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The Portland Building, by architect and product designer Michael Graves, is considered the first major built work of Postmodernist architecture. The design, which displays numerous symbolic elements on its monumental facades, stands in purposeful contrast to the functional Modernist architecture that was dominant at the time. As Graves explains of his architecture: it’s “a symbolic gesture, an attempt to re-establish a language of architecture and values that are not a part of modernist homogeneity.”

Read more about this controversial building after the break... 

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Videos

Text description provided by the architects. MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab has exhibited the Fluid Crystallization project as part of the 2013 Architectural League Prize Exhibition at the Parson’s Gallery in New York. The Fluid Crystallization installation - a collaboration between MIT Self-Assembly Lab director Skylar Tibbits and The Molecular Graphics Lab director Arthur Olson - investigates hierarchical and non-deterministic self-assembly with large numbers of parts in a fluid medium.

After years of extensive research that unearthed countless untold stories and hundreds of beautiful unbuilt designs, curators Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin will be celebrating the opening of their highly anticipated exhibition - Never Built: Los Angeles - today at the Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles.

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Instead of perceiving water as something to defend against, The Open Workshop took on the challenge of repositioning the water as a performative feature that connects across the obstructions currently on Arvene East of Far Rockaway. Taking the logic of the stabilizing rock jetties, the 'Recon-Figure' proposal utilizes a series of nested figures to augment the existing coastline. The figures engage the water, functioning as groynes and breakwaters that also offer recreational spaces, stabilize the coast, and concentrate wave action and associated energy capture. More images and architects' description after the break.

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South Beach ACE, the collaborative team made up of Tishman, a national real estate development firm led by Dan Tishman; international architecture firm OMA, led by Pritzker Prize winning architect Rem Koolhaas; and Miami Beach developer Robert Wennett, were just announced by the Miami Beach City Commission as the winning team in a competition to redevelop the Miami Beach Convention Center and the surrounding 52-acre site. Looking forward to bring the project to fruition, the team firmly believes a renovated convention center, adjacent hotel, and re-imagined convention center campus are critical to Miami Beach's ability to maintain and grow its desirability as a tourism and convention destination. More images and the team's description after the break.

As part of the 2013 AIA Global Dialogues, (un-covered) Connections, 'Leaning Out: Women in Global Practice' will discuss what it means to be a woman in the construction industry practicing globally in our time. Taking place this Thursday, July 25th, from 6-8pm EST at the Center for Architecture in New York, key speakers include the most significant women in their field - over 3 generations, which will be moderated by Cathleen McGuigan – Editor-in-chief at Architectural Record. Organized by AIA NY Global Dialogues and AIA NY Women in Architecture, the main question of the event is,'What are the challenges and the opportunities that women who choose this path face and how do their successes and shortcomings affect the next generation?' For more information, please visit here.

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Taking place September 1-30, the nation's largest architectural festival of its kind will be presented by AIA San Francisco and the Center for Architecture + Design, celebrating its tenth anniversary. The Architecture and the City festival, which takes place in San Francisco every September, will feature behind the scenes walking tours, films, exhibitions, lectures and more, providing opportunities for participants to engage with the local architecture community and experience design in a myriad of ways throughout the city. From theoretical urban interventions and works in progress to civic landmarks and hidden histories, architects and designers will discuss the ways their work alters and redefines the city we call home with over 40 festival programs. For more information, please visit here.

Taking place at the College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech August 5-9, the Outside Architecture + Design: Digital Design and Fabrication Workshop is offered to advanced high school students and college students completing their first year of studies in a design field. Building on the well established Inside ARCHITECTURE + Design curriculum, the laboratory/workshop is intended to provide a forum for the exploration of emerging design technologies through a one-week immersion. More information after the break.

Next City, in collaboration with AIA New York, will be presenting a series of three short films this coming Monday, July 22, about the role of informal settlements, economies and networks in rapidly urbanizing cities. As part of the Rockefeller Foundation's Informal City Dialogues, these films take viewers to Accra and Bangkok where locals are finding solutions to poverty and slum eviction. There will also be a discussion with the filmmakers at the event. The video above is one of three films that will be shown at the event, which takes place from 6-8pm EST. For more information, please visit here.