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
Big Finance: Most people don’t realize that Big Finance is the engine driving the global movement that has the Mayors of New York, London, and Paris promoting shiny Starchitecture indistinguishable from the shiny Starchitecture in Dubai, Mumbai, and Shanghai (always in … Continue reading
See it in the New York Times
Perot Museum of Nature and Science, Dallas, Texas, meet The Borg, Alpha Quadrant, Outer Space. People have long said that Thom Mayne’s buildings have all the human scale and attractiveness of menacing alien spaceships,* but “Why ask why?” — “Resistance … Continue reading
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Sitting is the new smoking. Speeding on city streets is the new DUI.
ENGINEER CHARLES MAROHN makes his usual insightful and interesting points in a post about Ferguson, Missouri on the Strong Towns blog (below). I happened to read the post just before reading an article in the Guardian that had many long quotes from … Continue reading
THIS CITY-SIZED electric delivery truck is no longer made. Built by NaviStar (once known as International Harvester) with a grant from the Obama administration, it seems like exactly what our cities need to save energy and reduce pollution and congestion. … Continue reading
A “social and collaborative work environment” in East London, built for £80,000. The architects clad the building with concrete tiles made on the site. Rowan Moore, “Assemble: from pop-ups to grown-ups,” The Observer (5 July 2014).
Bicycle Lanes and Cycle Tracks in Europe, “A Street Is A Terrible Thing To Waste,” Street Design, The Secret to Great Cities and Towns, page 375
A few days ago I wrote, Why? Because the pedestrians and cyclists are not killing the drivers: drivers going fast enough to kill any pedestrian they hit are causing one-hundred percent of the fatalities. If the drivers slowed down to … Continue reading
We’re starting to see that people in the 21st century are rejecting many of the trends of the late 20th century. Just as architecture and urbanism in the second half of the 20th century were very different than they had been … Continue reading
More information here & here And these are the solutions:
Technology can supply some of our favorite and most-loved things, but most of the time, we use it in a way that inadequately expresses human experience and aspirations.
A NEW YORK CITY MTA Bus almost ran me over this morning as I WALKED my bike in a crosswalk with a green light. Before he almost ran me over the driver honked at me, loudly, to tell me to … Continue reading
THIS IS WORTH REPOSTING because it was through this post that I met my friend Robert LaValva, who founded and runs the New Amsterdam Market. I made the following comment at Design Observer in response to a post on the … Continue reading
WE FREQUENTLY READ that New York is incomparably better today than 40 years ago. Yes and no. Crime is down, but buildings are up—to the degree that too much of a good thing is bad. Fifty-seventh Street will soon have … Continue reading
