ArchiWEB Explorer: Columbia University

Housing for Mahouts and their Elephants, by RMA Architects, who Frampton names as a practice doing exceptional work in Asia. Image © Carlos Chen

In a recent interview with Metropolis Magazine, Kenneth Frampton answered questions about his existing architectural influence and his opinion as it relates to the direction of architectural theory and criticism. Frampton has long been a prominent voice in the world of architectural theory and writing. He has taught at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) since 1972, all the while publishing a large collection of critical essays and books on the topic of 20th-century architecture—the most notable of those being his 1983 essay “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance.”

© Felipe Gomes

Harvard University Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) has announced the four finalists for the 2018 Wheelwright Prize, a $100,000 travel research-based grant available to early-career architects worldwide. 

Selected from over 125 applications from nearly 40 countries worldwide, the four finalists are from Belgium, Mexico, Brazil, and the United States. This year’s jury includes 2014 Wheelwright Prize Winner Jose Ahedo, Edward Eigen, Frida Escobedo, K. Michael Hays, Mark Lee, Mohsen Mostafavi, and Michelle Wilkinson. A winner will be named in April. 

Read more about the four finalists below: 

Aude-Line Duliere: “Crafted Images: Material Flows, Techniques, and Reuses in Set Construction Design”

A trio of exhibitions I visited last week: three of them are closing within the next week, while the third one closes next month. All are worth the effort.



Closes Monday, January 22
falkeis.architects: active energy building
Austrian Cultural Forum New York
11 East 52nd Street
Open M-F 3-5pm by appointment only (via email in link)



There's a double appeal to this small exhibition: learning about the design, research, and construction of the Active Energy Building in Lichtenstein, designed by Austrian architects Anton Falkeis and Cornelia Falkeis-Senn; and seeing the 11th floor of Raimund Abraham's Austrian Cultural Forum. Instead of walking inside the building and taking a few steps to the public galleries on the lower floors, one must take an elevator ride to see the drawings, model, and photos of the Active Energy Building. Tucked in the building's tapered section between the ACFNY's offices and the apartment of ACFNY director Christine Moser, it's a trip most people will never take.

Last month I signed the contract for my next book with Prestel, tentatively titled NYC Walking Tours. Due to be released in spring 2019, the book collects eight architectural walking tours (plus two new ones) that I've been giving for the last six years for the 92Y and other institutions in and around New York City.

In some ways the new book will be like an update of my first book, Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture (W. W. Norton, 2011), whose 22 chapters were organized as suggested walking routes. NYC Walking Tours will feature numerous buildings and landscapes from that book but many more that have been completed since then. Due to its structure and length, it will not be as comprehensive as my first book, and it will be more explicit in the routes – where to go, and what to look at. And of course, it will be compact and easy to carry around.



This image (something I quickly mocked up and certainly NOT the cover for the book) is a case in point: my High Line tour involves getting off the elevated park to look at a few buildings up close, including Shigeru Ban's Metal Shutter Houses, whose duplex units sit behind its namesake shutters and garage-door-like walls of glass. Other tours head to Billionaire's Row, the Bowery, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Columbia University, and Roosevelt Island, among other parts of the city where a density of new architecture warrants a walk.