Category Archives: Architecture

Times Sq. billboards at risk?

Leave it to Kristen Richards and ArchNewsNow.com to post an article relevent to my own personal agenda – in this case, my trip down to New York City on Amtrak, starting in two hours and 26 minutes. That’s when our … Continue reading

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Style in words and buildings

Andres Duany in his treatise Heterodoxia Architectonica engages the concept of classicism’s relation to language. Umberto Eco, in his On Literature, engages the concept of language’s relation to style. This blog is about the “style wars” of classicism versus modernism. In … Continue reading

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“The People vs. Modernism”

Malcolm Millais has sent me another video, this one entitled “The People vs. Modernism.” What a glorious compiliation! Beneath a score of ominous music selected from the depths of the minor key, its creators, who refer to themselves as ArchitectureMMXII, … Continue reading

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Preservation hits the bottom

The New York Landmarks Preservation Commission has almost hit rock bottom. It has approved a restoration project that preserves a building – and its graffiti. The website New York YIMBY reports the ruling in “Landmarks Approves Restoration and Conversion of … Continue reading

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Why is modern art so bad?

Malcolm Millais, author of Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture and an upcoming book correcting the record on Le Corbusier, sent me a video of an artist, Robert Florczak, at Prager University, explaining the erosion of standards in the art world … Continue reading

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My 15 minutes of fame!

James Howard Kunstler, coiner of the word “crudscape,” author of great books from The Geography of Nowhere to World Built By Hand to The Long Emergency, lecturer extraordinaire, has picked up my denunciation of the new T entry at Government … Continue reading

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5th Ave., 8 BR, city view

A friend who used to be a big wheel in Providence development circles, Lee Juskalian, keeps tabs through me (and others) on development around here (though he has lived in California for years). Lee, who now travels and surfs, has … Continue reading

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BIG kicks Foster off 2 WTC?

The idea that the developers of the 2 WTC megalith – the last major skyscraper of the World Trade Center rebuild – might send Sir Norman Foster packing delights me. The idea of booting the architect even as his tower … Continue reading

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Classical cataclysm in Nepal

The death toll from earthquakes in Nepal have reached well into the thousands. Coverage of rescue efforts has understandably taken priority over news of the terrible cultural cost of the disaster. The Nepalese capital of Kathmandu and other ancient centers … Continue reading

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Build McKim’s Penn Station

Traditional Building has published an important essay, “Rebuilding McKim’s Penn Station,” by the magazine’s eminence gris, Clem Labine, announcing a major plan to reverse one of America’s most egregious civic mistakes. The plan, by architect Richard Cameron, of Atelier & … Continue reading

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