete structures that represents one of Pei s most impressive architectural achievements in the art world.
Five years ago at the age of 102 I. Pei who was born in China and educated at M. He was among the top six most well known architects in the world.
However Shirley Surya and Aric Chen believe that I. Pei: Life Is Architecture shows that his work has been misinterpreted for years due to the attention given to large iconic projects like the National Gallery and the Louvre pyramid.
They claim Pei s reputation is still associated with certain clichés such as a focus on monumental geometry and the overused concept of merging East and West.
Can architecture save the American downtown? Or at least give it a much needed shot in the arm?Hollowed out by hybrid work schedules and caricatured as lawless by the likes of Fox News many of America’s urban cores are less vibrant than at any point since the 1970s.
Nationally according to a recent Conference Board survey office occupancy rates post pandemic have settled around 50 percent leaving one cubicle empty for each one that is filled.
Converting commercial towers into apartments or condominiums is one popular strategy for bringing people back.
At 25 Water Street in Manhattan’s financial district the New York architecture firm CetraRuddy has overseen the transformation of a 22 story office building into a residential tower with 1 300 rental apartments the city’s largest such makeover yet.
But many office buildings simply aren’t good candidates for conversion. The bigger the tower and the bigger its floor plates the tougher it becomes to turn work spaces into apartments without stranding residents far from natural light and operable windows.
That leaves cities looking for other strategies for coaxing their downtowns back to full prepandemic vitality and canny architects repackaging their pitches to clients to emphasize their talents as resourceful regenerators of urban life.
Two examples on the West Coast where the malaise has been especially slow to lift suggest the promise and the limits of looking to high profile architecture beyond the office to residential conversion as catalyst.
After an elevated freeway in Seattle called the Alaskan Way Viaduct was taken down in phases beginning in 2011 city leaders considered no shortage of proposals imagining new parks bike paths and gardens in its place.
The goal was to restitch long severed connections between the city’s downtown and its waterfront. But progress came in fits and starts and once the coronavirus pandemic began fell into a deep freeze.
Ocean Pavilion Seattle Aquarium.
The current exhibition at the M Museum in Hong Kong presents a different perspective on Pei highlighting him as an architect who carefully studied local contexts worldwide and explored fresh interpretations of tradition.
A picture showing the exhibit I. Pei: Life Is Architecture at the M Museum in Hong Kong next to the former residence of Senegal s first president Leopold Sedar Senghor.
It was taken by Wilson Lam and credits go to M Hong Kong. In an American setting this would be similar to constructing something in the presence of.
