“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
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.
This One’s Better Than That One
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.
THIS NEW MAP from the NYC DOT shows where pedestrians are killed in Manhattan. The overwhelming majority of the deaths happen to city residents who don’t own cars, to workers in the Manhattan who used public transit for their commute, … Continue reading
Click on any of the images for a larger view
THIS IS COMMON SENSE: Eliminate one way or another many inexpensive rental apartments and then build super-luxury condominiums targeted at non-resident foreigners who own half of all the wealth in the world and you will soon find that the laws of … 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
SEEN ON PARK AVENUE at 63rd Street, an old Cinquecento and a Honda Odyssey “Minivan.” This photo has not been Photoshopped or altered in any way. #climatechange
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.
It was meant to trumpet an aspirational lifestyle and showcase the very pinnacle of luxury living in one of London’s most exclusive new residential towers, where penthouses are currently on the market for over £4m. But property developer Redrow’s latest … 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
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
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
The psychotherapist Carl Jung wrote about everything, including traffic engineers: All time-saving methods, to which alleviaton of traffic congestion and other conveniences belong, do not, paradoxically, save any time, but simply fill the time available in such a manner that … 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
