ARCHITECTS ‘are the sexiest’

Architects have been voted the sexiest male professionals in a survey of women’s ideal partners.

The survey, conducted by the introduction agency Drawing Down the Moon, found that women favoured architects “due to the esteem associated with the profession”.

Architects are seen as being “balanced and rounded individuals who combine a creative approach with a caring, thoughtful disposition”, the survey found. It concluded: “Their ability to cope with pressure of work in a relaxed manner was also deemed to be a significant plus.”

Male architects beat stockbrokers, doctors, film directors and teachers on the top spot.

However female members of the profession fared less well and did not feature in the top 10 out of male preferences.

RIBA president David Rock commented that architects were probably unaware of their animal magnetism: “Architects were probably the only group on the list whose self-image is lower than their public image”, he said, but added: “Mind you, you have to question the veracity of any list that includes drama teachers”.

RIBA Architecture Gallery director Alicia Pivaro, who is married to architect Paul Monaghan, said she thaugt male architects were highly attractive: “Being married to the architecture’s Mr Sexy, I would have to agree.”

But she was surprised at the failiure of women architects to appear on the list. “All the ones I know are very sexy”, she said.

Men instead voted PR executives the sexiest profession for females, followed by actresses and journalists.

TOP 30 MOST VISITED BUILDINGS in the world

1. Roman Colosseum
2. Sagrada Familia
3. World Trade Center
4. Fallingwater
5. Pantheon
6. Casa Batllo
7. Eiffel Tower
8. Casa Mila
9. Guggenheim Museum
10. The Alhambra
11. Taj Mahal
12. Villa Savoye
13. Chrysler Building
14. Barcelona Pavilion
15. Guggenheim Bilbao
16. Sydney Opera
17. Statue of Liberty
18. Great Pyramid
19. 30 St Mary Axe
20. Notre Dame Cathedral
21. Johnson Wax Building
22. Pyramide du Louvre
23. Park Guell
24. Notre Dame du Haut
25. St Peters of Rome
26. Centre Pompidou
27. 88 Wood Street
28. Gehry House
29. Boomer Residence
30. The Parthenon

NEW WORLD TRADE CENTER

NEW WORLD TRADE CENTER

Seven World Trade Center was the third building to collapse on September 11, 2001, and it is the first to be rebuilt. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the new building is composed of 42 floors of office space set above eight floors of Con Edison transformers (located in large concrete vaults at street level).

James Carpenter Design Associates (JCDA) was invited to join the design team in late 2002, after the building’s prismatic form — derived from significant site planning — was already established. We were asked to collaborate on the curtain wall, the base of the building containing the transformers, and the lobby

Design Concept

The site’s new master plan radically altered the building’s context. Before its destruction, the original 7 World Trade Center was accessible only from the podium of the complex, four stories above street level, where the blank granite box was dominated by Con Edison’s industrial louvers. With the loss of the World Trade Center’s raised podium, by necessity, the new design had to still accommodate the transformers, and also respond to a new public and urban presence at street level.

The concept for the new design was to create a parallelogram in plan, extruded into a 60-story-high crystal prism. The base volume grounds the single extruded parallelogram and supports the tower visually. SOM proposed locking the base and tower with a third interior volume of light, the shape of which becomes most apparent at night.

We sought to embed light in all of the building’s levels. From the podium to the special linear-lap curtain wall, light appears to emanate from the building itself. Our contribution to the design included glass panels that overlap the building’s floor plates and a spandrel system that reflects light from behind the panels, creating a luminous tower that extends light into the public realm.

Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House Under Water

Farnsworth House

Farnsworth House designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe a famous structure and a national historic landmark is in a state of distress as a result of residual flooding from huricane.

minimalist architecture in ancient athens

New Acropolis Museum (NAM)

The New Acropolis Museum:  by Bernard Tschum
A minimalist architecture counterpoint to the world’s great archeological site in Greece, officially opens this  June 20, 2009.

“The design was chosen for its simple, clear, and beautiful solution that is in accord with the beauty and classical simplicity of the museum’s unique exhibits,” says professor Dimitrios Pandermalis, president of the private organization overseeing the project.Tschumi’s challenge was to honor the historic importance of the site while accommodating the demands of contemporary Athens, with its hellish traffic, swarming tourists, and frequent seismic rumblings.

“People said, ‘You have to be contextual; it ought to be in the Doric style of traditional Greek temples,’” the architect recalls. “Forget it!” he answered. “You can’t do Doric as well as the ancient Greeks did it. Instead, I aimed for the same precision, the same clarity as the original temple.”

Tschumi’s museum is a three-story concrete, marble and glass trapezoid, topped by a canted glass rectangle containing sections of the original Parthenon frieze.The first level, floating above the ruins of an ancient Athenian city, includes a lobby, temporary exhibition galleries, and retail spaces. A glass floor gives visitors close-up views of the excavated city, which was discovered in 2002 and forced major changes to the original design.The second and third levels, connected by curving glass ramps, house the museum’s permanent collection of 4,000 objects from the Archaic to the Late Roman period, including many sculptures that once decorated the temples of the Acropolis. All are seen in natural light, as originally intended.

The museum culminates in the glass-walled Parthenon Gallery, which Tschumi rotated 23 degrees to parallel the Parthenon itself, only 800 feet away. Here visitors can enjoy panoramic views that encompass Athens’ past and present, ancient history and modern.At 226,000 square feet, the New Acropolis Museum provides ten times more exhibition space than its 19th century predecessor, while including a bar, restaurant, shop and other essential amenities for contemporary museums. Total construction costs approached $175 million, a huge investment that officials hope will pay off not only in increased tourism but also in the reclamation of Greece’s cultural patrimony

Courtesy of Archrecord.com