Performing arts center uncovered

Kauffman Center

Principal Isaac Franco AIA and associate Sarah Lindenfeld of Moshe Safdie and Associates join the Performing Arts Design Committee at The Architects Building on Friday, May 22 at 8:00 am to discuss the much-anticipated Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City. Currently under construction, the project includes a 1,800-seat proscenium theater, 1,600-seat concert hall, banquet hall and grand foyer. Dynamic forms, dramatic views and expressive lighting add to this project’s compelling design. No RSVP is needed for morning meetings.

Cross published from Boston Society of Architects

New condominium building adding to Chicago skyline?

Chicago based developer Urban R2 hopes to move their project forward.  The condominium building named Catalyst designed by Lucien Lagrange Architects is located at 123 N. Des Plaines Street in the West Loop.

Catalyst designed by Lucien Lagrange Architects 123 N. Des Plaines Street

123 N. Des Plaines Street

Breaking All the Rules With New York’s Public-Building Design

By ADA LOUISE HUXTABLE

Brooklyn, N.Y.
May 13, 2009

Now that the age of irrational exuberance and outrageous excess is apparently over, can we please talk about real architecture again? It has been fun seeing just how far talent can stretch itself before achieving irrelevancy, but there are diminishing returns in watching more become less in an escalating game of real-estate toys for the superrich. It has been less fun to see how easily, and paradoxically, in a time of extreme affluence, the social contract that is an essential part of the art of architecture has been abrogated. Or at least driven under the radar by the kind of showy construction where creativity and cost are terminally confused. You do begin to wonder what happened to the art that could build with genuine grandeur and still serve and elevate ordinary lives. 

The Saratoga Avenue Community Center's exterior with its references to earlier styles.

As the hype and the construction stop, there is much soul-searching talk by born-again architects about modesty, sustainability and social and environmental responsibility. But I find it hard to believe that those operating in the stratosphere of pricey self-indulgence in an undimmed celebrity culture really get it, or that they are having even a tiny epiphany. Architecture has always been the enabler of excess, for better or worse, and architects will succumb again to the same seductive pieties about cutting-edge design and a trickle-down theory that simply doesn’t work.  Full article

Cross posted from WSJ