Articles by Katherine Allen

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the massive production of architecture today. Scroll through ArchDaily for more than a minute and even we’d forgive you for losing track of it all. But what seems like an endless scroll of architectural production doesn’t quite fit with the popular movements surrounding resource sharing and community. 

Johnston Marklee has rapidly become one of the US’ most exciting practices. After years of completing sensitive and complex domestic-scaled works in Los Angeles, the office vaulted to prominence after being selected to curate Chicago’s 2017 architecture biennial. Since then they’ve completed and embarked on numerous significant projects – none more so than the Menil Drawing Institute.

Architecture, unlike other aspects of culture (such as fashion or music), can only really be experienced and understood in person. For highly branded companies, designing a new building can be a prime opportunity to signal taste and values – but also creates an interesting architectural conundrum. While the buildings will be inhabited (nearly 24/7) by company employees, they’re also very much populated by the imaginations of people across the globe. What is it like to be in these places?

Danish office 3XN has unveiled finalized designs for their Sydney Fish Market project after announcing their attachment to the project last June. The scheme, which is expected to begin construction in 2019, combines the traditional working market program with contemporary features and is intended to establish a strong public connection to the waterfront at Blackwattle Bay.

Kanye West is, according to Kanye West, a reformed man. After months of making headlines over his bizarre political views, he stated on Wednesday that, “my eyes are now wide open and now realize I’ve been used to spread messages I don’t believe in. I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative !!!”

The story of the Hastings Pier is an improbable one. Located in Hastings – a stone’s throw away from the battlefield that defined English history – the pier was first opened to the promenading public in 1872. For decades the structure, an exuberant array of Victorian-era decoration, entertained seaside crowds but by the new millennium had fallen out of disrepair. In 2008 the pier was closed – a closure that became seemingly irreversible when, two years later, it burnt down.

It’s easy now to feel jaded about modernism. What started as a radically rational and analytical approach to design – one unbeholden to the architectural traditions of place or history – has become a smokescreen behind which designers and developers alike can hide. The language of logic (genuine or not) is a shield against criticism and satisfies questions about the bottom line. The border between minimalism and a value-engineered bare minimum has been blurred to the point of invisibility.

In the celebration of what would be Paul Rudolph’s 100th birthday, designer Lasse Lyhne-Hansen has revisited one of the famed architect’s largest and last major US projects: a study on the Lower Manhattan Expressway in 1967.

Architecture is a profession deeply dependent on the visual. It’s imagined, sold, critiqued and consumed almost entirely on the strength (or lack thereof) of drawings. We pick and prod at images presented at angles we’ll never be able see, admiring the architectonic qualities of elements we’ll never actually experience.