Good morning, architects. The huge wave of museum expansions that swept the nation during the 1990s is finally receding, but museums aren't done building yet. The Eli and Edythe Broad Museum of Art for Michigan State University in Lansing, Mich., represents a late entry in the building boom that the University of Chicago's Cultural Policy Center says took place between 1994 and 2008. How will people look back on the architecture of this era? There could be a stark divide between projects built during the boom, including this museum by Zaha Hadid, FAIA, and the projects that get their start in the recession. Above is a view of the museum from opening day by Flickr user Micaela F. that demonstrates scale, something that is easy to lose sense of in the project photos alone.
THAT'S BRUTAL. Daren Jonescu, a writer at The American Thinker, has decided that the re-election of President Barack Obama is such a grave outcome for the United States that the era over which he is presiding deserves its own title: "brutalism." Apparently, the Brutalist style of architecture is so self-evidently terrible, it is a suitable hyperbolic stand-in for a worst-case scenario in any enterprise, architectural or not. "The stakes could not have been higher or more straightforward: freedom or coercion, individualism or collectivism, modern civilization or uncivilized brutalism," Jonescu writes. "America, meaning her voting and abstaining majority, chose the latter option in each case." Welp.
ORIGINALISM IN THE COURTS. The Waco Tribune-Herald's J.B. Smith writes about a renovation of a historic Waco courthouse—under a preservation program begun by then-Gov. George W. Bush—and how some critics say that the renovation does not do enough to undo unwanted changes to the court's original design. This is a great debate about what the courts' framers originally intended! For a less lofty debate about originalism, see minor Texas officials calling on Texas to secede (or "separate") in the wake of President Obama's re-election.
NOT ON MY ELECTION DAY. Nicole Anderson, writing for A/N, links to a Curbed story from the day after Election Day on a flyer campaign mounted by Greenpoint NIMBYs in Brooklyn, N.Y., to stop a proposal to build 10 residential towers along the Greenpoint waterfront. The only thing worse than the decision to launch a public-awareness campaign on Election Day is Handel Architects' rendering for the Greenpoint design.
...AND REMAINDERS. Inside a Houston architect's Sol LeWitt-inspired home... Oscar Niemeyer doing well after hospital stay... "Design Like You Give a Damn" streaming live, today and tomorrow... Syracuse University School of Architecture coordinating affordable housing competition... Sweet parking in Mission Bay.
