Monday: Welcome to Hearst's Watery Wonderland, Welcome to Opera Ikea

NY architects, circa 1880 [Metrop.]

• How do you get Mayor Bloomberg, S.I. Newhouse, Arthur Sulzberger, and Ms. Oprah Winfrey in one room together? Cathy Black has the answer--tonight she's hosting the grand opening gala for the new Norman Foster-designed Hearst Tower. These days, $500 million buys you a rainwater waterfall (there's also "The Wave"), and rainwater buys you a "green" certificate. (See below...) (NY Post)
• After his hippy Tribeca rock club closed down, Peter Shapiro formed a environmental consultancy firm named GreenOrder with his brother Andrew. It's been six small years, but their group has helped 7 World Trade Center become New York's first "gold" office building, and now the Shapiros are working with GE's $47.5 billion real estate holdings. Up next: A $2.6 billion environmentally friendly mall in upstate New York. Green greed is good! (NY Times)
• New York's Young Architects' Forum isn't so young anymore. The YAF club--for cool kids like Steven Holl, Neil Denari, and Billie Tsien--is turning 25. Hurrah! Yet this year the group's theme is "instability," which proves that Crash Anxiety has finally spilled over from the brokers and bankers to the architects. (Metropolis)
• The City Opera suffers the daily indignity of performing in the NY State Theater (merely a sound-enhanced ballet hall), though even cheaper is Toronto's new, unfancy "Ikea Opera House." Can imperfect buildings hurt the music? Yes! "Architecture is everything," sneers Anthony Tommasini. (NY Times)
• - Max Abelson