Nouvel Said to Win Big Job in China - News - Architectural Record
Image courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects
Zaha Hadid's proposed aerodynamic, scrolling form.
According to multiple sources, Jean Nouvel has been selected to design a mega-sized new building for the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) in Beijing. If reports are true, the Pritzker Prize–winning French architect has beat out Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid to snag the highly coveted commission. One well-placed source (who, like others, asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record) says all three architects were informed of the decision on July 18.
Image courtesy Gehry Partners
An exterior rendering of Frank Gehry's proposal.
----- Advertising -----
The source added that an official announcement will not come until November, after the national government goes through its once-in-a-decade change in leadership. NAMOC and Gehry’s office declined to comment, while a spokesperson for Nouvel did not respond to several requests for comment. At 1.3 million square feet, the new structure will be mammoth. It is the most prominent of a trio of buildings (the others are a museum devoted to arts and crafts and a sinology museum) being planned for a site next to the Herzog & de Meuron–designed National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest. Part of a broader effort to draw more people to visit the area, post-Olympics, it is also probably the most symbolically important cultural building on the boards in China. “We were told to make a building so iconic that one day people will say that the Bird’s Nest is next to it,” said one early contender.Nouvel’s likely selection ends a process that, when it began in earnest in 2010, sent more than 150 architects from around the world scrambling to partner with Chinese artists, one of NAMOC’s original recommendations. Twenty offices were then invited to submit designs, among them OMA, UNStudio, and the Chinese architects Yung Ho Chang, Zhu Pei, and Ma Yansong of MAD. From these, five finalists, including Herzog & de Meuron (who withdrew from consideration) and Moshe Safdie, were asked to make revisions. “It was intense,” says Safdie.A recent sneak peek of the three final-cut entries by Nouvel, Gehry, and Hadid shows that all are similarly massed. [Nouvel's office did not respond to requests for images of the firm's
design, but click the rendering above to view the other finalists.] With its “scrolling” forms, Hadid’s glass- and glass-fiber-clad proposal looks not so much like some sleek spacecraft as the slow-moving mothership that might have launched it. “There were a lot of constraints and a lot to pack in, so you wound up with volumetrically very similar proposals,” says Cristiano Ceccato, Hadid’s associate in charge of the project. (Ceccato would neither confirm nor deny the results of the competition.) Meanwhile, topped by warped volumes, Gehry’s otherwise boxy scheme features facades of scooped and scalloped metal behind “translucent stone” made of glass. By most accounts, the contest came down to a head-to-head between Gehry and Nouvel, the latter presumably winning with a somewhat softer-edged proposal offering a pastiche of envelope treatments: steel cut in decorative patterns, stenciled glass recalling Chinese ink brushstrokes, and a splash of parametricism, all explained via references to ancient Chinese poetry and philosophy.The NAMOC commission is part of China’s ambitious plans to develop its cultural infrastructure and “soft power.” The museum’s current Sino-Soviet-style building, which is not far from the Forbidden City and will remain an art museum, was one of the “10 Great Buildings” constructed under Mao Zedong in 1959. NAMOC is best known for its exhibitions of 20th-century and contemporary Chinese art. The proposed new edifice, meanwhile, offers a fresh reminder of how soft power nowadays works both ways. Rumors of political machinations at the highest levels surrounded the competition, with various nations supposedly jockeying to influence the selection process in favor of their own architects. Such speculations may have been unfounded, but they were not dampened when Gehry very visibly gave Xi Jinping, China’s presumptive next president, a tour of his Walt Disney Concert Hall during Xi’s high-profile visit to Los Angeles earlier this year.The new NAMOC is thought to be scheduled for completion in 2015. How the museum will manage to fill its square footage remains unclear. Adding further uncertainty is the widespread belief that NAMOC director Fan Dian, who enjoys a reputation as a progressive administrator, will soon be promoted to another job. What’s for sure is that the process of choosing the building’s design was both political and opaque. But there were positive aspects to the process, too. “Unlike other competitions, there was a lot of contact,” says Safdie, recalling his numerous travels and visits with museum officials. (Nevertheless, he says he does not know who was on the jury that selected the final three in April.) “There was a lot of consultation and dialogue with the client,” Ceccato concurs.
We welcome comments from all points of view. Off-topic or abusive comments, however, will be removed at the editors& discretion.
----- Advertising -----
----- Advertising -----
Architectural Analytics
Reader Feedback
Rankings reflect comments made in the past 14 daysSigning contracts correctly is important, not just as a matter of dotting i‘s and crossing t‘s. How a contract is signed can affect whether it’s enforceable and who’s on the hook. Here’s a basic “how-to” on signing contracts.
The correct legal persons should sign the contract
Only legal persons are parties to contracts. Legal persons can be humans (which are legally known as “individuals”) or corporations, limited liability companies, and other entities. As a general rule, if an entity wasn’t formed by filing a document with the Secretary of State, individuals are going to be on the hook for its contracts.
If you’re doing business as a sole proprietorship, that means you — as an individual — are the party to the business’s contracts. That’s the case even if you registered a fictitious name (or a “doing business as” name) with the Secretary of State. If I’m doing business as a sole proprietorship, I should sign contracts in my individual capacity, even if I’m doing business as, say, the Contracts Guy. So I should sign my business’s contracts as “Brian Rogers, doing business as [or d/b/a] the Contracts Guy.”
Entities can only act through agents because entities aren’t alive and they can’t actually do anything without help from humans. Although entities are legal persons for most purposes, they need human agents to act for them. Because an entity’s contracts are signed by a human, it’s important to be clear that the human is signing the contract on behalf of the entity and not in his or her individual capacity. So if I’ve formed a corporation through which to engage in my contracts business, I’ll sign its contracts as “THE CONTRACTS GUY, INC., a Missouri corporation, by Brian Rogers” (see the examples below for a better feel for how this should look in the signature blocks). If I’m doing business as “the Contracts Guy,” but the legal name of my corporation is “Brian Rogers Enterprises, Inc.,” the correct party to the company’s contracts is “BRIAN ROGERS ENTERPRISES, INC. d/b/a the Contracts Guy.”
The introductory paragraph and the signature blocks should match completely
Most contracts name the parties in the introductory paragraph. For example, if my corporation is entering into a consulting agreement with a law firm, the introductory paragraph might read as follows:
This consulting agreement is dated January 9, 2013 and is between ACME LAW FIRM, P.C., a Missouri professional corporation, and THE CONTRACTS GUY, INC., a Missouri corporation.
The names in the signature blocks for the two parties should be exactly the same as the parties’ names in the introductory paragraph, but note that Ken Adams’s Manual of Style for Contract Drafting recommends not stating the company’s jurisdiction of organization in the signature block. So if my corporation uses a fictitious name, the fictitious name should be included in both the introductory paragraph and in the signature block (the fictitious name should never be used instead of the company’s legal name in the introductory paragraph or signature block). For example, the introductory paragraph might read:
This consulting agreement is dated January 9, 2013 and is between LAW FIRM, P.C., a Missouri professional corporation, and BRIAN ROGERS ENTERPRISES, INC., a Missouri corporation doing business as the Contracts Guy.
Make sure you know the correct legal entity
It’s not always easy to determine a business’s correct legal name. On one end of the spectrum, an unsophisticated business owner might not have a clear grasp of the legal effect of a fictitious name or might not understand that his or her sole proprietorship doesn’t have a separate legal existence from the business owner. On the other end of the spectrum, large corporations often do business through hundreds or even thousands of affiliated entities. Determining the correct entity to list as the party to a contract can be a daunting task for a business person, as well as the legal department.
I always go to the records of the Secretary of State for help. A company can be found in the records of the state of its formation, its principal place of business, and often other states where it has a significant presence. The records of most states are searchable online for free or for a nominal fee (Texas nickels-and-dimes you and Delaware searches can really lighten your wallet, while Missouri and probably most states are free). At a minimum, a simple search will usually allow you to determine the exact legal name of the entity, the state of the company’s organization, and the name and address of its registered agent. Sometimes you can find much more information, such as the identity of the company’s officers and directors, whether the company is in good standing with the state, and even copies of its formation documents and annual reports.
Make sure the correct people are signing the contract
Because entities can only act through humans, it’s important to make sure that the human agents actually have authority to bind the company. While concepts such as
can sometimes bail you out of an unfortunate situation, it’s imprudent to rely on them. It’s a better practice to do enough due diligence to ensure that the signatory has actual authority.
In a very important transaction you’ll want to review the counterparty’s corporate documents to make sure the signatory is authorized by the company to sign the contract, as well as have the corporate secretary provide a document that certifies that a specimen signature is authentic. But that’s overkill in most commercial contexts, so basic due diligence is usually sufficient. Common sense can also help: it’s more likely that a company’s officers have authority to sign contracts for the company than the mail room person, and the president is more likely to have authority than the corporate secretary.
Katie Lane, who moonlights as a lawyer to small businesses and freelancers, has an excellent video on her Work Made for Hire blog, “,” that takes you step-by-step through basic due diligence, including searching the Secretary of State’s records. If you haven’t seen it, you should take a look — or at least skim the transcript.
Examples of contract signatures
Here are examples of signature blocks for different types of companies.
Sole proprietorship:
______________________________
Brian Rogers
Sole Proprietor
Sole proprietorship with a fictitious name:
______________________________
Brian Rogers
Sole Proprietor
d/b/a the Contracts Guy
General partnership:
Rogers and Rogers
By: ______________________________
  Brian Rogers
  General Partner
General partnership with a fictitious name:
Rogers and Rogers
d/b/a the Contracts Guy
By: ______________________________
  Brian Rogers
  General Partner
Corporation:
THE CONTRACTS GUY, INC.
By: ______________________________
  Brian Rogers
  President
Corporation with a fictitious name:
BRIAN ROGERS ENTERPRISES, INC.
d/b/a the Contracts Guy
By: ______________________________
  Brian Rogers
  President
Limited liability company:
THE CONTRACTS GUY, LLC
By: ______________________________
  Brian Rogers
  Manager
Limited liability company with a fictitious name:
BRIAN ROGERS ENTERPRISES, LLC
d/b/a the Contracts Guy
By: ______________________________
  Brian Rogers
  Manager
Limited partnership:
THE CONTRACTS GUY, LP
By: ______________________________
  Brian Rogers
  General Partner
Limited partnership with fictitious name:
BRIAN ROGERS ENTERPRISES, LP
d/b/a the Contracts Guy
By: ______________________________
  Brian Rogers
  General Partner
Limited partnership with a corporate general partner:
THE CONTRACTS GUY, LP
By: Brian Rogers Enterprises, Inc., its general partner
  By: ______________________________
    Brian Rogers
    President
[Updated January 9, 2013 and January 11, 2013: I made minor revisions to the signature block examples to conform to the Manual of Style for Contract Drafting.]
Leave a Comment
Receive blog posts by email
Categories
Links of Interest
Blog under the