Critics Alexandra Lange and Mark Lamster hand out their annual awards for architecture and design. Snark is on the menu, but the awards still provide a nice recap of the biggest design news from around the country (and some from around the world).
For the fifth consecutive year, critics Alexandra Lange and Mark Lamster offer a list of awards of the year's best and worst of architecture and design for Design Observer. The list makes a thorough geographic survey—Portland, Dallas, and Arkansas make appearances and the critics get in digs on George Lucas's museum proposal in Chicago and Peter Zumthor's blob of a design for LACMA in Los Angeles. There's even a shout out to the tactical urbanism movement, which takes home the "Top Jargon of 2014" award.
- "Jabba the Hut Award for Sensitive Urban Design: To George Lucas, for thinking he can dock that facocta Space Mountain on Chicago's Lake Michigan. PS: Hey George, no design approvals until you release the original Star Wars on DVD without your 'fixes.'"
- "Most Unexpected Blobmeister: Peter Zumthor, whose hovering black form for LACMA continues to provoke headscratching."
- "Top Jargon of 2014: 'tactical urbanism,' now enshrined in a MoMA exhibition, and close colleagues "pop-up urbanism" and "bottom-up urbanism." We're dangerously close to enshrining the small moves as we once did the big plans. "
In all, there's plenty to celebrate and to rue in the year's big news from architecture and design.
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