Category: visual

“The scent of soil arrested my nostrils as I stepped into ‘The New York Earth Room’ in Manhattan’s trendy SoHo district. Before me: a fortune in indoor floor space tied up with nothing more than 280,000 pounds of loamy dirt. … Perhaps that is how [Walter] De Maria seeks to change the world: by clearing out unexpected spaces where our imagination might grow.”

“British architect Norman Foster, famous for his glass and steel designs, was Wednesday awarded one of Spain’s highest honours, the Prince of Asturias prize for arts, the jury announced.”

“The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s trustees voted unanimously yesterday to proceed with a new building designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano – a plan that has stirred up opponents who want a carriage house at the back of the museum preserved. … The plan calls for demolition of the carriage house, erected by Gardner in 1907. The museum building opened in 1903.”

“San Francisco’s newest public space is outlined with planters made of thick paper tubes. Granite slabs turned on their side provide seating. The ‘ground cover’ is asphalt topped by paint the color of weary sand. Oh, and a streetcar runs through it. No matter.” It’s still “urbanity at its ad-hoc best- and a reminder that when the aim is to better a city, small moves can be more fruitful than grand schemes.”

“Chicago’s light has dimmed as a capital of architecture. … In fact, the designs that Gehry and Piano have supplied for Chicago point to the twin dangers of ‘star-chitecture’: bombastic, signature gestures on the one hand, predictable products on the other.”

“Yesterday marked the closing of the Rose’s temporary exhibitions on 20th-century abstract expressionist Hans Hofmann and a second show, ‘Saints & Sinners.’ The day had special significance because on July 22, when the museum’s doors reopen, the Rose will probably not have a proper director or curator. That’s the result of the university’s still-developing plans to change the Rose’s mission and sell some of its art.”

“One of the most audacious British art thefts, the disappearance of a two-tonne Henry Moore sculpture worth £3m, has been solved by police, who believe that the internationally revered Reclining Figure sculpture was melted down and sold for no more than £1,500.”

“Canada’s heritage is slowly rotting away as museums merely pretty up objects that are going on display, say museum administrators and conservators. As they mark International Museum Day this weekend, they cheerfully welcome visitors into new, gizmo-packed galleries and restored historic sites. Behind the scenes, however, in the storage areas and warehouses where the bulk of any museum collection is located, they wonder how much longer they can hold time at bay.”

“I can think of no other art museum in the world that mingles the experience of art and existing urban architecture so boldly and directly. And I can think of no other architectural heritage so appropriately considered alongside modern art.”

The list “reminds us how often people and groups who never signed up to be preservationists are thrust into the role. Schools, churches, hospitals all have primary purposes that make it awkward and sometimes impossible for them to be stewards of historic structures.”