Design Observer

Best Use of a Pritzker Prize: I.M. Pei scotches the fourth, 400-foot-tall Silver Tower proposed by NYU, suggesting only beloved elder statesmen of architecture have the power to slow the university’s spread. [AL]

Best Use of White Plastic from Italy: The dapper drones at SCDP got a new office, and the bright spot was Roger Sterling’s Nesso lamp, a glowing mushroom designed in 1964 by Giancarlo Mattioli. [ML]

Best Show: MoMA’s revelatory Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity, curated by Barry Bergdoll and Leah Dickerman. Honorable mention: Chaos & Classicism at the Guggenheim, America’s Mayor at the MCNY. [ML]

Bad for Women in Architecture Award: “Bits of the sandwich were falling out of her mouth as she spoke, in a husky voice.” From John Seabrook's profile of Zaha Hadid in The New Yorker, “The Abstractionist.” [AL]

Good for Women in Architecture Award: SANAA, the Japanese firm led by Kazuyo Sejima and
 Ryue Nishizawa, wins the Pritzker Prize. Can Denise Scott Brown get hers now too, please? [AL]

The Woody Allen Award for Gratuitous Cinematic Images of New York: Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps. The swoony photography of Rodrigo Prieto was the highlight of Oliver Stone’s sequel. [ML]

Baby Rem Award: Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, for the three-letter firm name (BIG), the delirious New York entrance (see this graphic novel), and the cartoonish building names and shapes (8 House, the Mountain). [AL]

Mailing It in Award: Witold Rybczynski, for his why-are-great-architects-short piffle, the most inane story of the year. [ML]

Worst Moment in Architectural Criticism: Sarah Palin, for her pernicious “it stabs hearts” tweet on the Park51 community center. [ML]

Ezra Stoller Award for Photographic Ubiquity: Iwan Baan. How can we tell our Maltzans from our Maynes from our MAXXIs if they are all shot by the same photographer? [AL]

The Cognitive Dissonance Award: CityCenter, Las Vegas. The “sustainable” mega-development may demolish Norman Foster’s built-but-never-opened Harmon Hotel. [ML]

Most Anti-Climactic Groundbreaking Award: Atlantic Yards — oh wait — Barclays Center. When you’re more interested in the ownership than the team or the building, something is out of whack. [AL]

The Deadwood Award for Historical Pastiche: Roman & Williams. If you like the Decembrists, Harry Flashman, and bespoke cocktails, they’re the only architects for you. [ML]

Worst Use of Architectural History Award: The Baroque hyperbole surrounding Frank Gehry’s still-not-actually-open Beekman Tower, where value engineering took all the Bernini out of its folds, and left the southern halves of Brooklyn and Manhattan with another shiny, blank skyscraper. [AL]

Negligent Stewardship Award: Chase Bank, for shuttering Gordon Bunshaft’s landmark glass box on Fifth Avenue, and crating up its site-specific Harry Bertoia screen. [ML]

Most Overhyped Gift to the City’s Children from the Design Community Award: The Imagination Playground. Like a stage set waiting for actors, or at least another slide. [AL]

Putting Architects Out of Business Award: NYC Transportation Commissioner Janette
 Sadik-Khan, who created open space in the heart of the city without juried competitions, public 
hearings, architects, landscape architects — or much design. [AL]

Online Publisher of the Year: Our friends at Curbed have gone national with their sharp combination of real estate gossip, shelter porn, and design criticism. Honorable Mention: Architizer. [ML]

Most Moving Moments of the Year: The heartfelt personal tributes to Raimund Abraham, tragically killed in a Los Angeles car accident, on the blog of Lebbeus Woods. [ML]

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