Category: visual

Richard Rogers and Norman Foster have dominated English architecture for the past decade. But “as London embarks on eight years of major regeneration to transform the city’s East End and the Thames Gateway, an impassioned debate has begun about the practices and philosophies that should shape a new era. Amid the steadily increasing clamour of building and hype, the two lords’ hold on British architecture is under challenge.”

“Less than a year after the Scottish Parliament building opened its doors, the public have delivered their verdict: knock it down. The £431 million flagship at the foot of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, already mired in controversy after running 10 times over budget and opening three years late, has suffered the final indignity of joining a list of eyesores including Gateshead Car Park, Northampton Bus Station and Rugby Cement Works on a list of Britain’s 12 ‘most vile’ buildings as voted by up to 8,000 viewers for a forthcoming Channel 4 series, Demolition.”

Christo and Jeanne-Claude come to Colorado to talk up their plans to cover a river. “The artists and their collaborators plan to stagger a total of 6.7 miles of fabric over 40 miles of the river, with interruptions ranging from 15 miles to a few hundred feet – the latter to accommodate trees, rocks and other encumbrances along the banks.The couple already has spent more than $2 million on the project, including a wind-tunnel test of the fabric and a simulated installation of several of the panels over a river running through a ranch near Grand Junction.”

New York’s Dia Foundation gives a look at what will be its new home. “Dia could well be described as the art world’s un-Guggenheim. Both institutions are developing a network of spaces; both embrace contemporary art. But while Mr. Krens has pursued outposts around the world designed by big-name architects like Enrique Norten and Frank Gehry, Mr. Govan is fashioning a network of spaces closer to home that are as unobtrusive as possible.”

How do museums balance security with easy access to art? “The Munch Museum had been at one extreme of the vulnerability spectrum. “The Scream,” for example, hung from an easily cut wire, like an ordinary painting in an ordinary home. The museum’s upgrades have moved it to the opposite extreme. With X-ray machines, bulletproof glass, metal detectors, and paintings bolted to the wall, the revamped museum has been dubbed Fortress Munch.”

Carmel California has built a tourist trade on its galleries. “But now galleries outnumber artists, and Carmel faces a clash between creativity and commerce that may be painfully familiar to residents in other scenic tourist spots across America. Today, galleries selling everything from Impressionist landscapes to cartoon dog portraits make up one of every three businesses along Carmel’s stone walkways. In all, 105 stores sell art in this town of a little more than 4,000 residents. For a while, the city was approving a new gallery every week.”

“In a last-ditch effort, a consortium of preservation groups has assembled a plan to save the Ennis House, a striking 1924 building by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Los Feliz Hills above Los Angeles. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, together with the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and the Los Angeles Conservancy, has created a foundation to raise the millions of dollars needed to rehabilitate the house, which suffered critical damage in a 1994 earthquake and again in heavy rains last winter.”

“Nine enormous and hugely unsophisticated skyscrapers are being mooted by the world’s architectural mega-corps. The London model dictates that, where a skyscraper is built, open space must be left around it, creating dim plazas. Consequently, tall buildings, while they do increase office space, fail to increase the density of the city, instead merely prodding the skyline with primitive architectural fingers, the sole aim of which is to create a recognisable logo. This leaves blank, unnecessary plazas, inevitably filled with the usual coffee shops and chain stores, the city becoming in effect suburbanised.”

What’s the art market doing? Well, it’s going up. Here’re the stats: Prices generally rose 4.1 percent in the first six months. The number of records set rose to 4,614 from 3,920 in 2004’s first half. The general increase in art prices generated a sharp rise in the number of auction records.

San Francisco is getting three new museums on the doorstep of the SF Museum of Modern Art. “It has been a long road for the Contemporary Jewish and Mexican museums and the Museum of the African Diaspora, struggling to raise funds in the post-Sept. 11 world as well as deal with design and construction challenges that have delayed opening in the Yerba Buena area.”