Session 19: "Don't be Evil, Don't Throw Stones"

03/05/15 • 49 min

This week Amelia, Paul, Donna and Ken discuss the somewhat controversial Google Headquarters design by BIG and Heatherwick. On a completely different note, we also discuss the new, and the nation's first, slavery museum, Whitney Plantation, in Louisiana.

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Session 18: "Moonwalking Or (The Expected Virtue of Social Architecture) with Andrés Jaque, winner of MoMA PS1's YAP"

Winner of this year's MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program, Andrés Jaque of the Office for Political Innovation, joins us on the podcast this week to discuss his winning design, COSMO. In a continued thread from last year's YAP, The Living's "Hy-Fi", Jaque's COSMO focuses on issues of sustainability and ecology – its main element is a series of pipes that will purify water with biological treatments.

Before winning the YAP, Jaque's office already had a piece in MoMA's permanent collection, IKEA Disobedients (2011), the museum's first "architectural performance" acquisition. COSMO will be installed from June 23 through September 7.

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Session 20: "Three Funerals and a Curator"

Ten minutes before we sat down to record this week's episode, the Pritzker Prize Laureate was announced – posthumously. The winner, Frei Otto (1925 - 2015), was a German architect whose impressive work and research with lightweight and sustainable structures influenced countless architects through the 20th century to today. Otto was informed of the prize before his death in Germany this past Monday, March 9, prompting the Pritzker committee to make the formal announcement the day after.

This episode, we reflect on Otto's remarkable life and the Prize's announcement in the midst of his passing. We also examine the uncertain fate (and value) of Frank Gehry's Winton Guest House, which will be up for sale on May 19, and consider whether architects should shoulder the cultural and emotional weight of deciding how we bury our dead.

And on the heels of Google's announcement that BIG will collaborate with Heatherwick Studios on their campus expansion, Amelia spoke with curator Brooke Hodge in her office at the Cooper Hewitt, about bringing Heatherwick to an American audience with her "Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio" exhibition, currently on view at the Hammer Museum through May 24.