When Gustave Eiffel completed his tower for the 1889 World Fair in Paris, the observation deck typol ogy was truly born. The success of that structure – it remains the most visited paid monument in the world – illustrated the power of the humble viewing platform to transform a city’s economic fortunes and its architectural identity…
Foster + Partners has been awarded the task of designing the main stadium for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The 80,000-seat Lusail Stadium near Doha will house the opening and closing ceremonies for the event, and its forward-thinking design aims to take stadium design to the next level. Instead of creating a free-standing object…
Just last month, we were speculating about how an Uber-style fleet of driverless cars could change t he make-up of cities. Now, the same questions may need to be applied not to our roads, but to the skies far above: Helicopter livery operator Gotham Air has launched an airborne taxi service, promising to transfer time-squeezed commuters…
Over a dozen starchitect-designed structures sit complete along the High Line right now, and even mo re are under construction, including a 14-story luxury apartment complex by Zaha Hadid and the new Whitney Museum by Renzo Piano (among the projects in progress pictured below). Now, Rem Koolhaas is the latest world-renowned architect to join the list…
The ingenious philanthropic model of the public/private partnership has long sustained America’s cul tural and civic assets, relied upon by museums, historic places, parks, hospitals, and libraries for design, building, and ongoing program operations. The model constitutes the core of the nation’s uniquely market-reliant nonprofit sector — it is the bedrock of civic goodwill and public…
Leave it to the Brits to come up with something so funny and true that it ends up being a little ter rifying. Austerity is an update of Monopoly, but instead of robber barons and railroads, there are global financiers and the Shard. It is a fitting parody of the classic Parker Bros board game that…
Last month, under Foster + Partners’ tessellated canopy at the National Portrait Gallery in Washingt on, Elizabeth Chu Richter, FAIA, was inaugurated as the 91st President of the AIA. A Chinese-born architect from Corpus Christi, Texas, Chu’s contributions include an award-winning public radio series, “The Shape of Texas,” in addition to her role as CEO of…