Despite decades of prolific building, 73-year-old Israeli architect Moshe Safdie is still best known for his first project: Habitat 67, the avant-garde housing units constructed for the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal. The building’s 354 stacked concrete cubes never revolutionized housing as many thought they would, but Safdie’s groundbreaking vision probed how to maintain pleasant aspects of suburban living, like personal gardens and multi-view windows, in a high-density urban environment. Over 7 million people visited Habitat 67 during the Exposition, which was remarkable since it was a residential project, not an extravagant “White City” like the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. READ MORE

Eyal Weizman is an architect who has worked and taught in Palestine, Tel Aviv and London, where his practice has to deal with both the practical and political meaning of pine trees and olive trees. And also, he has to deal with destruction, as do we all, as he describes in this interview: "There is a category in international humanitarian law called proportionality. It’s a calculation that assumes an economy of violence. Within that economy, the military and the NGOs tend to engage in bargaining. They say, no, that needs to be cheaper. And some people say, no, that needs to be more expensive, right? But they operate within the same market, so to speak. Too many civilians are being killed; too few civilians are being killed. To establish that, you need to undertake calculations. When you need to establish a threshold number of civilian casualties—Garlasco was asked to limit these to twenty-nine per bombing mission—this more or less abstract economy is transferred into an engineering problem: How much of the building should be destroyed? What is the minimum bomb to do that? If there was no threshold, he’d just choose a big-enough bomb to destroy the whole building. Instead, he needed to destroy two stories above, or part of a story—it is a craft, to design the destruction: the design of ruins."

I cannot believe I have to go to Indiana, but yet, here we are: Saarinen’s Miller House is now open to the public. GAZE UPON IT! But good news, for those who aren't Indiana-adjacent: There is a new website devoted to the work of Horace Gifford, who can basically tell Saarinen to go suck it. Oh yes! I said it! Go visit and see what I mean. I have been in most of these Gifford houses, because that's just the kind of gay I am—including the ones destroyed by new owners, may they die painfully—and they are each better than the last.

"Their problem, which required a series of five architects to solve, was this: they had bought a 40-room Georgian manor house, and they wanted to occupy it as a family of six."

I know you were busily reading the newspaper cover to cover this weekend, so you won't have missed the exceedingly important piece by Nicolai Ouroussoff on the Barnes Foundation, the Getty and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: three museums built in America by wackos that have since (after their founders' deaths, of course) been taken astray of their intentions by their current managers. The Barnes (which has on exhibit more Cezannes than you can see in all of France, should that be a thing you would ever want) is currently in the last gasps of a long legal fight, which seems to be ending badly for the people who would like it not to be uprooted and moved to downtown Philadelphia. Everything interesting becomes made dull for profit! Attend the Barnes before June 30th, if you can! And then, join me in never visiting it again.

We always love renderings of things that are allegedly going to be built, particularly those things that probably won't, as happens in these cases. We don't think you should hold your breath for "BOOM," which is a proposed development in Southern California for community living for the gay "retiring" population. (And before we enjoy the fun architect porn, may I somberly and joylessly point out that there are huge, monster, enormous issues facing the gays, particularly those between 35 and 55? The next generation will likely have family structures not dissimilar to straight people to assist in aging issues; the previous generation often just died in silence, particularly prematurely. But what becomes of us current childless gays in our coming golden years—particularly the un-rich ones? Not that this is something that keeps me up at night every night or anything.) So this planned community idea is a "$250 million love child of BOOM Communities, Inc., a Los Angeles-based real estate investment company," which has no public-facing information. (Development projects are so annoying: sure we'll talk about the potential architects, and the competition: but, like, whose money is it?) Here is a very comprehensive look at the architecture and marketing challenges, and here you may enjoy renderings by all ten architects that have submitted, including some of our faves like LOT-EK.

Miami Beach now, unexpectedly, has two of the most exciting buildings in the world. The first was a parking garage, by Herzog & de Meuron, which serves little public benefit except beauty. (Though it is a boon to the wedding and party industry, and it also serves much private benefit to its owner, and no doubt it will be converted entirely into rich people lofts in the future.) That the owner calls it a "civic space" is pretty ridiculous; his penthouse is on the roof of the building and the flat rate for parking is $15. But the new home of the New World Symphony, reviewed today by Alex Ross, a few blocks away, is out of this world. I'm not a Frank Gehry fan in general but the hall is designed entirely to engage and invite the public; it fights every problematic issue of the death of classical music and the cloistering of its audience. Each night during performances, the exterior broadcast of the music and video from inside plays to packed standing-room-only crowds. And you think: wow, they actually got it! To watch an older arts institution prioritize innovative ways to create and engage new audiences is fantastic.

"Dubbed the 'Electric Razor' for its three huge wind turbine blades at the summit, the Strata has been equated to a piece of 'chav' architecture that wears its environmental credentials like a Fred Perry logo. It has been criticised for its brashness and its 'stridency', two descriptions which, in the past, would have been proud synonyms for high-rise structures. Today, however, this flagrant behaviour is as unacceptable in our civic architecture as anti-social behaviour is in our civil society, it seems." READ MORE