Northern California: from Wine Country to Manchester with a bit of Angela Lansbury

It’s been a few months, and in those months I’ve relocated back from Northwest London to the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of my time in California has been rather uneventful as it has been taken up by things like looking for a place to live and buying household essentials, though there was a recent… Continue reading Northern California: from Wine Country to Manchester with a bit of Angela Lansbury

FAT Saturday: Thornton Heath Library & The Museum of Croydon

Thornton Heath Library Facing a weekend with nothing to do for the first time in ages, yesterday I set off to see the newly refurbished Thornton Heath Library by FAT Architects (or, more formally: Fashion Architecture Taste). It was also a good excuse to venture south of the Thames, something I don’t often do. Thornton… Continue reading FAT Saturday: Thornton Heath Library & The Museum of Croydon

An Invitation to a New Way of Living: The Modern Motel

Author Alain de Botton is on a mission to convince people that they could live in modern houses. I read his book The Architecture of Happiness last year and wasn’t particularly impressed. After reading Will Wiles’ article in the November 2010 issue of Icon magazine about de Botton’s new company, Living Architecture, I became more… Continue reading An Invitation to a New Way of Living: The Modern Motel

Charles Rennie Mackintosh meets summer skiing in Glasgow

Adding to the growing worldwide trend of building works by famous architects long after their deaths, Glasgow has a relatively recently-built version of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s “House for an Art Lover.” Designed in 1901, and built between 1989 and 1996, the project was originally designed for a German ideas competition but was disqualified for being… Continue reading Charles Rennie Mackintosh meets summer skiing in Glasgow

Favela Chic, Gothic High-Tech or The Suburban Ideal: Bruce Sterling & Sean Griffiths on the Future

After reading Kazys Varnelis’ syllabus for the fall semester at Columbia, I was compelled to go back and read Bruce Sterling’s lecture given at Transmediale 10 in Berlin earlier this year, as published by Wired, titled Atemporality for the Creative Artist. I also read an essay by Sean Griffiths, of FAT Architecture, on the future… Continue reading Favela Chic, Gothic High-Tech or The Suburban Ideal: Bruce Sterling & Sean Griffiths on the Future

Gehry’s Art Gallery of Ontario is Retro Frank Gehry at His Finest

The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) completed an extensive renovation in 2008 that transformed its building on Dundas Street in Toronto. Work began in 2004 and cost $276 million. Led by Frank Gahry, Instead of starting afresh, Gehry took the existing building and its somewhat chaotic slew of previous expansions and unified it into a… Continue reading Gehry’s Art Gallery of Ontario is Retro Frank Gehry at His Finest

Ranking Architectural Academics: Suspect Methodology

I came across a link to a paper titled “Rating the Architecture Professors in Research: 2010 Report” by Garry Stevens, PhD from the Key Centre for Architectural Sociology this morning on Twitter by David Neustein (@dneus). Stevens compiled this report by obtaining lists of the faculty in every architecture department in a variety of predominantly… Continue reading Ranking Architectural Academics: Suspect Methodology