Faraway Places ~ Amazing Homes
Architect Frank Gehry has been making waves for more than sixty years, and his concert hall in Los Angeles ranks as one of his most controversial—and most celebrated.
The stainless steel Walt Disney Concert Hall expanded the Los Angeles Music Center, adding a 2,265-seat main auditorium, a 266-seats theater, and two outdoor amphitheaters. Critics complained that the glittering facade posed a traffic hazard, so Gehry later tweaked the finish to tone down the metallic sparkle.
With a six-story spiraling ramp, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum is a hallmark example of hemicycle design. At the center, an open rotunda offers views of artwork on several levels. Wright, who was known for his self-assurance, said that his goal was to “make the building and the painting an uninterrupted, beautiful symphony such as never existed in the World of Art before.”
The circular building seems as revolutionary today as it did when the museum first opened on October 21, 1959.
Frank Lloyd Wright Exhibition at the Guggenheim >>
Before winning the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2000, architect Rem Koolhaas and his OMA architecture firm gave a blighted section of Lille new life with a dazzling plan for urban development around the Euralille railway.
Lille, France sits at the hub of three great cities: London (80 minutes away), Paris (60 minutes away), and Brussels (35 minutes). The master plan created a dazzling entertainment and residential complex centered around the Koolhaas-designed Grand Palais, also known as Congrexpo.
In the early part of the 20th century, Arts & Crafts furniture-maker Gustav Stickley had a radical vision for a boy’s school on a farm in northern New Jersey. He bought land in Morris Plains, NJ, about 35 miles from New York City to build a home for his family and to establish his Utopian school.
In 1908, Stickley told readers of The Craftsman magazine “…for the first time I am applying to my own house, and working out in practical detail, all the theories which so far I have applied only to the houses of other people.”
Stickley’s home is now a museum open for tours. Plan to stay a couple hours so you can stroll the grounds.
September 11 may not be the best day to visit the National 9/11 Memorial. But don’t let tourist crowds discourage you from seeing this important and dramatic tribute to victims of terrorism. Even on New York City’s busiest days, the dark voids and cascading waterfalls create a sense of deep reverence.
Architect Michael Arad and his team faced many challenges during the design and construction of the memorial. To learn how the vision became a reality, see: Reflecting Absence: Designing the National 9/11 Memorial
[Photo above: National 9/11 Memorial in September 2013. Copyright Jackie Craven]
As soldiers returned from World War II, Art and Architecture magazine challenged architects to design modern, affordable “case study” homes using inexpensive and practical materials and techniques developed during the war.
More than two dozen prominent architects and designers took the challenge, including the husband and wife team Charles and Ray Eames. Experimenting with modern materials, the couple designed Case Study House #8 to meet their needs as working artists.
Ray and Charles Eames moved into their Case Study house in December 1949 and lived there for the remainder of their lives. Today, the grounds are open to tourists, and interior tours can also be arranged.
You will find Case Study House #8 at 203 Chautauqua Boulevard in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.
Inspired by new archaeological finds in Egypt, streamlined Art Deco architecture became the rage during the 1920s. Architect Raymond Hood had already made his fame designing grand Neo-gothic buildings like the Tribune Tower in Chicago. But, by the 1930s he embraced the jazzy new Art Deco style, designing some of America’s most colorful and exciting buildings.
In New York City, see Raymond Hood’s Art Deco architecture at Radio City Music Hall and the GE Building at 30 Rockefeller Center—or, as it’s affectionately known, “30 Rock.”
Who is Peter Eisenman? Is he a “Structuralist”? A “Deconstructionist”? A “Postmodern theorist”? The venerable architect may be difficult to classify, but his works demand attention.
Eisenman’s Berlin Holocaust Memorial (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) is both abstract and chilling. Composed of 2,711 enormous stone slabs, the Berlin memorial opened in 2005 and continues to stir controversy.
PHOTOS: The National 9/11 Memorial NYC
