Year in Architecture 2017

John Hill
15. December 2017
A few of the people, buildings and stories we covered in 2017.

January

Better Shelter, the Beazley Design of the Year (Photo: Jonas Nyström)

Week 1: New York City's Second Avenue Subway opened on the first day of 2017; Winners of the 28th annual international Piranesi Awards were announced.
Week 2: George Lucas selected Los Angeles as the future home of his Lucas Museum of Narrative Art; American Institute of Architects announced the winners of the 2017 AIA Institute Honor Awards.
Week 3: Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects were named curators of the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale; Better Shelter won the Design Museum's Beazley Design of the Year 2016.
Week 440 projects were shortlisted for the 2017 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award; Ten teams were shortlisted for the UK Holocaust Memorial in London.

​Selected BuildingBibliothèque Alexis de Tocqueville in Caen, France, by OMA, Barcode Architects, Clement Blanchet Architecture
Selected Insight: A Studio Visit to Gensler's Manhattan office
Selected ProductA floating "cloud" in Rome's New Convention Center designed by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas

February

Peter Zumthor in conversation with architecture critic Paul Goldberger (Photo: John Hill/World-Architects)

Week 5: design/buildLAB's Sharon Fieldhouse in Clifton Forge, Virginia, won the American-Architects Building of the Year 2016.
Week 6: Denise Scott Brown was named the 2017 recipient of Architects' Journal's Jane Drew Prize
Week 7: Five finalists were named for the 2017 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award; Jenny Sabin won MoMA PS1's Young Architects Program; we learned that Frank Gehry would be giving a MasterClass – to anyone paying $90 for the online instructional.
Week 8: OMA's Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten were selected for the fourth MPavilion in Melbourne; Francis Kéré was selected for the Serpentine Pavilion in London.

​Selected BuildingOberholz Mountain Hut in Obereggen, Italy, by Peter Pichler Architecture & Architekt Pavol Mikolajcak​
Selected Insight: Swiss architect Peter Zumthor at the Guggenheim Museum, in conversation with Paul Goldberger
Selected Product: A "Salt Crystal" in Germany made with LUCEM translucent concrete

March

Pritzker Prize-winning RCR Arquitectes in their Barberí Laboratory (Photo: Hisao Suzuki)

Week 9: Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta of RCR Arquitectes were named the 2017 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureates.​
Week 10: BIG and Heatherwick Studio released updated renderings for their design of Google's new campus in Mountain View, California.
Week 11Winners of the 27th MIPIM Awards were announced at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France; Vargo Nielsen Palle bested BIG and SANAA in a competition for the new school of architecture in Aarhus, Denmark.
Week 12: A rendering of a supertall design by the late Zaha Hadid for 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan was unveiled; World-Architects toured Renzo Piano's new Lenfest Center for the Arts at Columbia University.
Week 13: The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles announced the acquisition of more than thirty years of Frank Gehry's drawings, models, and other artifacts on 283 projects.

​Selected Building: Internet Conference Centre in Shitang Village, China, by AZL Atelier Zhanglei​
Selected Insight: A visit to The Architect's Studio: Wang Shu - Amateur Architecture Studio at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark​
Selected Product: The three-dimensional facade of Zaha Hadid's cantilevered addition to Antwerp's Port House

April

Bahá’í Temple of South America by Hariri Pontinari Architects (Photo: Ian David)

Week 14: The Bahá’í Temple of South America, designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects, won the RAIC Innovation in Architecture Award for 2017; Updated renderings of Peter Zumthor's design for LACMA were released.
Week 15: Winners of the annual eVolo Skyscraper Competition were announced; 79 winners of the American Architecture Awards were announced.
Week 16: Just in time for Earth Day, the American Institute of Architects released a list of principles to highlight architects' role in combating climate change.
Week 17I.M. Pei turned 100.​

​Selected BuildingVitrolles Media Library in Vitrolles, France, by Jean-Pierre Lott​
Selected InsightThe Promise of Generative Design – the next big thing in architectural production?​
Selected Product: The doweled facade of Fougeron Architecture's 400 Grove in San Francisco

May

EU Mies Prize winner De Flat Kleiburg (Photo: Marcel van der Burg)

Week 18: Artist Vito Acconci died at the age of 77; Renderings of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects' design of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago were unveiled; New York's Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum announced the winners of the 2017 National Design Awards; Peter Zumthor unveiled renderings of his expansion to the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland.
Week 19Amsterdam's DeFlat Kleiburg by NL Architects and XVW Architectuur won the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award; World-Architects visited the American Planning Association's National Planning Conference.
Week 20Thomas Heatherwick's Silo hotel opened in Cape Town; Alejandro Aravena won the Art Mill International Design Competition in Doha.​
Week 21: Seoul opened its own version of the High Line: a highway overpass transformed by MVRDV; Diller Scofidio + Renfro's Shed topped off at Hudson Yards in Manhattan.
Week 22Four finalists of the 2017 Moriyama RAIC International Prize were named.​

​Selected BuildingGallery of Furniture in Brno-Vinohrady, Czech Republic, by CHYBIK + KRISTOF Architects & Urban Designers​
Selected InsightAppraising Starchitecture through two critical books on the global phenomenon​
Selected Product: An apartment building in Prague with a poetic facade "written in light"

June

The Sackler Courtyard, V&A Exhibition Road Quarter, designed by AL_A (Photo © Hufton+Crow)

Week 23Architects responded to Trump pulling the US from the Paris agreement on climate change; Norman Foster Foundation opened in Madrid.
Week 24: More than 80 people died in a fire at Grenfell Tower in London's North Kensington area; American Society of Landscape Architects' 2017 honors were announced; Yvonne Farrell and Shelly McNamara announced "Freespace" as theme of next year's Venice Architecture Biennial.
Week 25: Design of OMA's MPavilion was unveiled; Francis Kéré's Serpentine Pavilion opened to the public; Finalists for design of Ross Pavilion in Scotland were announced; Winners of RIBA National Awards were announced.
Week 26: Jenny Sabin's "Lumen" opened at MoMA PS1; Victoria & Albert Museum in London opened V&A Exhibition Road Quarter, designed by Amanda Levete.

​Selected Building: Ruyton Girls School - Margaret McRae Centre in Melbourne, Australia, by Woods Bagot​
Selected Insight: MoMA's Frank Lloyd Wright at 150 unpacked their archive to explore the architect's legacy.​
Selected Product: The technology behind Herzog & de Meuron's and Ai Weiwei's Hansel & Gretel installation

July

The carefully restored teak panels at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (Photo: Elizabeth Daniels)

Week 27: Azure Magazine revealed the 20 winners of its seventh annual AZ Awards competition; Work wrapped up on the restoration of the teak panels at Louis I. Kahn's Salk Institute for Biological Studies.​
Week 28Six finalists for the planned Centre for Music in London were revealed; UK's Royal Mail released a special issue of ten stamps that feature "some of the finest public buildings erected in the last 20 years."​
Week 29: Six buildings for prestigious RIBA Stirling Prize were announced.
Week 30Seven teams were shortlisted in the competition to transform the Citroën Yser garage in Brussels into a cultural center.

​Selected Building: Stage of Forest at Songhua Lake Resort, Jilin, China, by Wang Shuo and Zhang Jing​
Selected InsightArchitecture 4.0, on parametric design, building information modeling, computer-aided manufacturing
Selected Product: More Herzog & de Meuron, this time their Tate "pyramid" veiled in brick

August

Gunnar Birkerts' National Library of Latvia, 2014, Riga (Photo: Владимир Королёв/Wikimedia Commons)

Week 31: The Getty Foundation announced the recipients of its 2017 Keeping It Modern grants; Carol Ross Barney was named the recipient of AIA Chicago’s 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award; wHY wins the Ross Pavilion competition.
Week 32: On vacation.
Week 33: Thomas Heatherwick's Garden Bridge officially bites the dust; Architect Gunnar Birkerts died at the age of 92​; Shortlist for Beazley Designs of the Year was announced.
Week 34: Renderings of Herzog & de Meuron's Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles were unveiled.
Week 35: LEGO releases a model kit of its BIG-designed LEGO House opening in September in Billund, Denmark.​

​Selected BuildingY House in Nonthaburi, Thailand, by Anonym​
Selected Insight: Ulf Meyer explored the art island of Naoshima in Japan's Inland Sea.​
Selected Product: Inside Pritzker Prize winner RCR's ENIGMA Restaurant in Barcelona

September

National Holocaust Museum in Ottawa (Photo: Doublespace)

Week 36: A memorial honoring the twelve people killed in the hostage standoff at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich opened in the city's Olympic Park; Winners of the LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 for Africa and the Middle East were announced.
Week 37: Spanish architect Rafael Moneo was named a recipient of the Japan Art Association’s 2017 Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award.
Week 38: Tezuka Architects’ Fuji Kindergarten was named the winner of the 2017 Moriyama RAIC International Prize; Nine architects reimagined the Chicago River in an exhibition at the Chicago Architecture Biennial.
Week 39: Ottawa's National Holocaust Monument, designed by a team led by Studio Libeskind was inaugurated on September 27th; RIBA announced architect Neave Brown as the recipient of the 2018 Royal Gold Medal; Chinese architect Zhang Ke won the Alvar Aalto Medal; Winners of the LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 for Europe were announced.

​Selected Building: Campground in Ranwu Lake, Tibet, by Arch-HERMIT Architects​
Selected Insight: A long feature on Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee's Chicago Architecture Biennial, Make New History
Selected Product: dRMM's Maggie's Centre near Manchester and Tulipwood's role in soothing the building's occupants

October

550 Madison Avenue, aka the AT&T Building (Image: DBOX, courtesy of Snøhetta)

Week 40OMA's MPavilion opened in Melbourne's Queen Victoria Gardens; Wwinners of the LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 for Latin America were announced; Plans for Thomas Heatherwick's Lincoln Center renovations were scrapped due to expense.
Week 41: Diller Scofidio + Renfro won competition for Centre for Music in London; 2017 American Architecture Prize winners were announced; Landscape architect Kate Orff and designer/urban planner Damon Rich are among the Class of 2017 MacArthur "Genius" Fellows; OMA was selected to expand SANAA's New Museum in New York; Winners of LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 for North America were announced.
Week 42: Apple Michigan Avenue, designed by Norman Foster, opened in Chicago; Students from four Swiss universities won the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2017 with their NeighborHub design.
Week 43: Team led by David Adjaye and Ron Arad won the UK Holocaust Memorial International Design Competition; Thomas Heatherwick's Pier55, considered dead, was resurrected; Snøhetta unveiled plans for renovating the base of Philip Johnson's AT&T Building, sparking controversy; Norton Museum of Art unveiled new plans for the first public garden designed by Lord Norman Foster.

​Selected Building: Mannheim Business School Study and Conference Center in Mannheim, Germany, by schneider+schumacher​
Selected Insight: World-Architects headed to Baltimore to cover the Vectorworks Design Summit.
Selected Product: A Tribeca apartment building clad in bluestone blocks

November

dRMM's Stirling Prize-winning Hastings Pier (Photo: Alex de Rijke)

Week 44: dRMM's Hastings Pier was selected for the RIBA Stirling Prize; New renderings of Peter Zumthor's LACMA were revealed; Australian Institute of Architects' National Architecture Awards were announced.
Week 45: Frank Gehry's Eisenhower Memorial (finally) had its groundbreaking; London's V&A announced its acquisition of a three-story section of the soon-to-be-demolished Robin Hood Gardens.
Week 46: A rammed earth dwelling was named World Building of the Year; Marina Abramovic cancelled her eponymous, OMA-designed institute planned for Hudson, New York.
Week 47: Recipients of the 29th Piranesi Awards were announced; Winners of the LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 for Asia Pacific were announced.
Week 48: Plans for a demountable stadium at the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar were announced; Caring Wood was named the RIBA House of the Year; Architectural historian Vincent Scully died at the age of 97.

​Selected BuildingMarina One in Singapore by ingenhoven architects​
Selected Insight: World-Architects was in Berlin to cover the World Architecture Festival.
Selected Product: Tracking some innovations in textured brick

December

ETFE facade of KieranTimberlake's US Embassy in London, opening next month (Photo: Richard Bryant/arcaidimages.com)

Week 49: New York architect James Stewart Polshek was named the recipient of the 2018 AIA Gold Medal; Minneapolis, Minnesota's Snow Kreilich Architects was named the recipient of the 2018 AIA Architecture Firm Award.
Week 50: Richard Meier's Getty Center turned 20 and the J. Paul Getty Museum celebrated with a new exhibition of photos; Photos of the $1 billion U.S. Embassy London were released a month ahead of its opening.
Week 51: On holiday.

​Selected Building: Mortuary Chapel for the Soriano-Manzanet Family in Villarreal, Spain, by Vegas&Mileto​
Selected Insight: A profile of London's BPR Architects and how the office uses BIM in their public projects
Selected Product: Dichroic film and its colorful effects in an installation inside a Renzo Piano tower in Turin

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