Nazi architect son’s plan for Berlin: The son of Hitler’s favourite architect Albert Speer, who was famous for drawing up grandiose plans for a Nazi capital, has submitted his own design to redevelop a large plot of land in central Berlin. Albert Speer junior is one of the world’s leading architects and urban planners, and has come up with a scheme to renovate a dilapidated sports complex in the heart of the German capital. [Telegraph]
Nice Tower! Who’s Your Architect?: With the financial markets in an ominous roil, the realization of this boomlet is far from guaranteed. But even if only a few more are completed, the final effect of these buildings could be the greatest transformation in the city’s physical identity since the 1960s. Bold and formally elaborate — some would say showy — they reflect a mix of attitudes and styles that the city has never seen. They also reveal an unmistakable shift in the appetites and aspirations of an elite group of New Yorkers for whom an apartment’s architectural pedigree has become a new form of status symbol. [NYT]
What Will Be Left of Gehry’s Vision for Brooklyn?: The growing possibility that much of the multibillion-dollar Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn will be scrapped because of a lack of financing may be a bitter pill for its developer, Forest City Ratner. But it’s also a painful setback for urban planning in New York. [NYT]
Neo-Mod Idiom On the High Line: Even before its completion, Chelsea’s High Line Park is having as catalytic an effect on its neighborhood as Central Park has had, over the past 150 years, on the Upper East and West sides of Manhattan. [NY Sun]
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