THE ARCHITECTSNEWSR 4.6.2004 NEW YORK ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN WWW.ARCHPAPER.COM $3.95 collaborative team of MOHSEN MOSTAFAVI VOTED OUT OF Rotterdam-based MVRDV, CO HIS JOB AS CHAIR OF THE 04 Boston-based StoSS ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION CHRISTO AND Landscape Urbanism, and LU New York's Leeser I— JEANNE-CLAUDE Architecture. The team PLAY TO A squeezed its buildings on o Wanted: o HOME CROWD a small corner of the site, raising the village's density above Manhattan's average 08 while halving the size of the New Chair THE SHAKEDOWN city grid. Twelve 450-foot ON OTHER towers taper and tilt to open Last month, the chairman of the Architectural up views, and sometimes Association (AA), Mohsen Mostafavi, was OLYMPIC 2012 connect or "kiss" at their voted out of his job leading London's presti• BIDS pinnacles. In their scheme, gious school, putting yet another of the FINALISTS UNVEIL DESIGNS FOR the remainder of the site world's top architectural education jobs on 14 OLYMPIC VILLAGE becomes an expansive urban the market. The overthrow came at the regu• ANOTHER beach. Thomas Leeser lar five-year review meeting in which the chair explained, "We wanted to must be ratified by the school community. FILIAL FILM VILLAGE VANGUARDS create a super-dense New Mostafavi has been in the position for ten York condition, rather than years and is widely credited for stabilizing the 16 NYC2012 unveiled the five Hunters Point. Mayor a 'towers in the park' or school, particularly its business footing. SHOPTALK: finalist design.s for its pro• Michael R. Bloomberg, suburban campus model In an apparently emotional speech during PUBLI-CITY posed Olympic Village at a Queens Borough President because there's a low per• the meeting, he let it be known that he centage of public spaces in press conference on March Helen Marshall, founder of would take the job for a further five years. 03 EAVESDROP the program and the site is 10"- in Grand Central NYC2012 Daniel Doctoroff, But unexpectedly heavy voting from the 600- 15 CLASSIFIEDS TerminarsVanderbilt Hall. and NYC2012's director of in the heart of the city. strong school community turned against Principals from the five par• planning Alexander Garvin (Compacting the density him: He was voted out by a narrow margin, ticipating teams were all on also spoke. meant creating the possibil• just 211 to 200. Mostafavi has agreed to stay hand to present their projects All five groups proposed ity for social interaction and in place until Summer 2005, giving the school to house 16,000 Olympians tall buildings surrounded by urban experience." time to form a search committee, which will (and later 18,000 New open space, but the forms Los Angeles firm consist of three nominees from the school's Yorkers) on a 73-acre penin• and layouts of the projects Morphosis' proposal con• elected governing council, three from its staff, sular site located at the geo• vary radically. The most centrates height in a cluster and three from the student body. graphical center of New York succinct plan is Weaving of towers near the northern The AA, which has produced such cutting- in Queens West, al.so called Village oti the Beach by the edge of continued on page 4 edge talents as Rem continued on page 2 BUSH APPROVES LOAN A loan from the U.S. ing Secretariat tower Other sources would allow the UN to OF $1.2 BILLION and other facilities, might include split• renovate its facilities which suffer from ting the cost among LOAN-WITH INTEREST and build a new build• overcapacity and an member states or ing, just south of the antiquated safety having the UNDC existing UN campus. infrastructure. (United Nations In a surprising turn There is one catch, Development of events, the Bush however: The 25-year Corporation), a New PETER COOK RAVES ABOUT HIS administration has loan comes with a York State public FELLOW LONDONER AND EX-AA'ER offered the United 5.54-percent interest entity that owns Nations a $1.2 billion rate, which means many of the UN's loan to renovate its that the UN would office buildings, float bonds. "I have heard ZAHA WINS headquarters com• ultimately pay $1.3 plex in New York City. billion in interest. speculation that if the If approved by the And while the loan, UNDC has the ability U.S. Congress and which is included in to do so, it could get PRITZKER accepted by the UN the president's 2005 lower rates on the General Assembly, budget proposal, has open market," said I'm going to gush. This time the Pritzker the loan would allow to be approved by Steve Dimoff, vice has gone to a real designer, a real leader. the international Congress, there are president of the United At last we can move past the gray period body to rehabilitate already indications Nations Association. UN Capital Master Plan that kept incanting we had passed the its rapidly deteriorat- that the UN could The loan offer is an age of heroic architects. Now we have a reject the offer. almost 180-degree full-blooded heroine. Zaha Hadid is deft In a March 5'^ reversal from the and insistent, her visions clear and report, Secretary- Bush administration's unmitigated. We do not have to make General Kofi Annan position a year ago, allowances for her products. They are recommended that when disagreements special and haunting. the UN "explore with the UN Security Not long ago, I saw her exhibition in other funding oppor• Council overthe war Vienna. I was (to use a London term) gob• tunities, including in Iraq, not to men• smacked, silenced by the theatricalism of contributions from tion the burgeoning her presentation—first the projections, public and private U.S. budget deficit, then the rockery of models, then the train sources." continued on page 4 of drawings. continued on page 2 00 C\J 3 O THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER APRIL 6, 2004 ZAHA WINS PRITZKER continued from CO In this issue we feature a comparison of the nine cities bidding to front page Exhausting and irrefutable Diana Darling host the 2012 summer Olympic games, focusing on the role that proof of worth and depth. Evidence O piled upon evidence of talent sustained architects, planners, engineers, and designers play in the plans. Cathy Lanq Ho from her years as a student at the William Menkinq According to lacques Rogge, the International Olympic Architectural Association to last week's m Committee (IOC) president, the 2012 games should be simple, crowning prize. Martin Perrin humble, and compact—a welcome attitude considering the bloated Zaha has arrived at that special position occupied by Frank Gehry and few others, media-circus character of recent Olympics. Rogge's emphasis on Deborah Grossberg which is what Pritzker should be about but James Way downsizing the games has encouraged competing cities to play up hasn't always been—ideas, dynamism, the small scale of their plans. "Compact" might be the buzzword and motivation, which should never be Jonathan Chaffin evaluated by mere efficacy. Zaha's low for the 2012 Olympic planners, but a claim like "within city limits" threshold for boredom and quick coming from a city as large as Rio de Janeiro or London has little response (reminiscent, sometimes, of Christina Ficicchia meaning. Most cities' response to the IOC's call for modesty is tak• John MacEnroe on the center court); her TECHNICAL CONSULTANT ing the form of plans to make maximum use of existing facilities. inability to suffer fools or the overly Keith James sensitive; and her accurate one-liners Still, nearly all the cities (except Havana) have proposed fistfuls of on other architects remind us that sweet new structures. New York's proposed 9 new facilities begin to look reasonableness rarely gets you to good restrained compared to Rio's and Leipzig's 19, Paris' 18, Istanbul's architecture. On behalf of London, we congratulate her and continue to CONTRIBUTORS 14, and London's 13. breathe a great sigh of relief that Columbia PHILIPPE BARRIERE / ARIC CHEN / So where does New York stand? The bookies put our chances University did not whisk her away. MURRAY ERASER/RICHARD INGERSOLL/ JOE KERR/LIANE LEFAIVRE / JAMES PETO/ around 8 to I,tied with Madrid and well behijid London and Paris, PETER COOK LUIGI PRESTINENZA PUGLISI/ KESTER RATTENBURY/D.GRAHAME SHANE/ the favorite to win. It's widely perceived that the IOC thinks it's ANDREW YANG/PETER ZELLNER Europe's turn to for games, since the United States played host in WANTED: NEW CHAIR continued from front 1996 (Atlanta) and again in 2002 (Salt Lake City). page Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Bernard EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Tschumi, and others, was becoming PAOLA ANTONELLI/RAUL A. BARRENECHE/ How likely is it that New York's massive plans for Olympic devel• M. CHRISTINE BOYER/PETER COOK/ regarded as overly conventional in recent WHITNEY COX/ODILE DECO/TOM HANRAHAN/ opment in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn will ever be realized? years. Many have criticized it as "homog• SARAH HERDA/CRAIG KONYK/JAYNE MERKEL/ Was the Olympic Village design contest just another ideas competi• enized" and "all a bit polite" compared LISA NAFTOLIN/SIGNE NIELSON / to what it had been in its glory years (no JOAN OCKMAN / HANS ULRICH OBRIST/ tion doomed to remain unbuilt, recorded in history books alone? matter how financially unstable) under KYONG PARK / ANNE RIESELBACH / And do New Yorkers even want the Ohmpics? Of the nine bidding TERENCE RILEY/KEN SAYLOR / MICHAEL SORKIN Alvin Boyarsky in the 1970s and '80s. As cities, public support is lowest in New York, at only 73 percent.