Architecture
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Simeon Bruner on Mass MoCA
Pioneer of Reuse Architecture.
By: - Nov 23rd, 2014During the recent press conference to announce plans for Phase Three of the development of the Mass MoCA campus we met with the museum’s chief architect Simeon Bruner. In addition to his ideas for the design of building six we discussed the approach of reuse architecture of which he and his firm Bruner/ Cott have been pioneers.
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Arizona Biltmore a Phoenix Landmark
Wright Accents to Albert Chase McArthur Design
By: - Nov 04th, 2014When it opened at the edge of Phoenix in 1929 the Arizona Biltmore was isolated in a dessert environment. The city has grown around it with a now upscale community. The hotel has gone through different owners, fire, remodeling and renovation . It still retains the aura of Frank Lloyd Wright who was a consutlant to the architect of record Charles McArthur. It remains a landmark for scholar and appeciators of classic American luxury resort design.
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Taliesin West
Frank Lloyd Wright in Arizona
By: - Nov 03rd, 2014From 1928 and the Biltmore, to the founding of Taliesin West in 1937 until his death at 91 in 1959, Frank Lloyd Wright created fifty designs for Arizona. About half were built which is consistent with the average of his career. Recently we spent time exploring projects by the greatest American architect of his generation. There is an ongoing financial struggle for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to preserve his remarkable legacy.
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Arcosanti Rings a Bell
Desert Laboratory of Architect Paolo Soleri
By: - Oct 22nd, 2014In 1946, with a degree in architecture, Paolo Soleri started a year and a half fellowship with Frank Lloyd Wright. Returning to Italy in 1950 by 1956 he and his wife Colly established a home, foundation and bell making studio Acosanti near Scottsdale Arizona. In 1970 he founded Arcosanti some 70 miles from Phoenix as a laboratory for his radical urban designs. The plan was for a community of 5,000. Only a fraction was built before his death in 2013.
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Companhia Urbana de Dança at Jacob’s Pillow
From Favelas to World Stages
By: - Aug 17th, 2014Companhia Urbana de Dança thrilled the audience last year and this week was equally well received in a return to Jacob's Pillow. The company of eight men and one woman combines the street smarts of break dancing and hip hop moves with the choreography of the classically trained Sonia Destri Lie. The two part program of hour long works contrasted joy and tragedy in a world permiere of "You. We…ALL BLACK" and the uppeat celebration of "Na Pista."
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State Approves MoCA's Phase Three Expansion
$25,420,000 for Ambitious Development
By: - Aug 08th, 2014With Governor Deval Patrick's signing of H.3933, an omnibus capital infrastructure bill which included $25,420,000 for MASS MoCA's Phase III development, the museum announces that it has begun work on the third phase of its multi-decade effort to renovate its 26-building, 600,000 square foot, 16-acre factory campus, an internationally recognized, mixed-use destination arts institution in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. A representative from the Governor's press office confirmed the news, saying, "Governor Patrick is very, very supportive of the project and is excited to work with MASS MoCA to finance the expansion."
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The Mount in Lenox Suffers Storm Damage
Encouraging Response from the Community
By: - Jul 02nd, 2014The Mount, Edith Wharton’s country estate in Lenox, Mass suffered severe damage from last week’s record-breaking storm that dropped six and a half inches of rain over a five-hour period. Thanks to a quick response from the organization and financial support from the community, the damage to The Mount’s flower gardens and access road has, to a large extent, been addressed and the house has been able to reopen.
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Clark Art Institute Reopens
Celebrating a $145 Million Renovation and Expansion
By: - Jun 29th, 2014anything over 255 chars will be deleted.
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Japanese Architect Tadao Ando: A Portrait
Pritzker Prize Winner Designed Clark Art Institute Expansion
By: - Jun 28th, 2014Initially the 72-year-old Japanese architect, Tadao Ando, trained to be a professional boxer. When he became interested in architecture he read books and traveled extensively to see works by modern masters. In 1970 he returned from travel and field research to establish his firm. In 1995 he won the Pritzker Prize the most prestigious in the field. Followed by a film crew we tagged along when he surveyed his now completed design for the Clark Art Institute.
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Clark Art Institute Reopens
Completing a $145 Million Renovation and Expansion
By: - Jun 28th, 2014Since it opened in 1955 with a superb permanent collection the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute has long been regarded among America's finest regional museums. With a $145 expansion and renovation designed by Tadao Ando the Clark is now a whole lot more fabulous. Combined with nearby Mass MoCA, Williams College, and the Wlliamstown Theatre Festival the Northern Berkshires are an even better first class arts desitinaton.
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Natchez, Mississippi's Mansions
Iconic Antebellum Architecture
By: - Apr 30th, 2014Natchez, Mississippi, per capita, was one of America's wealthiest communities prior to the Civil War. Plantation owners competed in erecting magnificent mansions in the neo classical, Greek Revival style. In commissioning Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan's grand octagonal design Dr. Haller Nutt's Longwood strove to be unique. When war broke out in 1861 construction was abruptly halted. For generations the family occupied the first floor of the unfinished home. It is the astonishing highlight of a tour of mansions and encounter with their grim legacy of slavery.
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The Mount Announces Season
Events May 3 through October 31
By: - Apr 27th, 2014This summer, The Mount is pleased to announce a full schedule of lectures, readings, performances, music and more. The Mount will be open daily starting May 3rd through October 31st.
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Super Realist Painter Richard Estes
Summer Retrospective at Portland Museum of Art
By: - Apr 27th, 2014Richard Estes’ Realism is the most comprehensive exhibition of Estes’ paintings ever organized. A master of contemporary realism, Estes is primarily known as a painter of the urban landscape. This exhibition features 50 paintings ranging from Estes’ first New York City façades in the late 1960s to panoramic views of Mount Desert Island in the 2000s.
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Harvard Art Museums Open November 16
Renovation by Renzo Piano Conflates Separate Museums
By: - Mar 11th, 2014The Harvard Art Museums—comprising the Fogg Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum—will open their new Renzo Piano-designed facility to the public on November 16, 2014. The renovation and expansion of the museums’ landmark building at 32 Quincy Street in Cambridge will bring the three museums and their collections together under one roof for the ï¬rst time
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New York Sojourn
Trip to NYC Yields Architecture, Art and Theatrical Joy
By: - Jan 31st, 2014Invited to an architectural tour of Ground Zero, Mark Favermann and his companion Lisa went on a trip that was framed around ML King Birthday weekend to include architecture, art, theatre, good food and football playoff games. This underscores the notion that New York City is so nice it was named twice.
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Nantucket Sleigh Ride
Moby Dick's New England Legacy
By: - Jan 13th, 2014In the 19th century the whaling industry, as chronicled in Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick, thrived in Nantucket. The community declined after the 1850s, first through competiton from New Bedford and access to railroads, then through the introduction of cheaper keroscene lamps. Long languishing as a ghosttown it has been revived as a super expensive time capsule of historic architecture and culture. The island swells to some 50,000 inhabitants during the summer season.
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Calatrava's Costly Sculpture As Architecture
A Starchitect Whose Legacy Is Being Questioned
By: - Sep 26th, 2013In the last few decades, Spanish-born Santiago Calatrava (b.1951), a visionary architect, structural engineer and sculptor has risen to be a world renown star. His graceful, soaring and visually impressive bridges, transportation centers and cultural institutions are futuristically iconic. However, many of his prominent projects, though often quite startlingly beautiful, have been greatly criticized for functional flaws, detail mistakes, construction delays and huge cost overruns. His constant involvement in massive law suits is now diminishing his legacy.
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Maya Lin Beyond Vietnam Memorial
Lecture at Harvard University
By: - Sep 23rd, 2013As a student Maya Lin entered and won the competition to design the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. She has had a major career as an architect and artist since then. This report on a 2005 lecture at Harvard University is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.
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Hal Foster’s The Art-Architecture Complex
Book of Criticism Published by Verso Books
By: - Sep 13th, 2013Matthew Hassell the editor of NYArts magazine reviews a book by noted critic Hal Foster. It explores the influence of fine arts on contemporary architecture. It examines architectural leaders such as the Venturis, Rem Koolhaas, Renzo Piano, and Zaha Hadid. Their work is evaluated in relation to pop aesthetics, the international style, and the widespread influence of minimalism.
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"The Merry Wives of Windsor" Makes a Merry Evening at Boston Midsummer Opera
By: - Jul 29th, 2013anything over 255 chars will be deleted.
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in San Diego
Stoppard's Play at Old Globe's Shakespeare Festival
By: - Jul 24th, 2013In “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Deadâ€, Tom Stoppard’s absurdist take on the Bard’s masterpiece “Hamletâ€, has been hailed as a master work in itself, with “Hapgood†next, followed by the recent multiple Tony winning play “The Coast of Utopiaâ€.
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Edith Wharton at Home: Life at The Mount
A Study by Richard Guy Wilson With Photos by John Arthur
By: - May 07th, 2013Edith Wharton was 35 in 1897 when, in collaboration with Ogden Codman, she published her first work, the widely influential treatise "Decoration of Houses." Eight years later, in 1905, she published her first work of fiction "House of Mirth. " By then the Whartons had been living in The Mount, their estate in Lenox, Mass. for three years. The mansion and grounds expressed many of her theories of architecture, interior deign, and landscape gardening. She left under unhappy circumstances in 1911 never to return to the home she no longer owned.
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Provincetown's Historic Dune Shacks. Going, GoingÂ….
Preserving a Remarkable Legacy
By: - May 02nd, 2013This article on Provincetown's historic dune shacks was originally posted in 2007. It continues to attract readers through Google searches. With another season about to begin we are refreshing this article as a service to readers. They have spent time in the dune shacks several times since this article was written.
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Harvard Art Museums to Reopen in Fall 2014
Designed by architect Renzo Piano
By: - Feb 21st, 2013Designed by architect Renzo Piano, the project will create new resources for innovative teaching, research, and scholarship, and provide greater access to the collections—among the nation’s largest and most renowned—held by the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Arthur M. Sackler museums $5 million gift from the German Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum will support one of three new study centers
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Ada Louse Huxtable Dead At 91
Eloquent Critic of Architecture and Built Environment
By: - Jan 08th, 2013Ada Louise Huxtable was the first architecture critic at the New York Times (1963) and the first architecture critic to win the Pulitzer Prize (1970). Her clearly stated analytical prose was always accessible and enlightening. She was a voice of reason and often a voice of conscience. Ms. Huxtable's thoughts and refined wisdom will be missed from our civic conversation. Reprinted here is a 2008 review of the last major compendium of her writings.
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