Brutal love.

UC Berkeley has had a decades-long on again, off again love affair with the Brutalist structure designed by Mario Ciampi for the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA). Built in 1970, the building was the largest university art museum of its time. A behemoth of site-cast concrete, the fan-shaped building lacks wow-factor from the street, but when you walk into the courtyard, it engages you with its gravity-defying spans of (originally unsupported) cantilevered concrete. Inside it’s organized chaos. Satisfying in how the floors and ceilings mirror each other, creating the essence of walls where there are none, while natural light coming through skylights softens the grayness, and makes the artwork pop.

The Berkeley Art Museum entrance on Bancroft Way (left). The cantilevered sections that fan out as you walk around the building (right).

Despite its bunker-like appearance, the structure was designed as two axes (aligned with the energy centers in the Egyptian zodiac – lest you forget we’re in Berkeley) that rest on just five columns. In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake seriously undermined the building’s long cantilevered sections, and that’s when the romance began to crumble. Topping the list of the “most unsafe buildings on campus” (it’s not you, it’s me), the Ciampi building was given a $4 million seismic retrofit in 2001, but that wasn’t enough to restore the broken trust.

The interior of the Berkeley Art Museum.

The 2001 upgrade was really only a partial seismic retrofit – just enough to keep the museum open while they planned for a new facility. Funds were raised for a complete retrofit, but the folks at UC still weren’t embracing this building, which was suddenly deemed ill equipped to handle the latest multimedia installations. (Um, films? For which you need … walls?) Claiming that they needed space, the Pacific Film Archive Theater moved to “temporary” campus quarters in 1999, but has not moved back.

The goal of having a new museum in downtown Berkeley became the mantra, all the while, Ciampi’s design, wearing the stigma of being “seismically inadequate” awaited its fate. Ten years and a handful of (albeit small) earthquakes later, the BAM remains open despite the claims that it’s needy of attention, stubborn about how its space is used, ill equipped to try new kinds of installations, too far from public transportation and poorly located because it’s not downtown.

In the 2001 seismic retrofit, black steel columns were added to the exterior (left) and white steel columns to the interior (right).

In 2005, the building was slated for demolition, and architect Mario Ciampi was still proposing solutions to save it until his death at age 99 in 2006. “Now we have a seismic problem,” said Ciampi, “but I have not received a seismic report.” One of the architect’s ideas was to add an extension that would house a museum store and act like a brace. But the university was already wooing another architect, smitten with a shiny new plan for a visual arts center by Japanese architect Toyo Ito.

But after toying with Toyo, UC cancelled those plans in 2009, citing economic challenges and the weak economy. The goal then shifted to a retrofit of the former University of California Press printing plant (which was going to be razed to make room for Ito’s design). “The adaptive reuse of an older building is the greenest thing you can do,” said Berkeley City Councilmember Susan Wengraf. And while I agree, one has to wonder why the same can’t be said for the Ciampi building.

At top, Aristide Maillol’s 1922 sculpture “La Douleur” (“grief” in French) awaits the museum’s fate. Below, Alexander Calder’s “The Hawk for Peace” (1968) greets museum visitors of all ages.

There have been suggestions that the Ciampi building will saved, given an $80 million retrofit (the funds have been raised), and used for another purpose (let’s just be friends) – but nothing specific has been identified. So, while the art center sits by the phone waiting to hear about upcoming plans, the university’s long-range development map suggests a new campus building might be earmarked for the Ciampi site. 

As with all relationships, it’s important to compromise, and perhaps there’s a lesson in Alexander Calder’s sculpture near the museum’s entrance. Titled “The Hawk for Peace,” we should consider that “hawk” can also be a verb. 

Gwendolyn Horton

The world’s tallest building.

Now open in Dubai: the Burj Khalifa tower, which stands at 2,717 feet (828 meters) tall, has more than 160 floors and boasts views up to 60 miles. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in Chicago, a few of the tower’s many features include a mosque (floor 158), an Armani hotel and 54 elevators, which can reach speeds of 40mph. Read more at the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

Building time at MIT.

I could do my job with a typewriter and a bench (and the bench is optional), which is why I’d be lost in a workspace described as: “housing a gigabit fiber-optic plant connecting a heterogeneous computer network, ranging from fine-grained, embedded processors to supercomputers. There are 3D printing prototyping resources, and laboratories for DNA labeling, new sensors, micro-encapsulation, quantum computing and perceptual studies.”

I’m betting that one of those things is MIT-speak for a typewriter, but if ever there were a building packed with gizmos I don’t understand, it would be the space described above. Namely, the newly expanded Media Lab at MIT, which I checked out last Saturday on a 22-degree, “I’m a genius for relocating to California” morning. 

The recently completed Media Lab expansion at MIT.

Designed by architect Fumihiko Maki, the exterior of the MIT Media Lab expansion is spot-on with its balanced proportions, sense of scale, use of materials and appreciation for setting. There’s a satisfying rhythm in the repetition of rectangles and squares, creating a composition that’s elegant and sophisticated. Parts of the building are veiled in metal screens that filter light for a more comfortable interior while providing a bit of privacy. These screens will also help maintain a uniform aesthetic after the occupants move in and MIT-ize their new spaces with robotic window blinds and convolution theorems taped to the glass. 

As pleasing as Maki’s work is, I’m wondering if it’s too perfect, like a mathematical proof that’s no longer challenged, it doesn’t make anyone think. Every detail of this building is so well resolved that there’s nothing left for us to do but admire it. And where’s the fun in that? I’m curious to hear how the Media Lab students and faculty like the space, especially since they’re moving from the somewhat cavernous Weisner Building, designed by MIT alumnus (class of 1940) I.M. Pei. The Weisner, with its rounded corners and white tiled exterior, has been compared to an inside-out bathroom (earning it the nickname “Pei Toilet”), and as the target of an MIT “hack” (prank), its gridded exterior was transformed into a Scrabble game. (The next time you play, keep “Pei” in mind for an easy five points.)

The Weisner Building (which I.M. Pei described as “a space-making object”) with the new expansion in the distance.

If Maki’s building doesn’t wake up your cranium, then Frank Gehry’s building is sure to give you a brain freeze. A few months ago, I was asked my opinion of MIT’s Stata Center and I clambered onto my soapbox and denounced the Disney-like cartoonish building ripped from the pages of a Dr. Seuss story with all the fury of someone who’d clearly never been to the building site. Shame on me. And shame on Mr. Gehry for not inviting me sooner. (Not that Mr. G and I are friends or anything. The fact that I mention him in almost everything I write these days is as baffling to me as it is to you.)

The Stata Center at MIT.

After spending time at the Stata Center, I still think it reeks of overreaching – both by the architect and the school – but there’s also something very special about it. It’s packed with surprises. They lurk around every corner. It’s the type of space where if I were an MIT student (all day long I’d biddy biddy bum), struggling with how to make two plus two equal five, a walk through the Stata might just help me generate the idea I’m looking for.

There are unexpected moments of beauty that made me stop and stare. And when I stepped outside and saw the Airstream-like orb that punches through the pavement, I literally gasped (although, that might have been from a blast of arctic air). Yes, it’s very carnival like, and I even photographed my distorted reflection as seen in the orb’s stainless steel siding, but isn’t the whole point of creative thinking to have fun? Think unsystematically? Tear down (or construct, in this case) walls?

The Stata Center, including the Airstream-like orb that extends into the interior space below the pavement.

I was enchanted. Sort of like a date-from-hell who turns into someone you’re actually interested in. This building has got something. In its kaleidoscopic configurations, I see a metaphor for how making random connections can lead to new ideas. We tend to think that places of order and balance (like Maki’s new building) are pleasing environments, but to MIT students, maybe Stata feels more comfortable – providing relief from the order they’ve imposed upon their lives.

What do you think about these (and other) buildings at MIT? Drop me a note in the comments field below.

Gwendolyn Horton

Anyone? Anyone?

If you saw the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” you probably remember the scene when the Ferrari crashes through a garage wall and falls into a ravine. Well, that garage (wall intact) and the house that goes with it can be yours for $1.8 million. Listed by Sudler Sotheby’s, the 5,300-square-foot steel and glass home was designed by A. James Speyer and David Haid in 1953. Located in Highland Park, Illinois, the property is known as the Ben Rose House – the name of the homeowner who lived there for 51 years. For additional photos (check out the furniture), click here.

Looking beyond the façade.

There’s been some press this week about the completion of the latest building by Jean Nouvel. Much to my surprise (and embarrassment), this is a building I’ve been photographing because I actually thought it was being disassembled, not the other way around. (“Architecture is a visual art,” said Julia Morgan, “and the buildings speak for themselves.”)

Jean Nouvel’s building is located next to Frank Gehry’s IAC Building in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. I first noticed it when I saw what looked like a shirt hanging among the construction debris – as if the tenant didn’t even have time to pack his white chef’s coat before the cranes started ripping off the sides of the building. And as you can see from my photos below, the “façade-removal” theory is not that hard to imagine.

In an awkward building stage, especially with unidentified objects hanging in windows.

Fortunately, no “top chefs” were harmed in the construction of this building, and my apologies to Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Jean Nouvel for the blunder. The building, which is at 100 11th Avenue, is a 23-story luxury condominium tower that showcases Nouvel’s interest in “skins.” The curving façade wrapping around the south and west sides of the building is made up of prefabricated metal grids and more than 1,600 windows of different sizes and shapes. Each window is set at a unique angle and torque, and thus reflects light differently than the other panes around it. The result is that the building appears to shimmer, and some people say it looks like it’s draped in sequins. Personally, I think it looks like a pair madras shorts, but I’ve never been much of a couture gal.

The windows, which are colorless but take on various shades of blue in the reflected light, also make me think of the Kaleidoscope House, the children’s toy with the transparent sliding walls that I seriously wish they’d bring back into production.

Nouvel’s new building at 100 11th Avenue (left); the Kaleidoscope House toy (right).

You can’t spin a protractor in New York without hitting a building by a Pritzker Architecture Prize winner, and this block is no exception. Both Gehry and Nouvel have been honored with the prize and I wonder what the jury would say about how the IAC Building and 100 11th Avenue work in relation to one another. In the States, we spend a lot of time debating whether or not a new building “fits in” with the existing context, but we rarely speak to how one building improves another, or provides an additional benefit to another.

For example, in Masdar City – the carbon-neutral development in the Abu Dhabi desert – the buildings are being designed to work together to funnel hot desert air upward, and in the process create breezes to cool the city. The entire city is orientated to make best use of solar movements and prevailing winds, and “the relationship of one building to the next provides shading and generates year-round useable spaces in between,” say master planners Foster + Partners.

Computer-generated images of Masdar City. “One day, all cities will be built like this,” say Foster + Partners.

I’m both freaked out and awestruck by the Masdar City project, but despite the fact that I think it would feel like being in the movie Sleeper, I would still like to go there. Especially since my little cottage just got “red tagged” by the building department for a permit issue. Silly me, I didn’t realize I had to ask permission to repair my front door so that it opens, closes and (wait for it) locks. My mind must have been elsewhere, perhaps in Abu Dhabi.

Gwendolyn Horton

Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future.

It’s been three years since the traveling exhibit Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future kicked off in Helsinki, and the tour has finally made it to New York. This retrospective takes an in-depth look at Eero Saarinen, the architect and designer whose work brought international attention to mid-twentieth-century America. While you may know that Saarinen designed the TWA Terminal at JFK (shown above), the St. Louis Gateway Arch, and the Tulip™ and Womb™ chairs, you might be surprised to know the full scale of Saarinen’s career. The “potent expressions of national power” that Saarinen designed introduced modern architecture to mainstream America. The impact of which continues to shape architectural practices today. For Nicolai Ouroussoff’s review in The New York Times, click here. The exhibit is at the Museum of the City of New York through January 31, 2010.

Image: TWA Terminal, New York International (now John F. Kennedy International) Airport, New York, circa 1962. Photographer Balthazar Korab. 

Cranbrook comes to DWR.

The Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum hosted the 10th Annual National Design Awards on October 22, and the DWR E62nd Studio proudly offered our expansive split-level space to the Cranbrook Academy of Art's Alumni Reception to honor their winners and finalists. The illustrious crowd of designers and architects, both famous and soon-to-be famous, nibbled, imbibed and reunited merrily.

Luminaries in attendence included Lorraine Wild (2001 finalist), Neils Diffrient (2002 winner), Lucille Tenazas (2002 winner), Masamichi Udagawa (2003, 2006 finalist and 2008 winner - designer of the new subway trains and Metrocard machines for the MTA), Kathy and Mike McCoy (2005 winners) and Andrew Blauveldt (2009 winner, on behalf of the Walker Art Center), as well as noted inventor and industrial designer Eric Chan.

We had the opportunity to chat with Neils Diffrient who was charming, courtly and laugh out loud hilarious.  After going through the chairs that he designed in the DWR collection, he was game for a photo op, perching in his now iconic Freedom Chair with Headrest sandwiched by me and Reed Kroloff, Director of Cranbrook.

A great time was had by all, and the atmosphere was enhanced by the images of Cranbrook alumni Ray and Charles Eames, Harry Bertoia and Eero Saarinen that adorn our walls. For us design-obsessed DWR employees, it's a daily privilege to be associated with the Academy's amazing legacy. As the New York Times said in 1984, "the effect of Cranbrook and its graduates and faculty on the physical environment of this country has been profound...Cranbrook, surely more than any other institution, has a right to think of itself as synonymous with contemporary American design."

Posted by Jae Hah, Proprietor of DWR East 62nd Street Studio

A master of film, now on film.

The next best thing to actually spending a day with photographer Julius Shulman, is virtually spending a day with him – which is possible with the release of Eric Bricker’s documentary: Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman. Now open in New York and opening October 16 in Los Angeles, the film examines how Shulman’s work impacted architectural history. Peppered with Shulman’s quips and anecdotes (and a bit of gossip) about some of architecture’s most iconic figures, Visual Acoustics is a marvelous refresher course on the subject of modernism. You’ll also pick up photography tips from the master himself, as Shulman discusses his use of one-point perspective and how to avoid distortion through a wide-angle lens. He jokes, he reminisces, he basks in well-deserved praise. A fun ride that’s touching, informative and stunning, I strongly recommend you check out this film. For a sneak peek and a chance to meet Bricker, go to the DWR Beverly Boulevard Studio on Wednesday, October 14. 

Preservation progress on Cape Cod.

As we say goodbye to Ted Kennedy, his brother Jack has also been on my mind during my stay on Cape Cod. It was President Kennedy who established the Cape Cod National Seashore, and within this federally protected area are a handful of abandoned and threatened modern houses that we covered last October "Cubes on dunes: Exploring modern houses on Cape Cod.” I spent the last few days catching up with the Cape Cod Modern House Trust (CCMHT) to see the progress that has been made on preserving the Kugel-Gips house (shown above) in Wellfleet. Designed in 1970 by Charlie Zehnder, the house had water damage and wood rot when I saw it last year. Most of the damaged areas have now been restored, and Peter McMahon, executive director of the CCMHT, estimates that the project will be complete in about six weeks. After that, a scholar-in-residence program will begin, and the Trust will focus on the next house they plan to save, most likely the Hatch Cottage by John Hall, which I’ll tell you more about in an upcoming issue of Design Notes.

Sweet!

 Tomorrow morning, San Francisco’s Lombard Street (known as the crookedest street in town) will be remade into a giant Candyland board (known as the sweetest kid's game ever). To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the iconic board game, the street will be closed to traffic as young folk from San Francisco Children’s Hospital play the giant board. Stay tuned for some pics from the super sweet San Francisco event.

Over the river, through the woods.

Having grown up in Western Massachusetts, it’s tough for me think of it as a destination (you know, a place where people choose to spend their time off, not to just visit their parents). This has all recently changed thanks to a week spent in the Berkshires. If you’ve spent any time driving through Massachusetts’ back roads (and by “back roads” I mean “highways” like Routes 2 or 9) you’ve seen the massive brick buildings that used to house the mill/factory/headquarters of many long-defunct manufacturing companies. These huge, gorgeous, industrial structures stand empty in small towns throughout the state, only now with a Price Chopper or Wal-Mart installed nearby. 

We’ll miss you Julius Shulman.

It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of our dear friend Julius Shulman. The legendary photographer died on July 15 at the age of 98. Shulman has been part of our family since the beginning, and it seems like everyone at DWR has a great story about Shulman or one of his photographs above their desk or a favorite book of his work in their library. Shulman amazed us with his talent and kept us laughing with his stories. We loved him dearly, and as my colleague Matt Wilkerson so graciously put it, “we should all be so lucky to live a life as full as his was.”

I scream, you scream, even modernists scream.

Via the Times blog, we started salivating (just a little) about Coolhaus’ ice cream confections, served out of a retro aluminum and hot pink ice cream truck. Sure, street food is all the rage in the urban centers these days, but this takes food design to a whole new level. Their ice cream sandwiches are artfully crafted and include flavors like Mies Vanilla Rohe and Richard Meyer Lemon. You can follow them on Twitter to find out where they’ll be next. Nice Q&A with the founders here.

In case the Fawcett House isn’t for you: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House.

Another Frank Lloyd Wright house now for sale: The Ennis House – built in 1924 in Los Angeles – has been featured in movies and TV shows for years. Fifteen million will get you this legendary building, which has been under the care of a private foundation and was put on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s most endangered list in 2005. Unable to keep up the necessary maintenance to preserve the mostly concrete structure (perhaps it suffering from “concrete creep?” See previous blog post.), they’ve put it up for sale. Learn more about it here.

Happy Birthday Mr. Wright.

To celebrate the birthday of Frank Lloyd Wright, today the Guggenheim and Google launched a unique design challenge: The “Design It: Shelter Competition” invites amateur and professional designers to submit a 3-D shelter, rendered using Google SketchUp and Google Earth. This assignment is part of the curriculum of Taliesin, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, and an exhibit of students’ work is now at the Guggenheim (Kaman Amin’s Lotus Shelter is pictured above). Now this design challenge is now open to the public. Possible prizes include a trip to New York and $1,000. So get sketching.

I’d call this a materials story.

Steel. Glass. Stone. Now you can add Legos® to that mix. Lego Architecture kits include everything you need build your own model of some of your favorite landmarks. We’re especially excited about their partnership with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Get your very own replica of Falling Water (above) or the Guggenheim, ready to be painstakingly assembled and enjoyed. The release of these sets coincided with the May 15 opening of the Wright exhibit at the Guggenheim, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the opening of that landmark structure. The exhibit runs through August 23. The kits can be purchased here.

Frank Lloyd Wright prefab?

Designed and built by graduate students at Taliesin West (Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture school in Arizona), Taliesin Mod.Fab is a prototype prefab house that combines Wright’s principles of architecture with some green design. Mod.Fab can be built on or off the grid and uses fixtures like rainwater harvesting, grey-water reuse and natural ventilation. They estimate that the one-bedroom, 600-square-foot structure would sell for $100,000, though it’s not in production yet. (It is included in the Desert Shelter Tour at Taliesin West through April 25. And you might recognize some of the furniture, as it’s on loan from us here at DWR.) Or, if you really must have a piece of Wright’s legacy, for slightly more money (just $2.7 mill.) you could own the Fawcett House, which appears to still be on the market.

For Sale in California: a later work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

California’s seminal role in the history of modernism has been well documented. Now you can buy a piece of that history (provided you have about $2.7 mill and a strong, unyielding passion for modernist history). Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fawcett House, nestled in California’s Central Valley, is about 3,700 square feet and sits on 80 acres of farmland (and don’t forget the walnut orchard). It has five bedrooms, a wine cellar, tractor bay, koi pond, aviary and (very angular) outdoor pool. But more than that, it has Frank Lloyd Wright’s look, feel and style. Designed in 1955, when Wright was 87, the house was created for Randall and Harriet Fawcett who felt that California’s Central Valley was an ideal spot for the master’s work. Wright certainly used the landscape to inform the look and feel of the home, which was finished in 1961, two years after Wright’s death. To learn lots more about this icon of American modernism (including how to buy it), visit this site.

No John Doe hotel.

If you were a travel expert, where would you reserve rooms for the San Francisco-based DWR team to stay in New York? Our most recent visit - we were in town for the opening of the DWR: Tools for Living store in SoHo - was at the Hotel on Rivington designed by Marcel Wanders. Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, this hotel is in a great location, providing a true New York feeling (and not just the gentrified neighborhoods) no matter which direction you travel. Walk across Delancy Street and you feel like you've stepped back in time. Prune, Shiller's and Katz's, all within a few blocks of each other, make you realize why New Yorkers don't cook at home. 

And being less than a mile from SoHo, the walk was an ideal way to start each morning (made complete with a look-see at Sigerson Morrison shoes on Price Street). The Rivington gives visitors the unique feeling of being part of the neighborhood. As for the rooms, they're comfortable and feel super spacious due to floor-to-ceiling windows. We liked the remote-control window shades that opened with the press of a bedside button, and the bathtub was especially beautiful. The Hotel on Rivington is one of about 10 hotels in New York that have joined the Mr. and Mrs. Smith luxury boutique hotel group (no, they have nothing to do with Angelina and Brad). If you never want to stay in another could-be-anywhere hotel, check in with the Smiths.

A town house turns fun house.

I just have to spotlight the whimsical and ridiculous home of Roland Emmerich here on the blog. The New York Times featured the auteur’s London town house on Thursday and I’ve been unable to shake the images from my head. Admittedly not for everyone, Emmerich’s home contains bold image after bold image: a taxidermy zebra, communist imagery, World War II planes remade into furniture and a waxwork of the Pope. While on the same grand level as his blockbuster films, like Independence Day, his home has something I find missing from his films: depth. Slideshow here.