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Tag Archives: Modern Architecture
Mies edits van der Rohe
Most people know that one of the three world-historical founders of modern architecture, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, changed his name at age 33 to Le Corbusier (the crow). Not until I got to page 126 in James Stevens Curl’s Making Dystopia did … Continue reading
Bayley on Curl’s “Dystopia”
Stephen Bayley, critic for The (U.K.) Spectator, has written “Modernist architecture is not barbarous – but the blinkered rejection of it is,” the second review (that I’ve seen so far) of James Stevens Curl’s Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and … Continue reading
Rome: Who are those guys?
Who are those guys? Good question. But first, I must point out that indecipherable notes on a recent lecture force me to leapfrog a topic I’d intended to address today and grab a quicky topic instead. I’ve chosen to simply … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized, Architecture, Photography
Tagged Beauty, Cities, classical architecture, Europe, Modern Architecture, Preservation, RIBA, Rome
4 Comments
Beyond translation indeed!
It takes an act of will to make it all the way through a passage of hilariously sublime bureaucratese – quoted from a university prospectus – sent recently by architectural historian James Stevens Curl to a group of his friends … Continue reading
Lovely town main streets
Architectural Digest has posted “The 30 Most Beautiful Main Streets Across America,” and they are beautiful. I examined each photo and saw no buildings identifiable as modern architecture. For while civic beauty is primarily the presence of lovely old buildings; … Continue reading
‘Making Dystopia’: Arrival
There it was. Sitting on my stoop. Wrapped in a plain brown postal envelope. I picked it up. Oof! It weighs a ton. It is not big but it is heavy. A brick of gold. Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise … Continue reading
Apex ain’t Pawtucket’s soul
If Apex is the soul of Pawtucket, then today’s Penn Station is the soul of New York City. Bad things have happened to the Big Apple in the last half century, and Penn Station arguably symbolizes the worst of it. … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Development
Tagged Apex, Modern Architecture, Pawtucket RI, Providence RI, Urban Renewal, William H. Jordy, William Morgan
7 Comments
The stupidest profession …
Localism calls to mind various slow movements such as slow food. There should be a slow architecture movement. Localism was taken up recently by the New York Times columnist David Brooks in “The Localist Revolution: Sometimes it Pays to Sweat … Continue reading
Modernist luxury mall fall
Beautiful building, eh? Well, you won’t have to look at it anymore after viewing this video. The mall collapsed in Mexico City on July 12, some four months after opening amid controversy, said by the Associated Press to have involved … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Video
Tagged Algorithm, Artz Pedregal, engineering, MAXXI, Mexico City, Modern Architecture, Stress, Structural Design, Zaha Hadid
1 Comment
The headache of modernism
CNN has run an article called “Looking at buildings can actually give people headaches. Here’s why.” Its author, psychology professor Arnold J. Wilkins of Essex University, in Great Britain, is right. Modern architecture can give you a headache, and it … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture
Tagged Arnold J. Wilkins, CNN, Joseph Founier, Modern Architecture, Nikos Salingaros
2 Comments
