The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is using a Swiss woman architect,
Gae Aulenti, to transform the Old Main Library into a museum.  According
to the news release on their website, Aulenti is "one of the most
sought-after museum designers in the world, best known for her conversion
of a derelict Paris train station into the award-winning Musee d'Orsay."

(Unfortunately for those of us who want to preserve the building's
historic, site-specific and legally protected murals by Gottardo Piazzoni,
Aulenti has obliged the museum by coming up with a design that "requires"
their removal.  But the battle is not over yet!)

Ann Harlow

 On Fri, 10 Apr 1998 [log in to unmask] wrote:

> The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, has commissioned Zaha Hadid
> to design a $25 million, 65,000-square-foot new museum building on a prominent
> downtown Cincinnati corner.  Founded in 1939, the CAC is one of the oldest and
> most active museums of contemporary art in the US.
>
> Hadid, "architecture's new diva" (according to Joseph Giovanini), is a
> London-based theorist and architect who serves on the faculties of Harvard and
> Columbia Universities. Her most famous building thus far is the Vitra Fire
> Station in Weil am Rhein, Germany.  The new Contemporary Arts Center will be
> her first American building.
>
> Other finalists in the 8-month search were Daniel Libeskind of Berlin and
> Bernard Tschumi, Dean of Architecture at Columbia University.
>
> The project marks the first occasion of an American museum designed by a
> woman.  In fact, it is also one of the first public projects of any kind
> designed solely by a woman (though there are several important male/female
> partnerships).  What ones can people think of?  A few YMCAs in California by
> Julia Morgan--any commissions more significant in scale and public function?
>
> There's a great deal of material on the CAC search process,
> semi-finalists (Jean Nouvel, Toyo Ito, Eric Owen Moss, Rem Koolhaas, Wolf
> Prix, Herzog & DeMeuron, Steven Holl, Diller & Scofidio, and Anton Predock),
> and on the CAC itself at http://www.spiral.org
>
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