Architecture
Building a ShoeInventor Tinker Hatfield is responsible for the original design concepts of Air Jordan sneakers, one of the most widely recognized and highly coveted products from the 1990s. The jagged line of color on the edge of the sole that became a trademark; the revolutionary “Air” bubble design, a small plastic window in the sole of the shoe which allowed you to see the cushioning system inside, are all ideas that came from one man who seems to know a little more about building than just shoe design. Shoe, sneaker, Tinker Hatfield, nike, Architecture, drawing |
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Design Talks: Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects2012 National Design Award winners Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam have worked together in architecture for over forty years. Founded in 1984, their Atlanta-based firm, Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, has won international acclaim for work that ranges from a sleek factory for Herman Miller to the Lulu Chow Wang Campus Center for Wellesley College and commercial office space for Tishman Speyer Properties. The firm’s diverse body of work is uniquely characterized by profound rigor tempered by childlike innocence. Architecture, mack scogin, merrill elam, National Design Awards |
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A House of Unique CharacterAnna Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Townsend House, St. Regent’s Park, drawing, Sir Frederick Leighton, William Burgess, Frederic Edwin Church, Olana, Albert Bierstadt, Royal Academy of Arts, Architecture, interiors |
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Mod Metropolis“There are perfectly sober people who will tell you they have seen high buildings shimmy.” “(Modern buildings) show their best to their devotees… (who) will point out to you a score of fleeting expressions in a façade.” Orrick Johns. “What the Modish Building Will Wear.”New York Times, Oct. 4, 1925. Hugh Ferriss, Architecture, New York City, drawing, conté, Pamela Lawton |
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Citizen Architect“All architects expect and hope that their work will act as a servant in some sense for humanity–to make a better world. This is a search we should always be undertaking.” —Samuel Mockbee Samuel Mockbee, D.K. Ruth, Rural Studio, Alabama, Mississippi, Auburn University, Architecture, residential, built environments, low-cost housing, cameras, film, recycled wood, architectural drawings |
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The Dome and Cupola that Were Not ThereThis perspective tour de force dazzles the eye with the complexities of its illusionistic architecture. The story behind the work is equally compelling. Andrea Pozzo, Architecture, Italian architecture, Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola, Jesuit Order, Counter Reformation, Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Baciccio, fresco, foreshortening, dome, perspective, drawing, illusionism, Japanese, painting, cupola, Rome |
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Memoriam for Lebbeus WoodsAfter a week of nature rendering havoc on the northeastern coast of the United States, and televised images of death, drowning, and destruction, it is interesting to consider the work of the experimental architect, Lebbeus Woods, who died on October 30, 2012. Woods was a visionary for whom destruction and reconstruction were two poles of human existence. He demonstrated his world view in an exquisitely rendered drawing, Geomechanical Tower, one of two works in Cooper-Hewitt’s collection from the 1987 Centricity series. Lebbeus Woods, Architecture, New York City, Manhattan, Hudson River, East River, Earth |
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Hauntingly Beautiful: Frederic Edwin Church’s Parthenon SketchHome of the mythological goddess Athena, the Parthenon is a hauntingly sacred place where the air is ominously rife with magic. Or, at least, that is the mood evoked in Frederic Edwin Church’s (1826-1900) oil sketch of the Parthenon. To create this effect, Church chose to paint the building from below, giving the impression that it looms over the viewer. In reality, this particular view of the Parthenon does not exist, but is rather contrived from composite views and memory. The contrast of red and blue illumination was also almost certainly invented by the artist. Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Cole, Parthenon, Hudson River School, Romanticism, artificial lighting, Greece, composite view, Metropolitan Museum of Art, American landscape, Architecture, columns, icebergs, nature, Athena, mythology, paintings |
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Searching for PerfectionRichard Meier’s Getty Center, which sits atop a hill in Santa Monica, is, arguably, the last great building of the 20th century. While some liken the complex to a fortified Tuscan hill town, and Meier himself says that he was thinking of Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli or the Villa Farnese in Caprarola, it reminds me of another ancient hilltop complex, the Parthenon. Richard Meier, J. Paul Getty Center, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Hadrian, Tivoli, Villa Farnese, Caprarola, Parthenon, Athens, Le Corbusier, Architecture, San Diego Freeway, stone, GRiD, Getty Research Institute, construction, drawing |
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Gertrude Stein's Brother Collects ArchitectureAmong the most important 20th-century architectural drawings in Cooper-Hewitt’s collection, this work presents four sketches for a suburban Paris two-family villa, commissioned by the modern art collectors, Michael and Sarah Stein (brother and sister-in-law of Gertrude Stein), and their close friend Gabrielle de Monzie. While De Monzie wasn’t especially interested in architecture, she still paid for Michael Stein’s experimental adventure in an avant-garde home. Villa Stein-de Monzie, Gabrielle de Monzie, Michael Stein, Sarah Stein, Gertrude Stein, Pavilion de l’Esprit Nouveau, 1925 Paris Exposition, Le Corbusier, Architecture, Museum of Modern Art, Calvin S. Hathaway, The Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, La Terraces, elevations, drawings, paris |
