Architect: Carlos Diniz

Exhibition Design: Charging the Void

Exhibition Design: Charging the Void

Claire Oster

Last year at Cornell University, five students in Alessandra Cianchetta’s design studio Global Artscapes worked on designs for a gallery in the valley at Shatwell. For this, they used photographs and videos in default of a site visit. The brief was for an exhibition space to accommodate the display of… Read More

Carlos Diniz and the World Trade Center

Carlos Diniz and the World Trade Center

Sam van Strien

The landmark skyscrapers of SOM, the deconstructivism of Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall, and the corporate modernist master plan of the World Trade Center all have something in common: long before they were constructed, they were represented in drawings by Carlos Diniz.  In 1962, the architect Minoru Yamasaki hired Diniz… Read More

Alternative Histories: Jonathan Sergison on Carlos Diniz

Alternative Histories: Jonathan Sergison on Carlos Diniz

Carlos Diniz’s drawing for Hillrise Apartments represents of another architect’s work. Who this may have been remains unclear. Interpreting the work of others is a common aspect of developing architectural ideas; our many collaborators add to projects through their drawings and models, constantly adjusting arrangements and proportions. On other occasions,… Read More

Carlos Diniz: United States Embassy, Moscow

Carlos Diniz: United States Embassy, Moscow

The Commons Overview These drawings were exhibited in ‘Off Location: Drawings for the US Embassy, Moscow’, an impromptu exhibition held at Pushkin House from 13–28 February 2018. In conjunction with the exhibition, curator Tim Abrahams gave a talk entitled ‘Fiction and Reality in Moscow’ at Pushkin House.

Better with Sun from West: US Embassy Moscow, The Commons

Better with Sun from West: US Embassy Moscow, The Commons

Tim Abrahams

In an interview for the Chicago Architects Oral History Project, architect Charles Edward Bassett, the design lead in SOM’s San Francisco office, was asked by Betty J. Blum how architectural education changed in the US when modernism became accepted in architectural schools and the Beaux-Arts tradition side-lined. What happened when the… Read More

Carlos Diniz: Weyerhaeuser Project

Carlos Diniz: Weyerhaeuser Project

Tim Abrahams

This remarkable drawing is a rendering by Carlos Diniz of the headquarters for the timber company Weyerhaeuser in Washington State from 1969, which he drew for the architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The completed building is stunning, of course: the concept of office design known as bürolandschaft, extended out into… Read More

Some Thoughts on Sheds

Some Thoughts on Sheds

Nicholas Olsberg

In architectural terms I take ‘shed’ as a neutral word, meaning a structure at any scale open at one or two ends, devoted to storage, display or industrial activity, in which the roof providing shelter is its primary element – in effect a cover with minimum foundations and form: train… Read More

Becoming One with the Landscape (1969)

Becoming One with the Landscape (1969)

Carlos Diniz

The following is excerpted from Two Continuous Monuments, by Nicholas Olsberg. Published in the AA Files No. 71, 2015. The architect’s guiding idea has been to create a building which would ‘literally tend to disappear – becoming one with the landscape’ … The dramatic architectural concept and primarily coniferous flora… Read More

Displaced persons

Displaced persons

Niall Hobhouse and Nicholas Olsberg

Architects are extraordinarily reluctant to incorporate into their visual descriptions of buildings any evidence that the real subject their structures serve, and around whose activities they are so carefully formulated, is people. Here’s a look at a few of the moments when this unspoken rule has been broken. Distances: Using… Read More