In the Press: With Sponsors Like These…
This must be the least critically popular Stirling Prize shortlist yet. RIBA president Sunand Prasad described it as ‘a fascinating set of schemes,’ but hardly anyone seemed to agree. Jonathan Glancey in The Guardian hoped that the inclusion of the Liverpool One master plan was ‘some kind of drunken joke’, adding that its completion [...]
In The Press: Can Gormley Succeed Where Singalongs Failed?
There was obviously something in the air when decided to do a special issue of Blueprint about the limits of public space. London’s summer heatwave, the activities of the Manifesto Club, and the opening of The High Line in New York have all contributed to rash of attempts to work out what public space [...]
In The Press: Charles, RIBA and the lost marbles
In an unexpected turn of events, Blueprint itself has been in the news over the last month, resulting in our editor, Vicky Richardson being invited to chair the annual conference of an organisation called Republic on 20 June. After a group of architects called for a boycott of Prince Charles’ anniversary lecture to RIBA, our [...]
The Subject: Prince Charles and RIBA
Will the RIBA regret inviting Prince Charles to speak at its 175th anniversary dinner next week? The last time he stood before the architecture profession’s elite was 25 years ago, when he infamously described the proposed Sainsbury Wing for the National Gallery as being “like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved [...]
The Subject: Grand Plans for Paris
Just as we were finishing work on our latest Italian-themed issue, which includes a special report on the current troubles of architects in Rome, news spread around the world of President Sarkozy’s competition to create a new Grand Plan for Paris. At first, the contrast between the two cities could not appear more marked. The [...]
The Subject: in the press
Undoubtedly the big architecture story of the month was the fire that engulfed the TVCC Tower in Beijing. A sister to the much larger CCTV Tower, also designed by OMA, its devastating conflagration was caused by fireworks set off to celebrate Chinese New Year.
The architects described it as “a tragedy”, yet the response in [...]
The Subject
Dire economic news has been a boon to at least one group: design puritans. NY Times journalist Michael Cannell started it all with an article headlined Design Loves a Depression: “The pain of layoffs notwithstanding, the design world could stand to come down a notch or,” he said. No doubt out-of-work designers will take great [...]
