Category Archives: Culture
City of the Day
No this one:
“Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants”
IF TROMBONE SHORTY were an architect, his fellow architects would say his music is “nostalgic” and “pastiche,” because he draws so heavily on the musical traditions of New Orleans. Luckily for us, musicians are smarter than that. The White House loves … Continue reading
New Building for New Orleans
MANY ARCHITECTS will call this design “kitsch,” “pastiche,” or “nostalgic.” Pastiche means “an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period,” so it’s not really a criticism, although they mean it to be. For that matter, … Continue reading
Long may she reign
Lady Liberty first sailed into New York harbor 130 years ago today.
Before & After Photos from NY.Curbed.com
OVER AT CURBED—or after the jump—you can see these with sliders that go between the new and the old:
Selling Snow To Eskimos Part II (BIG Photobombs Tribeca)
UPDATE: I rode a bike from Lafayette Street to the Hudson River today. At the beginning of the ride I looked up Broadway and saw the top of the Chrysler Building. At Fifth Avenue the Empire State Building came into … Continue reading
The Medium Is The Mechanism
Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting … Continue reading
Live from New York
Our new neighborhood to be… Live from New York photos
Honestly, isn’t this building giving New Yorkers the finger?
UPDATE: When I first published this quick post in September 2014, for some reason it attracted comments from young architects who not only wanted to defend the building, but who saw my comments as ridiculous. In retrospect, it’s obvious that … Continue reading
Swedish Streets
THE EXCELLENT NEW BOOK SWEDISH GRACE has this interesting sidebar: I’m just starting the book, but it looks great. And note that the streets that look like cul-de-sacs actually connect through the buildings to the next street. Street Design: Buildings That … Continue reading
Happy Earth Day — The 21st Century Is The New Sixties?
EARTH DAY reminded me of my old friend Konrad Oberhuber, an art historian at Harvard when I met him, who later became the Curator of the Albertina in Vienna. In 1983 I went on a Fogg Museum trip to Prague with Konrad … Continue reading
“There are no unsacred places, there are only sacred places and desecrated places’’ — Wendell Berry
Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day
“On the screens of my sharpest young students are no longer the parametric pinwheels or blobby billows that were a digitally enhanced memory of the last self-consciously curated consensus style, so-called Deconstructivism. Instead it’s all 1986, all the time: James … Continue reading
Guess The City (without using Google image search)
Today’s Mystery Street: At the moment, Google Image Search suggests vanessa hudgens paparazzi, but I imagine that will improve. PS UPDATE: Sad to say, it’s the same city as the one in the Bike Lane of the Day.
Bicycle Lane of the Day
This One’s Better Than That One
Yes, Staten Island, my birthplace
Click on any of the images for a larger view THE MYSTERY LOCATION is Historic Richmond Town, on Staten Island. I like the house because of it’s simplicity, harmony, proportions, composition, materials, colors—and the beautiful street trees.