ICYMI

We corralled the top architecture and design stories buzzing about the internet.

Lumber prices plummet after reaching all-time high in May Luma Arles opens in Provence with all eyes on Frank Gehry’s polarizing centerpiece

After peaking at the all-time high of $1,711 per thousand board feet in early May, the cost of wood is now experiencing a rapid descent. Lumber futures for July ended at $1,009.90, a figure that represents a downward shift of 41 percent. The record-setting run during the pandemic was fueled in large part by housebound DIYers.

Ellinikon International Airport in Athens has stood vacant for nearly two decades, since the construction of Athens International Airport, and now Foster + Partners is master planning the conversion of the approximately 32-million-square-foot site into public parkland. To that end, the firm revealed plans for the Marina Tower, to be the tallest building in Greece.

Preservation efforts kick into high gear as demolition of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower looms

The 27-acre multidisciplinary art and cultural campus Luma Arles made its public debut in late June at Parc des Ateliers in Arles, a city in the South of France. Just ahead of the hotly anticipated launch, new images of the complex’s craggy pièce de résistance, a twisting Frank Gehry–designed tower, began making the rounds.

Ennead Architects’ Shanghai Astronomy Museum opens as the largest in the world

As word of renewed threats of demolition swirled in May, it became resoundingly clear that iconic 13-story Nakagin Capsule Tower had reached the last of its nine lives. On July 1, English-language Japanese news source SoraNews24 reported that the building is officially scheduled to be razed in March 2022 to make way for new development.

San Jose’s beloved Berryessa Flea Market will be replaced by a mixed-use development

Ennead Architects has unveiled its completed Shanghai Astronomy Museum, the new branch of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum in the Pudong district. The 420,000-square-foot facility opened to the public on July 18 as the largest astronomy museum in the world. The design features nary a straight line or right angle.

AECOM and Paul Goldberger tapped to help realize the Fallen Journalists Memorial Sean Anderson will head Cornell’s BArch program as a slew of big names join the Cornell AAP faculty

ADRIAN DEWEERD/COURTESY LUMA ARLES

PAU unveils a sweeping redesign of Downtown Niagara Falls

Following heated protests and a short-lived hunger strike, the San Jose City Council approved the rezoning of the area around the beloved Berryessa Flea Market to make way for a sprawling mixed-use development. The new complex will hold 3,450 residential units and retail and commercial space.

Foster + Partners unveils the tallest tower in Greece

The Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation has announced it will work with engineering giant AECOM and Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Paul Goldberger to select a site and designer for a planned memorial in Washington, D.C., that will pay tribute to the reporters, photojournalists, and their colleagues around the world who lost their lives on the job. Sean Anderson, associate curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA, is leaving the museum to head Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP) BArch program. This comes after the AAP announced that Florian Idenburg, Sara Bronin, and many more big names would be joining the school starting in July. A sweeping master plan proposed by the Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, in partnership with the state of New York, promises a wholesale revamp of Downtown Niagara Falls. The principal recommendation is the creation of a 1.5-mile “Heritage Path” weaving the city’s historical landmarks with the adjacent state park.

Antepavilion designers arrested as police raid East London site

Biden signs bill designating Pulse nightclub in Orlando a national memorial

President Joe Biden signed H.R. 49 into law at the end of June, establishing the Pulse site in Orlando, Florida, as a national memorial. This paves the way for a planned memorial and museum led by the onePULSE Foundation that will commemorate the 49 who lost their lives during a mass shooting at the gay nightclub and LGBTQ+ community hub on June 12, 2016. Police in London raided the Antepavilion, a site at the Columbia and Brunswick Wharf in East London where experimental structures are erected on a yearly basis. They made several arrests at the end of June. The raid was apparently triggered by similarities between this year’s folly and installations affiliated with climate protest group Extinction Rebellion.

Theme park inspired by Mesoamerican empires revealed for Coachella Valley

Aztlán Development has unveiled plans for a new theme park inspired by the Aztec and Toltec Empires between the city of Indio and Coachella Valley, in California. Named Return to Aztlán, the 48-acre theme park will include a concert plaza with a 10,000-person capacity, a beach amphitheater, and a 16-screen movie theater in the shape of a Mayan temple.