Category Archives: Architects

“Orchestrate a Renaissance”

Composing a comeback for classical music and classical architecture is the twin purpose, or so it seems, of the Future Symphony Institute, founded in Baltimore by Andrew Balio, the principal trumpet of that city’s symphony orchestra. Its latest project is … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

6th annual Bulfinch winners

The New England chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art has announced this year’s winners of its Bulfinch Awards, which honor work in classical architecture, urbanism and allied arts. This year for the first time the chapter invited … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Landscape Architecture, Preservation, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Two agin transforming Prov.

Here are two columns I wrote long ago about the “Transforming Providence” symposium held at RISD Auditorium in November 2000. The first ran before the event, the second after the event. They represent my occasional effort to promote some sort … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Blast from past, Development, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Reinvent” (destroy) Paris

Here is the Reinventing Paris video displaying, in quick succession, the 23 finalists for 23 development sites in a contest sponsored by the municipality under Mayor Anne Hidalgo. The text is in French, and I cannot therefore reconcile why it refers … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bevan’s “modest revival”

Last week, in “Zaha Hadid gets RIBA medal,” I wrote that Hadid complained about “a tilt toward tradition in London architecture that only she is able to perceive.” I was wrong. The British critic Robert Bevan sees it, too: a … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Other countries, Providence, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Zaha Hadid gets RIBA medal

The Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid has received the Gold Medal for Architecture from the Royal Institute of British Architects. She spoke to RIBA upon receiving the award and launched a tirade against tradition. Notwithstanding her complaints, London, where she set … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Schumacher’s Pritzker feint

Patrik Schumacher, who runs Zaha Hadid’s office and involves himself in the modernist discourse, has used his Facebook page to criticize the Pritzker jury’s choice of Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena. His critique mimics his recent, widely condemned, critique of the … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Other countries, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Comedia della postal mod

The humorist and fenestration cleanliness engineer Stevenson Hugh Mields has sent along another First Issue envelope with an engraving of not one but two proposed modernist plans, which he has named “Optical Illusion,” and which I have placed for readers’ … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Humor, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Scott Merrill’s Driehaus

Scott Merrill, an architect best known for his work in Seaside and other New Urbanist communities, has won this year’s Driehaus Prize, annually awarded by the school of architecture at the University of Notre Dame. Named for Chicago philanthropist and … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bowdlerizing Mozart

In a passage from Wolfgang Hildesheimer’s biography, Mozart, the author discusses posterity’s attempt to sanitize the composer, including his operatic music, some of which sang out in the sort of joy that stuffed-shirt guardians of society’s morality can’t abide. But … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment