Hasta La Ideas

Starchitect, tough talker and suspected-fixer of Super Bowl XLII, Peter Eisenman, has been named the first Charles Gwathmey Professor of Architecture at Yale. The title was bestowed upon him thanks to a donation by fashion icon Ralph Lauren (estimated to have cost around $3 million), who had been a friend and admirer of the late architect who passed away in early August, shortly after completing his mixed-review restoration of Paul Rudolph‘s Art and Architecture Building on Yale’s campus. Eisenman, who was already teaching at the university under visiting status, will now enter into a five-year position there as was stipulated in the Gwathmey Professorship:

Eisenman said he is honored to be appointed the Charles Gwathmey. “I was always a Jiminy Cricket on Charles’s shoulder, telling him ‘Charlie do this’ or ‘Charlie don’t do this,’ Eisenman said. “But now that I’m carrying his name, he’s sort of become my conscience.”

Walking through the corridors of Loria Center, Eisenman said he felt at once sorrow and joy at the announcement of the position.

Speaking of Yale and architecture, we should mention another visiting professor, Leon Krier, might start popping up here and there. Krier, who has served as Prince Charles‘ right hand man in hating on modern architecture (he was also the master planner for the crumbling, dangerous Poundbury development), will be traveling to San Diego this week to apparently tell the city what it’s doing wrong, likely complaining about all the modernism and skyscrapers. This is the first stop on what could become Krier hitting the lecture circuit, following the publication of his recent book The Architecture of Community. Could this the first step toward getting Prince Charles’ over in the US to start messing with our architecture? Our paranoid xenophobia says “Yes.”

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Thanks to a tip from Art Info, we can now start living vicariously through Nancy Spector. The Guggenheim Museum‘s Chief Curator for the past two decades, Spector has crafted loads of exhibitions (of course), worked with nearly every big name in the industry, from Matthew Barney to photographer (and U2 favorite) Hiroshi Sugimoto, and worked in organizing things like the Venice and Berlin Biennials, as well as art programing for the Olympics. And now she’s on Twitter, allowing us into her world, albeit it briefly, with messages like “On my way to Frieze. Looking forward to Pop Life at the Tate to see Spiritual America’s absence” and “Balka turns Tate’s Turbine Hall into a dark abyss. Children laughing and playing anyway.” She doesn’t have many followers yet, so here’s your chance to lock on, to later be able to brag that you were there first. And while you’re there, you know that we’re on Twitter too, right?

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Twenty-six miles. Twenty-six letters. Coincidence? Type Directors Club president Charlie Nix thinks not, and so when he decided to run this year’s New York City Marathon (his fifth) to raise money for design scholarships, it was just a matter of going from A to Z. Nix, a partner in the publishing firm Scott & Nix who has taught design and typography for over 15 years, is seeking marathon sponsorships by the letter. Donors at various levels can “buy” uppercase and/or lowercase letters.

Writer, curator, and graphic designer Ellen Lupton is on board, throwing her support behind Nix and the uppercase and lowercase “E,” while Pentagram’s Luke Hayman has called dibs on the interrobang, and typographer Gary Munch has invested in both cases of the letters “G” and “M.” Munch and James Montalbano of Terminal Design are among Nix’s “Hot Metal” level supporters; having pledged $104 or more, they’ll get special recognition with the coveted Ampersand Award. Meanwhile, we’re about to donate on behalf of UnBeige, as the letter “U” is proving unpopular. So far, Nix has raised a total of $2,335.97, all of which will go toward TDC scholarships. You have until race day (November 1) to be the generous type. Click here to donate.

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A few weeks back, we told you about artist and Bird’s Nest stadium co-designer Ai Weiwei, who had recently undergone very serious surgery for a cerebral hemorrhage, likely caused the beating he’d received by Chinese officials over his involvement with an investigation into why China’s 2008 earthquake had been so devastating. Art Info now reports, by way of the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, that Weiwei has canceled his appearance at the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair, which is set to have China as its guest of honor for the four day event. Although Weiwei says that he’s decided to cancel so that he can fully recover from his operation, he also stated that he has “no real desire for empty and pointless political debate,” leading many to believe that pressure had been put on him by his government not to attend.

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At the start of the year, we shared with you the sad news that one of the lead designers behind the United Nations logo, Oliver Lincoln Lundquist, had passed away. Now at the end of the year, we return to the logo and to more sad news, that Donald McLaughlin Jr., the other designer who worked on creating this iconic piece of branding, has also passed away. McLaughlin was actually the original creator of the first pass at the logo, which was later picked up and worked on within Lundquist’s team, of which he was a part. Here’s how it all happened more than 50 years ago:

The team was assigned to create displays, certificates, maps, and guides for the delegates as well as what became its most enduring contribution: an official form of identification for the delegates. This became the prototype for the U.N. logo.

Mr. Lundquist, who died in January, said that the team had a contest to develop an appropriate design and that Mr. McLaughlin, graphics director for the conference, came up with the best one.

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