Category Archives: Architecture

Morgan on Cram’s All Saints

I direct readers to William Morgan’s splendid review in Design New England of the restoration of Ralph Adams Cram’s All Saints Church, in Dorchester, Mass. In part, I suppose, this post makes up for (and yet does not apologize for) … Continue reading

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“Rightsizing” Providence

The King’s Cathedral, a church in Olneyville whose motto is “Where Everyone Is Royalty,” and its leader Bishop Jeffrey Williams hosted the inaugural session of this year’s “Beyond Buildings” symposium of the Providence Preservation Society. “Beyond Buildings” rubs me wrong, … Continue reading

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Nat’s natural advocacy op

The American Museum of Natural History, in New York City, has announced plans to build an addition that would fill up the lovely garden space known as Theodore Roosevelt Park, where Billy, Victoria and I sojourned for half an hour … Continue reading

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“Lost in a Good Book”

To illustrate the generally ecumenical theme of this blog, I will quote a few passages from Lost in a Good Book, a sci-fi comic thriller by Jasper Fforde, in which heroine Thursday Next, a literary detective who can jump in … Continue reading

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Misconstruing “starchitect”

Kriston Capps’s piece for CityLab, “Leave Starchitects Alone,” is filled with so much hooey that I am embarrassed to be inflicting it on my readers. It is part of the continuing effort to tar opposition to modern architecture as partisan … Continue reading

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Loopy inSANAA “River”

My life as a reporter of architectural design review proceedings has over-taxed my ocular muscularity. My eyeballs roll furiously whenever an architect declares that his building’s “remarkable transparency” allows it to give “new meaning to the concept of ‘blending in.’” … Continue reading

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Walker: “Babylon electrified”

Nathaniel Robert Walker, whose essay on food and architecture many readers here recall fondly, has sent me another essay, this one entitled “Babylon Electrified: Oriental Hybridity as Futurism in Victorian Utopian Architecture.” The title may sound daunting but, as with … Continue reading

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My haunted reading list

Two days after Halloween and and two days before the 600th anniversary of the battle of Agincourt on Wednesday*, my reading list runneth over with coincidence. Apropos of nothing to do with this blog about architecture – hence the castle … Continue reading

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Haunting if not haunted

Now this is more like it. Here, courtesy of Mental Floss, are “26 Hauntingly Beautiful Photos of Abandoned Homes Across America,” houses that look haunted, that may be haunted. They are merely abandoned, and too bad! They are more the … Continue reading

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Haunted houses in America

GTECH headquarters is certainly the scariest building in Providence, even with the recent relocation there of Capital Grille (from Union Station!), following in the brave footsteps of Ruth’s Chris Steak House. But GTECH is not haunted. It is scary. Not … Continue reading

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