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HE ARCH ITECT SN EWSPAPER 08_5.ll.2004 NEW YORK ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN WWW.ARCHPAPER.COM $3.95 RENOWNED STRUCTURAL ENGINEER LEAVES FREEDOM TOWER PROJECT Guy Walks Guy Nordenson has left the building. The New York-based structural engineer, who 00 03 I— also holds an associate professorship at BETTER SKATE Princeton University, quietly left the Freedom LU Tower project in December. THAN NEVER The question of authorship has run through the entire WTC process and takes no back• O 04~ seat here. While Daniel Libeskind won the RPA DISCUSSES LMDC-organized competition to redesign FAR WEST SIDE the site, the twisted shape of Freedom Tower has been largely attributed to David Childs. At the building's public unveiling on rT ARCHITECTURAL LEAGUE NAMES WINNERS OF YOUNG ARCHITECTS FORUM December 19'", Childs himself said SOM EXPERIENCING developed the tower's torque as an architec• DONALD JUDD tural reiteration of the deformation of Lower THE NEXT GENERATION Manhattan's street grid. He did not reference 03 EAVESDROP Nordenson's input, although the engineer 12 DIARY was a member of the conceptual design The Architectural League that interpret social and Architects award showcases 14 SHOPTALK of New York recently pragmatic concerns." The talents who are ju.st begin• team hired by Larry Silverstein and, more 15 CLASSIFIEDS announced the si.x winners wiimers were chosen among ning to build. For this rea• importantly, had developed a remarkably of its 23"' Annual Young 93 submissions. son, the architects'portfolios similar twisting tower scheme for The New Architects Forum competi• The competition is open are filled with theoretical York Times Magazine's September 2002 tion, which is accompanied to architects who have been projects. story featuring alternatives to the designs by a lecture .series and exhi• out of .school for less than On May 6"' the first two then being developed by Beyer Blinder bition at the Urban Center. ten years. Whereas the winners presented their Belle for the LMDC. Herbert Muschamp, This year's contest asked League's Emerging Voices work. Tom Wiscombe of who produced the story, wrote: "[Norden• entrants to address how competition identifies Los Angeles firm Emergent son's proposal] is not a formal design but an they produce "symbols of archilects whose buih work is no stranger to New York. idea for how a skyscraper could be torqued cultural value and .spaces articulates a unique, com- Last summer he won the to make it structurally sound, even at very lor culturiil production... peUing language, the Young "Urban continued on page 4 great heights." continued on page 2 FAR WEST VILLAGE SAYS NO TO LEERS WEINZAPFEL'S RENOVATION MORE GLITZY TOWERS LIGHTENS UP JOSEP LLUIS SERT'S SCIENCE CENTER P.S.I NAMES WINNER OF 5^" ANNUAL YOUNG ARCHITECTS CONTEST Village Voice SPLICING SERT Waving signs and chanting "The Village MADE IN is not for sale," several hundred people Josep Lluis Sert designed three buildings on gathered at the corner of Charles and West Harvard University's campus while dean of streets on Sunday April 18'" to protest new tlie Graduate School of Design from 1953 to THE SHADE highrise projects in the Far West Village, 1969. His final project was the 291,000-square- Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang of New York an area increasingly popular among foot Science Center (begun in 1968,completed firm nARCHITECTS beat out four other developers and their big-name architects. in 1972). Last month, Boston-based Leers finalists—Griffin Enright Architects (Los Protesters expressed fears that the area, Weinzapfel As.sociates completed a $22 million Angeles), Michael Meredith (Toronto), which reaches the waterfront and falls just renovation of the building, aimed at alleviat• SERVO (New York, Los Angeles, Stockholm, outside the landmarked Greenwich Village ing its serious overcrowding problems. Zurich), and DegreZero Architecture and Gansevoort Market Historic districts, Over 38,000 square feet of Sert's blocky (Brooklyn, Paris)—to win MoMA and P.S.I is in danger of morphing into a Miami- original underwent renovation. The building Contemporary Art Center's fifth annual style strip of glitzy glass condominiums. also gained 27,000 square feet in three addi• Young Architects Program competition. "Since 1995 sixteen new highrises have tions, which were planted on its .stepped roof. Addressing the consistent "urban beach" been built," Greenwich Village Society for New dimensions for 40-year-old Sent "Siting the project was easy because the site theme of the competition, nARCHITECT's Historic Preservation continued on page 2 building at Harvard University was full," said partner Andrea Leers. "Vertical $60,000 project. Canopy, proposes an was the only way to go." Each segment of the undulating lattice that will create plays of building's E-shaped plan received an addition shadow across the museum's courtyard and of one or two stories in height, designed to define roofless rooms for summer leisure. preserve the variegated roofscape of Sert's "nARCHITECTS' design is both extravagant architecture. in form and light in conception," said Terence Riley, Philip Johnson Chief Curator The additions are skinned in translucent of Architecture and Design at MoMA. On cast channel glass, contrasting sharply with view from June 27* through September 5'^ the weightiness of Sert's concrete structure Canopy is made of fresh-cut bamboo that while bringing light within. The additions are will fade from green to tan over the course defiantly independent yet duly respectful of of the summer, DEBORAH GROSSBERC Sert's modernism, JAMES WAY CO f\l 3 O LU THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER MAY 11. 2004 VILLAGE VOICE continued from front page PUBLISHER CO The International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) has become Diana Darling (GVSHP) executive director Andrew the most important trade tair for contemporary home furniture and Berman announced to the crowd, "and CDITORS o we're aware of five new ones [in the Cathy Lanq Ho furnishings in the United States. But following the more established M works]." These include a planned 12-story William Menking and larger fairs in Stockhohn, Paris, Cologne,and most importandy building at 423 West Street and a luxury ART DIRECTOR LU Milan—all held in the months just preceding ICFF—why do more condoto be built on the site of the Martin Perrin than 450 exhibitors and 17,000 design professionals still come to the Superior Printing Ink Company, a 33,000- square-foot lot at Bethune and West 12'" ASSISTANT EDITORS lavits every May? By now, the latest and edgiest designs have already Deborah Grossberg Street. Another example of what Berman James Way made their dramatic debuts. ICFF's attendees can't be coming just for calls the "domino effect" of "inappropriate" ADVERTISING SALES the parties (though they are lively enough; see page 10 for our picks). development in the area is Zaha Hadid's Jonathan Chaffin The city's role as a media and design center is a major draw, as is planned project for art dealer Kenny Schachter, which will replace the 1830s INTERN the sheer size of the American market, attracting high-level players Christina Ficicchia house at 163 Charles Street—a site that from around the world. Even the masters of furniture design—the directly abuts another controversial develop• TECHNICAL CONSULTANT ment, a third Richard Meier tower. Keith James Italians—arrive in force. They might introduce their exciting new Although Costas Kondylis' Morton MEDIA CONSULTANT prototypes in Milan, but when their objects are in production, they Square drew boos and hisses, the crowd Paul Beatty want to sell to America. reserved special ire for Meier's buildings, There is an undeniable curiosity about what American designers which many say are out of context with have to offer. Many American furniture designers work within the surrounding 19"'-centurY brick townhouses. Though Berman described himself as a tradition of Charles and Ray Fames, true design originals who, Meier fan, he said the West Street tow• along with George Nelson, Harry Bertoia,and the others at Herman ers' rear facades "literally and figuratively Miller and Knoll in the postwar years, ushered in the golden era of turn their back on the neighborhood." Resident Alan Strauss summed up the American furniture design. One gets the sense at ICFF that the con• sentiment of the protesters with a sign CONTRIBUTORS temporary American furniture scene is filled with boutique opera• that read "Richard Meier, Go Away." PHILIPPE BARRIERE/ARIC CHEN/ The protest, organized by the GVSHP, MURRAY FRASER / RICHARD INGERSOLL / tions, coundess small makers who produce goods in small batches, the Greenwich Village Community Task JOE KERR/LIANE LEFAIVRE/JAMES PETO/ often in garage/workshop types of settings—all in pursuit of the same LUIGI PRESTINENZA PUGLISI/ Force, and the Federation to Preserve the KESTER RATTENBURY/D.GRAHAME SHANE/ valid (and elusive) goals that motivated the Eameses: simplicity, Greenwich Village Waterfront and Great ANDREW YANG/PETER ZELLNER beauty, affordability. Port, was a call for zoning changes and historic landmark protection. "The West EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Lacking the small and mid-sized craft-based factories that fortify Village is a great place to live because it's PAOLA ANTONELLI/RAUL A. BARRENECHE/ the furniture industries in Italy, Germany, and Scandinavia, American M. CHRISTINE BOYER/PETER COOK/ lowrise, human-scaled, and historic," WHITNEY COX/ODILE DECO/TOM HANRAHAN/ designers are left either to produce their designs themselves (hence State Senator Tom Duane orated. "Mayor SARAH HERDA/CRAIG KONYK/JAYNE MERKEL/ their fresh-off-the-workshop-floor feel and hefty pricetags) or to Bloomberg, we won't let you ruin it!" LISA NAFTOLIN/SIGNE NIELSEN / Local activists have already had some JOAN OCKMAN / HANS ULRICH OBRIST/ hope for a licensing agreement with a large company.