Day by day digest: Japan’s first 3D-printed house is full, pushback towards the Theodore Roosevelt statue relocation, and extra

Good afternoon and welcome back to a fresh roundup of this week’s art, architecture, and planning news. Here’s what you need to know today:

Protestors want the Teddy Roosevelt statue at the American Museum of Natural History destroyed

The American Museum of Natural History is set to transfer the Theodore Roosevelt statue that has sat outside of its main entrance on Central Park West since 1939 to North Dakota, but artists and activists are asking that the monument be destroyed, not relocated. The statue was taken down and has been placed into storage pending the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in 2024, where it will live via a long-term loan from the museum, but a petition signed by academics, artists, students, and Indigenous activists launched on February 22 has come out against the move.

“Its transfer to that location only compounds the harms stemming from the statue’s racist message,” reads the petition. “The Theodore Roosevelt National Park, where the new presidential library will be housed, is carved out of the ancestral lands of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) people, which were seized in the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie and subsequent land grabs. In making this decision, city officials neglected to consult MHA Nation’s leaders and members about the plan to host New York City’s cast-off on or near their traditional bison hunting and eagle trapping grounds.”

H/t to Hyperallergic

A 3D-printed egg home is the first of its type in Japan

Japanese 3D printing company Serendix Partners has printed a full concrete home in Japan in only 23 hours. Designed by Japanese architect Masayuki Sono, the 107-square-foot, egg-shaped shelter meets Japanese earthquake standards and are hoping to mass market the pod homes as emergency disaster relief shelters, at a cost of approximately $26,000 each.

H/t to Designboom

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation is now the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation has a new name effective March 12. The (former) foundation, which represents the Paul Rudolph Estate is now the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture (PRIMA), and will expand its goals to include outreach and education to design professionals, students, and the greater public on the principles of modern architecture.

Local artists will be celebrated at LaGuardia Airport’s new Delta Terminal

The new $3.9 billion Delta Terminal (Terminal C) at LaGuardia Airport in Queens is gearing up for a spring opening, and the airline, along with the Queens Museum and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, has commissioned six New York-based artists to adorn the terminal with permanent installations. Those artists include: Mariam Ghani, Rashid Johnson, Aliza Nisenbaum, Virginia Overton, Ronny Quevedo, and Fred Wilson.

H/t to the New York Times

Preservationists lose out as Brooklyn’s Grand Prospect Hall is demolished

Despite the more than 40 years of memories made at Park Slope’s Grand Prospect Hall, the Brooklyn banquet hall has been demolished, with the facade torn off at the start of this month. The historic 19th-century building was purchased by Gowanus Cubes last July, and its new owner quickly filed permits for interior demolition. Despite the best efforts of residents who attended weddings, parties, and other events over the decades there, the structure has come down—and if the former longtime owners, Michael and Alice Halkias, had applied for landmark status, it’s likely it would have been approved.

H/t to Gothamist