Search results for "Atlanta"

Leading up to Super Bowl LIII, Atlanta, Georgia, is being outfitted with 30 new public murals depicting the city’s strong civil rights legacy. WonderRoot, a local arts and advocacy organization, has teamed up with the Atlanta Super Bowl Host Committee to detail these stories in a new citywide initiative called Off the Wall: Atlanta’s Civil Rights and Social Justice Journey. Ten artists were chosen for the seminal project and were asked to create permanent murals based on 43 separate community conversations with over 1,000 local participants this summer. The extensive public engagement process is part of Off the Wall’s five-part program which, in addition to installing the large-scale artworks, includes a public media campaign and policy push to boost awareness of Atlanta’s history and current work to advance equality. Chris Appleton, executive director at WonderRoot, told the Atlanta Business Chronicle that hosting this national sporting event is a can’t-miss opportunity to showcase the city’s diverse cultural landscape and create lasting iconic works for the residents of Atlanta.   “We started asking the question: How will the stories of the communities be told during the Super Bowl?” he told the Chronicle. “We started pulling on that thread: Atlanta's legacy relationship to the civil rights movement. We had a desire to shine a spotlight on Atlanta as a beacon for hope and change.”

 

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#OfftheWallATL is bringing breathtaking murals to Downtown Atlanta that tell crucial stories of the communities that make up our great city. Click the link in our bio to make a gift in support of Off the Wall and have your donation matched up to $5,000. Pictured: @ycambron bringing the Georgia State MARTA Station to life.

A post shared by WonderRoot (@wonderroot) on Nov 21, 2018 at 9:39am PST

The murals are currently being installed around downtown Atlanta and the neighborhoods of Sweet Auburn, Vine City, English Avenue, and Castleberry Hill that surround Mercedes-Benz Stadium where the championship football game will be held on February 3, 2019. Installation of the art works will continue through the end of 2019. Check out some of the murals here.

Across the country, cities are reimagining old industrial landscapes as innovative parklands and restorative ecologies as a way to connect urban dwellers with nature and protect the environment. A new design ideas competition in Buffalo, New York, aims to revitalize the city’s 1.5-mile elevated DL&W rail corridor as a multiuse urban nature trail and greenway. The project is set not only to spur economic development for Buffalo but to reshape the city, becoming a local attraction much like the Toronto’s Bentway or Atlanta’s Beltline. Organized by the Western New York Land Conservancy (WNYLC), the competition invites architects, designers, landscape architect, urban planners, and artists to submit visionary concepts of the corridor as a nature-filled connector for downtown Buffalo, its waterfront, and the surrounding historic neighborhoods. The project is backed by several major sponsors, including M&T Bank and the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr., Legacy Funds, a group that’s part of the late Buffalo Bills owner’s namesake foundation which, just last month, pledged to invest $200 million in both Buffalo and Detroit’s parks and trails systems. The corridor is owned by Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority and has long been a focal point of potential redevelopment for residents and city officials alike. Last year, the WNYLC published a community vision for the site that will guide its future design. “After listening to the community’s hopes for the DL&W corridor, we are excited to give designers from Western New York and around the world a chance to show us how they would bring those hopes to life,” said Nancy Smith, executive director of the WNYLC in a statement. “This spring we will share the designs with the community and ask the community what they think of the ideas, what they like, and what they would do differently.” The competition will be judged by a jury of architects, educators, planners, and consultants including representatives from the University of Buffalo, Stoss Landscape Urbanism, and Friends of the High Line. The proposals will be unveiled online next spring and will also be featured in several public exhibitions in Buffalo. Three winners, including the jury’s favorite as well as the community’s pick, will receive monetary awards ranging from $1,000 to $7,500. To enter the competition, participants must register for free by emailing dlw@wnylc.org. For more information on submission guidelines and the competition brief, see here. An optional site visit for applicants will be held on January 4, 2019, and submissions are due February 15.

Next Tuesday, Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith will go head to head in a runoff election against Democrat Mike Espy for Mississippi’s remaining U.S. Senate seat. Since the midterm election in which no candidate received over 50 percent of the vote, her campaign has been under major threat, and she’s been laying low due to an off-hand comment she recently made at a rally. In praise of a local supporter in Tupelo, Mississippi, she laughingly said:

“If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.”

After a video of the moment went viral on Twitter, her challenger, Espy, called the remark “tone deaf.” The incumbent senator is defending it now as “an exaggerated expression of regard,” claiming it was taken out of context. She'll face Espy in a debate tonight without outside press or an audience present, reported the Jackson Free Press earlier today. Hyde-Smith’s poor choice of words, whether meant as a joke or not, represents the irreverent and ignorant way many Americans look back on the horrific lynchings that took place in the Jim Crow South. What makes this even more deeply inappropriate is that Hyde-Smith said this in her native Mississippi, the state that notoriously conducted the most amount of public hangings on record. President Trump is set to a hold rally in support of Hyde-Smith next Monday ahead of Tuesday’s election, but Democrats appear to be reinvigorated and could pull off another upset in the South.    While we as a country have worked to acknowledge our harsh history of racial tension and inequality through monuments and museums dedicated to slavery, black culture, and the civil rights movement, we’ve barely begun to take the much-needed step toward memorializing the thousands of victims tortured, murdered, and hung in 12 U.S. states from 1877 to 1950. According to a new report by The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) entitled, Landslide 2018: Grounds for Democracy, numerous lynching sites in Shelby County, Tennessee, are virtually unmarked for their historical significance. Walking by these nondescript places, no one would know that hundreds of spectators once gathered there in carnival-like fashion to witness these unforgivable acts of racial terror. TCLF makes its case for the recognition of these places by digging into the lynchings of four African Americans in and around Memphis: Mississippi-laborer Lee Walker who was arrested and hung in 1983 for looking like a man who allegedly tried to sexually assault two white women; People’s Grocery owner Thomas Moss, and his employees Will Stewart and Calvin McDowell who all suffered fateful deaths in 1892 because a white grocer nearby instigated a rumor that the Stewart had injured him; cotton farmer Jesse Lee Bond who was shot, castrated, and drowned in 1939 because he asked for a receipt at a store; and woodcutter Ell Persons who was lynched and burned in 1917 after being accused of decapitating a 15-year-old white girl. While there aren’t any grave markers for these victims, their deaths have continued to echo through America’s development as a 21st-century country. TCLF noted that, according to Dr. Jacova Williams of Clemson University’s Department of Economics, southern counties that held more historical lynchings have lower voter registration rates among African Americans today. This sad reality must be altered, and TCLF argues the only way to do it is by shining a light on such sites and their jarring stories. It’s key to our country's ability to heal and move forward as a collective society, they say.  “Our shared and fragile landscape legacy has a powerful role to play in helping us understand where we come from,” said Charles A. Birnbaum, TCLF President and CEO, in a statement, “especially in the current debates, conversations, and analyses of our national identity.” These Shelby County sites are listed among 10 other at-risk historic sites and landscapes associated with human and civil rights in the U.S. Laid out in TCLF's Landslide 2018 report, every site is currently in danger of being redeveloped or demolished altogether. Some simply suffer from a lack of resources, an equally foreboding issue that plagues communities and organizations trying to bring recognition to near-forgotten places around the country. Other sites, like those found in Tennessee, have long been suppressed. But things are changing. This summer, The National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened in Montgomery, Alabama, and was dedicated to the more than 4,440 African American men, women, and children who were hanged in the South. The memorial, built by the Equal Justice Initiative and designed by MASS Design Group, has been praised by visitors and design critics alike for its beauty, timeliness, and national importance.  Architect and speaker John Cary, who authored the 2017 book Design for Good, has toured public projects around the world. He described the National Memorial as “one of the most extraordinary memorial buildings" he's ever seen anywhere. Others agree and are calling it the most significant memorial on U.S. soil since Maya Lin’s Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.   While a massive work honoring those lynched in the South is an incredible step forward, it’s still important to preserve the other places where the lynchings actually happened. TCLF placed these sites in its Landslide 2018 program to call attention to their fading history and to urge Americans and preservation groups to help keep them intact. The other at-risk sites include: Blair Mountain Battlefield in Logan County, West Virginia, the site of a four-day uprising by over 10,000 armed coal miners fighting for basic workers’ rights; Druid Heights in Marin County, California, a bohemian enclave north of San Francisco where poet and lesbian feminist Elsa Gidlow lived among a group of LGBTQ activists; The Hall of Fame for Great Americans at Bronx Community College, a monument featuring 96 busts that honor high-achieving individuals across various fields; Hog Hammock on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, home to the last descendants of the enslaved Saltwater Geechee community; Japanese American Confinement Sites located across the West Coast where over 120,000 people were held during World War II; Lincoln Memorial Park in Miami, Florida, a 20-acre African American cemetery in Dade County housing soldiers from the Civil War to the Iraq War; Lions Municipal Golf Course in Austin, Texas, the first desegregated course in the South; Princeville, North Carolina, the first U.S. town incorporated by African Americans; and Susan B. Anthony’s Childhood Home in Battenville, New York. All of these landscapes have played a critical role in America’s growth and continue to shape how we interact with one another, as well as how we fight and vote for a less violent, more equitable future. Get the full story behind these historic sites and why they’re in danger here.

Missed some of this week's architecture news, or our tweets and Facebook posts from the last few days? Don’t sweat it—we’ve gathered the week’s must-read stories right here. Enjoy! Patrik Schumacher sues to become sole executor of Zaha Hadid’s estate Seeking to oust the other three executors of Zaha Hadid's $90 million estate, Schumacher has filed a claim with London's High Court. Björk announces new show for The Shed in New York City Icelandic pop pioneer Björk will be world premiering Cornucopia at The Shed, the cultural institution set to open in Manhattan's Hudson Yards. Michael Graves Architecture completes the world’s tallest statue The nearly 600-foot-tall Statue of Unity in Gujarat, India, depicts Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, an integral figure in the independence movement. Atlanta council members green light controversial $5 billion Gulch project Last Monday, in a midnight vote before election day, the Atlanta City Council approved a proposal to redevelop “The Gulch,” a 40-acre swath of the city. AIA outlines 6 key post-election issues to pursue with new Congress Following last week’s midterm elections, the AIA held a “Post-Election Debrief” to outline six key issues it’s set to focus on with the new U.S. Congress. That's it; have a great weekend!

It’s official. Atlanta is about to take on one of the most ambitious and controversial building projects in its history. Last Monday, in a midnight vote before election day, the Atlanta City Council approved a $5 billion proposal to redevelop “The Gulch,” a 40-acre swath of sunken rail yards and parking lots in downtown Atlanta. Thanks to the decision, CIM Group, the Los Angeles-based agency that’s been eyeing the site for some time, will now likely receive a large government subsidy as the sole bidder on the project. CIM’s big plans for The Gulch came to light last November when people started speculating the meaning of an impact fee assessment filed with the city that month, which proposed the redevelopment of over 10 million square feet of publicly-owned land next to the Philips Arena. Over time, it became evident that CIM, a company founded by the brother of Atlanta Hawks owner Tony Ressler, was responsible for the filing and wanted to offer The Gulch to the city as part of Atlanta’s bid for Amazon’s HQ2. Despite news that Amazon will definitely not be coming to Atlanta, it seems that CIM’s plans to revitalize The Gulch are still underway. The scope of the project is nearly unparalleled, comparing only in size to Manhattan’s 28-acre Hudson Yards neighborhood and CIM’s 27-acres Miami Worldcenter development. Within The Gulch, the developer aims to create 9 million square feet of office space, one million square feet of retail, as well as room for residential and hospitality. The “mini city within the city” will sit atop a podium of parking garages and connect with a new grid of streets and parks. It could include more than a dozen new buildings, completely reshaping the city’s skyline. Newly-elected Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is a large supporter of the project. Leading up to last week’s vote, she started a massive campaign to “Greenlight the Gulch,” asking for the public and the city council to approve the around $1.9 billion subsidy package for the private project. In a tight 8-6 vote, her plan won out. Though the government is now on board, many locals aren’t game. Critics of the project say the area should be dedicated to a new transit hub (an idea that started in 2012), while others argue that an increase in luxury housing will raise rents and property taxes in low-income communities near downtown. While Bottoms's proposal requires CIM to build at least 200 units of affordable housing within The Gulch and invest $28 million into a citywide trust fund for affordable housing, some still hope for a better deal. Many say the process for approvals has been rushed and the public hasn’t gotten enough say. Since CIM’s plans were unveiled last year, things have moved at an unprecedented speed. Even opponents seem eager to build something in The Gulch, but only if it benefits the city, not the just owners who develop it. Given CIM’s large-scale goals for the site, this will be a fight with the public for decades to come.

In the heart of the American south, more than 15,000 students at Georgia's Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) stroll through more than 100 rehabilitated historic buildings every day. And, beyond Savannah’s charming squares set amid historic architecture, the university also has reclaimed buildings and interiors in Atlanta, as well as in Hong Kong and Lacoste, France. As SCAD founder and president Paula Wallace puts it, “SCAD comprises a menagerie of extraordinary historic buildings.” These international historic sites have been thoroughly documented in a new book that highlights the university’s history through the lens of its rich built environment in SCAD: The Architecture of a University. The book, published by Assouline, is a luxurious montage of more than 200 color and archival photographs spread across 360 pages. Wanting to share the school’s built history with architecture and preservation aficionados across the globe (as well as with prospective students), the book attempts to create, as Wallace says, “a sumptuous visual experience…that invites readers to tumble headlong into each spread.” It’s intended, she says, to serve as an “invitation.” SCAD has been honored for its conservation efforts by organizations such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the American Institute of Architects, and the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art. Detailing the importance of historic preservation, SCAD: The Architecture of a University celebrates the university’s reuse and revitalization of historic buildings, and serves as a visual guide for reframing historic buildings for contemporary uses and needs—a purpose that extends well beyond the interests of a single institution. From Poetter Hall, an 18th-century fortress-like building that was home of the Savannah Volunteer Guards Armory, to a former Hong Kong courthouse built by the British Government in 1960, the book offers a retrospective history spanning four decades with detailed narratives of 40 of the university’s architectural jewels located across its four global locations.

Last week, Atlanta’s notoriously dysfunctional mass transportation authority, MARTA, released a $2.7-billion expansion plan that will extend its services from the city center via light rail, bus rapid transit, and arterial roadways. The announcement marks the largest development strategy made by the organization in decades. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the 40-year plan, “More MARTA,” was approved by the authority's board of directors in a unanimous vote on Thursday. Officials have agreed to dole out money to 17 projects across the city, allocating large sums to the Beltline and the Clifton Corridor, the latter of which will include four miles of light rail service from the Lindbergh Station to a new station at Emory University. In total, 29 miles of light rail will be built throughout the city, as well as 13 miles of new bus lines. Three arterial rapid transit routes serving both the north and south sides of Atlanta will be built out as well, making 20-to-30 minute trips much faster. Station improvements along the MARTA rail line will also be made over the next few years. Initial plans for the major expansion were announced in May, but significant adjustments were made leading up to the final decision after Beltline advocates pushed for more money for public transit along the 22-mile loop. The light rail addition has long been in the works for the famed urban park and trial. Further tweaks were also made to extend train and bus lines more effectively into some of Atlanta's 10 outlying counties. In recent years, several have voted to join MARTA, further incentivizing the transportation organization to provide high-capacity services to the outer regions. Atlanta is the third fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States and it has suffered from poor public transportation. A report put out by the U.S. Census Bureau in March revealed that nearly 90,000 people moved to the city from 2016 to 2017, bringing the total population to approximately 5.8 million people. It’s the largest single-year growth gain since the Great Recession. These scores of people are moving to Atlanta largely for jobs—77,300 were added last year—but not everyone is living in the areas where mass transit is already available for their daily commutes.

Richard Meier & Partners Architects today announced that Richard Meier "will step back from day-to-day activities" at his firm after a year in which he was accused of exposing himself to young employees and groping people in public. Bernhard Karpf has been promoted to managing principal and will oversee the firm's operations. Michael Palladino will be in charge of the firm's West Coast office in Los Angeles. Richard Meier founded the practice in 1963, and the office has since completed over 130 projects around the world and won numerous awards, including the 1984 Pritzker Prize for Meier. He became the youngest person to receive the award. Meier rose to fame as part of the New York Five, a group of East Coast architects that included Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, and John Hejduk. Meier rose to national attention thanks to early residential and cultural projects, like the addition to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, but it was his design for the Getty Center in Los Angeles that propelled him to the highest echelon of architectural fame. Meier's reputation was clouded earlier this year when several female former employees accused the architect of sexual harassment and assault in The New York Times, after which Meier took a six-month leave of absence and left Vivian Lee, Reynolds Logan, Dukho Yeon, and Bernhard Karpf to oversee the firm's New York office and Michael Palladino to oversee work in Los Angeles. The firm was criticized for their response to the accusations, which alleged that Meier exposed himself to young female employees and publicly touched another inappropriately. The firm announced that after Meier steps back, Vivian Lee, Reynolds Logan, and Dukho Yeon have been promoted to principals. In a statement, Meier's office said that Meier "will remain available to colleagues and clients who seek his vast experience and counsel," and that "the firm will maintain and develop the rigorous design philosophy that Richard pioneered."

Richard Meier & Partners Architects today announced that Richard Meier "will step back from day-to-day activities" at his firm after a year in which he was accused of exposing himself to young employees and groping someone in public. Bernhard Karpf has been promoted to managing principal and will oversee the firm's operations. Michael Palladino will be in charge of the firm's West Coast office in Los Angeles. Richard Meier founded the practice in 1963, and the office has since completed over 130 projects around the world and won numerous awards, including the 1984 Pritzker Prize for Meier. He became the youngest person to receive the award. Meier rose to fame as part of the New York Five, a group of East Coast architects that included Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, and John Hejduk. Meier rose to national attention thanks to early residential and cultural projects, like the addition to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, but it was his design for the Getty Center in Los Angeles that propelled him to the highest echelon of architectural fame. Meier's reputation was clouded earlier this year when several female former employees accused the architect of sexual harassment and assault in The New York Times, after which Meier took a six-month leave of absence and left Vivian Lee, Reynolds Logan, Dukho Yeon, and Bernhard Karpf to oversee the firm's New York office and Michael Palladino to oversee work in Los Angeles. The firm was criticized for their response to the accusations, which alleged that Meier exposed himself to young female employees and publicly touched another inappropriately. The firm announced that after Meier steps back, Vivian Lee, Reynolds Logan, and Dukho Yeon have been promoted to principals. In a statement, Meier's office said that Meier "will remain available to colleagues and clients who seek his vast experience and counsel," and that "the firm will maintain and develop the rigorous design philosophy that Richard pioneered."

Last week over 100,000 people wandered through the porticos of Bologna, Italy, to attend Cersaie, the annual international exhibition of ceramic tile and bathroom furnishings. The show surveyed nearly 900 exhibitors showcasing a world of tiles and bathroom surfaces. Why Italy? And why ceramics? According to Ceramics of Italy, the trade organization that coordinates the exhibition, in 2017 Italy’s 145 ceramic tile manufacturers produced 930 million square feet of tiles, accounting for an overall revenue of €514.9 million. The material has been the main staple for flooring and surfaces because of its beauty, cost-effectiveness, and durability, but also because of its environmentally sustainable qualities. Its intrinsic characteristics are "green"; the material is more sustainable over its entire lifecycle than products like linoleum (which is cheap but has a very short life cycle) or naturally occurring materials like marble (which is expensive but can be expensive to maintain). Here, we review only a handful of what we saw in the collections that debuted in Italy last week, though some of the new colorways and large format sizes below premiered at Coverings and Salone del Mobile earlier this year. We encourage you to also have a look at the Cersaise story on our Instagram account to see more tile and style at the world's premiere show for ceramic tile and furnishings. Wide&Style Dark Edition ABK Featuring a dark-hued background, this collection encapsulates six floral motifs that would fit right in at a Vivienne Westwood boutique or as a backdrop in a Siouxsie and the Banshees music video. The digitally-printed slabs are made-to-order in customized dimensions along with a rendering and instructions for cutting and installing. Majestic collection Valentino by Ceramiche Piemme For forty years, the Italian fashion house Valentino and luxury ceramic tile manufacturer Ceramiche Piemme have collaborated to make glamorous wall and floor tiles. Majestic, the newest brainchild from the collab, is inspired by gorgeous veined marbles like Carrara, Calacatta, and Emperador. While the materials imitate the naturally occurring rock, these ceramic alternatives are much more cost effective and are heat-treated to last for decades. Eterno Versace Ceramics Inspired by shou sugi ban—the traditional Japanese technique to preserve and finish wood using fire—these tiles feature a charred, tactile motif rendered by high-resolution digital printers. The full effect is accentuated by gold inlay tracing the frame of the trim with the original Versace bordering that surrounds the Medusa head in the brand’s logo. The collection dropped in May at Salone del Mobile in Milan, while new larger format tiles were released at Cersaie last week. Operae ORNAMENTA Earlier this year in April at Coverings in Atlanta, ORNAMENTA unveiled Operae, a large format family of seven collections of saturated floor and ceiling tiles—all of which are digitally fabricated and completely customizable. The eclectic collections—Gradient, Squares, Domestic Jungle, Rugs, Deco, and Terrazzo—feature colorful themes ranging from an Art Deco motif with geometric shapes to a pattern with a foreground of palms printed on a millennial pink background. GRANDE in Treverkfeel finish MARAZZI Emulating the look and texture of a natural wood grain, the Treverkfeel collection is spired by the knots and rings found in large planks of American walnut. Bigger sizes and wider thicknesses span the breadth of this large-format collection offered in slabs of 600 by 3200 millimeters with 6 millimeter thickness and 1620 by 3240 millimeters with 12 millimeter thickness. They are offered in four natural shades: ivory, beige, cherry, and brown. Titan CENTURY by Finbec Group Gritty and unfinished, Titan is a collection of seemingly-aged tiles in seven metal and cement finishes. The collection is one of the new brands of oversize ceramic slabs aptly dubbed OVER, which is offered in nine thicknesses and sizes.  

Sponsored Product: Maglin The Pixel Collection gives you the flexibility to design the perfect space.

S9 Architecture is helping turn an old Ford Model T and army missile manufacturing facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, into the city’s newest hub for creativity and innovation. Camp North End, a long-empty industrial site just northeast of downtown, will feature 1.8 million square feet of office, retail, and event space set inside its historic, early 19^th-century factory. New York-based developer ATCO Properties purchased the site in 2016 and opened it to the public last year. Various vendors have populated the grounds, and it’s been a hotbed of activity ever since, housing countless companies and office space for coffee roasters, media professionals, artists, and startups alike. It’s also been home to several exciting festivals and arts programs put on in the various open spaces. S9’s master plan for the 76-acre campus will transform the site into a sustainable spot for businesses to put down permanent roots. ATCO brought on S9 to collaborate on the adaptive reuse of the complex’s 12 main buildings and connect them through experiential passageways. In between each structure, the team will lay out gathering spaces for people to eat, hang out, or put on events. The build-out will also include space for future residential and hospitality developments. While many of the buildings on the site are already in use, ATCO and S9 are renovating four larger areas in the first phase of construction: the Gama Goat Building, the Mount, a 24,000 square-foot former Ford factory building, and the adjacent boiler building. The latter two were designed by Detroit architect Albert Kahn in the 1920s. The design will substantially retrofit the dilapidated structures and add a contemporary edge to the facility. This isn’t the first large-scale placemaking project the Brooklyn-based firm has done in recent years. S9’s design for Ponce City Market converted an outdated Sears building in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward into a coveted piece of real estate for top tech companies and local food vendors. Also under the firm's industrial reuse belt is Dumbo’s Empire Stores in New York City, as well as Dock 72 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, home of WeWork’s New York headquarters.

Marcel Breuer’s dark and boxy Central Atlanta Library will literally light up this fall with projected images chronicling the city’s hip-hop and experimental music scene. Curbed Atlanta reported that URBANSCREEN, an artist collective from Germany, will design a light show on the Brutalist building’s hulking facade beginning October 5. The 250,000-square-foot concrete public library is situated at the corner of Forsyth and Williams Streets and is currently undergoing a controversial $50 million renovation by local firm Cooper Carry. URBANSCREEN’s “Superposition” installation will bring temporary color and motion to the exterior as part of the Goethe-Institut’s “Lightart Meets German Architecture” project. In partnership with the organization, the artists will illuminate two other iconic German-American pieces of architecture outside of Atlanta: the Athenaeum in Indianapolis and the German ambassador’s residence in Washington, D.C. Not only is the project a celebration of these enduring buildings, but it is also a chance to reflect on the history of German architecture in the U.S. and what that means to the countries’ relationship today, according to URBANSCREEN. For Atlanta, digital art, dance, and music will be integrated within the project “to unite several universal languages that transcend geographical definitions,” says a press release cited by Curbed. In an interview with the Goethe-Institut, the URBANSCREEN team described their inspiration for the projection on the Atlanta library. “We first had an entirely different idea, but then changed our minds completely when we arrived on site,” said Majo Ussat. “Now we are presenting a highly graphical projection in collaboration with local youth groups who will dance hip-hop—a kind of 'Bauhaus meets hip-hop.'" The team will install four projectors around the library, some in a nearby building and on the roof of a gallery, since the surrounding block is too tight to set them up efficiently. Per Curbed Atlanta, the event will also include a street festival replete with food and beer trucks. The revamp of the Central Library, as well as the light show, signals a rededication to the historic architecture scene of Atlanta. Back in 2016, the city was considering demolishing the building, but local and national preservationists came to the rescue. Cooper Cary’s retrofit will transform 50,000 square feet of the library into private, leasable space in an attempt to enhance its program. On August 24, the site was unanimously voted to the National Register of Historic Places as well as the Georgia Register of Historic Places by the Georgia National Register Review Board.