Category Archives: Urbanism and planning

Whale of a museum wing

A storm threatened to lash the Whaling Museum in New Bedford yesterday, violent enough in prospect to counsel against a trip there with family. But today we went, or at least Billy and I did. Last week, despite dulcet weather … Continue reading

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Astonishing Ishmael in N.B.

Traveling with my son Billy to New Bedford today, eager to check out the new addition to its famous Whaling museum, here is my column from 1997 about the Whaling City. The aquarium proposed for N.B. has not yet been … Continue reading

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Monsters at gates of Paris

A riveting photo essay about public housing primarily for immigrants to France, based on an exhibit of the photography of Laurent Kronental, brings to mind the damage to the world done by founding modernist Le Corbusier. “A poetic vision of … Continue reading

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

Goldberger on Newport

Here is the column from 1997 about Paul Goldberger’s lecture in Newport that I refer to in my blog “Botching history in Newport.” The illustration above, which went viral online, is from an recent exhibit at the Newport Historical Society. … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Blast from past, Development, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Botching history in Newport

In 1997, the Newport Historical Society hired Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for the New York Times at the time and then the author of The New Yorker’s storied “The Sky Line” column (and today the critic at Vanity Fair), to … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Preservation, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Critic Moore on Zaha Hadid

Rowan Moore, the powerful British architecture critic of the powerful Guardian newspaper in Britain, has done a profile of Zaha Hadid and her life’s work thus far. Moore is not impressed, and his profile is a catalogue of the many … Continue reading

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Canoe canoe, Canada?

“Canoe Canoe?” Remember that jingle from the ad for cologne back in, what, the 1970s or ’80s? Get it? Can you canoe! It rushed to mind with news that the design competition for a relocated Canadian Canoe Museum, in Peterborough, … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Architecture and friendliness

My friend Cliff Vanover just sent me a link to Travel & Leisure’s new survey on the 266 places that made it onto its list of World’s Unfriendliest Cities. The unfriendliest was Moscow. A hint of political bias, perhaps? How … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Other countries, Photography, Providence, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Architecture and happiness

In “Why the ‘happiest’ cities are boring,” John Kay of the Financial Times makes a series of very important distinctions between happy cities and great cities, and in doing so he challenges most of the reigning official definitions of happiness … Continue reading

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Mod dorms bite the dust

Perhaps the worst-looking project proposed for the I-195 corridor has been abandoned. It is hard to say whether this is good news or bad news, given Rhode Island’s need to develop the land. How nice it would be to read … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Development, I-195 Redevelopment District, Preservation, Providence, Providence Journal, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments