Category Archives: Urbanism and planning

Cranston’s Hall Free Library

Your intrepid correspondent met on Friday at the William Hall Free Library, in the Edgewood neighborhood of Cranston, with Clayton Fulkerson to view his models of ancient temples, now on exhibit there through the rest of this month. The library, … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Landscape Architecture, Photography, Preservation, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Paris strong, Paris beautiful

Very little suggests itself to me in reply to last night’s evil events in Paris except to assert, a year after the Charlie Hebdo attack, that America still has France’s back. America is next. It becomes deadly clear that the … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Other countries, Photography, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

SOS for lonely medical relic

It appears that the days are numbered for the sad, lonely final relic of the old Rhode Island Hospital. The Providence Journal’s Patrick Anderson reports in “Rhode Island Hospital plans to raze 115-year-old Southwest Pavilion, last remaining building from original … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

WWII Memorial on Vets Day

Here are some photographs I took of the National World War II Memorial on the mall at Washington in 2011. The memorial was designed by Rhode Island architect Friedrich St. Florian, who won an international design competition in 1997. To … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Photography, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

To guide or not to guide?

Above is a photograph of construction under way for apartments in the Cherry Creek North district of Denver. Is the glass-and-steel structure to the right part of the project or does it just abut the project? Either way, it casts … Continue reading

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

Dorothy in “Renderland”

Given the apparent difficulty architects have designing places that improve rather than undermine their settings, I was amused at the crie de coeur from art critic Mary Louise Schumacher of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about the figures – known in the … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Development, Landscape Architecture, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

Eviscerating Edinburgh

The iconic photograph of Edinburgh, above, testifies to what Scotland’s capital and leading city have to lose in a recent rush to development. The United Nations agency that oversees its World Heritage Cities program, UNESCO, has been asked to remove … Continue reading

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

“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

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

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

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

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

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Development, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments