Magazine

Fumihiko Maki, the celebrated Japanese architect who was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1993, died of natural causes at his home in Tokyo on June 6. He was 95. John Hill

The Obel Award, the annual prize founded by the Henrik Frode Obel Foundation in 2019 to honor architectural contributions to human development all over the world, has announced the focus of its sixth cycle: “Architectures WITH.” John Hill

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, which last expanded in 2007 with the Bloch Building designed by Steven Holl Architects, will hold a design competition later this year to select the architect for its next expansion. John Hill

Five months after Italy's Carlo Ratti was named curator of the Venice Architecture Biennale that is set to open in May 2025, Ratti and new Biennale President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco have revealed the exhibition theme: Intelligens. John Hill

Architectural Record is reporting that the Hanging Gardens created by Patric Blanc for the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), the 200,000-square-foot (18,580-m2) building designed by Herzog & de Meuron that opened in 2013, have been replaced with artificial plants. John Hill

The new home for the Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) opened at the end of April. It was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) to be “the computing crossroads of the MIT campus.” John Hill

Swiss architects Manuel Herz and Heinrich Degelo are together realizing a settlement in western Cameroon, a complex that was designed with local people and is being built exclusively by locals. Elias Baumgarten

José Oubrerie, the French architect who worked in the studio of Le Corbusier and completed the Saint-Pierre Church in Firminy four decades after the death of Le Corbusier, died on March 10 at the age of 91. Oubrerie was the last living apprentice of Le Corbusier. John Hill

Two years after Qatar Museums announced it was undertaking the development of three major museums, all designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architects, renderings of Herzog & de Meuron's Lusail Museum have been revealed. John Hill

The World Monuments Fund (WMF) has announced that Casa sobre el Arroyo, the house bridging a stream in Mar del Plata, Argentina, designed by Amancio Williams in the 1940s, is the recipient of the 2024 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize. John Hill

Terminal 2 at Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru (BLR), which was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and opened to passengers last year, recently received a special prize from Prix Versailles for its stunning bamboo-lattice interior. John Hill

Ahead of construction set to start soon, Google has released renderings of the renovation of the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago, the postmodern “spaceship” that was designed by Helmut Jahn in the 1980s and recently John Hill

Brett Steele, who moved from the Architectural Association in London to the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture in 2017, has been named the new dean of the USC School of Architecture, a post he'll assume in February 2024. John Hill

The World Architecture Festival (WAF) returned to Singapore last week, crowning the Huizhen High School in Ningbo, China, designed by Approach Design Studio and the Zhejiang University of Technology Engineering Design Group, as World Building of the Year 2023. John Hill

Rob Krier, the influential architect, author, and sculptor who was born in Luxembourg and spent much of his life in Germany, has died at the age of 85. John Hill

On Monday, November 20, a topping-out ceremony was held for the 1,388-foot (423m) tower designed by Foster + Parters for JPMorgan Chase, the replacement for the bank's Midtown Manhattan office tower that was torn down in 2021. John Hill

Construction of the tower designed by David Chipperfield Architects for a site near Hamburg's Elbe bridges was interrupted at the end of October. An investor's financial difficulties are the cause — a solution has yet to be determined. Manuel Pestalozzi

During a special event held at the Royal Academy of Arts on the evening of November 2, Mexican architect Gabriela Carrillo was awarded the RA Dorfman Award, which “champions architecture from around the world that looks forward to the future of architecture and architectural practice.” John Hill

Canadian architect, educator, and theorist George Baird died in Toronto on October 17, 2023, at the age of 84. His death was announced by the University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, where he formerly served as dean. John Hill

Beverly Willis, the artist, self-taught architect, filmmaker, and untiring proponent of women in architecture, died on October 1, 2023, at the age of 95. John Hill

Skin of Glass, a film by Denise Zmekhol that follows her journey to a modernist skyscraper in São Paulo that was designed by her later father and subsequently occupied by hundreds of homeless families, won Best Documentary Feature Film at the BARQ Festival. John Hill

Zvi Hecker, the “Bad Boy of Israeli Architecture” (according to Haaretz, at least) who was born in Poland, immigrated to Israel in 1950, and moved to Germany in 1991, died at his home in Berlin on September 24, 2023, at the age of 92.  John Hill

Architect Christoph Ingenhoven is the latest recipient of the Golden Flower of Rheydt, an environmental prize presented by the city of Mönchengladbach, Germany, biennially since 1967. His concept of holistic sustainable architecture was the deciding factor. Manuel Pestalozzi

The recipient of the fifth Obel Award, created in 2019 to honor “outstanding architectural contributions to human development” around the world, is “a visionary green infrastructure project” off the shore of New York's Staten Island. John Hill

Chappe is a new “art house by the sea” that opened earlier this year in Tammisaari, in southern Finland. The small building was designed by JKMM Architects for the Albert de la Chapelle Art Foundation. Ulf Meyer

The Centro de Investigación del Mar de Cortés (Sea of Cortez Research Center) opened in Mazatlán, Mexico, at the end of May. Located in Parque Central Mazatlán, the impressive building was designed by Tatiana Bilbao Estudio. Ulf Meyer

During a ceremony in Venice on EUmies Awards Day, June 29, the Fundació Mies van der Rohe and Creative Europe announced the three winners of the EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture / Mies van der Rohe Awards in the Young Talent category. A fourth award given by the Mies Foundation was also... John Hill

Even though the National Portrait Gallery in St. Martin’s Place boasts the world’s largest collection of portraits, it was sometimes overlooked relative to the other great art museums in London. A new transformation hopes to change that. Ulf Meyer

British architect Michael Hopkins, recipient of the Royal Gold Medal in 1994 with his wife Patty, died on June 17, “peacefully” and “surrounded by his family,” per Hopkins Architects. He was 88. Ulf Meyer

With its stacked landscapes, MVRDV's Dutch Pavilion was a symbol of Expo 2000 in Hanover and one for the future of architecture par excellence. Now, after a long period of neglect, it is being given a second life. Manuel Pestalozzi

The City of New York is suing Steven Holl Architects over the additional costs needed to make parts of the Hunters Point Library, which the NYC firm designed and which opened in Long Island City, Queens, in 2019, fully accessible. John Hill

Hungary’s tallest tower houses the headquarters of the country’s biggest company, the MOL Group. The giant oil and gas conglomerate commissioned Lord Norman Foster from London to design their new headquarters, which was inaugurated in December. Ulf Meyer

After Rio (2021), Seoul (2017), Durban (2014) and Tokyo (2011), the International Union of Architects (UIA) is holding its World Congress in the city of Copenhagen from July 2 to 6, 2023. Silvia Pujalte Toledo

The six finalists for the fourth Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) were announced at an event in Medellín, Colombia. Founded by the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in 2014, MCHAP awards "the best architectural work in the Americas realized in the preceding two years." John Hill

Dr. Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi, the recipient of the 2018 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the 2022 RIBA Royal Gold Medal and other honors, died in Ahmedabad, India, on January 24, 2023, at the age of 95. John Hill

The 2019 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate was a great master builder as well as an astute thinker and gifted writer. His versatile architecture made him a mediator between Japan and the West. Ulf Meyer