(Courtesy The Empty Quarter, Dubai)

'Tis the season for Paris Photo, where 102 galleries and publishers from 23 countries are taking part in the world's leading photography fair. This year's fair, which runs through Sunday at the Carrousel du Louvre, spotlights Arab and Iranian photography with a three-part project curated by Catherine David. Among the first orders of business was the announcement of the winner of the BMW - Paris Photo Prize for contemporary photography, a $15,000 award given annually to an artist whose work best embodies a given theme. The 2009 theme, tied to BMW France's ad campaign, was "When was the last time you experienced something for the first time?"

The winner is Karijn Kakebeeke, a Dutch photographer who is represented by Dubai gallery The Empty Quarter. Kakebeeke, 35, is known for photojournalistic images like "Khadija's Dream" (2006, pictured above), her prizewinning work that records the moment when a girl named Khadija first played with a soccer ball. Today Khadija is a member of Afghanistan's first female soccer team. For Matthias Harder, curator at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin and a member of the 2009 BMW - Paris Photo Prize jury, the image shows "a glimpse of happiness," he said in a statement. "Kakebeeke's genre scene convinced the jury owing to the controversial nature of the topic chosen and its relevance to the given theme."

Way back when in 2007, we were one of the first outlets to tell you that Robert A.M. Stern had been hired to design the George W. Bush Presidential Center, then again earlier this year about its sudden increase in size and Laura Bush finding a landscape architect for the project (who, while we're mentioning Michael Van Valkenburg, was also just hired to work on Chicago's Grant Park). But other than those little bits and pieces, there hasn't been much news coming out of Southern Methodist University, where the center will be built. But now you can expect a lot more talk in the coming years, as this week Mrs. Bush revealed the plans for the new building and its surroundings. Personally, our review of Stern's work is that, well, it's fine. Perfectly pleasant, but likely nothing that future generations will be studying or getting excited about. That seems to be the consensus among most professional critics too. Christopher Hawthorne starts his review "George W. Bush was a lightning rod of a politician. His presidential library is meant to be anything but" and seems to keep to that theme throughout. Here in Chicago, Blair Kamin reports mostly on the news of the release, but does offer some small bits of evaluation, saying that the plans are slightly less than traditional, but "they are by no means as boldly modern as the bridge-inspired William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum in Little Rock, Ark." We're not anxiously awaiting its completion, like we are with some projects, but we'll hold off on any complete judgment until the building is finished, which is currently projected to be around 2013.

Last week marked the opening of starchitect Zaha Hadid's Maxxi, a museum housing contemporary art, in Rome. The NY Times resident critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff decided to open his recent (and glowing) review of the new building, "What would Pope Urban VIII have made of Maxxi....? My guess is that he would have been ecstatic." Funny that he should mention popes, because while Hadid couldn't go back in time to meet Urban VIII (she doesn't want to reveal that her spaceship has a time machine just yet), she is set to join a delegation of 262 artists to meet Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday in the Sistine Chapel. Granted, given the size of the visiting party (other participants in this very mixed bag include Andrea Bocelli and Salieri himself, F. Murray Abraham), Hadid and his holiness probably won't get to speak much ("Hey, I dig your building!" "Thanks, man!"), but it's still a nice mental picture to carry with you this weekend. For more reading, we recommend checking out the Providence Journal's David Brussart's anti-modernism screed against Hadid and her ilk, wherein he asks the pope "to not fall victim to the smooth rhetoric of modernist propaganda."

Sad news to start off the day with. Late yesterday, it was reported that Jeanne-Claude, the French artist who was married to and collaborated with Christo on a wide-variety of massive projects that largely involved huge installations, like "The Umbrellas" in Japan and "The Gates" in New York's Central Park, has passed away due to complications from a ruptured brain aneurysm. Although frequently controversial, the pair showed incredible perseverance with their projects against what always seemed like insurmountable odds, and in the end were often rewarded with praise, even if not everyone passing by fully understood what they were going for (it wouldn't seem like it, but for some nice remembrances, check out their "Common Errors" page and read through the pages of misconceptions). On the artists' site, Christo has said the couple's work will continue, which we can assume he's referring to their planned work in the UAE and in Colorado. The Washington Post has put together this slideshow, taking a look at Jean-Claude's life. Here's a bit from the NY Daily News about Michael Bloomberg's response:

Mayor Bloomberg said Thursday he offered his condolences to Christo in a phone call. He praised them as visionaries who brightened the city and showed the world how art can transform an everyday view into something magical.

"It gave New Yorkers a whole different view of the city, of themselves. It helped tourism, but more than anything else, it expanded our minds and gave all of us for a number of days a chance to think about how big the world is, and Jean-Claude and Christo have really always thought bigger than the rest of us," Bloomberg said.

If we weren't saving up all of our spending money (in a Harry Allen-designed piggy bank, naturally) for Art Basel Miami, we would be snapping up one of those freshly discounted airfares to London. Once deposited across the pond, we'd head straight for the Ed Ruscha retrospective at the Hayward. After stopping off to check out the Glenn Brown show at Gagosian and a tour of Gensler-designed Horseferry House (Burberry's new global headquarters), we would repair to our hotel for a scone or two. That hotel, of course, would be Claridge's, and not just because it is home to a sublime set of suites designed by David Linley. The hotel has signed up Christian Dior creative director John Galliano to work his magic on its Christmas tree. He is the first fashion designer to get the gig.

Upon hearing the news, we wondered if Galliano would return to one of his great themes of seasons past: pirates, geishas, toreadors, Joan Crawford? He's elected to go tropical by way of the orient, with a papier-mâché tree adorned with crystals, sparkling leaves, and orchids. The shimmery blue and white palette recalls that of the Empress Josephine-inspired gowns he sent down the runway for the spring 2005 Dior couture collection. "I hope to bring a twist to the traditional tree," said Galliano in a statement. "I want to combine the festive with the innovative, the spirit of Dior with the beauty of Claridge's, and create something spectacular that will inspire the perfect start to the season!" The tree will be unveiled in the lobby of Claridge's on December 1.

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High-flying advertising executive turned author James Othmer's new book, Adland: Searching for Life on a Branded Planet (Doubleday), offers an inside look at the past, present, and future of the ad industry. His tales of the wild and morally questionable ride from the days of Mad Men to branded iPhone apps have proved to be a hit with readers, and AgencySpy editor Mathew van Hoven recently caught up with Othmer for an illuminating chat. In addition to revealing that he parted ways with one of his first literary agents when she quit to enroll in clown school, Othmer offers this tantalizing synopsis of his next book, a novel called Holy Water that will be out in June from Doubleday:

It's about a water-filtration salesman who gets transferred to a third-world nation to open up a back office in a drought-plagued nation. His wife has thrown him out of the house because he lied about his vasectomy. It's one of those books. But he's vice president of Underarms and Sweat at a P&G Colgate-like multinational. It's this kind of droning job. It touches upon globalization, consumerism, 'What are we doing with our lives?'

A year and a half after he stepped up to replace longtime Vogue design director Charles Churchward, Danko Steiner has decided to leave the magazine. He is concluding his four-year tenure at Vogue to pursue photography, according to a report from WWD. Editor-in-chief Anna Wintour is bringing in Raúl Martinez, principal and chief creative officer of AR New York, as creative consultant. Martinez, whose firm has masterminded branding and advertising for the likes of Brioni and Narciso Rodriguez, has a history with Wintour, having worked with her to relaunch House and Garden and later serving as Vogue's creative director. He returns to the fold on December 1.

We've seen celebrities "design" piles upon piles of clothing, shoes, and anything else they can get their grubby little celebrity hands on. But now singer/songwriter Taylor Swift can lay claim to being the first to get into the lucrative greeting card market (those cards with people like Sigourney Weaver telling you to have a happy birthday are just photo licensing deals, we're pretty sure). The American Greeting Cards Corporation has announced that Swift will be writing and designing her own line for them, offering ways for people to say the things they want to say to their loved ones the only way they know how: through a three dollar piece of paper with the singer's head printed on it. Here's a bit of fluff:

During a visit to American Greetings' Brooklyn headquarters last month, Taylor came up with some "fantastic" concepts, said Kelly Ricker, executive director of product development.

..."She does the same thing that we do at American Greetings - connecting people with life experiences - but she does it with her music and her guitar," he said.

We pick you up and then drop you back down. Sorry, but that's just how we roll around here. As positive as that last post was about the Billings Index rise, that doesn't necessarily mean much to a project that's getting shut down. So it is for UC Berkley, who wanted to build a swanky new building for the Berkley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive, designed by Toyo Ito and "estimated to cost $143 million" according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Unfortunately, as plans had moved forward since its original conception more than three years ago, it was decided that they just hadn't raised enough money for it and the whole thing would have to be shut down. However, while that building itself might now be just a memory, the university hasn't given up entirely and hopes to at least do something new (albeit on a tighter budget):

"The creation of a new home for the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in downtown Berkeley continues to be a crucial step in UC Berkeley's longstanding commitment to the visual arts and to engagement with our broader community," said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. "While the architectural plans will change, what will not change is our shared goal of building a dynamic, welcoming, and seismically safe new museum at the corner of Center and Oxford streets."

Have we survived? Have we really put these dark days behind us and come out alive? So it might seem when you hear the news that the AIA's Architecture Billing Index is finally back to the levels it was at in August of 2008, right before the world fell apart. Granted, it's only three points higher than it was back in late-August of this year, and at 46.1 it's still below 50, indicating that there are still more building jobs finishing than starting, but it's still a positive sign. Though certainly no one wants to make the mistake of thinking things are good before they rapidly plunge again, like what surprised everyone with back in July. Here's a bit from the AIA's always-leery-to-predict-anything Kermit Baker:

The increase in billings could be "an early signal towards a recovery for the design and construction industry," said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker.

"On the other hand, because we continue to get reports of architecture firms struggling in a competitive marketplace with a continued decline in commercial property values, it is far too early to think we are out of the woods."

Does this all mean, short of just a couple months, that Marvin Malecha was right all along with his predictions late last year? After occasionally poking fun at his more happy vision for the future, this writer feels a little dumb in doubting him. But it's hard to see any sunshine through a full year of gloom, Marvin. Please understand! Apologies to people we don't know personally aside, if you want to read more about this latest uptick, the LA Times has some additional conversation with Baker about things maybe getting better.

If you like interesting or attractive scenery, but particularly if you enjoy looking at it through windows, 2009 is going to be a red letter year for you, given that there are two new books available that provide just that. First up is Matteo Pericoli's The City Out My Window: 63 Views on New York, where the artist asked well-known New Yorkers to let him come in and recreate the view from the windows they look out of everyday, be that at home or at their offices. The participants include Nora Ephron, David Byrne, Stephen Colbert, and a whole host of others (New York's Daily Intel has a nice slideshow of a few -- you can also take a peek at a few more pieces at Google Books, though some of the image scans are a bit wonky). Second is a bound edition of images from political writer/blogger Andrew Sullivan, taken from the regular series on his The Daily Dish, "The View from Your Window" (the book, appropriately, will take the same name, along with the caption "The world as seen by the readers of one blog.") Instead of heading to a publisher, Sullivan decided to ask his readers if they would want such a book. Because the response was good, he decided to go the self-publishing route, getting on board with Blurb.com to help put it out, all the while asking his readers for pledges to buy the book to try and drive the costs down and be able to print extra copies. It has ultimately arrived at $16.25 and is set to ship on December 3rd.

Are your photos worth thousands of words? Thousands of dollars? Thousands more photos? Pulitzer Prize-winning photo editor Stella Kramer will help you get the picture—and figure out where to sell it—at mediabistro.com's one-night Photography Portfolio Review on Wednesday, December 16 in New York. Come to get your book critiqued and edited, stay to learn practical information and insider tips on how to get magazine jobs and build a career as an editorial freelancer. A more dynamic, lucrative portfolio is a click away.