Category Archives: Current

“Ninety-eight percent of the people who hang out in our restaurants hate glass towers”

by John Massengale Posted on January 30, 2015

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 →

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Slow Street of the Day – Rue Norvins, Paris

by John Massengale Posted on January 10, 2015

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 →

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“We are an evil people, and we deserve to be punished”

by John Massengale Posted on January 9, 2015

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 →

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The Problem Is Not The Starchitecture. The Problem Is What Gets Left Out Of The Discussion.

by John Massengale Posted on January 7, 2015

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 →

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What do we want? Change! When do we want it? Now!

by John Massengale Posted on December 29, 2014

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 →

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Separated At Birth: One Santa Fe & One Western Avenue

by John Massengale Posted on December 22, 2014

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 →

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The Good Kind: Lincoln Road Garage by Herzon & De Meuron

by John Massengale Posted on December 19, 2014

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 →

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Affordable Housing & The Boulevard of Death Followup

by John Massengale Posted on December 2, 2014

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 →

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Slow Street of the Day

by John Massengale Posted on December 1, 2014

Via della Dogana Vecchia, Rome Click on the image for larger version HANS MONDERMAN AND SHARED SPACE are all the rage, but the Italians starting making slow streets in the late 1960s without naming them. Rome and Bologna don’t have … Continue reading →

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The NJIT Architecture School said, “Kean University’s proposal of a curriculum of ‘drawing by hand’ does not recognize the demands of today’s job market.”

by John Massengale Posted on October 31, 2014

Kean University, a state school six miles away from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, another public university, has announced that they will open the Michael Graves School of Architecture. According to articles in the New Jersey Record, NJIT is … Continue reading →

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“One entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat.”

by John Massengale Posted on October 29, 2014

That’s the famous quote by the immortal Vincent Scully about Penn Station, where demolition started fifty-one years ago today. But stay tuned—some interesting things are starting to happen, and they’re not the things you’ve been reading about. More photos here … Continue reading →

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