+
From: "Architexturez." <interface.services@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
+
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 11:54:53 +0530
... The renovation is likely to shed new light on the interplay between
Kahn’s and Rudolph’s visions. Set back between the concrete forms
anchoring the Art and Architecture building’s corners, its glass facade
will regain its original transparency, echoing Kahn’s glass facade
across the street. The additional floors will be ripped out, opening up
the old stark vertical spaces that lent the studios their grandeur.
Light wells that were closed up will be replaced, allowing daylight to
stream down the back of the library wall. When finished, the building
should feel as audacious as it did four decades ago, a delicious
counterpart to Kahn’s restrained elegance.
But a long road lies ahead in rescuing recent architectural history.
Kevin Roche’s nearby Veterans Memorial Coliseum, a big brute of a
building whose spiral ramps and rooftop parking have made it a cult
favorite of architecture students, is being demolished. A few miles away
Marcel Breuer’s Pirelli Building has been partly dismantled to make way
for a parking lot.
If Kahn and Rudolph have symbolically made peace after decades of
supposed conflict, we should be capable of acknowledging and embracing
architecture’s contradictory threads, which benefit us all.
cont'd....
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/arts/design/11kahn.html?ref=design