STARCHITECTURE is both promoted and taught as the work architects should aspire to do. But really, it’s the equivalent of the High Fashion seen on the runways at fashion shows, where designers make extreme statements to be provocative and distinguish themselves … Continue reading
The top photo shows, from left to right, the Pierre Hotel, the Sherry-Netherlands Hotel, the Savoy-Plaza Hotel, the Squibb Building, and the Plaza Hotel. In between the Pierre and the Sherry-Netherlands Hotel are the Metropolitan Club and two long-gone buildings. … Continue reading
STEPHEN ALESCH, a partner at Roman and Williams and the designer of the Ace Hotel, Lafayette, the Breslin, the Boom Boom Room, the Dutch, and many more said that last night during a talk at the ICAA. I don’t hate … Continue reading
A STREET seen in Downton Abbey last night (in America), is a CGI creation. It’s a beautiful street, so I’m curious as to what’s real and what’s new. (PS: Answers below.) The way that the arcaded building bumps out at the top of … Continue reading
BROADWAY, Saratoga Springs, New York, back when you could have any color Ford you wanted (as long as it was black), and the Dutch Elm blight hadn’t decimated America. Photograph by Walker Evans.
Photo courtesy of Galina Tahchieva @ DPZ ALMOST ALL STREETS IN PARIS now have speed limits of 20 or 12.5 miles per hour (30 or 20 kph). The rue Norvins in Montmartre was already slower than that. Why? Not because … Continue reading
ALMOST AS SOON AS THE ACE HOTEL OPENED in New York City, the word spread among the cool tech kids and the young beautiful people that the Ace lobby was the place to meet and work. Blogs like This Is Going To Be BIG wrote … Continue reading
ON THE LEFT is a bike lane in Munich. On the right is what is becoming one of the most common American bike lanes, the protected lane on a one-way arterial. The one on the left is good urban design. … Continue reading
IT WAS A PLEASANT SURPRISE to stumble on the Cambridge Public Library addition by Bill Rawn while staying in a B&B across the street. Interesting that when you search online for photographs showing the addition and its relationship to the … Continue reading
Funny that this is the first image that came up when I Googled “What do we want? Change! When do we want it? Now!” “Funny,” because I’m writing about the AIA’s response to the common-sense proposal by Steve Bingler and … Continue reading
More streets posted at photos.massengale.com. Also see Separated At Birth: One Santa Fe & One Western Avenue
ONE’S IN the Los Angeles Arts District, the other’s at Harvard Business School. In addition to the 40-ton Swords of Damocles overhead, they share little human scale* and little to even show that humans live there. The critics love both, … Continue reading
I’M NOT SURE this building comes across well in photographs if you haven’t seen the real thing—but it’s one of my three favorite buildings in Miami, along with Vizcaya and the Biltmore (in the public spaces, including the pool). It’s … Continue reading
AN OP-ED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES by the architect Steven Bingler and the architecture critic Martin Pedersen calls attention to an important architectural problem that has been swept under the rug for quite a while now. Architecture is a public … Continue reading
AN ALPHABETICAL LIST of all the streets illustrated in Street Design. You can also download a sortable Excel list by clicking here. Air Street. London, UK Alta Vista Terrace, Chicago, IL Arcade Santo Stefano, Bologna, IT avenue d’Iena, Paris, FR … Continue reading
STREETSBLOG published this interesting image of a 1914 proposal for Queens Boulevard from the borough’s Chamber of Commerce. They also linked to a recent project for the Boulevard by a group called Planning Corps. I hadn’t seen either of these projects before (although … Continue reading
“If you want to understand what’s most important to a society, don’t examine its art or literature, simply look at its biggest buildings.” ― Joseph Campbell HT Russell Brand, more here
