FEATURES
By Edward Gunts and Edward Gunts,Sun Architecture Critic | May 14, 2007
Usually, local buildings must be at least 50 years old to be designated as national landmarks. But for only the second time in its history, Baltimore's preservation commission has made an exception. The panel voted this month to add Highfield House, a 16-story condominium building in Baltimore's Tuscany-Canterbury neighborhood, to the National Register of Historic Places - even though it's just 43 years old. The only other Baltimore building individually listed before reaching 50 was One Charles Center, a 1962 office tower at 100 N. Charles St. It was added in 2000.
NEWS
By Edward Gunts and Edward Gunts,SUN ARCHITECTURE CRITIC | January 27, 2005
Philip Johnson, a brilliant but controversial architect who helped introduce "modern architecture" to America in the 1930s and then led a movement against it 50 years later, died Tuesday at the site of his famous "Glass House" in New Canaan, Conn. He was 98. During a career than spanned seven decades, Mr. Johnson designed buildings in a wide range of sizes and styles, to suit the times and his changing interests. During his "postmodern" phase, he concocted as many different looks for high-rises as Madonna had costumes, and clients ate it up. Featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1979, Mr. Johnson will be remembered as one of the first "star-chitects" to show corporate patrons that eye-catching architecture can be used to market buildings and give owners an edge over competitors with blander designs.
NEWS
November 3, 2004
Paul F. Iams, 89, a self-taught animal nutritionist whose pet foods bearing his name are sold in 70 countries, died Oct. 26 in Chappaqua, N.Y., of complications from a broken hip. Mr. Iams started the Iams Food Co., now a division of Procter & Gamble, in 1946, having once worked as a dog food salesman during the Depression. Not even severe economic hardship, he learned, could deter pet owners from paying the price to feed their companions. Over the course of three decades, Iams introduced Iams Plus, one of the first meat-based, high-protein dog diets; Iams Chunks, designed for adult dogs; and Eukanuba, a high-end line made with fresh meat and named after an expression of the singer Hoagy Carmichael.
ENTERTAINMENT
By Edward Gunts and Edward Gunts,SUN ARCHITECTURE CRITIC | December 22, 2002
The past year has not been especially kind to the memory of modern architect Richard Neutra, who died in 1970. One of his best known residences, the 1962 Maslon House in Rancho Mirage, Calif., was torn down in March. The National Park Service threw its support behind a plan to demolish Neutra's 1961 Cyclorama Center at Gettysburg National Military Park. But at least one Neutra building is ending the year in better shape than it began. St. John's College in Annapolis has completed a $12.9 million restoration and modernization of Mellon Hall, the 1959 classroom and laboratory building that the California-based architect designed for its campus.
NEWS
By Douglas Birch and Douglas Birch,SUN FOREIGN STAFF | February 23, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Here in this bastion of all that is traditional, all that is classical, modern architecture may soon rear its deconstructivist head. "It's the crucial moment for St. Petersburg," warns Simeon I. Mikhailovsky, an architectural historian with horn-rimmed glasses, gamely striving to remain calm as the barbarians gather their forces. What haunts Mikhailovsky and his allies are blueprints being drafted in offices around the world. Eleven of the world's leading architectural firms are vying to design a $100 million, 2,000-seat theater for the Mariinsky Theater, home to the world-renowned Kirov opera and ballet companies.
FEATURES
By Edward Gunts and Edward Gunts,SUN ARCHITECTURE CRITIC | February 18, 2000
NEW YORK -- On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a remarkable new museum has been fashioned from the simplest of geometrical forms. Its exterior is a 12-story-high cube, with two outer walls made of colorless glass. Centered inside, as if it's floating on air, is a white aluminum sphere, 87 feet in diameter. The glass is so clear and the sphere is so large and luminous, especially at night, that it practically forces people to stop and look inside. The building is the Rose Center for Earth and Science, a $210 million exploratorium that opens tomorrow as the latest addition to the American Museum of Natural History.