Anne Mooney is a Top Women in Architecture Honoree by Mountain Living Magazine

Sparano + Mooney Architecture is pleased to announce that our Principal Architect and Co-Founder, Anne Mooney is one of this year’s recipients of the Mountain Living Magazine’s Top Female Architects!

Anne was educated in architecture at Columbia University in New York, and at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) where she studied in Switzerland and Los Angeles. Anne has achieved professional distinctions as an architectural practitioner, professor and design critic, and her award-winning designs have been featured in publications and exhibitions in the United States, Canada, China, England, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Japan.

Art, Architecture, History + Identity: The Chicago Architecture Biennial

Chicago may be known as the Windy City, but for architecture aficionados, the metropolis is a veritable treasure trove of world-renowned architectural gems. From historic structures including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House (1910), Mies van der Rohe’s Federal Center complex (1974), and Bertrand Goldberg’s Marina City (1964), to more recent structures such as Studio Gang’s Aqua (2009), Chicago boasts numerous architectural landmarks. Though our firm of Salt Lake City and Los Angeles architects are based in the American West, we nevertheless have closely followed the most recent incarnation of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, a showcase of over 140 architects and artists, exhibitions and events across the city, free and open to the public. Hurry! The events come to a close in early January, so if you find yourself in need of inspiration to start the new year, make haste to this cultural hub and take advantage of the truly breathtaking array of architectural wonders on offer.

Fanatical about Form + Fashion: The Work of Cristóbal Balenciaga

Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895-1972) left such an indelible mark on the world of fashion design that his contemporary Coco Chanel once described him as the “only couturier in the truest sense of the word. The others are simply fashion designers”. This is high praise from fashion’s grande dame, and a new exhibition at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, titled Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion, seeks to uncover why this virtuoso is universally regarded as the maestro of modern fashion design, haute couture, and architectural cut, shape and material.

California Cool: The Met Archive goes Digital, Online, and Free

Smooth aesthetics, a razor sharp cultural focus, and the cutting edge of art, architecture and design – for those who call Los Angeles home, it might be all bright-lights-big-city, the epicenter of California cool and an endless vista of sophisticated whimsy, but we rarely stop to ponder from where this wellspring of American popular culture was sprung. As contemporary Los Angeles architects, we are constantly influenced by the legacy of SoCal pioneers such as Charles and Ray Eames, Richard Neutra, and John Lautner. But what about those who came before? Those who laid the ground work, built the infrastructure of architecture we now enjoy, and first realized the potential of this light and languid landscape; who saw a future in the mountainous backdrop and promoted a substance of architectural style to the masses who might want to go west and prosper? Thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which has recently digitized a large portion of its photographic design archive, we can now glimpse the nascence of the metropolis and its surrounding territory.

From Venice Beach to the Venice Architecture Biennale: the “Wayward Eye” of Denise Scott Brown

Every two years, the international architecture community comes together for a truly inspirational presentation: the Venice Architecture Biennale. Held in Venice, Italy, the 2016 edition runs from May 28th until November 27th, and includes 88 participants from 37 countries, as well as 62 national participants and a curated selection of associated events. The Biennale is truly THE place to engage with cutting-edge, thought-provoking architecture – which is why, when Anne Mooney and John Sparano recently visited Venice, they understandably made the Biennale the focus of their stay. Here, we present a blog series about their architectural discoveries…

SPARANO + MOONEY ARCHITECTURE