Gawker continues to vex us by refusing to admit, in its ongoing coverage of the slow death of print journalism, that design publications are taking by far the worst beating in the industry. To wit,

WebMediaBrands (formerly Jupiter Media, owner of Mediabistro), is folding the print versions of two design magazines, Dynamic Graphics+Create and Step Inside Design.

Add those two to the Edificial Index—though honestly, we can’t say we were ever devotees of either. Or had ever heard of them. Hey, we were in grad school. Reading books.

Great Magazine Die-Off [Gawker]

Resolved: Developer Bruce Ratner’s Frank Gehry designed Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, having gone through manifold visions and revisions beyond all powers of human reckoning, and confronting at every turn the stiff opposition of increasingly sanctimonious local refuseniks, is now the most exhausted, the most irrelevant, the most diversionary development story in these United States. Affirmation: Who gives a goddamn anymore? Negation: A lot of people.

The New York press, for example, which has scrutinized every scrap and tittle of info with the insight and probity we expect from professional news organizations. Case in point, The Daily News, whose story this morning reports that Gehry’s statements yesterday claiming the project was “not going to happen” first appeared in “The Architect Times”, a dilly of a typo for our own beloved The Architect’s Newspaper. The Daily Times went on to say that developers are, no surprise, not really digging on Gehry’s jazz, to which they were not hip at all and think the whole scene is like still very swinging.

But the project, which once portended either a new birth for the borough or urban Armageddon (depending upon your tax bracket), has become a total distraction. The locals can till the ground with salt, if that’s what they want. Forest City Ratner can take it on the arches, or build something somewhere else that we actually need—like, shoot, contiguous six story apartment buildings. Can the rest of us please talk about something else now?

Frank Gehry, Atlantic Yards Officials backpedal on Architect’s Comments [Daily Times]

From the Independent:

More than 40 years after Joern [sic] Utzon was forced off the site of the Sydney Opera House, the building’s visionary designer was finally honoured by Australia today at a memorial service held inside the masterpiece that he never saw completed…

The service was attended by Mr Utzon’s children, Jan and Lin, and featured performances by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Opera Australia and the Australian Ballet, underlining the architect’s contribution to the country’s arts.

The Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett read from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, while Neil Finn, from the band Crowded House, performed the group’s hit “Don’t Dream It’s Over”.

About time. The event comes amidst news that a hoped-for upgrade of the building is doomed due to the Australian Prime Minister’s reluctance to help foot the bill. Some tribute.

Honoured at Last: Man behind Sydney Opera House [Independent]
PM Turns Back on Opera House Plans [Australian]

Amanda Levete, former wife and partner of the late Jan Kaplicky of blessed memory, has spoken at last.

It will be recalled that Ms. Levete’s tenure as Mrs. Kaplicky did not end with her illustrious Czech-born architect husband’s death in January, but terminated some time prior thereto: the couple divorced in 2006, splitting their lucrative Future Systems practice between them. Only last month we caught wind of Levete’s plan to effectively liquidate that portion of her husband’s practice that devolved upon her after his passing—with this additional intriguing nugget, that rights to the Future Systems brand belonged not to Levete but to Kaplicky’s widow, a certain Eliska Kaplicky Fuchsova.

Levete opens up to the Telegraph about how difficult Jan could be (natch), about how hard it was to partition the office after the divorce (sure—Specht Harpman made the enlightened decision not to bother), and about meeting Eliska and her two children for the first time at Jan’s funeral. She expresses a magnanimity towards her successor which would be suspicious but for the fact that Levete has no interest in reclaiming the Future Systems name, since, as she’s careful to point out, her own self-titled firm scored a big project in Bangkok the very day of Kaplicky’s death.

In brief, Levete is every inch the affecting, bereaved ex-partner, with just the right quantity of conflicted resentment as befits a long suffering ex-wife. There’s only one moment where she appears to be doing her grieving behind clenched fangs.

She doesn’t agree that opposition to the [Czech] national library project [which encountered fierce political opposition] contributed to [Jan’s] death. “He could come across as disappointed, but Jan thrived on controversy. He provoked it. The library should be his greatest unbuilt work.”

Since Kaplicky’s death, there’s been a growing movement to have the library built, in part as a tribute to its designer. But when Levete let go of what was left of Kaplicky’s staff, she signaled her lack of interest in the project, and effectively put a stake through the library’s heart. Obviously she’s got bigger fish on the fryer—Bangkok, for example. (Good luck with all that.)

‘My Greatest Regret Is that I Didn’t Make Peace with Him in Life’ [Telegraph]

The Southampton Press is reporting that the local Parrish Art Museum, which had been in the fund raising stage of its planned 80,000-square-foot new building to be designed by Swiss wunderarchitekten Herzog & de Meuron, has suspended the project indefinitely. Fund raising at the museum is down 30% for the year; Director Terrie Sultan states that the museum has less than half of the estimated $60 million required to move forward with the project.

It would have been nice to have an example of Herzog & de Meuron’s institutional architecture on the eastern seaboard (we’re getting quite a glut of residential architecture from them), since that’s what they’ve done best elsewhere. And this one had the backing of various illustrious persons, including Edifavorite critic Martin Filler, who served on the selection committee. On the other hand, to get a little Clement Greenbergish for a moment, the Parrish is—was—bound to be “minor” H&deM. It was a relatively small project, and looked to some of us as a kind of afterthought to their Vitra Museum: a collection of similarly massed concrete forms, but scattered across the plan rather than stacked atop one another, Vitra’s Jenga tower knocked down by a careless child.

New Museum Plans on Hold Because of Economy [Southampton Press]

More bad news for big architecture, this time from London, where Raphael Viñoly’s redevelopment plans for the Battersea Power Station were shut down by mayor Boris “the bulldog” Johnson. His beef: a 250m-high tower—oxymoronically called the “eco-chimney”—that sullied his view of Westminster Abbey.

The Bulldog made Viñoly scrap the tower. “But Boo-ooris!” whined the Uruguayan, “don’t you know the eco-chimney helps eco-ventilate the eco-dome? It’s crucial to the eco-project’s ecologicalness.” Nothing doing—back to the eco-drawing board, amigo.

If there’s one thing British politicians hate more than having to wear those itchy wigs, it’s modern architecture. Remember carbuncle-gate back in ‘84? If it has glass in it and is more than 2 stories tall (sorry, storeys) Prince Charles has a witty metaphor for it. The National Theatre? More like a nuclear power station! A redevelopment plan near the Mansion House? A 1930s wireless! The British Library reading room? A secret police academy! Ouch! Still, we must say, while our government seems to think architectural beauty is a security hazard (exhibit A: the Baghdad Embassy), it’s refreshing to see politicians engaged with how their cities look. Even if they’re raving historicists.

Vinoly’s Battersea Eco-Tower Scrapped [BD Online]

Sverre Fehn, the Norwegian architect who won the Pritzker in 1997, has died. Fehn was a master of late modernism who took the architectural language of Alvar Aalto’s Scandinavian modern and made it hip, surreal, and luminous. He learned the basics while a student in Oslo; but it was while traveling abroad in the 50’s that he encountered the elements that would distinguish his work thereafter: the buildings of Jean Prouvé, late Corb, and the indigenous architecture of Morocco. Integrating these elements—ultra-modernist, lyrical, and primitivist—with his own training, he devised startlingly original buildings like the Nordic Pavilion (left) in Venice (1962) and the Hendmark Museum in 1979. And if that peculiar mix of influences that informed Fehn’s work sounds familiar, it should: it describes a lot of what’s happened in architecture since, and Fehn was there first.

Sverre Fehn 1924-2009 [ArchDaily]

You’d think things couldn’t get any worse for poor Jan Kaplicky. Back in October, the Czech-born visionary architect split with his longtime special lady, Amanda Levete, dividing between them their shared Future Systems practice. Meanwhile, the London firm’s most prominent project, the Czech National Library, was facing serious opposition from assorted mayors and ministers for its globby, blobby irreverence. And then came the unkindest cut of all: Kaplicky died.

Tough break—but it ain’t over yet. Yesterday it was announced that Levete, who’s commandeered what remained of Kaplicky’s half of the office, has laid off a good portion of its remaining staff. The three dismissed studio hands were working on the library scheme, which would appear to indicate that so far as Levete’s concerned, the project is perma-junked. Levete claims that she and Jan had agreed prior to his death to see the staffers off; Kaplicky’s Czech supporters ain’t buying it.

Oh, and there’s one remaining complication: the Future Systems brand is still owned by Kaplicky’s widow. “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones…”

Levete Confirms Kaplicky Job Cuts [Building Design]

With great sadness as to the loss the architecture community just sustained, we pass along the word, passed along to us, that Max Bond, Jr., co-founder of the firm that would eventually become the 100+ awards-winning Davis Brody Bond Aedas, died yesterday. Julie Iovine writes a lovely Architect’s Newspaper obituary, quoting AIA New York executive director Ric Bell—“He’s opened people’s eyes not only to other people’s worlds but also to the interconnection of the real world with the design world,”—and needs-no-introduction architect James Polshek—“In recent weeks, we gained a president, but we have lost a king,”—and reminding us of the powerful social change Bond believed the construction of certain buildings in certain shapes and materials could bring. “Architecture,” the New York Times’ David Dunlap reminds us Bond told him in 2003 in between talking about DBBA’s involvement with the Ground Zero mess, “inevitably involves all the larger issues of society.” Keyword there is inevitably. RIP, Mr. Bond.

Max Bond, 1935-2009 [Architect’s Newspaper]
J. Max Bond, Jr., Architect, Dies at 73 [New York Times]

Did anybody else get this? We didn’t, unless we accidentally tossed it out with the rest of the good-for-nothing slush that comes pouring unsolicited through the letterbox. Insufferably elegant interior design maven Heather Clawson of Habitually Chic posted this image of a letter enclosed in her copy of the final edition of shuttered shelter mag domino. It reads (enlarge the image to read it yourself), “With Compliments. Thank you for your support over the last four years. Please enjoy the final issue of domino magazine, attached here. Laura Miller & Katie Levine.” Did everybody get that in their valedictory March mag? or did Heather get it ‘cause she’s a big shot? In either case, it’s a nice touch, and we only wish we could write a letter back to the magazine: “Dear domino. Thank you for being.” Well, there you are. We just did write them.

Hey there, Fashion Fiends, we’ve got another stinking hot news heat flash from the Skyscraper of Style: Top-shelf fashion mega-monger Gucci is ditching their in-house architecture department! That’s not much of a shocker, say in-the-know know-it-alls, since Gucci’s never been known for fashion-forward set designs for their run-of-the-mill runway shows; on the other hand, James Carpenter’s Gucci Ginza in Japan made an architecture splash a couple years back for its light-filled glass panache and general high-design smash. Was the in-house team in on that outing? Nobody knows for sure, but if there’s a little less boffo design around Gucci’s boutique digs downtown, we’ll know it’s because they got burned—by the heat!

Rumormongering [Racked]

Novelist John Updike, who died last week at 76, has long been known for his writings on art, primarily in the pages of the New York Review of Books, in which he maundered quietly and keenly on time and meaning while issuing considered, tasteful judgments with which we rarely ever agreed. Less well known are his articles for Architectural Digest, fewer in number but equally Updike-ian, four of which AD has posted online in tribute to the late great scribbler.

These are not straightforward architecture reviews: all appeared under the Homes & Spaces heading, so they’re welcome-to-my-study, anecdotal pieces relating his own encounters with buildings in life and fiction. He doesn’t like New York anymore; he finds New England homes strange and mysterious; your own home can be full of surprises; it’s fun to put characters into houses and make them walk around. They’re exquisitely written, of course, and since they’re not supposed to be works of criticism it would be difficult to adduce a particular design preference from them. Evident throughout, however, is the modest architectural conservatism peculiar to American novelists of a certain generation and temperament. Call it the Tom Wolfe Syndrome: erudite crankiness with a dash of romanticism. In Updike’s case, it’s served up cool and observational, and it’s fairly innocuous when it isn’t being provincial or precious. Much like his fiction, really.

John Updike: A Collection of Essays [Architectural Digest]

Ready for a thigh-slapper? Midst the brutal culling of shelter mags presently underway, somebody bagged a decoy. Preeminent annal of late capitalist culture Women’s Wear Daily reported yesterday in an article on the dissolution of Domino magazine that among the publications it would join in the hereafter was horse-set glossy Country Living. Here’s the gag: Cottage Living is dead. So is Country Home. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, the report of Country Living’s death was greatly exaggerated. WWD issued a correction this afternoon to that effect, and expunged the error from the original article. Of course, it was a perfectly understandable mistake, and in the present market it may yet prove prophetic. (It did for Twain.) Just call it the Domino Effect. Oh, that’s rich!

Domino To Close [WWD]

Sorry, sports fans. Condé Nast announced this morning that shelter mag Domino has been gathered to its fathers, effective in March. Despite having opened the White House and installing heavy hitter Bill Wackerman to head up operations, Domino has succumbed to the same variety of Dutch elm disease that’s lately felled a brace of its print brethren and shows no signs of abating. Send your condolences by way of Deborah Needleman, editor; better yet, send us your guesses about the epidemic’s next victim: tips(at)edificial(dot)com.

Domino Magazine To Fold [Huffington Post]

Sorry this one’s a little late. (Bad pun?) Graphic designer Shigeo Fukuda died from a stroke last week at the age of 76. He was one cool customer: He designed the poster for the Osaka World’s Fair in 1970, and was palsy-walsy with American logo genie Paul Rand. From the Times obit:

…To reach the front door of [Fukuda’s] house on the outskirts of Tokyo… a visitor had to walk down a path to a door that appeared to be far away. In fact, appearances were deceiving because the front door was only four feet high. Inside, Mr. Fukuda would emerge from a concealed white door exactly the same color as the wall to offer the visitor a pair of red house slippers.

You can find more of Fukuda’s posters here.

Shigeo Fukuda, Graphic Designer, Dies at 76 [New York Times]

In honor of the death yesterday of popular painter Andrew Wyeth, here’s a tribute from a latter day master of schlock, a true heir to the great American tradition of nostalgic pandering. The artist known only as Shag updates Wyeth’s famous “Christina’s World”, replacing the weathered farmhouse with a spruced-up Neutra-esque gem. (Or is that Edmiston and Gauthier’s Burst 003 from the MoMA prefab show?)

Andrew Wyeth, Famed and Infamous Artist, Dies at 91 [New York Times]