Washington D.C. has earned a reputation for iconic architecture. Emerging from the L'Enfant and McMillan Plans, Washington’s cityscape includes wide streets and low-rise buildings that sprawl out from circles and rectangular plazas. From the White House to Lincoln Memorial, Washington’s architecture was built to symbolize the nation’s values. Today, new projects are designed to rethink the city’s morphology while respecting its identity.
Last month the Norman Foster Foundation, created to promote "interdisciplinary thinking and research to help up-and-coming architects, designers and urbanists to anticipate the future," coincided the opening of its new Madrid-based headquarters with an international conference. Future is Now pulled together a broad collection of professionals—including Sir Jonathan Ive, Marc Newson, Olafur Eliasson, Maya Lin, Alejandro Aravena, and Luis Fernández-Galian—who addressed an audience of 1,800 (including 1,100 students) in the Spanish capital's Royal Theater.
Watch the conference in its entirety, or read a summary, after the break.
Maya Lin has been selected to receive the 21st Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, a $300,000 award presented annually to “a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.”
The artist and architect, who first rose to fame with her design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, was chosen from 100 nominees spanning across all fields of the arts. She was lauded for her “last memorial” - What Is Missing? - in which she has been developing for the past seven years in hopes to raise awareness about the degradation of our planet and rapid extinction of the world’s animals and plants.
Partially cloudy with a high in the mid-seventies, this was weather we couldn’t say no to on the Sunday after the 2012 National Convention. Therefore we took advantage of the Washington D.C. Capital Bikeshare and set off on a self-guided tour of the National Mall. Although the National Mall was packed with graduates and tourists, we managed to weave in and out of pedestrian traffic quick enough to visit many of the historic buildings and memorials before heading off to Eero Saarinen’s beautiful Dulles International Airport. What a perfect way to wrap up an eventful week in the nation’s capital.
Welcome to the Architecture City Guide series. Here at ArchDaily we thought this series could especially be put to use during the upcoming holiday season. Many will be traveling to see family, having family visit, or taking a New Year’s vacation to a new city. Here is a small City Guide list, starting with Washington D.C.
We want to hear from you, share with us your City Guide list for buildings in Washington D.C. More cities to come, so be sure to check back.
Follow the break for our Washington D.C. list and a corresponding map!
