Hasta La Ideas

Big changes at The Architect’s Newspaper: an editorial changing of the guard will see managing editor Alan Brake (pictured) succeed Julie Iovine as executive editor on September 1. In a statement announcing the change, Diana Darling and William Menking, co-founders of The Architect’s Newspaper, praised Iovine’s “exceptional editorial leadership” and multi-faceted contributions over the last six years as she departs to focus on her own writing projects (she will continue to write a monthly column on architecture for the Wall Street Journal).

“We will miss her but are excited that a new generation of writers and editors under Alan’s leadership will rethink how we write about the world of architecture and design and deliver this content to the public,” added Menking. A five-year veteran of The Architect’s Newspaper, Brake launched the paper’s Midwest edition (one of three regional print editions). His writing has appeared in publications including Architectural Record, Metropolis, The New York Times, and Architecture, where he previously served as an editor. In the midst of the transition, Brake made time to discuss the paper, what changes might be in store, and what he did on his summer vacation—or lack thereof.

How do you describe The Architect’s Newspaper to someone who is unfamiliar with the publication?
We hope The Architect’s Newspaper is a useful, engaging, fun, and thought-provoking resource for architects and designers. People tell us we’re the design only publication they actually read—rather than just flip through for the pictures—so we have a very loyal print audience. It’s been satisfying to connect to a much broader audience online. We have a lot of ambition to expand online and will soon be adding a new e-newsletter or two.

Any new initiatives or features that we should watch for in The Architect’s Newspaper, in print or online, under your leadership?
I’d like to improve the way with tell stories visually, both in print and online. We hope to make some changes our website in the near future, and I want to make sure we’re using the best possible images in print. I also want to include more criticism, and to better showcase our critics.
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Alice Waters may be bringing her garden-fresh, local fare to a museum in the near future. The chef, author, and proprietor of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse recently hinted that such a project is in the works. “I’ve always wanted to do a restaurant in a museum,” Waters told Elle Decor’s Ingrid Abramovitch in an interview that appears in the magazine’s July/August issue. “There are a couple of possibilities on the horizon. For now, that’s all I can say.” No word as to whether this would be an initiative of her Edible Schoolyard Project. Meanwhile, Waters was more forthcoming about her love of design (“If I weren’t involved with food, I’d be working in architecture.”) and cited Christopher Alexander‘s A Pattern Language as a major influence. “[Alexander] wrote about how architecture can be used to convey universal values,” she said. “After a fire in Chez Panisse’s kitchen that burned down the wall between the kitchen and dining room, I decided not to put it back. For the first time, the light from the dining room flowed into the kitchen. The cooks and I could look out and see the sunset. For the diners, it demystified what was happening in the kitchen. It’s been a revelation.”

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• Charles L. Venable (pictured) is the newly appointed director and CEO of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. He starts on October 8. For the past five years, Veneble has served as director and CEO of Louisville’s Speed Art Museum, where his achievements include spearheading a planned 200,000-square-foot expansion featuring a new building for modern and contemporary art designed by wHY Architecture. The “new Speed,” which will include a new art park and piazza for outdoor sculpture, is slated to open in 2015 (meanwhile, 95% of the $50 million tab has already been raised). At the IMA, the venerable Venable will succeed Maxwell Anderson, who became director of the Dallas Museum of Art in January.

• Want to explore masterpieces from the Getty without looking up from your digital device? There’s an app for that. The new J. Paul Getty Museum Highlights of the Collections app (yours for $2.99) allows you to browse through 150 of the museum’s greatest hits, from Van Gogh’s “Irises” (your aunt loves this one so much she bought the tote bag) and Bernini’s sculpture of a “Boy with a Dragon” to Dorothea Lange’s migrant mother and a recently acquired Klimt drawing (happy 150th, Gustav!). Each of the objects is accompanied by a brief commentary and can be viewed in detail through high-definition images.

• Back in Gotham, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is celebrating a new attendance record: 6.28 million people visited the Met (including the Cloisters museum and gardens) during the fiscal year that ended on June 30—662,000 of those visitors stopped by last summer’s Alexander McQueen blockbuster, which also boosted the 2011 attendance numbers because of its timing. Virtual visitors are also on the rise, with the museum reporting 44 million to its website in fiscal year 2012.
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Sure, you can analyze a Peter Saville-designed album cover for days and doodle treble clefs with the best of them, but explaining music is something else entirely (reader, if you asked us to write an album review, we would end up sobbing into a pile of unsuitable adjectives). Not to fear! David Byrne is on the case. The design-minded, art-loving, bike-riding, musical genius, who earlier this week shared with the world his recipe for shrimp tacos, has spent the last few years writing How Music Works, out next month from McSweeney’s.

“It examines how music is affected by a multitude of contexts—financial, technical, social, and architectural,” wrote Byrne in an e-mail he sent this morning to friends and fans. “There are personal anecdotes and pictures and some pie charts, as well.” The book will be available as a physical book, an eBook, an enhanced eBook (embedded with audio snippets), and an audio book. Each format caters to different senses, according to Byrne, who seems partial to the print volume. “The physical book is truly a lovely object—the McSweeney’s folks are known for this—so if you like to touch things, this is your best option,” he said. “It’s large and slightly squishy. I gave my mom my advance author’s copy for her birthday.”

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American Spirit. Industrial designer Raymond Loewy with one of his designs, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s S1 steam locomotive; filmmaker and Loewy admirer David Lynch.

The late-night show of our dreams is hosted by David Lynch. What this theoretical program lacks in guests or commercials (you’ll recall how the filmmaker feels about product placement) it would make up for in good ‘ol fashioned variety: one night our distinctively coiffed host is screening The Seashell and the Clergyman or enthusing on his favorite hobby of chopping wood (especially pine) and the next he’s shooting on site in the dream forest at Club Silencio, the members-only Paris nightclub he designed. The Wall Street Journal recently caught up with Lynch in the penthouse suite of the Chauteau Marmont, where Steve Garbarino posed “20 Odd Questions” that covered topics ranging from his accessories (“I have a deep love for my Swatch watch.”) to his stint as a WSJ deliverperson back in the 1970s, when he was making Eraserhead.

In Lynch’s words, his L.A. paper route has all the makings of a haunting film. “I’d pick up my papers at 11:30 at night. I had throws that were particularly fantastic. There was one where I’d release the paper, which would soar with the speed of the car and slam into the front door of this building, triggering its lobby lights—a fantastic experience,” he says. “Another one I called ‘The Big Whale.’ There was a place, the Fish Shanty, on La Cienega. A big whale’s mouth was the front door you entered through. I’d throw a block before it, and hit the paper directly into the mouth.” Lynch is not inclined to fandom, preferring to get his kicks from a mix of coffee, transcendental meditation, and American Spirit cigarettes, but he does cop to a love for Loewy…Robert [sic] Loewy. The famed industrial designer usually goes by Raymond, but as far as we’re concerned, Lynch can call him whatever he wants. Meanwhile, the WSJ has corrected the error in its online edition.

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