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Philip Johnson’s Glass House x Yayoi Kusama’s “Dots Obsession—Alive, Seeking for Eternal Hope”

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Architecture as Art

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. maintains an impressive collection of contemporary art, but no single piece can rival the monumental scale of the building itself. Appearing as if it was carved from a single block, the massive structure rises from four sculptural columns, allowing visitors to pass under the cylindrical volume to the central court. Here, concrete gives way to glass at the lobby and gallery levels, admitting light inside the building. Conceived as a “large piece of functional sculpture” by SOM’s Gordon Bunshaft, the museum has stood as a powerful, architectural expression of art in the nation’s capital since its completion in 1974. Learn more

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These times

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An Architect’s Home

The warm refuge of this California home stands in stark contrast to its rugged surroundings in the Carmel Highlands. In the autumn of 1952, Nathaniel Owings, a founding partner of SOM, scrambled up a stretch of the Big Sur coastline with Margaret Wentworth. They found respite on an idyllic slice of land, where they picnicked and resolved to make the place their home after they married. A year later, they returned to build “Wild Bird” on this very perch out of concrete and reclaimed redwood. As Owings later said in an interview with Time magazine, “No house can do more than snuggle into and grab hold of and hold on to a sheer bit of granite on this coast.” Working with architect Mark Mills, they set the A-frame structure into the cliffside and surrounded it with cantilevered balconies to take in the Big Sur landscape. Owings, who was born on this day in 1903, would spend much of his life in the coastal residence. As he told the magazine, “This is a onetime house for the rest of the time we expect to be here on earth.”

Photos © Richard Waite

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New York’s Next Great Public Space

Moynihan Train Hall plays a critical role in the redevelopment of New York City’s Penn Station complex. This project will convert McKim, Mead & White’s 1913 Beaux-Arts Farley Post Office Building into a 21st century train station. SOM’s design for Moynihan Train Hall creates a public space that offers a tangible link to New York’s grand history while adding much-needed capacity to the region’s rail system. The Train Hall is conceived as light-filled atrium that will create an iconic stage for arrival and departure. Arching up from massive original steel trusses, a monumental new skylight encloses the new boarding concourse. Melding old and new, SOM’s design reestablishes a grand civic space that celebrates the unique history of the Farley Building while evoking the vaulted concourse of the original Penn Station. Learn more

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In the Desert, A Wellspring of Culture

Evoking the client’s vision to promote art, music, theater, and dance in Kuwait, SOM’s design for the Al Ahmadi Cultural Center celebrates the country’s rich cultural heritage. Located south of Kuwait City in Mahboula, the Center contains multiple theaters and performance spaces as well as galleries for fine arts and historic cultural artefacts. The intense desert climate required an innovative design approach. The courtyard plan, reminiscent of traditional Islamic architecture, focuses the building inward to shelter its interiors from the sun. At the same time, the facade filters sunlight into the building, animating the courtyard, galleries, and performance spaces throughout the day with a shifting experience of light that is specific to the desert site. Learn more

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View from Above: One World Trade Center

Celebrated photographer Iwan Baan recently captured these amazing shots of One World Trade Center on a helicopter ride over Manhattan. The November 3 opening of the 1,776-foot tower, designed by SOM, marks a major milestone in the history of New York City. 

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