Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners of the Tokyo-based Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates, better known as SANAA, have been awarded this year’s Pritzker Prize. The annual award is given by the Hyatt Foundation to a living architect or architects who have consistently produced important work. Nishizawa is the youngest architect ever to win the Pritzker, while his partner Sejima is only the second female laureate in the competition’s history. The pairs’ first masterpiece, according to McGraw-Hill’s Architectural Record magazine, was the 21st-Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan. Located in the center of an urban park, the circular
A 70-story, folded, creased and curved stainless-steel curtain wall on an 867-ft-tall apartment building has been called “Gehry only on the outside,” as if the building is a fake Frank. It’s true that, when it opens next year, New York City’s tallest residential tower won’t be an internationally acclaimed cultural icon, as is the architect’s now-12-year-old Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain. The 76-story high-rise is not as colorful, whimsical and structurally innovative as the nearly decade-old Experience Music Project rock ’n’ roll museum in Seattle. The new tower is not as description-defying inside and out as the six-year-old Walt Disney
Engineers inspecting Chile’s structures after the magnitude-8.8 earthquake that struck the nation’s midsection on Feb. 27 say Chile’s modern buildings are more robust than many equivalent buildings on the West Coast of the U.S. Even concrete frames under construction fared well in the second-strongest temblor on record, say seismic experts. Photo: Miyamoto International Inc. Tower in Concepción appears to lack vertical reinforcing and horizontal confinement. + Image “It’s amazing how little structural damage there is on new buildings,” says Scott Nyseth, a principal in the Vancouver, Wash., office of Miyamoto International Inc. The amount of shear wall per sq ft
Six years after design began and one year after it was completed, Egypt’s Ministry of Culture is almost ready to start construction of the $550-million main building of the Grand Egyptian Museum, near Cairo. Video Image: Heneghan Peng Architects Monumental ancient artifacts will have plenty of headroom with 24-m ceilings. Image: Heneghan Peng Architects The 100,000-sq-m main building of the Egyptian museum will have a low profile to avoid competing with the great pyramids of Giza, two kilometer away. Having secured a $390-million soft loan from Japan, the ministry last month appointed a team of Hill International Inc., Marlton, N.J.,
In April, the Simon Wiesenthal Center plans to announce the name of its replacement architect for the redesign of its planned Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem. The group and its first architect, Gehry Partners, recently parted company after six years. The center cited “today’s economic realities” as a rationale behind the redesign. Frank Gehry issued a statement saying he will not be able to participate in the redesign effort because his staff and resources are committed to other projects around the globe.
An independent engineering report prepared for the University of New Mexico about its Albuquerque indoor practice facility found that wind pressure could enter the building through openings in the structure and not escape, putting the training facility at risk of collapse. The investigation by Chavez-Grieves Consulting Engineers in Albuquerque found the school’s steel-and-fabric facility had been designed by Summit Structures, Allentown, Pa., as an enclosed building. However, the independent engineers concluded that louvers, roll-up doors and other openings created a partially enclosed building. Currently, the university uses the facility only when the louvers and doors are closed and the wind
The U.S. embassy in Haiti is one of the rare significant structures in Port-au-Prince to have survived the Jan. 12, 7.0 magnitude earthquake with only minor damage, none of it structural. Photo: Pbase.com/beulahchapel Construction work on Port-au-Prince embassy in 2007. As a result, the embassy has become an important base for several relief efforts. The embassy is a relatively new structure. It was built as a design-build project by Fluor Corp., as part of the U.S. State Dept’s overhaul of its global facilities. Construction started on the 134,000 sq-ft office building with its 54,874 sq ft of support structures in
Following a decade of study and debate, Nashville this month will begin clearing a 16-acre downtown site for the controversial $585-million Music City Convention Center. Photo: Music City Convention Center Authority Sweet song Music City Convention Center will inject more than $500 million into Nashville’s economy. A 1,000-room hotel to be located nearby would add another $300 million. The Nashville Metro Council voted 29-9 in January to approve the financing plan, despite questions about the city’s ability to pay off construction debt approaching $40 million a year. The 1.2-million-sq-ft convention center is scheduled to open in early 2013. The construction-management-at-risk
“The President is alive but has nowhere to live.” That was U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s stark assessment of Haitian President Rene Preval’s situation Thursday and it applied to hundreds of thousands of Haitians who had survived the quake but faced immediate problems of surviving. Government buildings in Haiti were severely damaged and the nation’s infrastructure, never solid, was in tatters. “There is no communications system,” said Clinton. “We are attempting to help set up a communications capability for the government." AP Photo/Francois Mori A person's leg hangs from of a building that collapsed during the earthquake in Port-au-Prince,
Along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., memorials honor the service of Americans in wartime, but the site’s newest addition will be one that fosters conflict resolution and peace. The 150,000-sq-ft permanent headquarters for the U.S. Institute of Peace, being built at the mall’s northwest corner near the Lincoln Memorial and the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge over the Potomac river, will greet visitors with a dramatic new structure that its designers say both respects the context of its historic surroundings and offers a strikingly modern contrast. Slide Show Photo: The U.S. Institute of Peace. The 150,000-sq-ft U. S. Institute of Peace,