This Week: Jan. 12, 2018

Illustration by Señor Salme (Nature)

A round up of some of this weeks most interesting Stories. The Future of Sci-Fi, Wright and Johnson loose preservation battles, and a look at how pencils are made.

Science Fiction When the Future is Now

Six of today's eminent Science Fiction writers — Lauren Beukes, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ken Liu, Hannu Rajaniemi, Alastair Reynolds and Aliette de Bodard — explain the role and future of the genre in contemporary culture. Is Science Fiction relevent in an increasingly Surreal world? More over at Nature.

 Base of the AT&T Building. (MrPanyGoff/Wikimedia Commons)

One of Frank Lloyd Wright's Final Buildings has been Demolished and Philip Johnson's AT&T Lobby Goes Under the Knife

"The building, designed in 1958 and only realized in 1959 after Wright’s death, was unmistakably Usonian. The single-story, horizontally-oriented clinic building featured a generous overhang with a sculpted edge, interior and exterior brick, and a central hearth."

“In our evaluation the lobby does not hold the same level of broad significance,” said LPC Director of Research Kate Lemos McHale. “[With] the removal of ‘Golden Boy‘ as a focal point, alterations within the lobby itself, and its diminished relationship to the overall design of the base, we have determined that it does not rise to the level of an interior landmark.”

More over at The Architect's Newspaper - FLLW - AT&T

Photos document the pencil-making process by Christopher Payne. (New York Times)

Inside One of America's Last Pencil Factories

Stunning images of the process and people behind the making of a designer's best friend.
See them all on The New York Times.