The United Nations headquarters complex is falling down. The 50-year-old buildings currently feature leaking roofs, crumbling walls, and failing HVAC. The U.N.’s immunity from New York City building codes means asbestos remains throughout, there are no sprinklers, and wheelchair access is poor. According to The New York Times, saving the property could cost $800 million. The solution? An island getaway. – Architecture Magazine
Month: February 2000
THE OLD NEW THING
Sure the dance critic’s getting old, but “the really strange thing about contemporary avant-garde art is that most of it could have been created at any time since the twenties. Yet actually in the twenties, avant-garde artists were doing things that had really never been done before.” – Dance Magazine
DISC-DANCING
CD-ROM and some inexpensive equipment is changing the way choreographers create their work. And how their work gets chosen for performance. – Dance Magazine (first item)
PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES
A Scottish engineer says we’re only just learning what glass can do as a building material. He envisions skyscrapers built entirely of glass. So why are so many critics skeptical? – Metropolis Magazine
PORTRAIT OF INDIA
How paintings have defined the identity of a nation. – Art India
“AN ATTRACTIVE NUISANCE”
Badly neglected public sculpture “Marianthe” at Florida community college to be destroyed because of deterioration, despite protests of the artist. – Artstar.com
LIVING IN THE FUTURE
The London of the future will have to support a much higher population density than the one- and two-story rowhouses currently house. Some architects take a shot at showing how it might be. – The Times (UK)
THE REAL ARTIST
“For a painter whose name we’re not even sure of, who aggressively discouraged imitators, whose stormy, rumbustious life was curtailed by an early death, partly as a result of his own violent, impetuous nature, Caravaggio occupies an extraordinarily important role in the history of European painting. It’s hard to imagine Rembrandt’s work without him, for example, and Rubens and Velasquez were among an army of admirers He was an arrogant, violent brawler and a sexual outlaw as well as an artistic and social revolutionary who changed our perception of space.” Two new books shed new light on one of art’s most important yet unknown characters. – Irish Times
NOT TO WORRY, NOT TO WORRY
Chief executive of Covent Garden downplays crisis over his building and says problems are to be expected of any new performance hall; that the Opera House will work magnificently. Further, ticket sales are on target to fill 97 percent of the house, and he’s confident in the company’s choice of repertoire. – Financial Times
GENERAL CULTURAL COLLAPSE
South Africa’s National Symphony Orchestra plays its final concert. The rest of the country’s orchestras are teetering and may follow the National out of business within a month or two. Critics wonder if this signals the general collapse of the country’s arts institutions. – South Africa Daily Mail and Telegraph
- A changing era and a changing culture. – New York Times 02/01/00