Oh no, just read on The Age that the Fairhaven Pole House (or to most people That-House-on-a-Pole) by Frank Dixon on the Great Ocean Road is coming down this week!!! You can read the full article at the link above, we just want to express our sadness to see this piece of Victorian architectural history goes, however we've learnt that F2 is on the job, so at least it is in the hand of another good architect. Frank thanks for the wonderful building that you have given us, it will always stay in our memory.

Image: The Age, Oblica

A few months ago, David Adams from The Age Domain, asked us to nominate a residential project that we've been particularly impressed with this year. Albert has then chosen Carl Turner Architects' wonderful Slip House in Brixton UK, and you can read the article here. 

“It is not the right angle that attracts me, nor the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. What attracts me is the free and sensual curve — the curve that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous course of its rivers, in the body of the beloved woman.” Oscar Niemeyer

Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer has passed away on Wednesday at a hospital in Rio de Janeiro, at the age of 104. A Pritzker prize laureate, Niemeyer had designed some of the 20th Century's most famous modernist buildings including the main government buildings in the futuristic Brazilian capital, Brasilia, and UN building in New York, together with Le Corbusier. He went on to create more than 600 buildings around the world. His legacy endures in museums, monuments, schools and churches in Brazil and beyond. Thank you Oscar!

By the way if you are in Brazil, why not pick up a pair of Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Chukka boots designed by him?! 

Images: BBC, Arcstreet

We are deeply sorry to hear Lebbeus Woods, an American architect and artist, died last night in New York at age 72. He was a true visionary architect, who has inspired generations for architects and artists, and has made direct influence  on films such as 12 Monkeys and Alien 3. His website and blog as a monument to his talents, and if you are interested there is a very good article on him on the NY Times by Nicolai Ouroussoff. 

Image: dibujoetsamadrid

Le Corbusier’s Unite d'Habitation has been severely damaged by fire on last Thursday 09 Feb. The nine-story residential and part hotel building in Marseille, France became a historic monument in 1995 and serves as one of the most important postwar landmarks of modernist architecture.

The fire began Thursday afternoon in a first floor duplex. Firefighters fought over 12 hours to tame the blaze and were able to bring it under control earlier this morning. Many reports state at least eight to eleven homes were destroyed and twenty to thirty were damaged by smoke.