Hasta La Ideas

Just shy of a month after the news broke that longtime architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff would be leaving his post at the NY Times to pursue writing a book, the paper has announced his soon-to-be replacement. Included as one of many names Architectural Record allowed its readers to vote on while the magazine joined in on the rampant speculation, the Gray Lady’s new critic is Michael Kimmelman. Not poached away from another paper, Kimmelman has been at the Times since his days as a freelance music critic starting in the late 80s, later stepping in as the paper’s lead art critic and most recent taking over the “Abroad” column, after having moved to Berlin in 2007. The Chicago Tribune‘s Blair Kamin has a copy of the memo announcing Kimmelman’s reassignment, issued by culture editor Jonathan Landman. Here’s a bit from that, a brief synopsis of why he seems more than prepared to take over after Ouroussoff makes his exit:

As for architecture, you may recall among other things his recent Times Magazine profiles of Oscar Niemeyer, Shigeru Ban and Peter Zumthor, his pieces in The New York Review of Books about Frank Lloyd Wright and the New York baseball stadiums, and this dispatch about the restoration of an old museum in Berlin. His writings in the field go back to his days between Yale and Harvard as a fledgling editor at ID Magazine and architecture critic for The New England Monthly.

Landman goes on to say that Kimmelman is set to take over the position once he moves back to New York from Berlin. After that, he will apparently continue his “Abroad” column, and receive not Ouroussoff’s title of “Architecture Critic,” but rather, “Senior Critic.”

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Today, not only do employees of MoMA‘s PS1 come back from the long holiday weekend (well, those who weren’t working within the presumably-packed museum), but they’ll also be meeting their new Chief Operating Officer. Late last week, PS1 announced that Peter Katz has joined on in the new position, soon to be taking over all the business sides of the operation, from financial planning to “enhancement of internal processes and resources.” Katz starts in the position today. Here’s a bit from the official announcement (pdf):

“Peter has extensive experience in utilizing his financial expertise on behalf of museums and universities, and brings a breadth of knowledge and experience to MoMA PS1,” explains Klaus Biesenbach, Director, MoMA PS1, and Chief Curator at Large, The Museum of Modern Art. “His tenure at the Neue Galerie, MoMA, and the Guggenheim has well prepared him to manage MoMA PS1’s general operations and strengthen the museum’s financial position, which will enable MoMA PS1’s continued programmatic excellence.”

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Following artist Ai Weiwei‘s release from a three-month detainment by Chinese authorities last week, details have slowly emerged about the stipulations of his freedom. It was understood that there was already some form of media gag order in place when reporters swarmed the artist upon his late night release. Usually outspoken, particularly at times against the government, Weiwei was tight lipped, saying not much more than “I can say I’m out. I’m on bail.” Reuters is now reporting that they have learned that the artist is under tight lock and key when it comes to speaking to the media. He is “not allowed to post anything on Twitter or accept interviews for a year.” Furthermore, they report that he is not allowed to travel outside of Beijing. And while he is apparently able to travel within China’s capital city, he must check in with authorities first, much like a parolee, letting them know where he’s going to be. As for the “financial crimes” the government eventually gave as the reason for his original detainment, the NY Times reports that “two tax bureau officials came to the door of his studio on Monday” bearing documents that demanded he pay roughly $2 million in unpaid taxes and fines. However, it appears that the detainment didn’t break Weiwei completely, as his visiting wife had once said during the one visit she was allowed during his imprisonment. The paper reports that he is refusing to sign the tax documents until is accountant and two of his other staff members are released from detainment. Furthermore, he later spoke to the Times by cell phone, saying he “did not agree with the figures contained in the documents, but he declined to elaborate.”

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Staying in the UK for a bit longer after that last post, the Royal Institute of British Architects is continuing to clean some egg of its face this week after an incident that happened to drag Zaha Hadid‘s name into it, something we’re sure the architect is not at all pleased about. Building Design reports that the RIBA hosted a lecture last week by a group called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. You may have heard about the group before if you read architecture news at all, or happen to receive press releases about their work as we inexplicably do. Essentially, it’s a “9/11 was an inside job” group, led by American architect Richard Gage, who believes the World Trade Center towers could not have been felled by two mere airliners and therefore clearly the whole thing must have been set up by some vast, smoke filled room government conspiracy. BD reports that Gage and his companions were invited to talk about all of this at the RIBA by Craig Phillip Kiner, “an associate at Zaha Hadid Architects,” who later said his involvement with the group was “a personal matter” and was in no way related to Hadid. But now that the news is out and the RIBA is struggling to distance itself from hosting the event, we’re wondering how long Kiner will continue to be associated with his employer. According to BD’s report, roughly 230 people attended the event, wherein Gage, who makes a point to include that he is a member of the American Institute of Architects, much to their reported chagrin, asked in his speech:

Architects and engineers have willfully ignored the message that we’ve been speaking about for five years. When is the RIBA going to take this seriously?

If you’d like to spend the rest of the day on this subject, we recommend you Google “9/11 RIBA” and enjoy reading the rancor from both sides.

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Save for a brief respite of good news about some awards won, the bad seems to be piling up again for RMJM, one of the largest architecture firms in the world. You might recall that all this negative press seemed to start toward the end of last year, when it was reported that Stirling Prize-winning architect Will Alsop, who joined the firm back in 2009 after pulling a fast one on the industry by claiming he was quitting architecture for good, hadn’t yet landed any of the big commissions he was brought in to win. This week, Architects Journal reported that they’d received word that Alsop was preparing to make his exit from RMJM, jumping ship after less than two years and starting a new firm with a fellow RMJM architect. Building Design, on the other hand, spoke to Alsop, who said these were all mere rumors. “I don’t have any plans to leave at all,” he told BD. “I am aware of these rumours – it is like rumours on rumours.” However, if we’ve learned anything from politics or the entertainment industry, isn’t it that first you deny until you have your story in place and then a week later, you come out and fess up? And since we’ve been duped by Alsop before, should we believe his explanation? Whatever the case with this sole architect in a company who employs quite a few of them, the firm itself has continued to suffer rocky terrain. Elsewhere in Building Design, they report that RMJM has now found itself in another courtroom battle, this time in a suit filed against them by the German firm Muller BBM, who are claiming they are owed roughly $140,000 in unpaid fees for their contributions to RMJM’s Gazprom Tower in St. Petersburg, which still hasn’t begun construction.

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