Daniel S. Levy
Daniel S. Levy has long been fascinated with the life of buildings and cities, and the conflicting forces that have brought about urban growth. At Time-where he spent 15 years as that magazine's architecture and design senior reporter-and at People and Life, as well as in his freelance work, he has covered architecture, preservation, history, art and other related topics. The work has taken the form of articles on such varied yet related topics as profiles of Pritzker winners, efforts to control sprawl, the hurricane that devastated New Orleans, the resurgence of small town America and the turn-of-the-century City Beautiful Movement. His work has taken him from the marbled ways of Washington and the slums of Mexico, to such foreign locales as Phnom Penh, Cambodia, New Delhi, India and Port Moresby, Papua-New Guinea. Throughout he has followed the rise of promising architects-some of whom are now leaders of the profession-and interviewed them in various phases of their careers. ArchitectureWorld.tv is therefore pleased to premier a number of Levy's videos exclusively for the web.
ABOUT THE FILMS
Daniel S. Levy hosts a series of videos about architecture, design, modern buildings and architects, which include interviews with some of the world's most prominent architects as well as visits to their buildings. Levy's insights and commentary provide an expert's view on modern architecture, and the series of films he has created are both entertaining and highly informative.
Featured among these films is a tour of Frank Gehry's IAC Headquarters. Gehry's plan for a firm whose name is pronounced ³Ice² allowed him to create a striking interpretation of the name, and resulted in a faceted bit of urban ice, a gleaming bluish white corporate outpost along the Hudson River with a chiseled tower that mimics billowing sails, and humorously references Gehry and IAC's head Barry Diller's love of sailing.
From IAC to the BLUE TOWER, Daniel S. Levy explores the newest creations of Bernard Tschumi, from his Blue apartment tower on the Lower East Side to the Parthenon Museum in Athens, and interviews Tschumi on subjects ranging from his advice to young architects to his person al approach to solving design problems. Tschumi, one of the world's most versatile architects and the former dean of Columbia's School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, is clearly a man in a hurry. As he speeds away in a yellow cab, he sketches a series of buildings including the Blue Tower and the Museum of the Acropolis, and comments on the genesis of the projects and how the context of a site informs his design methods.
Architect Michael Adlerstein had recently been awarded the commission to renovate the United Nations headquarters when Levy had a chance to catch up with him. The two discuss the billion-dollar project in which Adlerstein will bring luster back to the Le Corbusier, Wallace Harrison and Oscar Niemeyer complex that has badly deteriorated over the past half century. It is a grand project and a tall order, for the United Nations is not just any old complex, but a landmark that represents the best of modernism's hope for clarity and peace through design. Yet Adlerstein is a man up to the challenge, having previously spearheaded the restoration of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. He and Levy discuss the UN's history, its impact on modern design and the problems architects face with such daunting projects.
Many other architectural videos hosted by Daniel S. Levy are in production, so please check back on this page as ArchitectureWorld.tv brings you those and oth er web premieres on many different aspects of architecture, building, construction and modern design, as well as architect interviews, photos of structures and new links to the best architecture sources on the web.