Archinect - News

Lella and Massimo Vignelli's legendary New York home to list for $6.5 million

2018-01-26T14:10:00-05:00

Other than the conversion of the dining room into a library and a den into office space in 2000, the apartment has remained largely unchanged since the 1970s. “Some people might see this as dated,” [Luca] Vignelli said. But much of the apartment feels timeless, as his parents intended, he added: “I would love to see somebody who appreciates the space and their presence in the space” as a buyer.

The design legacy of the late Lella and Massimo Vignelli lives on in their New York home, which will be listed for $6.5 million. The home hasn't changed much since the couple bought it in 1978. Their children Luca and Valentina Vignelli, who are selling the duplex because they both live elsewhere, are hoping they can find the right buyer.

Schindler Lab Initiative recounts intricate process behind Schindler House artistic interventions

2015-03-24T10:20:00-04:00

This publication documents an exhibition-oriented initiative that prompts artists and architects to develop installations highlighting Rudolph M. Schindler’s domestic experiment...Visitors often ask detailed questions. They are curious about Schindler’s thought process when designing and constructing the house; how the house has been used, understood, and canonized throughout the decades; and how the house is holding up today.

For years, the Schindler House in West Hollywood has served as a cultural backdrop for a multitude of MAK Center exhibitions that have -- in turn -- continuously reinvented the experience of the house and also uniquely demonstrate the ongoing need to preserve the house. Whether engaging with the house itself, examining its use as a domestic space, or reflecting on its 93-year-old history as a modernist icon, every one of these artistic interventions resulted from a meticulous process of discussion, debate, and creative problem solving -- all of which the MAK Center chronicles in an online publication known as the Schindler Lab.

First initiated in 2011 by MAK Center consultant and cultural producer Sara Daleiden, the Schindler Lab is divided into sections that starts off with the Schindler House's architecture and history. The publication then goes on to present the variety of perspectives, proposals, and after-thoughts that architects, designers, artists, curators, and administrators...

INsite by Luftwerk turns Mies' Farnsworth House inside-out with light and sound

2014-05-15T13:23:00-04:00

Whether you're a diehard Miesian fan or could care less about the modernist architecture canon, we've heard of ol' Farnsworth time and time again since its completion in 1951 in Plano, Illinois. But Chicago-based artists Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero of Luftwerk want the public to see the historic Farnsworth House in a whole new light — literally — with their digital installation project called INsite.

INsite highlights the house's characteristic clean lines through site-specific digital video projections and original music compositions, thus rendering it into a new structure of light, sound, and space. In addition to recent preservation efforts to protect the Farnsworth from more floodwater damage in the future, INsite could help revive public interest in an eye-catching way that is suitable for these tech-friendly times.

Illuminating modern architecture landmarks is nothing new for Gallero and Bachmaier, who have collaborated with video designer and programmer Liviu Pasare and co...

Nine days left for L.A. Forum's DINGBAT 2.0 Kickstarter campaign

2014-02-07T15:17:00-05:00

With a little over a week left, the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design launched their first Kickstarter campaign to support the production and distribution of their upcoming book, DINGBAT 2.0, the first in-depth study of the ubiquitous dingbat apartment -- a common, easy-to-identify structure in Los Angeles that apparently no one talks about.

Co-edited by former L.A. Forum Board of Directors president Thurman Grant and former board member and Radical Craft principal Joshua G. Stein, each section of the book offers a look into its history, future, and value in L.A.'s urban identity. Features include essays, winning entries of the Dingbat 2.0 competition, and panel discussions between some notable figures.

Here's more detail about the book:

"Just as Banham used Los Angeles as a lens through which we could imagine a new form of urbanism emerging across the globe, Dingbat 2.0 uses the dingbat apartment type to explore the seemingly paradoxical potential for individual id...

INCIDENTAL COMICS: Iconic Houses

2012-01-29T12:31:00-05:00

In an earlier draft of this comic, it appeared the Farnsworth house was being gnawed by ordinary beavers. My architect brother informed me that Mies van der Rohe was known for his innovations in steel and glass, not wood. So just to clarify: those are MUTANT beavers.