Free Republic

A DEVELOPER IN DUBAI, one of seven oil-rich emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, has hired Rem Koolhaas to design a posh new neighborhood, Waterfront City, on a newly created island in the Persian Gulf. The Dutch architect plans to fill the island with a regular grid of intentionally bland highrises punctuated with an eyeball, a pretzel, a drill bit — that is to say, huge buildings that bring such objects to mind. Of course it is ridiculous. In 2000, Koolhaas won the Pritzker Prize. They don’t hand out such an honor willy-nilly. Your work must be totally...

The idea of “green” buildings is a terrific marketing concept. In San Francisco, it has helped grease the political roadway for massive, view-blocking luxury condominiums, implying that building these structures is more environmentally sustaining than leaving land vacant. Few seem to care whether green buildings can be a nightmare for those having to work inside high-rise structures lacking heat or air conditioning. The new Thomas Mayne designed Federal Building at 7th and Mission Streets in San Francisco is a case in point. Lauded by the New York Times as a building that “may one day be remembered as the crowning...

Many people seem to think that contemporary Catholic church architecture is so ugly because of misunderstandings that arose from the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. This thesis is especially attractive to those of a more "intellectual" bent, such as theologians and liturgists, because it suggests that the problem is one of ideas. Correct the ideas — enforce a proper theology of the liturgy (the job of, guess who, theologians and liturgists) — and voila, we will get better-looking churches. As attractive as that thesis is, its one big drawback is that it is largely untrue. Bad church...

Not content with finishing construction of the "The World", a constellation of man-made islands forming the shape of the continents, Dubai's developer, Nakheel, is to build "The Universe": an archipelago of reclaimed islands depicting the sun and the planets and moons of the solar system. Only half of The World's islands have been sold, but Sultan bin Sulayem, Nakheel's chairman, says Dubai is pressing ahead with another offshore project. Residents have already moved into apartments and villas on Palm Jumeirah, the city's first reclaimed development, which will boast several deluxe hotels, including a refurbished Queen Elizabeth II, the liner's final...

What's generating buzz in Chicago might not resonate in L.A. And the issues driving design in Miami might not mean much in New York. Although big-name, international architects are working all over the United States—Renzo Piano, for example, has current or recently completed projects in New York, Chicago, L.A., San Francisco, and Atlanta—smaller, domestic firms are playing important roles, too. This mix of big and small, global and regional is shaping the American architectural landscape. The projects shown here offer a cross section of what is going on right now—from a skyscraper in Manhattan to a quonset hut in Kansas,...

Honesty compels me to admit the peculiarity of someone like me writing on sacred architecture.1 it's like Helen Keller giving a tour of the Louvre. It's like Ray Charles painting your portrait. It's like the deaf Beethoven teaching my son's aural skills class. I protest to my friends that although I lack an aesthetic capacity, I have learned to live with it, the way an adult who can't read has learned to survive in society. The reader should therefore not look here for architectural detail, but rather for something that lies deeper. I should like to think about the theological...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The Burj Dubai skyscraper under construction here reached its 100th story on Tuesday, nearly two-thirds of the way in its relentless climb to become the world's tallest building. With 3,000 laborers adding a new floor nearly every three days, the $1 billion spire is at 1,140 feet and days away from surpassing a neighboring skyscraper, the razor-blade resembling Emirates Office Tower, at 1,165 feet. The Emirates Office Tower is currently the tallest in the Middle East, Dubai-based developer Emaar Properties said. "The tower is a symbol of the city's pride and a statement of our...

A picture doesn't lie -- the one-hundred-and-five-story Ryugyong Hotel is hideous, dominating the Pyongyang skyline like some twisted North Korean version of Cinderella's castle. Not that you would be able to tell from the official government photos of the North Korean capital -- the hotel is such an eyesore, the Communist regime routinely covers it up, airbrushing it to make it look like it's open -- or Photoshopping or cropping it out of pictures completely. Even by Communist standards, the 3,000-room hotel is hideously ugly, a series of three gray 328-foot long concrete wings shaped into a steep pyramid. With...

To follow up on the highly successful Ugliest Buildings in New York According to the Experts, last year I solicited opinions from some of London's top architects about the monstrosities in their own city. For various reasons (time constraints, few and wordy responses), we didn't run the piece. But looking back months later, I've realized this is some real gold gathering the proverbial dust in my inbox -- rife with biting commentary, insightful observations, and pure hatred for Norman Foster. So without further ado, I present some of London's most promising architects' answers to the question, "What is the ugliest...

CHICAGO — This may be the only city in the world where architecture ranks as a sport. Bleachers are erected around construction sites so the locals can sit and watch cranes swing steel beams into place. In fact, Chicagoans are so engaged in the state of their skyline, public opinion in 2001 sounded the death knell for initial renderings of the Chicago Trump Tower. Critics argued that the proposed structure would not look right among its iconic brethren. Two renderings later, Chicago Trump Tower now edges its way upward. The handsome design will tickle the sky by 2009, along with...

Until last year, Jeff Page, 42 years old, was living in a rescue mission in Los Angeles. He says he'd had a couple of opportunities to move into subsidized apartments, but turned them down, calling them "old and decrepit." Then a new building opened up on San Pedro Street: Rainbow Apartments, developed by the nonprofit Skid Row Housing Trust in downtown L.A. With its sharp angles and bright red window frames that jut out from the otherwise flat, concrete exterior, the 89-unit building stands out from traditional apartment buildings in the area. The slashes of color, in particular, made an...

The Irish Jesuits have sold Sacred Heart church in Limerick, a landmark of Catholic architecture, to a developer who plans to convert the building into a health club. The scheme, if it gets the go-ahead from the local authority, will see the church transformed into a day spa featuring a swimming pool, gym and treatment rooms. The nave of the church will become the pool, but the main altar will be carefully preserved and visible behind a glass wall. So the swimming and sweating will take place in a building with that nice old-fashioned Catholic "look" that's so fashionable these...

Dainty. Floral. Romantic. Fun. Fifty years ago, at the high-water mark of steel and glass modernism, those adjectives described architectural no-no's. You didn't decorate a building. You stripped it of ornament (or at least you made it look that way). You didn't speak of beauty, which sounded old-fashioned and subjective. You spoke of objective truth and of an architecture that would be the inevitable byproduct of its industrialized epoch. But in a provocative new architecture and design show at the Art Institute of Chicago, all those notions are turned on their right-angled heads. The exhibition, "Figuration in Contemporary Design," skillfully...

A long-missing Michelangelo sketch for the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, possibly his last design before his death, has been discovered in the basilica's offices, the Vatican newspaper said Thursday.The sketch, drawn in blood-red chalk for stonecutters who were working on the construction of the basilica, was done by the Renaissance master in the spring of 1563, less than a year before his death, L'Osservatore Romano reported."The sureness in his stroke, the expert hand used to making decisions in front of unfinished stone, leave little doubt, the sketch is Michelangelo's," the newspaper wrote about the discovery, which it said will...

The most audacious of the 13 "Make it Right" house designs, unveiled on Monday, may also be the most sensible. "Make it Right" is actor and architecture enthusiast Brad Pitt's plan to provide affordable, ecological housing to a largely depopulated section of the Lower 9th Ward. That stretch of low ground between Tennessee Street and the Industrial Canal, visible from the Claiborne Avenue bridge, became a landmark on Aug. 29, 2005, when the modest neighborhood filled with raging floodwater. Some of the houses in the direct path of the deluge were swept away. Most of the rest were unsalvageable and...

Pablo Picasso was a fraud. So says Tom Wolfe, who does not like Picasso. This much was becoming clear. Picasso, according to Wolfe, “left school just before they taught perspective.” He had to shroud his backgrounds in “fog.” He was a sorry excuse for a draftsman. Wolfe is right that the art world is in crisis. But his articulation of this crisis is curious. He repeats and simplifies. He beats up on straw men. He puts on quite a show. Wolfe himself is a draftsman, a cartoonist of some talent who has illustrated his own books and articles. But for...

A review of: Modernism: The Lure of Heresy, by Peter Gay (W.W. Norton; 640 pp.; $35) Artistic creation, Plato has Socrates say in the Phaedrus, is a “form of possession or madness” that “seizes a tender, virgin soul and stimulates it to rapt expression.” Artists have always struggled to persuade the world that the madness that drives them to create is genuinely a gift of the Muses, and not merely a trick of vanity. Their task has only become more arduous as prosperity increases and works of art proliferate. The history of artistic modernism is in part the history of...

WASHINGTON--Most church preservation fights involve saving a building that neighbors think is too pretty to be torn down. This is the story of a church that parishioners think is too ugly to stay. The Third Church of Christ, Scientist- a six-story, eight-sided concrete behemoth circa 1971 -sits atop a lonely windswept plaza just two blocks from the White House. Church members say it's too big, too expensive, too uninviting. Plus, it's just plain ugly. Neighborhood preservationists, meanwhile, see a living testament to the type of 1970s architectural ``brutalism'' championed by I.M. Pei and others. It's so distinct, they say, that...

Oakland... the final frontier. As the Cathedral of Christ the Light rises in the Bay Area see-city, one can be forgiven if "Star Trek" comes to mind. Acclaimed for its "ambitious" design, the 1,500-seat mother church of the 500,000-member diocese -- price tag: $190 million -- will open its doors on 25 September 2008. Father Paul Minnihan, provost of the cathedral, said the planning team selected the date to avoid conflicts with such weekend events as weddings and quincieneras. The group also considered an evening event, but decided an afternoon would allow for the possibility of a procession to...

Can you actually stay in a house with 1 meter WIDE by 10 meters TALL? A house calls attention in Madre de Deus, Brazil; it have three floors and even the builder had faith in what he built. Helenita, the designer and the owner of the house who is now living happily inside. At first, the municipality refused, but in the end with the plan allowed the construction, that became a touristic spot of the small town of 12 thousand people. There are benches in front of the house where the tourists can spent some time watching the unusual building....