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
Category: Architecture
architecture
The Opposite View Corridors of London
Britain’s worst building is on axis with St. Paul’s Cathedral.
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
Disasterville in the Cotswolds
I was looking at the town of Moreton-in-Marsh on Google Maps and discovered this area of strange-looking streets that clearly looks like an airport. It turns out this was a base for Wellington Bombers during World War II, and after the war it was converted into the Fire Service College where fire brigades from around… Continue reading Disasterville in the Cotswolds
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
East Sussex/West Sussex Road Trip
Coming from America, I assumed there must be a huge East Sussex/West Sussex rivalry of the 2Pac vs. Notorious B.I.G. variety, but upon visiting I was proven wrong (or else I was looking in the wrong places). The trip was a brief (2 day) excursion, but we were able to see far more than I… Continue reading East Sussex/West Sussex Road Trip
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