Monthly Archives: May 2018

Steampunk vid of New York

Came across this film, “The Old New World,” of New York and bits of Boston and Washington, D.C. (the Capitol), in about 1931, on the Kuriositas website. It is the Old New World Project run by Alexey Zakharoff. It is … Continue reading

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House of (52,000) Cards

Here’s something from CBS Evening News involving architecture – a Harvard grad named Bryan Berg who builds houses of cards. He may not have (as he admits) a full deck but he certainly uses more than one of them to … Continue reading

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Plymouth after World War II

Mark Motte, author with Francis Leazes of Providence: The Renaissance City, urged me to view an old documentary on video called “How We Live Now,” filmed in 1946, about the effort to rebuild Plymouth, the most heavily bombed city per … Continue reading

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Sir Roger Scruton on beauty

Here is a lovely video of the British philosopher and architectural theorist Roger Scruton called “Why Beauty Matters.” The usefulness of beauty in uplifting human lives serves as the bottom-line rationale for my book Lost Providence. But if you have … Continue reading

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See blogs while I’m in D.C.

Readers who get my blog posts by email from my blog lists (including folks on TradArch and Pro-Urb) may visit my blog directly to get my posts while I’m in the Washington area these next few days. Just type: Architecture … Continue reading

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Come visit these videos

[Today, I fly off for several days in my hometown, the District of Columbia. While I am away, instead of giving my blog a vacation, I will steal some old posts (all featuring videos) from my archives. Enjoy. Back next … Continue reading

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I-195 eastern front heats up

The I-195 Redevelopment District Commission hosted the latest skirmish in the war among three developers to win the commission’s approval to build on the east bank of the Providence River. I arrived at the public hearing but had to leave … Continue reading

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Bugs remember the Alamo

What would happen if giant insects from the future attacked an Alamo defended by the stars of the greatest westerns of Hollywood? We have an answer. Yeah! That’s what happens in “Far Alamo: Your Western Heroes vs. the Bugs from … Continue reading

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Village blog or baluster blog

The delightful LeveVeg blog – meaning “way of life” in Norwegian – replied to my recent expression of pleasure at the illustration on top of the Village Forum blog. It is a painting of a distant village, reproduced at the … Continue reading

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Fine wrinkles on Alexander

Some very interesting commenters have responded to my post “Chris Alexander’s cosmos.” The title of Alexander’s most celebrated book, A Pattern Language, spoke so directly in a mere three words to my nascent views on architecture long, long ago that … Continue reading

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