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For this month’s cover story (“Green
Architecture’s Grand Experiment,” p. 109),
Metropolis’s new picture editor, Sarah
Palmer, visited the California Academy
of Sciences to scout locations and take
additional photos. “I’m a San Francisco
native, so the Academy has a lot of personal meaning to me,” she says. “I loved
getting a behind-the-scenes look at the
exhibits under construction.” The highlight of her tour? “Definitely the penguins,”
she says. “They’re very personable.”
Palmer recently received an M.F.A. in
photography, video, and related media
from the School of Visual Arts.
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This month Alexander Gorlin writes
about the Marché International des Professionnels de l’Immobilier, an over-the-top real estate conference and schmoozefest in Cannes, France (“And the Band
Played On,” p. 102). But when asked to
divulge any juicy gossip from this year’s
extravaganza, he demurs: “I don’t kiss
and tell.” Gorlin is the principal of Alexander Gorlin Architects, which is currently working on residential projects in
Nairobi, Kenya; Nova Scotia, Canada; and
Houston. He is also the author of two
books on contemporary architecture,
The New American Town House and
Creating the New American Town House.
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The San Francisco–based photographer
Tim Griffith has been documenting
the construction of the California Academy of Sciences (“Green Architecture’s
Grand Experiment,” p. 109) since late
2007. “For a building of such scale, there
is a lightness and transparency to the
interior volumes that almost defies the
constraints of the camera,” he says.
“Illustrating these ideas in the midst of
the construction chaos was perhaps the
most challenging aspect of the assignment.” Griffith recently shot new buildings in China and Singapore, and he
is working on a personal project that
explores the role of photography in shaping the public’s understanding and experience of architecture.
In “Green Architecture’s Grand
Experiment” (p. 110), Karen E. Steen
tells the story behind Renzo Piano’s
design for the California Academy of
Sciences. A Bay Area resident, Steen has
been watching the Academy take shape
for several years, but reporting this story
provided her first glimpse of the new
interior. “As soon as I walked inside, it
just possessed me,” she says. “Watching
a couple of construction workers eat
their lunch in front of the penguin tank,
I thought, Right now, every single person
in this building has the coolest job they’ll
ever have.” Steen is an editor of the
online literary magazine Swink, and she
is working on a novel about land use.
