Tag Archives: Skyscrapers

Rampant peeping-Tomism

With all the glass residential towers going up with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the hotshot cities of the world, the global market for binoculars and telescopes must be going haywire. But not everyone wants to be caught in the two-ring circus … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Krier on cities’ skyscraperitis

According to the headline writers at BD magazine, Britain’s leading journal of architecture, the takeaway from Leon Krier’s new essay there is “It doesn’t matter if skyscrapers are designed by world-class architects or hacks – they’re destroying our cities.” I … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Holy crystal meth, Batman!

News out of Pyongyang via Dezeen reports that its construction boom is fueled by crystal meth. A drug that jacks up levels of energy, alertness and self-esteem might well be usefully fed to workers undertaking delicate work with rivets while … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Best skyscrapers 2016: Yawn

No surprise here, but Dezeen has published a list of the ten best skyscrapers of 2016. I’ve chosen to spotlight the pyramidal monstrosity in New York City by Bjarke Ingels, the Danish architect and founder of the firm BIG. The … Continue reading

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Gaudi’s Manhattan tower

That Gaudi had considered erecting a New York skyscraper is not widely known. William O’Connor writes of it in “Gaudi’s Lost Manhattan Tower” for the Daily Beast. O’Connor prates absurdly of Gaudi’s modernism – more than any other major architect, … Continue reading

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How to keep Portland weird

Portland, Ore., is a city so satisfied with itself that it can afford to enjoy a TV show, Portlandia, that makes fun of its foibles. And of course, foibles are easily fobbed off. They are not actual problems. Most cities … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Humor, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

See ‘High Rise’ film trailer

Imagine my thrill at learning today that J.G. Ballard’s suspense novel, High-Rise, depicting what can come of the pressures that build up in the compressed psychosis of a modern residential tower, came out as a film in Britain last year, … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture, Uncategorized, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

And these are the winners!

Winners have been announced in the 2016 eVolo magazine skyscraper design competition, and they are real doozies. eVolo, which I’d never heard of, exists to discuss “the most avant-garde ideas generated in schools and professional studios around the world,” and … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Humor, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Video: ‘Windy City Nights’

This splendid video from Vimeo by Max Wilson of chicagotimelapse.org, called “Chicago: Windy City Nights,” shows off Chicago in much (if not all) of its glory. Chicago is the city of my birth and is considered a mecca amongst architects, … Continue reading

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Froma Harrop: Don’t bury our cities in megatowers

An excellent rattling of sabres at megatowers was published in Sunday’s Providence Journal by Froma Harrop, my former colleague on the paper’s editorial board. Froma writes a twice-weekly syndicated column for Creators Syndicate on the full panoply of issues in … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Preservation, Providence Journal, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment