Category Archives: Architecture

It’s a Wonderful Wall

Here’s a wall that satisfies all of my demands for a fine façade. Hats off to Michael Rouchell, the New Orleans architect who sent the picture of the Emek Theater, in Istanbul, to the TradArch list. He added a comment … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Other countries, Preservation | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Follies at the CNU in Dallas

The big buzz at the annual meeting (the “congress”) of the Congress of the New Urbanism, under way in Dallas, is how lame Dallas Morning News architecture critic Mark Lamster was. Anyone familiar with his writing cannot have been surprised. … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Blast from past, Development, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

For Rhode Islanders only

The trailer for Woody Allen’s movie Irrational Man, filmed on location in Rhode Island, is out. Here it is, released by Sony Picture Classics. Release date is July 24. Let’s see how many places we Rhode Islanders can identify! (Don’t … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Book/Film Reviews, Rhode Island, Video | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A dream to soothe the breast

Who has not claimed to have said that architecture is music frozen in time? Perhaps music is architecture floating into our ear. Anyway, I was just now introduced to the French composer Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924). A blogger on music whose … Continue reading

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Boston’s spooky new T entry

An undercover source in deep infrastructure sent me a surreptitiously snapped photo of the new T entrance at Government Center the other day. The photo was too hot to handle, too ugly even to look at, so I left it … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Development, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Lord Jim’s “Skeffonomics”

Last Friday, when the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission bowed to pressure and let new PawSox owners James Skeffington and Larry Lucchino address the commissioners in public, the wheels of cynicism started spinning furiously. On Monday, when I arrived at the … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Development, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Long city planning grind

James Fallows has written “Nice Downtowns: How Did They Get that Way?” for the Atlantic, about how active city downtowns arise not naturally or organically but are planned. He takes the example of Seattle, which was a hollowed-out reject 50 … Continue reading

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Join my Jane’s Walk again!

I will be giving my second annual Jane’s Walk waterfront tour of downtown Providence on Saturday, May 2, at 1:00 p.m. We will meet at the Crawford Street Bridge – the new and beautiful bridge, not the late, unlamented Guinness … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Art and design, Development, Landscape Architecture, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘So let’s build 500 Shards’

I’ve posted about Create Streets before. The London urbanist organization’s Paul Murrain, who once worked with Andrés Duany on downtown Providence, has written a thoughtful and passionate “J’Accuse!” – called “London Deserves Better Than This” on PDF at the website … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Other countries, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

More new crap at Brown

Brown apparently regrets its beauty and wants to be among the ugliest schools in the Ivy League. This is the only conclusion that comports with the fact of what it builds on campus. The latest is the Applied Math Building … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Development, Providence | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments