The buildings that Canadian architects talk about are inevitably the ones that come to shape Canadian cities. Many of them are on the public’s radar, as well: Daniel Libeskind’s Royal Ontario Museum Crystal addition, for example, or Frank Gehry’s Transformation project for the Art Gallery of Ontario.
But within the design business, it’s often the lesser-known buildings, many of them not in Canada, that have the most impact. What follows are a few buildings that savvy architects say are the most influential right now, either as inspiration or as cautionary tale.
A building’s influence today depends on three areas of interest, says Larry Richards, the former dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto: “new materials, sculptural experimentation and sustainability.” For new materials, he notes the extruded pink plastic on the exterior of the new Umbra store in Toronto by Kohn Shnier Architects. And the silvery aluminum mesh on the exterior of Manhattan’s New Museum of Contemporary Art by Tokyo-based Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizwa (jointly known as SANAA), which gives the structure a hard edge at a distance and an up-close softness.
Read more @ Architecture: It’s not for sissies. – National Post – Kelvin Browne