New at Pentagram
New Work: Alexander McQueen
William Russell has designed the new Alexander McQueen store in Los Angeles. The flagship shop is located on Melrose Avenue on the corner of Melrose Place and is the latest in a recent expansion by McQueen, which has seen Russell designed stores opening in Las Vegas, Moscow, Bahrain, Osaka and Vilnius.
The stores employ the interior design language created by Russell and McQueen for the original three flagship stores in London, Milan and New York, creating a branded spatial experience full of drama and intrigue.
New Work: European Solidarity Center
As part of an international architecture competition sponsored by the city of Gdansk, Poland, Pentagram Architects has proposed a design for a European Solidarity Center (ESC) that would act as an international center of culture, housing a museum, temporary exhibition space and an academic research center. The project seeks to memorialize the organization Solidarity (Solidarno), the first non-communist trade union in a communist country founded in Gdansk in 1980. Solidarity was organized by workers from the Gdansk shipyard, the proposed site for the ESC, and was integral in helping establish the grassroots anti-communist social movement in Poland and subsequently, the rest of Europe.
James Biber’s team design, called the Interrex, celebrates the time between the end of one regime and the beginning of the next, a position Solidarity held in Poland in the late 90s as the government transitioned from communism to democracy. The proposal creates a literal space in the form of a massive covered gathering place below the building.
Montauk Screening Room Is Cool Hunted
The screening room designed by James Biber for the Montauk Residence is scouted by The Cool Hunter. The room was inspired by Radio City Music Hall and 2001: A Space Odyssey, writes Brendan McKnight, “and as in the Music Hall, the lights are positioned to glow away from the viewers—because we all hate to have lights in our eyes when watching the big screen.” The project was previously featured in The New York Times.
Montauk Residence in ‘Architectural Record’
The Montauk residence designed by James Biber and his team is featured in the October issue of Architectural Record. (Online with slideshow and audio interview with Biber.) Jane Kolleeny writes: “The elusive boundaries between the buildings and outdoor spaces pay tribute to the Case Study House program. Here, the architect considered not only his design’s visual impact, but how it would engage other senses, as well. In particular, he wanted the residential compound to embrace nature by capturing the omnipresent sound of the ocean. As Biber describes it, ‘The house is like a vessel for listening to the sea.’”
Pentagram Celebrates Julius Shulman and ‘The Russian Garbo’
On Wednesday night Pentagram Architects hosted a party to celebrate famed architectural photographer Julius Shulman’s 97th birthday and the publication of Pentagram Papers 38: The Russian Garbo, which features Shulman’s photographs of the Sten-Frenke House. The Santa Monica residence was designed by Richard Neutra in 1934 for the Ukrainian émigré actress Anna Sten (“The Russian Garbo”) and her husband, Dr. Eugene Frenke, and was restored by James Biber and his team at Pentagram Architects in 2005. Shulman, who photographed Neutra-designed houses for forty years, remarkably did not shoot the Sten-Frenke House until after the restoration was complete.
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Robb Report Visits the Montauk Residence
The Robb Report features the Montauk Residence designed by James Biber and associate Michael Zweck-Bronner in the cover story of the September issue of Vacation Homes, out now. The residence was designed as “a case study house in New York” inspired by a trip Biber took to California to experience the original mid-century icons. The result is “a beautifully detailed, very elegant case study house” overlooking the Atlantic and with all the modern accoutrements.
Montauk Residence Wins American Architecture Award
The Montauk Residence, designed by James Biber and his team, has won an American Architecture Award for distinguished buildings. Sponsored by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design, the award is co-presented annually by The European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies and Abitare magazine to 35 new buildings either located in the United States or built abroad by American architects. The award serves to identify “the new cutting-edge design direction, urban philosophy, design approach, style and intellectual substance in American architecture today.”
Images of the award-winning projects can be found at the Chicago Athenaeum website.
William Russell at London Open House
William Russell will be talking about the design and construction of his award-winning Bacon Street residence as part of 3: Architect’s Houses from Bromley to Brick Lane, a joint discussion, sponsored by London Open House, in which he and two other architects, Ivor Berresford and Julian Powell-Tuck, will talk about the process of building, and the experience of living, in a house of their own design.
The talk takes place at Margaret Howell’s flagship store at 34 Wigmore Street, London W1, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm on Thursday, 13 September. Tickets for the talk are available online.
The discussion is part of London’s annual “Open House” architecture event, where Londoners are encouraged to engage with the architecture of their city and over 600 buildings all over London celebrate design excellence by opening their doors at no charge to the public.
William Russell Scoops Two Commercial Architecture Awards
William Russell has received two Commercial Architecture Awards for his designs for retail environments for Cass Art Warehouse and Margaret Howell’s Fulham Road store. The Commercial Architecture Awards are an annual prize for work in the UK commercial sector and seek to recognise “…schemes that have managed to achieve the balance between meeting a client’s commercial objectives, while producing the best quality architecture and interior design.”
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New Work: Glass House Visitors Center and Identity
The exhibition wall of the Glass House Visitors Center features 24 monitors.
The much-anticipated public opening of Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, takes place this week. James Biber and his team designed the off-site Visitors Center for this acclaimed addition to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s family of sites. Michael Bierut and his team designed the project’s identity, promotional graphics and website .
All tours of the Glass House site, sold out until 2008, begin and end at the Visitors Center in downtown New Canaan. The center, a renovated 2,000-square-foot former truck loading dock conveniently located across from the town train station, accommodates an exhibition, on-site ticketing and a museum shop. Through the exhibition, visitors learn about Philip Johnson and the Glass House site before they take a short shuttle ride to the site where they embark on a 90-minute guided tour. After the tour, visitors return to the center where they can re-experience the exhibition with new insight.
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Harley-Davidson Museum Topped Off
The Harley-Davidson Museum topping off ceremony.
On May 4th, the final steel beam was hoisted into place atop the 80-foot-high south tower of the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. James Biber and his team were on hand to celebrate alongside Willie G. Davidson, the company’s senior vice president and grandson of one of the founders, and other project collaborators.
The Pentagram-designed museum is slated to open in 2008. Construction can be followed via this webcam.
More pics after the jump.
Philip Johnson’s Glass House Opens
Homepage for the Glass House website designed by Pentagram.
Philip Johnson’s Glass House opens to the public for previews today for the first time. The iconic 1949 house and its 48-acre grounds in New Canaan, Connecticut, were bequeathed to the National Trust for Historic Preservation upon Johnson’s death in 2005.
Pentagram has designed an identity, promotional graphics, and a simple website for the project. A visitors center, also by Pentagram, will be ready in time for the site’s official opening on June 23.
New Work: Spruce House
Biber transformed a mid-century fixer-upper into a contemporary home.
James Biber has converted a mid-century modern house in desperate need of care into a modern suburban gem in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The finished project is featured in the April issue of Metropolitan Home.
New Work: Sonance
Sonance exhibit showcasing the company’s new identity and product line.
Lorenzo Apicella has designed a trade show exhibit for Sonance, a high-end architectural audio company that specializes in flush-mount wall and ceiling speakers. The exhibit showcases the company’s new product line and identity, both also designed by Pentagram.
New Work: COS (Collection of Style)
Interior of the new COS flagship on Regent Street in London.
William Russell has designed the stores for COS, Collection of Style, the new premium brand from fashion retailer H&M. The London flagship opened on 16 March, and stores in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands launch this Friday.
New Work: Essenziale
High-end lingerie store Essenziale in Mayfair, London
Lorenzo Apicella and John Rushworth recently completed a retail space and branding campaign for Essenziale, a new upscale London lingerie and beachwear boutique that caters to both women and men. The goal of the project was to “create an enviroment and identity that is about intimacy, privacy and elegance” said Essenziale owner Lina Barbara. While at the same time, the interiors and graphics were designed to potentially serve as the basis for a small exclusive retail chain.
New Work: Dorchester Collection
The Dorchester Collection launch at the Dorchester, London
The Dorchester Collection of luxury hotels—The Dorchester in London, The Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, Le Meurice and the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris, and the Hotel Principe di Savoia in Milan—celebrated the launch of its new identity, designed by John Rushworth, with a series of one-off launch events, designed by Lorenzo Apicella.
Arizona Cardinals Stadium Opens
The Cardinals’ new home in Glendale, AZ
The new Cardinals Stadium opens this weekend with environmental graphics and interiors by Pentagram. Michael Gericke and his team (in collaboration with Entro) designed the building’s overall graphic program, including identification, wayfinding, large-scale thematic elements, sponsor graphics, scoreboards and end zone treatments. Jim Biber and his team designed interiors for the locker rooms, club lounges, corporate lofts, and AZone team store. The stadium was designed by Peter Eisenman and HOK Sport. The first preseason game—the Cardinals play the Steelers—is tomorrow; the regular season begins on September 10.
Updates: Press conference with the designers, including Michael Gericke. The new stadium scores with fans: AP wire. Red is the color for Unbeige.
First pics after the jump.
Beach Weekend
The Montauk Residence designed by James Biber was featured in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. (Scroll down to “High-Water Mark” in Style.) Pilar Viladas writes: “It may look breezy and insouciant, but it’s quite serious in its solid, sumptuous materials and attention to detail, like a villa that has found itself at the edge of the sea.”
New Work: The Daily Show
(Click image for larger view)
James Biber and his team have redesigned the set of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,“ the Comedy Central program that has become the preferred source of news for millions of Americans.
Jim was a big fan of the show and welcomed the opportunity. “Some projects are simply command performances: I couldn’t bear watching the show each night with someone else’s set design,&ldquo he says. ”The show has evolved beyond mere parody into an almost Swiftian satire. It needed a set that gave it an identity of its own, not an amped up version of CNN.”
The first phases of the redesign launched last summer; in the year since, it has became a running joke on the show. Of the controversy, Jim says, “We will likely be remembered for removing the couch. Even John McCain mentioned it this week. Couches are so soft and ‘late night’ and this show is so sharp and primetime. To their credit, the producers have never looked back.”
Pentagram has shaped much of the show’s look. Paula Scher and her team are responsible for the on-air graphics, and of course, the bestselling America (The Book), which is out in an expanded, paperback Teacher’s Edition this September.
Jim and Jon after the jump.
Awards: AIA NY State Design Awards
The Montauk Residence designed by Pentagram Architecture has received a Citation for Design in the 2006 AIA New York State Design Awards. Project design by James Biber, Michael Zweck-Bronner, Alex Mergold, Suzanne Holt and Denise Ramzy.
Lorenzo Apicella Moves to SF
Clear Channel International building, London, 2003
Lorenzo Apicella, a partner in the London office since 1998, is relocating to San Francisco. The move will establish an architectural practice in our SF office and allow Lorenzo to continue to grow his existing U.S. client base, which includes Citibank. Official press release here.
Lorenzo and crew officially depart London on 24 March and open shop in SF on 3 April. Godspeed!
More Lorenzo after the jump.
Hog Heaven
The Harley-Davidson Museum is “a timeless design, like our motorcycles,” says Willie G. Davidson, grandson of one of Harley’s founders, in coverage of the unveiling in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The design gets a rave from the paper’s architecture critic, who calls it “honest, rigorously disciplined urbanism…(a) cooly rational, industrial strength presence, evoking the grit that built Milwaukee and Harley.” Full review.
New Work: Harley-Davidson Museum
(Click image for larger view)
The plans for the Harley-Davidson Museum were unveiled today in Milwaukee. The museum is being designed by Jim Biber and his team at Pentagram Architecture, with exhibition design by Abbott Miller and environmental graphics by Michael Bierut. The project is slated to open in 2008.
More images after the jump.
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