Monthly Archives: January 2014

Save NYC’s Rizzoli bookstore

I don’t see many petitions I’m inclined to sign but I signed one just a few moments ago. It was a petition to save the building that houses the publisher Rizzoli’s flagship store in a glorious old building on West … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Curse of the ‘Creative Capital’

The rebranding of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC) as the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation (RICC) is complete, and a complete dud. This is the government agency that’s supposed to get the state economy growing again to produce jobs … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“The Monster-Builder” – A play

Nikos Salingaros, the University of Texas mathematician and architectural philosopher whose most trenchant book is Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction, has sent me news of a new play by Amy Freed called “The Monster-Builder,” a play (on words) of Ibsen’s “The Master-Builder.” … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Book/Film Reviews, Providence | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Blast from past: Middle way in architecture?

I here inaugurate a “Blast from the past” feature based on my newly discovered ability to find posts from my lapsed Providence Journal blog, also called Architecture Here and There. I have created a page called Archives From My Old … Continue reading

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A kiss is just a kiss … right?

One of the late Cy Twombly’s untitled paintings, a canvas entirely white, was kissed by French artist Sam Rindy, 30, leaving on the work the red imprint of her lips – the only arguably artistic thing about the painting, which … Continue reading

Posted in Art and design, Blast from past | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

MoMA angst in the modernist world

The Jan. 9 announcement that New York’s Museum of Modern Art would indeed at last tear down the twee Folk Art Museum embedded in its (MoMA’s) glassy skin has brought to the cozy little world of modern architecture a high … Continue reading

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Buda? Pest? Which is best?

Commenter Seth Johnson, a Cincinnati photographer whose fine work may be seen here, wonders which side of Budapest, which spans the Danube in Hungary, is better? Buda is old and Pest is … well, not as old, more populous, more … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Other countries | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Lukacs on winter in Budapest

I skip over a paragraph laden with dark history and continue with John Lukacs’s description of winter in the Budapest of 1900: And then, one morning – it would come as early as in the third week of November, and … Continue reading

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More Lukacs on Budapest

My heart lifts at news that four Hungarians this morning have “viewed” my post of historian John Lukacs’s description of Budapest in 1900. To reward them, here is more from that passage: Summer was hot, hotter than in Vienna, sultry … Continue reading

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John Lukacs on Budapest

This post is a naked attempt to get Hungary onto the list of nations provided to WordPress bloggers to give them an idea of where their posts are being read. I am a quarter Hungarian and my wife Victoria is … Continue reading

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