Results tagged “zahahadid”

             

Art and commerce are now communing in nature: The Zaha Hadid-designed Chanel Mobile Art is now open in Central Park. Situated in Rumsey Playfield, the 7,500-square foot orb is filled with art inspired by elements of the famous quilted Chanel bag and visitors can also listen to an audio guide, narrated by Jeanne Moreau (the NY Times described the audio as "discussing everything from sex and love to the secrets at the bottom of a woman’s handbag"). Chanel, which has previously displayed the orb in other cities around the world, donated a low seven-figure sum to Central Park, plus will pay a $400,000 use fee to the city.

       

The latest art project to be plopped into a public space is Zaha Hadid's Chanel Pavilion, a 7,500-square-foot temporary, traveling art gallery that has a number of stamps on its passport already. The spaceship-esque pod will land in Rumsey Playfield in Central Park by October 20th, and be open through November 9th -- housing artwork (including a piece by Yoko Ono) inspired by the Chanel handbag, of course.

After months and months of delays, the BAM Cultural District may be moving forward. The NY Times is reporting that city officials have chosen Harlem-based developer and Brooklyn resident Carlton Brown to create what the Times' Terry Pristin calls the "cultural district's centerpiece." This is the first Brooklyn project for Brown, who developed the Kalahari and 1400 on Fifth in Harlem and the Solaire, the city's first residential green building, in Battery Park City. The...

Various officials followed up with some more thoughts about Frank Gehry designing his very first playground for Battery Park. Mayor Bloomberg said, “Everything Frank Gehry touches is unique, and I’m sure it will be a great park." Check out this quote, via the Post:

"I once gave money to redo a children's playground in Central Park. I can't go in it because you have to have a child. But when I look in it, people seem to be having a great time and it's doing well."

You may have noticed that the Guggenheim Museum has been shrouded in mesh netting lately, and it makes sense the museum would be undergoing some facade/maintenance work. The NY Times, though, has this amazing graphic showing the cracks in the museum's walls. The Guggenheim explains the restoration online (and with podcast- MP3) and also has an exhibit about "Restoring a Masterpiece."

The NY Times has a nice profile of Amanda Burden, the influential Department of City Planning commissioner whose policies will shape the city for years to come.

There is a competition to name the new seven wonders of the world, and the Statue of Liberty is the only NYC mention out of the 21 finalists. Run by New 7 Wonders and with experts like Cesar Pelli and Zaha Hadid on its panel, the finalists are quite a bunch: Stonehenge, the Pyramids of Giza, the Sydney Opera House, Easter Island statues, the Kremlin, the Eiffel Tower, and the Colosseum are just some. Which makes us wonder if the Statue of Liberty will make it to the final seven.

-- and a Publisher's note: My second-cousin Harry is literally inches away from winning the New Yorker caption of the week contest. I think you'll agree his "The hours here are obscene" is clearly the top pick of the group.

Last week a new exhibit kicked off at The Center for Architecture. It isn't about buildings or bridges, however, it's about dresses and jackets and blouses (oh my!). The Fashion of Architecture delves in to the world of couture. Yes, clothes are being structured after achitecture, but did you know that architecture is stealing looks from the runway? Oh how we love it when fashion meets form.

London will be the host city for the 2012 Olympics and millions of Parisians are muttering, "Zut alors!" and many NBC executives thinking, "Thank God, they speak the same language and the time difference isn't ") And above is Zaha Hadid's design for the Aquatic Center.

The City and the Friends of the High Line have selected Diller, Scofidio & Renfro and Field Operations to design the master plan for the High Line on the West Side of Manhattan. Naturally, their plan includes renderings with all sorts of crazy scale figures dancing around.

The Friends of the Highline have selected four design teams to compete for the coveted project of turning the Highline, the elevated train tracks on the West Side, into a public park. Among the finalists involved are Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid's firm, artist Olafur Eliasson of Weather Project fame at the Tate Modern, and a number of other top architectural firms. Curbed has details on the teams, per the Friends of the Highline press release. The designs submitted by the four teams will be on display at the Center for Architecture, beginning July 15 (which is also the night of an opening panel discussion). Gothamist is very excited by this, but we're still fond of the abandoned nature of the Highline, rusting train trestle and wildflowers growing haphazardly. But better for the Highline to be a park rather than be demolished.

See the proposed designs here, or go to Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central, where you can view them over the next two weeks. Gothamist likes the twisted towers, pictured above, from (corrected) Henning Larsens Tegnestue. Dutch firm MRVDV also has a designed; we've loved their pig farm design. Other designers include Zaha Hadid, Thom Mayne (LA), and Smith-Miller & Hawkinson (NY).