Good morning, architects. Zaha Hadid, FAIA, sent along a holiday card. But maybe no place is getting into the Hadid holiday spirit like East Lansing, Mich., where the opening of he Eli and Edythe Broad Museum of Art is still the talk of the town. It helps when one of the inaugural exhibits is literally named "The Gift: Lansing." One report names the Broad Museum of Art as a driver of increased Midwestern tourism (lol to that stock image). Michigan State University provost Kim Wilcox described the museum as a gift with a sensible cost, a "Sydney Opera House we can afford." And the Lansing State Journal reports that the museum's opening has been met with strong crowds and strong reviews. Our own Joseph Giovannini concurs: "Clad in tiles of pleated stainless steel, the volcanic building now erupting at the edge of the campus embodies dynamism, originality, energy, and risk." Happy holidays, Spartans!
COOL STORY, BRO. Fact: BIG's Bjarke Ingels dreams of designing President Barack Obama's presidential library. That's what Ingels tells DesignBoom, anyway. Less surprising, perhaps: He likes science fiction, Wired magazine, and onesies on women. I don't approve of the way popular culture floats the word "bro" these days, but if it applies to anyone in architecture, it's Ingels.
NIMBYs ALL TALK. At Slate, Matthew Yglesias says that if Minneapolis NIMBYs were willing to put their money where their mouth is, they would be buying the property along Nicollet Avenue that they do not want to see developed with dense housing. Which would, of course, turn NIMBYs into developers. It's another way of looking at how the invisible costs of NIMBYism are spread among taxpayers across a municipality.
ARCHITECTURE IN THE U.K. Hands down, the U.K. had the best year in architecture. The Daily Telegraph's Ellis Woodman looks back on the year's many accomplishments: from monumental projects such as the Shard and the Olympic Stadium to smaller achievements such as the new concourse at King's Cross station. Most of the U.K.'s best new designs are in London, but not all of them: The Stirling Prize–shortlisted Lyric Theatre in Belfast is an important exception.
...AND REMAINDERS. Britain's Brutalist Preston Bus Station to be demolished... New Jersey Institute of Technology students' design picked by Habitat for Humanity homes... "Drawing by Drawing" arrives in New York... Tornado-powered turbines sound crazy but 3-D printed meat still sounds crazier.
