Firm Faces #20: LWPB Architecture

This week's Building of the Week – a feature I curate at American-Architects, where each week a recent building from a different state is highlighted – is the Patience S. Latting Northwest Library in Oklahoma City designed by LWPB Architecture. While researching the firm and their projects for the "50x50" feature, I couldn't help noticing the way the firm faces are represented:

[Screenshot from LWPB Architecture website]

Moving the mouse across the screen (sorry, doesn't work on mobile devices) results in the people moving back and forth, retracting of the screen like two-dimensional cutouts on a virtual Rolodex:

[Screenshot from LWPB Architecture website]

The technique is reminiscent of Diller Scofidio + Renfro's flip-up project grid on their website, which was designed by Pentagram:

[Screenshot from DS+R website]

When the mouse cursor overlaps with a person on LWBP's website, a speech bubble of sorts pops up with their name (who new Norman Foster worked in Oklahoma?) and clicking on each person brings up a postcard-like view with some of stats on them:

[Screenshot from LWPB Architecture website]

While LWPB's means of illustrating the firm's principals and employees is clever and memorable, its reliance on Flash points to the question: Can this sort of thing be programmed into the HTML environment, so as to be visible and usable across devices and platforms? I'd assume not in its current form, but perhaps in other ways that retain the fun way of showing the firm's faces and therefore the firm's personality.

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Monika Sosnowska. Tower

[Photo via 860-880 Lake Shore Drive]

Mies van der Rohe's 860-880 Lake Shore Drive apartments, shown above around the time of their completion in 1951, are two of the most influential towers in 20th-century architecture. Predating by seven years his Seagram Building in New York City, 860 and 880 consist of uniform facades with small, vertical I-beams in front of steel plates and clear glass.


[Facade detail | Photo via 860-880 Lake Shore Drive]

A basic expression of floor-to-ceiling glass and decorative steel meant to evoke the structural frame behind it subsequently became the go-to design for Mies and other architects in the 1960s and later, especially for office buildings. Today's urban environments of glass skins (now taut, with silicon joints rather than decorative projections) would be unthinkable without this trailblazing pair.


[All photographs of Tower by John Hill]

860-880 are the source, and modern architecture is the subject, of Polish artist Monika Sosnowska's Tower, on display until October 25 at Hauser & Wirth on West 18th Street. The artist has taken the facade – everything in front of the structural steel, fireproofing and floors – built it at full scale and then distorted it beyond recognition. Well, almost beyond recognition.



Walking into the large gallery space, the first view of Tower is the one above; the 110-foot-long piece is so big that I could not capture it in a single photo. My first thought was "beached whale," and while I can't say if the artist intended such a resemblance, the form and the inversion of the subject (from vertical to horizontal) does give the impression that modern architecture is dead or dying, much like a whale washed ashore is dead or dying.



Tower's modules are those of the original facade, the rectangular window bays between the decorative I-beams, with a large pane of glass above a smaller, operable pane. Of course, glass is missing from the piece, but if we straighten out the bent construction in our minds, the regular, rectangular grid is there, vertical on one side (photos above and below) and horizontal on the other (top installation photo).



Comparing the top view of the installation to the one above – photos from alternate ends of the piece – shows the most distinctive experiences of the piece. Where the steel is coiled tightly, as in the above photo, Tower is like a tube, a restricted view where the end is barely visible.



But at the other end (photo below), the steel unfurls, as if the tension of the coil at the other end could not be contained. Here, the piece exposes itself in all its gruesome complexity.



About halfway down the 110-foot length of the piece, the steel transitions from what I described as vertical to horizontal. This transition can be seen in the below photo, with the vertical windows on the right and the horizontal windows on the left (look for the intermediate mullion between large pane and operable pane to get a sense of the orientation).




Looking at the facade detail of 860-880 near the top of the post, one question that may arise is: Why is Tower all black when Mies's original is black steel and gray aluminum? This is a good question, not only because Mies is quoted as saying "God is in the details" but because the pair of towers were replicated at 900-910 Lake Shore Drive with some minor changes, one of them being an all-black metal exterior. So with Tower's all-black appearance, Sosnowska is referencing not only the original but also its copies, be it right across the street or elsewhere around the world.



It's easy to go on analyzing Tower in terms of the architecture of modernism (or the destruction of architecture, à la 9/11, that the mangled form also brings to mind), but intellectual perspectives on the piece are not needed to appreciate it. The thing is so big and so gnarly that it just impresses out of its size and form: the way the pieces bend as well as the way they overlap each other; the way it occupies one half of the gallery, cutting a diagonal across the room and inviting visitors to walk around it; and the way it's hardly concerned with beauty or order.



Tower invites speculation about how it was made. While a book specifically on the piece will be released in November, one needn't see that to know it was a complicated and intensive undertaking, akin to constructing a building, both in terms of mechanical muscle and the coordination of labor needed to move the project from scale models to full size.



So if you're in New York City between now and October 25, be sure to head to Hauser & Wirth to take in Monika Sosnowska's Tower to experience it for yourself.

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Sonic Forest

Christopher Janney's Sonic Forest: Civic Celebrations opened across the street from the Center for Architecture on Friday evening. The grid of interactive pylons will be up only until September 11, but for those who can't visit by then, one of Janney's permanent pieces, Reach NYC, can be experienced on the N/Q/R platforms of the 34th Street/Herald Square station. Below are some of my photos and video clips of Sonic Forest.


[All photos/videos by John Hill]

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Auf Wiedersehen, Loreley (Corrected)

Update 09-07: Per a comment on Twitter, I was mistaken in my original post at what intersection I was looking at (double D'OH!!), but nevertheless R+L's Loreley is still gone, per the corrected text below.

I'm not sure when the Brooklyn outpost of Loreley Biergarten closed, but when I happened to think I was walking by its location in the shadow of the BQE a couple days ago, it was gone. This is what it looked like when Loreley existed, in a spread from my Guide to Contmporary New York City Architecture:

[That should say 64 *Frost* Street – D'OH! | Photos by Amy Barkow]

Not only is restaurant designed by Rickenbacker + Leung gone, per this Google Street View from April 2012:


But sometime between then and September 2013, the date of this Google Street View, the restaurant changed from Loreley's innovate brick fencing to something with a wood fence, and the city put in a preliminary plaza at the triangular tip where Frost and Meeker meet:


The new restaurant, since mid-2013, is Battery Harris, a "Carribbean-inspired restaurant and bar."

Since the above view, (see my photo at top) taller buildings have taken over the low-rise buildings behind and the city has made the parklet more permanent through the extension of the curbs, but at the omission of the planters and stone benches. Although I didn't take a close look at the construction sign while passing by the other day (the BIS indicates a Place of Assembly permit filed by C. Wall Architecture, which has done plenty of restaurants, so I'd wager on another one here), whatever occupies the one-story building at the tip of the site former Loreley space will hopefully nurture the new but empty public space in front of it...and maybe they can show movies on that big blank wall facing the plaza, rather than putting up a billboard aimed at BQE drivers.

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Now Trending: Architecture in the Digital Media Age

The title of this blog post is the title of a panel discussion that was held in SOM's New York office in a couple months ago. While the inclusion of the term "trending" points to the a desire to have architecture function like cats, celebrities, and other viral topics, the proceedings, which can be watched below or here, strike a balance between skepticism and all-out-embrace of digital trends.


[Photo via SOM's Facebook page]

From SOM:

The internet has affected nearly every aspect of our lives. What impact has it had on architecture — and has that impact been negative or positive? In this panel discussion, hosted at SOM’s New York office on July 31st, 2014, three leaders from influential design publications* discuss the myriad ways architecture is presented online; whether the web has diminished genuine, critical dialogue about architecture; and how much thought and energy a firm should invest in its digital presence.

*With Cathleen McGuigan, editor in chief of Architectural Record; Marc Kushner, founder and CEO of Architizer; Alan Brake, executive editor at The Architect’s Newspaper; moderated by Jenna McKnight, digital editor at SOM.

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KRob 2014

October 27, 2014 – 5pm CST, to be precise – is the deadline for this year's Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Students and professionals can enter in various categories, with eligibility requirements here and more details on the competition below.



From KRob:

Celebrating 40 years, the annual Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition is the longest running architectural drawing competition in the world. Organized by the Dallas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects since 1974, the Ken Roberts Competition awards prizes to original works that best represent the artistic qualities of architecturally inspired drawings, produced by hand, digital CG or a combination of both.

Hosted by the AIA Dallas Chapter at their offices in Dallas and sponsored by Doghouse Computer Systems, the competition culminates in an award ceremony and event night with refreshments and conversation with the jury panel. This year the jury consists of Frank Ching, considered one of the greatest architectural illustrators of our time and author of multiple books that have become essential to young architects-in-training. Thomas Series owner of Laptop – Rendering, an incredible visualization firm who work with leading architects worldwide, and Cliff Welch, architect and owner of Welch Architects, a renowned contemporary architect in Dallas, Texas.

Having received 385 entries from over 25 countries in the last year, KRob’s visibility continues to grow, with its website receiving over 33,000 visitors each year.

Professionals and students from all over the world are encouraged to enter this exciting competition for an opportunity to win great prizes, gain recognition across the industry and open up new opportunities with the publication of their ‘Award Winning’ work!

More information can be found at www.krobarch.com

The above poster features Chris Cornelius's winner last year in the professional digital/mixed category. Below are some of my favorites from previous years.


[J. Arthur Liu, 2007 juror citation professional hand category]


[Matthew Sander, 2008 best in student hand category]


[Nathan Freise, 2009 best in show, best in professional/mixed category]


[Brad Silva, 2010 best in physical submission category]


[Dustin Wheat, 2011 best in physical submission category]


[Chris Cornelius, 2012 best in physical submission category]

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Today's archidose #780

Here are some photos of the Druzhba Sanatorium (1985) in Kurpaty, Crimea, Ukraine, by Igor Vasilevsky with Nodar Kancheli, photographed by William Veerbeek.















To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool

To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just:

:: Tag your photos #archidose

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