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stern strike fist
"anybody die yet?"
also available : dennis, jeanne, frances, ivan, charlie, floyd, gorges, rita, bonnie, fran, bertha, andrew...
Uncle Tom's Cabin will one day be open to the public.
The owner of an 18th-century Colonial in Bethesda, Md., listed a three-bedroom house and attached 205-year-old log cabin for sale for $995,000 in October. Josiah Henson, a slave who lived on the former tobacco plantation for 30 years, inspired the Uncle Tom character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel.
Located on a one-acre site surrounded by McMansions, the house was not protected as a local landmark, so Montgomery County officials sprung into action, raising money to match a $1 million offer. Owner Greg Mallet-Prevost, whose mother owned the house since the 1960s, accepted the county's offer on Dec. 23.
wfmu best of '05
find those dj's archives here
fluff desk: curbed 2005 awards
nyt architecture critic NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF was on charlie rose last night. I like this guy. among other things he called out daniel liebskind for not having the courage to walk off the job in protest.
sol moscot glasses for the masses
via zars
Former renter Stephen Busto put a posting in Craigslist and hosted two open houses to try to save a 1960s-era "flexible home" from demolition.
In a house with only one door inside, privacy has to be a shared concept. Especially when the door leads to the one bathroom in a 1,000-square-foot house shared by a family of four.
Close quarters by necessity is one thing, but this was by design. In the era of the 1962 World's Fair, the dream of a "flexible house" became a reality for commercial architect Robert Allan Adams.
Adams designed the Mount Baker house to efficiently accommodate and change with his young family. Post-toddler, a playpen set into a recessed area turned into a conversation pit in the living room. Beds folded up into movable walls. Interior partitions doubling as storage units did not reach the flat ceiling, creating Spartan but well-ventilated rooms. Features such as these made the 1963 house seem at once very retro and future-fantastic for the way the space flowed through multiuse areas.
Now the house and its nearly identical 350-square-foot guesthouse are in danger of vanishing from modern Seattle architectural history if they can't find a new home. The new owner of the 8,240-square-foot lot wants to build his own house -- but he'd like to see the current house preserved if it can be taken away at no expense to him.
gary wilson / new video
history of the schwinn stingray
"festivus for the rest of us!"
nowottny sighting barely nearly
You were one of the first modernists who talked about the preservation of older buildings. Now we're in a different era where we're discussing modern preservation. What are your thoughts on this campaign?
If there's anything that really excises me, it's the lack of knowledge, the lack of standards, being applied indiscriminately across the board to modern buildings. I get so upset about it. You know how I feel about 2 Columbus Circle? This was an example of how you had to balance good against bad, past against future, reuse against what would happen to the building. The preservationists proved not only incapable of discussing it, but went into paranoia mode. I think the whole movement seems to be doing that. Of course it was a complex issue but they should have been able to sort it out. And then to compare--you always get one crazy directing these things who has the quality of leadership--Ed Stone's poor little lollipop building to the loss of Penn Station! They were really doing this! Although I did write in specific terms about 2 Columbus Circle, I haven't gotten myself down out of the emotional response enough to write in general terms about modern preservation.
progrock timeline
this and the last three via zoller
visual laser keyboard
floating homes
big brother W and our orwellian life
What a year it's been here at Beware of the Blog - 1.7 million hits, 1,130 articles, 35 authors and two cease and desist letters (both fake). For those who joined us late, here's a list of the posts that were stuffed with chewy MP3 goodness.
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After the WFMU staff walkout in 1969, Upsala College closed the station for 10 months, until they hired a new station manager to run the station with "a more professional effort".
Troubles soon arose between Alan Fritch, the new station manager, and the staff at the station. This issue of the Upsala Gazette from March 12, 1971 (PDF file, 1.27MB) details a full-blown controversy surrounding the dismissal of two staffers by Fritch, a list of grievances against Fritch brought before the WFMU Radio Board by the station staff, and the subsequent vote to dissolve the Radio Board.
Apparently, as quoted by one Upsala student, Fritch didn't "get along with the kids". The list of 15 grievances included complaints about Fritch acting as a "policeman" and "stifling dissent". He dismissed two staffers after they broke into the station after-hours. Whether he was a power-mad dictator or merely doing his job was a matter of opinion. Some staff members believed that Fritch was "slowly getting rid of the long-hairs", while Fritch claims to have been "merely going by policy". Lots of interesting details about the controversy surrounding Fritch's management and about the station in general (like how one of the dismissed DJs was cut loose after an on-air "marathon.. reading of Lord of the Rings") are all available.
elektronik supersonik
from fmu message board
"It's mostly murals and mosaics," says Dwayne Jones, executive director of Preservation Dallas. Except for the original c. 1942 clock-tower structure, the bank buildings, vacant since 1992, are being torn down for a $250 million apartment complex and park development project by Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises. Forest City, which is donating $20,000 towards the removal of the art, says no one should be concerned about the art's fate.
john zoller (fuzzy balls with a message)
highline update
dumb angel number four
a return to unique perspectives on surf instrumental music, Wall-of-Sound productions, Hawaiiana, post-war fashion/graphic design and Modernist Los Angeles architecture. Drawing inspiration from a beatnik surf aesthetic, the magazine has taken on a new look drawn from the vision of surfing’s ’50s and ’60s iconographers. We offer thought provoking pieces from talented writers such as Domenic Priore (author of Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece), Brad Elliot (Surf's UP! The Beach Boys on Record), Otto von Stroheim (Tiki News), Harvey Kubernik (co-writer of Hollywood Rocks the Movies, Part 1 & 2 and oft-published journalist in MOJO, The Los Angeles Times and Goldmine magazine), and Mark A. Moore (Jan Berry / Jan & Dean historian). Great artists and photographers like Shag and Peter Frame (Rock Family Trees) also add their unique talents to what we're trying to achieve.
outdoor steel cabinets per request matty mccaslin
the original bore
“There will be nothing new in what I say, but maybe it will have a new twist”Robert Venturi comes to modernist shrine Crown Hall to out Mies van der Rohe as a closet symbolist and attempt to define the architecture of our time. (Originally published in abbreviated and far better edited form under the title, Live by the I Beam, Die by the I Beam in the December 16th Chicago Reader.)
found footage fest preview
via zoller
steve parrino
in the 2006 whitney biennial
elegant design
new use for used shipping container
(image)
as you may have noticed ive located gif icons for shipping container and the wtc (thanks wsj) posts. i have no idea what a katrina or nola gif should look like. upfront i'd say musical notes, trolly cars and noah references are out. any suggestions welcome.
Besides the lack of prospective tenants, Mr. Silverstein has had several setbacks and is engaged in an increasingly tense struggle with politicians and government agencies who could derail the plans of the 74-year-old real-estate veteran. Even his longtime financial backer may be open to a deal that would allow their partnership to be removed from at least part of the rebuilding process.the wsj
Mr. Silverstein's latest bad news came this week, when he failed to reach agreement with New York City on a timetable for the project and on how much Mr. Silverstein can request as a developer's fee. That pact was necessary for the city to approve $3.5 billion in tax-exempt bonds to help pay for the rebuilding of the Trade Center site. The two sides are still talking, but Mr. Silverstein says the lack of a deal will only delay rebuilding.
More than four years have passed since 9/11, and little has been rebuilt on the site except a temporary commuter rail station and 7 World Trade Center. The lack of progress has led to finger-pointing between Mr. Silverstein and the city, New York State and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the Trade Center site and serves as Mr. Silverstein's landlord. Political leaders are becoming more involved in the rebuilding. This is the last year in office for New York Gov. George E. Pataki, and he is concerned about his legacy, while New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, fresh off a re-election romp, is no longer focused on building a football stadium for the New York Jets or bringing the Olympics to the city.
that brutal joint
If the craft of architecture is concerned with the physical joints between materials, the meaning of architecture appears in its intersections with other disciplines. This blog explores those relationships in contemporary theories.
urban blogger misrepresentation attended this meeting and provides lucid commentary :
And there is no doubt that is the case. A fascinating moment of total implosion occurred when a family member came up and read mostly disingenuous statement that seemed like it came directly from the Machiavellian mind of Debra Burlingame. We heard the usual garbage talking points about “it’s not about the arts, but the kind of the arts” followed by a litany of projects that, absent the loaded emotional context from which they were drawn, would have resulted in pained eye-rolling from most everyone there (and probably still did for some). There were glimmers of a viable argument, via pandering to positioning these examples of outsider art (that might be welcomed at places like MAD or the American Folk Museum), or terms that might indict the clannishness of the arts we were lamenting the exclusion of. But no one rose to point out that the some 30-odd examples offered, from a traditional curatorial viewpoint, were infinitesimal for an institution that needs to fill programming for a century (MoMA has what, 100,000 items in inventory?), and the Memorial is already slated to have something on the order of 200,000 sf of display space. I'm not aware of anyone recommending that the Memorial Center -- or whatever we are calling it nowdays -- not include such times. But, true to form, no one wanted to attack a family member by pointing any of this out, or, worse, the awkward, polite disinterest indicated that, yes, this is even less a dialogue than anyone presumes.
Controversy Still Clouds Prospects at 9/11 Site
By ROBIN POGREBIN for nyt
Published: December 14, 2005
A sense of despair about the prospects for cultural activity at ground zero pervaded a panel discussion on the issue on Monday night, even as some speakers suggested that the idea could be resurrected.
"Is there hope?" asked the artist Hans Haacke, one of five panelists on the dais in an auditorium packed with 250 people at the New School. "I would say no."
"Culture is never unideological," he added. "There is no one culture that everybody agrees on."
The two-hour event, centering on the question "What's Happening to the Arts at Ground Zero?," was organized by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the New School's Vera List Center for Art and Politics. (cont.)
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Legendary folk rocker Bob Dylan will start a new career as a radio DJ when he launches a new weekly music show on XM Satellite Radio next March.
While developer Larry Silverstein rethinks his bid for over $3 billion in taxpayer-sponsored Liberty Bonds to help fund development at the World Trade Center site—N.B. Silverstein quote yesterday: "You cannot build apartments at Ground Zero"—bigger news breaks: they're going to turn off the memorial waterfall in winter, according to Downtown Express. Why? Explained the LMDC's memorial design director, "The visitor experience will not be a pleasant one. You will not only be cold, but wet. The wind will blow water into the galleries." Not like this hasn't been pointed out before by a passel of critics, but hey: common sense! Awright!from curbed
Meantime, for those looking to make sense of the current WTC chaos, architecture blogger Miss Representation offers one of his trademark Very Long Blog Posts on the state of the game at Ground Zero. Recommended read.
ASSISTANT, LE CORBUSIER PLANS DVD
from the gutter
As with all Foster designs, the Hearst tower is sleek, refined, and filled with new technology. It looks nothing like the Jazz Age confection on which it sits. The addition is sheathed in glass and stainless steel—a shiny missile shooting out of Urban’s stone launching pad. The tower’s most prominent feature is the brash geometric pattern of its glass and steel, which the architect calls a “diagrid”: a diagonal grid of supporting trusses, covering the façade with a series of four-story-high triangles. These make up much of the building’s supporting structure, and they do it with impressive economy: the pattern uses twenty per cent less steel than a conventional skyscraper frame would require.the new yorker
from the self loathing desk / why does the uk hate itself? and on tv even: Its a Knockdown!
In his new book Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods, Michael Wex explores the history and culture of Yiddish: its complaints, curses and codes.
From its historic role in the isolation of Jews in Europe to its modern impact on American English, Yiddish has filled the air with lively metaphors and colorful expressions.
Now, despite a precipitous drop in fluent speakers, the language that includes elements of German and a handful of other tongues seems destined to adapt and thrive.
A novelist and lecturer, Wex previously translated The Threepenny Opera into Yiddish.
Three months since Hurricane Katrina it remains difficult to ascertain what progress has been made in rebuilding New Orleans and its region. Using a wide array of about 50 economic and social indicators, the Metropolitan Policy Program has compiled the first in a series of monthly snapshots of economic and both short term and long term reconstruction trends, finding that the area remains mired in a state of emergency still.brookings institute
We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.nyt
We said this wouldn't happen. President Bush said it wouldn't happen. He stood in Jackson Square and said, "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans." But it has been over three months since Hurricane Katrina struck and the city is in complete shambles.
There are many unanswered questions that will take years to work out, but one is make-or-break and needs to be dealt with immediately. It all boils down to the levee system. People will clear garbage, live in tents, work their fingers to the bone to reclaim homes and lives, but not if they don't believe they will be protected by more than patches to the same old system that failed during the deadly storm. Homeowners, businesses and insurance companies all need a commitment before they will stake their futures on the city.
Before Katrina sent hundreds of thousands of New Orleanians into indefinite exile, there was no love lost between the cosmopolitan Crescent City and its upriver country cousin, Baton Rouge. Louisiana's Baptist-leaning capital city had long tsk-tsked New Orleans's decadence and inefficiency--not to mention the baroque corruption of its political power structure.metropolis mag
In contrast, the government of the consolidated city-parish of Baton Rouge governs as little as possible, which is especially evident in planning. Because the city is otherwise utterly dys-functional for north-south traffic, locals have taken to using the interstate to travel in those directions. Development is permitted on a project-by-project basis, with little consideration of broader impact. The city-parish's zoning code contradicted its pro-infill master plan; and in any case, the Planning Commission and the Metropolitan Council routinely ig-nore existing plans. In a metropolitan area with barely one percent population growth, new housing development has charged unabated into the fringes.
But the influx of New Orleanians to Baton Rouge is hitting at a moment of promise--and uncertainty. The new mayor-president is the first African American to hold the job. He is a liberal Democrat, but his chief administrative officer, Walter Monsour, is a Republican with a real estate-development background. Meanwhile, a well-funded local smart-growth movement has put urban-planning issues on the public agenda for the first time. Hal Cohen sat down with Monsour to talk about his city's sudden growth and more populous future.
About a month after the brown waters of Lake Pontchartrain breached the levees and inundated New Orleans, I found myself listening to a long discussion on NPR about the plight of the Formosan termite. This is a terrible bug, capable of eating its way not only through wood, as one expects of its kind, but also, an on-air entomologist informed us in the direst tones, vinyl siding, lead sheets, concrete, and copper--in short, not just the cellulose bones and skin but everything that makes up a home. Before Hurricane Katrina this creature had been eating New Orleans. The termite smuggled its way back from Asia in palettes as the military infrastructure of the Second World War was dismantled, and like the plagues of gypsy moth caterpillars in the Northeast and zebra mussels in the Great Lakes, it ran amok in its new ecology. The storm was a reprieve; the entomologist, citing his research, noted that the population would be much reduced: Formosan termite colonies can't survive more than a few weeks underwater.metropolis mag
By that point the Katrina coverage was clearly ebbing with the flood waters. The damage from the storm had been described by panicked pols as worse than September 11 and Hiroshima, an "American Pompeii," and with infamous overstatement by the mayor of Biloxi, "our tsunami." Unwatchable images of government neglect and tales of official malfeasance were everywhere. Who could begrudge the radio pundits and producers their attempt to find a silver lining? New Orleans had ceased to be...but the termites were dead! It was a classic example of late-cycle media overreach; with the flood and the reaction to it dominating the news for a month, all other tales had been told. A city had been submerged, its people had been scattered, its buildings and infrastructure were at that point defunct. Cue the bug guys. And we still hadn't heard from the architects.
Last week "...FEMA officials [met] with the people or Rural Studio to review a proposal to provide the federal disaster agency with "research, precedent and feasibility studies as well masterplans, models, and schematic designs to establish an array of 'container housing' communities of 100 to 10,000 inhabitants."
As for ideas, plenty of experts are spouting them already. Immediately after Hurricane Katrina, the American Institute of Architects warned about the dangers of isolating temporary housing far from services and infrastructure. Other national organizations of planners and historic preservationists have weighed in and are sending volunteers to New Orleans to help. And in architecture schools across the country, disaster recovery has become a hot topic this term. Students at the Rural Studio at Auburn University in Alabama have just designed a prototype for a temporary shelter made from shipping containers (there are thousands of empty ones along the Gulf coast), which can be adapted for habitation for $2,500 each. They hope a representative of FEMA will come check them out next week. And at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, architect Frederic Schwartz switched the subject of his studio to New Orleans just as the term began; he plans to take his 12 students to the Big Easy next month for research. Schwartz brings a special perspective to his course: he spent more than a year working on proposals for Ground Zero in Manhattan. “The lesson from that is don’t let political people decide to make the rebuilding their legacy, as [New York Gov. George] Pataki did,” says Schwartz. “It isn’t anyone’s legacy. And beware when it gets taken over by real estate.”
jim louis has a friend down in nola who was asking about the availability of shipping containers in the area. on craigslist i found this sweet looking 40 footer for $3,500.00 and he has two. note thats a little high but the containers look to be in pretty nice condition. although one appears to be an 8 footer and the other eight and a half. go for the headroom if you can.
Monument to the 50th Anniversary of the Founding of the Korean Worker’s Party
On 9-11 the U.S. government faced a terrible decision: Should the military be ordered to shoot down other commercial airplanes full of civilian passengers, so that they, too, would not be used as missiles? Vice President Dick Cheney, although not part of the National Command Authority, gave the orders, although under the Constitution the vice president has no authority to command the military. The 9-11 Commission dealt with this fundamental issue by ignoring it. Among the other 9-11 topics the commission ignored.
On Monday, December 5, the 9-11 Public Discourse Project—a private group formed by 9-11 Commission members after their official mandate lapsed in 2004—held a wrap-up press briefing in Washington, signaling the last gasp of official inquiries into the attacks four years ago. The National Institute of Standards and Technology also recently completed its final report on the twin towers. Already gathering dust are a Federal Emergency Management Agency study, the joint inquiry by Congress, the McKinsey reports on New York City's emergency response, probes by federal inspectors general, and other efforts to resolve the myriad doubts about the hijackings.
Some questions can't be answered: People who lost loved ones will never know exactly how the end came, if it hurt, what the final thoughts and words were. But other questions are more tractable. Here are 10 of them:
1. Where was the "National Command Authority"?
2. Who gave the order to try to shoot the planes down?
3. What exactly were all those firefighters doing in the towers?
4. Did anyone think the towers would collapse?
5. Why was Giuliani's command bunker at ground zero?
6. Why did 7 WTC fall?
7. How did the twin towers fall?
8. How dangerous was—and is—the air at ground zero?
9. What exactly did Zacarias Moussaoui plan to do?
10. What's on those blanked-out pages?
leonardo on-line book review
The Culture of the Copy
Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimilies
Hillel Schwartz - MIT Press
The Culture of the Copy is an unprecedented attempt to make sense of our Western fascination with replicas, duplicates, and twins. In a work that is breathtaking in both its synthetic and critical achievements, Hillel Schwartz charts the repercussions of our entanglement with copies of all kinds, whose presence alternately sustains and overwhelms us.
Through intriguing, and at times humorous, historical analysis and case studies in contemporary culture, Schwartz investigates most varieties of simulacra, including counterfeits, decoys, mannequins, ditto marks, portraits, genetic cloning, war games, camouflage, instant replays, digital imaging, parrots, photocopies, wax museums, apes, art forgeries, not to mention the very notion of the Real McCoy.
At the same time Schwartz works through a range of modernist, feminist, and postmodern theories about copies and mechanical reproduction, posing the following compelling question: How is it that the ethical dilemmas at the heart of so many fields of endeavor have become inseparable from our pursuit of copies -- of the natural world, or our own creations, indeed our very selves?
The Culture of the Copy is a stunning, innovative blend of microsociology, cultural history, and philosophical reflection that will fascinate anyone concerned with problems of authenticity, identity, and originality.
In the 1880's, Currier & Ives, the printmaking company that was the Google Maps of its day, dispatched an artist to record a panoramic vista of New Orleans. The drawing shows a thriving port city - steamboats, church spires and all - whose populace clung to the elevated areas near the Mississippi.
There were few settlements in the flood-prone lowlands to the north. The swamps to the east were not deemed worthy of illustrating.
It is not easy to broach the idea of such a smaller-scale city. The people here have long defied the perils of this place, whether that meant the yellow fever outbreaks of the 1800's or Hurricane Betsy in 1965.
"New Orleans has survived for 300 years," said Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell.
But for much of that time, wasn't the city settled largely on the elevated areas?
"You are underestimating the intelligence of the people of New Orleans," Ms. Hedge-Morrell replied. "They know what they are doing."
Before lawmakers in Washington, D.C., break for Christmas, people in one hurricane-ravaged New Orleans neighborhood want to send them off with a yuletide message -- "We Want to Go Home."Lakeview Civic Improvement Association
In a full-color, full-page advertisement set to run next week in the influential Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, a group of Lakeview residents and other New Orleanians hope to impress upon legislators that the effort to rebuild the city's infrastructure and levee system is far from over.
The ad, called "A message from homeless New Orleanians," contains a 570-word message saying they "have lived like refugees in our own country" and are still waiting for members of Congress "to spearhead the rebuilding of our flood protection, and reclaim one of the nation's most important cities from ruin."
It's appalling to think that a book like this may enter classrooms and inflict itself on young minds with little or no acquaintance with art history. So I have a suggestion for parents of high-school students: Find out whether the college that your child hopes to attend plans to assign "Art Since 1900" in its art-history courses. If so, apply elsewhere.the wsj
This is a webpage devoted to listing as many examples of people using shipping containers as architectural elements as I can find, in an effort to embolden people to use containers in building projects, when and where doing so is feasible and appropriate. Be aware that containers are not a perfect building material, since they tend to corrode, but they have been used effectively in some cases, especially in areas near saltwater. This is mainly a links page, and I cannot guarantee anything at all about the sites that I am offering links to, but I try to periodically search for and add links that are fresh and offer something useful and interesting, and I remove bad links and projects where information is incomplete. If you have a site worth adding, or experiences to relate in using containers for building, please contact me.
Shipping Container Housing Guide is a site that came up after we searched the net for shipping containers information and saw that a lot of people and websites are talking about how can you build a house using shipping containers.
Who are we? We're not container specialists, engineers or architects. We're a bunch of young people who love to surf the net and thought that this will be an in interesting idea.
We plan to update periodically the information on this site with articles written by real specialists and with our own thoughts and opinions. We want this site to be your primary source of information regarding shipping container housing.
So the argument has been made that these containers could be turned into shelter for use in emergencies. In light of the recent aftermath of hurricane Katrina, there could actually be immediate need for such shelters. Ideally, the converted containers could be delivered by truck to the actual home sight of the disaster victims. They could live in the shelter on their own land, using the utilities that are already supplied to that lot until their home is rebuilt. The shelters would be preferable to tents because of their steel beam construction. They can endure strong winds, snow and even wildfires.
However, the first step is to get the containers converted. At the moment, there are a few problems that those performing the conversion face. First of all, the containers are only 8 feet wide which doesn't create much room. Cutting away sides and joining 2 containers together can solve this problem. Windows and other holes for utilities have to be cut with a blow torch, requiring specialized labor. So, at the moment, the cost of converting these shipping containers would be prohibitive.
But there is a solution to this problem. Proponents of the idea, including professors, students, nonprofit organizations and some members of the building industry suggest that the containers should be designed so that conversion is possible at some point in the future. They could have removable panels that would not endanger the integrity of the container when it's being used for shipping and could be easily removed when the container is needed in an emergency for shelter. When needed, these containers could then be transported and set up much faster and would be a much more comfortable solution for the victims.
she's about a mover - sir doug 5 and the joan of arch
tokyo
teleport
center
Harvard Design Magazine Fall 2005 / Winter 2006, Number 23
Regeration - Design as Dialogue, Building as Transformation
ONLINE ONLY BOOK REVIEWS
post ex sub dis: Urban Fragmentations and Constructions* edited by the Ghent Urban Studies Team; The New Civic Art: Elements of Town Planning* edited by Andreas Duany, Elizabeth Plater–Zyberk, and Robert Alminana; reviewed by Susannah Hagan
Charlotte Perriand: A Life of Creation; An Autobiography* by Charlotte Perriand; Charlotte Perriand: An Art of Living* edited by Mary McLeod; reviewed by Daniel Naegele
Moment of Grace: The American City in the 1950s* by Michael Johns; reviewed by Marshall Berman
LETTER
Emily Talen's Response to Alex Krieger's Critique of Her Essay*
IN MEMORIAM
Hilary Lewis on Philip Johnson*
FEATURES
Regeneration: Design as Dialogue, Building as Transformation
Innovation and Insight in the Contemporary Architecture of Additions* by Paul Spencer Byard
Deference, Dialogue, and Dissolve How New Architecture Meets Old by Peter Buchanan
In Celebration of Complementary Architecture Architectural History's Suppressed Glories by Wilfried Wang
Masked Nostolgia, Chic Regression The “Critical” Reconstruction of Berlin* by Sebastian Schmaling
Reconstruction Doubts The Ironies of Building in Schinkel's Name by Barry Bergdoll
Roadside Redesigns —Woody and Variegated—to Help Sustain Nature and People by Richard T. T. Forman
Gathering the Given Michelangelo's Redesign of the Campidoglio by James Ackerman
Urban Land is a Natural Thing to Waste Seeing and Appreciating Drosscapes by Alan Berger
ON URBANISM
Bust or Fold Suburbia as Destiny by Jeffrey Inaba and Peter Zellner
ON CULTURAL POLITICS
The Work of Architecture in the Age of Commodification* by Kenneth Frampton
ON TECHNOLOGY
Diminishing Difficulty Mass Customization and the Digital Production of Architecture by Daniel WIllis and Todd Woodward
ON HISTORY
The Production of Locality in Josep Luis Sert's Peabody Terrace by Sarah Williams Goldhagen
ON PRACTICE
Does Enforcement of Architects' Regulations Protect the Public Welfare? Not Enough.* by Thomas Spector
ON CRITICISM
Moneo's Anxiety Rafael Moneo's Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies in the Work of Eight Contemporary Architects by Jeffrey Kipnis
BOOK REVIEWS
Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs; reviewed by Ken Greenberg
Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory by Andreas Huyssen; reviewed by Jan Otakar Fischer
Warped Space by Anthony Vidler; reviewed by Christopher Long
*available online
Ground Zero developer Larry Silverstein is being urged to speed up his rebuilding effort - or lose some public funding, sources said yesterday.
The behind-the-scenes push comes as Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Pataki suggested publicly that some of the $3.35 billion in tax-free Liberty Bonds Silverstein is counting on could go to other developers.
Silverstein, who leases the site from the Port Authority, is finishing one office tower, plans to start the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower in the spring and hopes to erect four more office buildings. But questions have arisen about whether he can line up the prospective tenants he needs to keep the projects moving.
"There are a variety of projects [the bonds] could be used for," the mayor said. "Some are Silverstein projects, some are other projects."
Pataki said a bigger role by the Port Authority and "private-sector investors" might be best.
Sources said the Port Authority wants to renegotiate its lease with Silverstein so the agency can move up development of two Church St. sites.
Real estate developer Larry Silverstein, who holds the rights to build on Ground Zero, is asking the state and city for permission to sell $3.3 billion worth of so-called Liberty Bonds to help finance the office towers that are supposed to rise on the site. He must be required to make some very big promises to get them.
Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg must use every bit of leverage they can apply to persuade Silverstein to surrender his near total control over building the mega-project. And, critically, they must insist that Silverstein forfeit the bonds if his development scheme doesn't meet the tightest possible schedule for construction.
Created by the federal government after 9/11, the bonds are a critical economic development tool that must not go to waste. If Silverstein falters for a minute, he must lose them. And there is great concern he will falter because his plan to build 10 million square feet of office space in five buildings around Ground Zero is economically dubious, even if he does receive all the proceeds of the insurance he had on the World Trade Center.
The Stork Club: Quintron, The Frogs and Gorky's Zygotic Myncifmu bonus :
For a brief but delirious spell way back in the 1990s, The Stork haunted our halls. That's him on the left. Stork hosted a must-listen program called Live At The Stork Club, mostly on Sunday nights, if memory serves. As the name might imply, mostly Stork hosted live musical guests, in his own impeccably gracious manner.
I bet somewhere on The Internet there exists a full list of all the bands who served time in Stork's "Moose Room". Unfortunately, most of this stuff happened during the last Stone Age, just before we began archiving all our programming. Happily, many of these shows do exist, someplace, in some form or another; and where time, technology and endurance permit, we'll make the archives available to you. Here's three vintage shows to get you started:
Christmas With Quintron - Mr. Quintron, Miss Pussycat and Flossie & The Unicorns joined Stork on Xmas Eve, 1995 for a uniquely warped evening of organs, drum buddies & puppet shows. Listen here (mp3 stream).
The Frogs - Wisconsin's legendary Flemion brothers celebrate their newfound 90s celebrity among the era's alt-rock elite; spin records by Wesley Willis, Beck and Jewel; and perform an acoustic set of music positively guaranteed to get us some major FCC finery were this show to be aired today. From July 20, 1997. Listen here (mp3 stream)
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - On July 16, 1998, WFMU consummated its love affair with these Welsh psych-folk imps. And Stork was there. Gorky's would visit us three more times over the years, visiting Irene's show and my own show (twice, in fact). Listen here for their first appearance, with Stork.
NYC Radio The Night John Lennon Died (mp3) Here's a dial scan of New York City's FM band from 25 years ago (MP3). It was recorded shortly after the news of John Lennon's murder broke. The recording was made by an unknown listener, and it was included on our CD compilation, Radio Archival Oddities, Vol. 2.
A long-standing debate as to whether Frank Lloyd Wright or his former employer, Louis Sullivan, designed two beachfront bungalows in Ocean Springs, Mississippi may have been rendered moot by the wrath of Hurricane Katrina.
One of the homes, built as Sullivan's coastal retreat in 1890, was vaporized by the wind-driven 30-foot swell that surged out of the Mississippi Sound on August 29. The remains of the house and its separate servants' quarters lie heaped in ragged outcroppings of rubble. The other house and its octagonal guest cottage, built next door the same year for Sullivan's friend James Charnley, are still standing, but just barely. Knocked off its piers, the house sits crumpled and forlorn, its windows and doors blasted out by the storm. The guest cottage is in a similar state of disarray.
Despite Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Emmylou Harris achieving #1 hit success with his songwriting, Townes Van Zandt never ascended to the upper eschelon of celebrity bestowed upon so many of his peers, no matter how lauded he was. The reason was clear: Van Zandt never settled into the familiar promotional avenues that so many others who did achieve success traveled, and instead chose an endless loop of travelling, playing his songs, and racking up more experiences to put into them. Plus, he wasn't easy to categorize: folk, blues, country were all factors in what he did, but he'd be a marketing man's nightmare, even despite a growing reputation. Hence, he relied on a good friend to put out his records and do what he could to spread the word, while Townes did what he only knew best.from brian turner wfmu beware the blog
Margaret Brown's documentary, Be Here To Love Me (premiered at Angelika here in NYC December 2nd) is a long overdue look at his music and life, which was ceaslessly tempestuous. In his 20's he was administered shock treatment after being committed for falling from a four story window willingly ("to see what it felt like"), and the result erased much of his childhood memories. This inability to cement connections in his life led to a continual wandering, and the film takes a very intimate look at the people, friends, and family who all were affected by this. In Townes' own words, his own sanity and life itself depended on the ability to "blow off everything and go." Despite this, Brown's interviews with Townes' children and ex-wives reveal a true reverence towards him despite the darkness of their relationships; his little daughter sings his songs, his sons even reckon that their personal relationships may have not been able to happen any other way and not lessen the impact of what he did musically. Sadly, hard living drained him by the 1990's, though his fervor to create never lessoned. Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley, who was set to record Van Zandt at Easley Studios in Memphis after a label deal was struck with DGC, recounts the tragedy of the aborted 1997 session which happened right before the man's demise, despite his insistency to crank out one more record.
The film is a well-done telling of his story, there's some great live clips and TV interviews, and riveting testimony from the likes of Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark and others. Our own Hatch interviewed director Brown on his show last night, and you can check it out here. (real audio). You can also check out a trailer of the film here.
But first I want to persist with the ongoing story of post-Katrina reconstruction, and to respond to readers who felt that my last post, on the Mississippi Renewal Forum, was a bit rough on the New Urbanists and their design ideas for rebuilding a dozen or so Gulf Coast towns. David Sucher, in particular, of City Comforts, argued that I failed "to separate urban site plan—which is the core of New Urbanism—from architectural style"; and then wondered whether I and other critics would "really prefer to have Rem Koolhaas and Frank Gehry—as opposed to Andres Duany et al.—taking lead roles in helping Mississippians in their rebuilding." Perhaps I was too hard on the New Urbanists' efforts to advocate pedestrian-oriented communities; though I'd still argue that the popular appeal of the movement is based less on its planning principles than on its neotraditional pattern books; which means that developers often forsake the principles—the emphasis on regional planning, mixed uses, multi-family housing, transit corridors, et al.—and focus on the period decor, on the porches and porticoes, the gables and gambrels.
folk-songs for the five points
gilmore clark's 
the BRP
world of kane
thanks jim b
watched barry lewis's walk through the bronx on 13 last night. fair warning, its pledge week. of particular interest were the terra-cotta bas-reliefs of parkchester which were looking very john ahearn like to me. coming from westchester i guess this is my borough by extension. it was pretty intense in the 70's. we would catch a lift down gilmore clark's brp (bronx river parkway) to 241st street right on the edge of mount vernon and the bronx to take the 2 or the 5 train into the city. all the while picking up fashion tips (red pro-keds with alternate lacing techniques) and checking out the cool subway graffiti ("stay high 149").
ill try and find more info on those late deco parkchester relief sculptures. it was mentioned that they were commisioned to soften those hard edged (literally) buildings. heres three pages with lots of pictures for starters.
Alison Brooks's Salt House, among the oyster-pickers' old cottages in Essex, is a triumph of ingenious, affordable design.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it was easy to conclude that New Orleans--at least the New Orleans of popular imagination--had ceased to exist. But there have always been two New Orleanses: the picture-postcard version, catering to tourists; and the strange, eccentric, vibrant, and troubled living city. As the water receded and residents slowly made their way back into the ravaged neighborhoods, it became clear that the postcard had largely survived but that day-to-day New Orleans faced a much more uncertain future.links to metropolis mag w/ pictures
The battle for the Crescent City--one that is almost certain since billions of federal dollars are committed to disaster relief--will ultimately be a test of whether the city can rebuild on a massive, unprecedented scale and still retain its essential character.
In the days following the disaster I spoke to four designers from the region about the challenges and opportunities ahead. All of them were well versed in the political and social vagaries of the city--its problems prior to Katrina and its prospects now--but none had succumbed to cynicism or despair. Obviously it was much too early in the game, and they love the city too much to go there yet.
**
Participants
Lake Douglas, landscape historian and coauthor of Gardens of New Orleans
R. Allen Eskew, founding principal of architecture and urban-design firm Eskew + Dumez + Ripple
Reed Kroloff, dean of Tulane University's School of Architecture and former editor in chief of Architecture magazine
Elizabeth Mossop, director of the School of Landscape Architecture, Louisiana State University, and principal of Spackman + Mossop Landscape Architects
Secretary of Housing Alfonso Jackson, meanwhile, seems to be working to fulfill his notorious prediction that New Orleans is “not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again.” Public-housing and Section 8 residents recently protested that “the agencies in charge of these housing complexes [including HUD] are using allegations of storm damage to these complexes as a pretext for expelling working-class African-Americans, in a very blatant attempt to co-opt our homes and sell them to developers to build high-priced housing.”
Minority homeowners also face relentless pressures not to return. Insurance compensation, for example, is typically too small to allow homeowners in the eastern wards of New Orleans to rebuild if and when authorities re-open their neighborhoods.
Similarly, the Small Business Administration—so efficient in recapitalizing the San Fernando Valley in the aftermath of the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake—has so far dispensed only a few million dollars despite increasingly desperate pleas from tens of thousands of homeowners and small business people facing imminent foreclosure or bankruptcy.
As a result, not just the Black working class, but also the Black professional and business middle classes are now facing economic extinction while Washington dawdles. Tens of thousands of blue-collar white, Asian and Latino residents of afflicted Gulf communities also face de facto expulsion from the region, but only the removal of African-Americans is actually being advocated as policy.
Since Katrina made landfall, conservatives—beginning with Rep. Richard Baker’s infamous comments about God having “finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans”—have openly gloated over the possibilities for remaking New Orleans in a GOP image. (Medically, this might be considered akin to a mass outbreak of Tourette Syndrome, whose official symptoms include “the overwhelming urge to use a racial epithet.”)
The idea that New Urbanists such as Duany and Calthorpe may be helping to write plans for the new Gulf Coast has horrified many architects and left-leaning cultural critics — revealing, in the process, quite a bit about the ambitions and anxieties that mark contemporary architectural practice in this country.
"Among the New Urbanists, Calthorpe is on the progressive and thoughtful side," says Reed Kroloff, the dean of the architecture school at Tulane University and former editor of Architecture magazine. But he termed Calthorpe's Louisiana appointment "very, very disappointing" and "a sign that the whole region has been handed over to the CNU."
The response from other architects and critics was, to put it mildly, less measured. Eric Owen Moss, director of the Southern California Institute of Architecture, told the Washington Post in October that New Urbanists were finding a foothold in the Gulf Coast because their agenda appeals "to a kind of anachronistic Mississippi that yearns for the good old days of the Old South as slow and balanced and breezy, and each person knew his or her own role."
Next came comments from Mike Davis, a writer who can throw gasoline on a fire with the best of them. Calling the New Urbanists an "architectural cult," he reported to readers of Mother Jones that during the Mississippi Renewal Forum, "Duany whipped up a revivalistic fervor that must have been pleasing to Barbour and other descendants of the slave masters."
The New Urbanists weren't shy about firing back. In a letter to Moss, Stefanos Polyzoides, a Pasadena architect and another CNU founder (there seem to be dozens of them), called Moss' statements "outrageous in their prejudice…. Your understanding of the CNU is superficial at best. And your comments sound remarkably hollow for a director of a school of architecture."
The Barge Buyers Handbook
Compiled by members of the Dutch Barge Association to guide you through the unique experience of buying a barge - whether for cruising, for living on or for a commercial venture. Where to start, running costs, what to look for - pitfalls as well as benefits. Essential reading if a barge figures in your dreams.
It's somehow not at all strange that the red states' most visible anti-war album comes from Dolly Parton, an artist so guileless and girlish, so above reproach, she seems incapable of wounding. Those Were the Days is a bluegrass covers record populated (mostly) by Vietnam-era protest songs hailing from the Peter, Paul and Mary School of Non-Alarming '60s Folk. But Days is occasionally more subversive than it seems.
"New Orleans is rotting and tragically fresh," said Herbie Kearney, a painter and sculptor whose studio was destroyed. "We have to come back and make art. If you don't have culture, the city will become Disneyland for condo people."
yokohama 2005 triennale of contemporary artit looks like container structures are becoming a symbol/staple of international art fairs. look for the but-hole house with large and small intestine wings.
’speybank’ by luc deleu (1944), belgium the artist has often worked with containers in creating buildings, due to his interest in mobility and infrastructure. with the arrival of multimedia society /with the transition from ‘substance’ to ‘image’ the artist has build temporary structures, unrestricted by time and physical place.
after reading jim louis's post about eating oyster po-boys i started thinking about where the oysters came from. they would have come out of the gulf of mexico just as they were prior to katrina? then i began pondering the water quality in the gulf. time line : levee breaks, floods nola. levees patched, black flood water including petroleum, lead and other heavy metals are pumped back into lake pontchartrain which runs down into the gulf of mexico which is where the oysters live.
isnt it time to retire the word whimsy? for me it always conjures radishes :
Thelma Todd : Oh, Professor, you're full of whimsy.but more to the point, i spy our friend tony's chair in this weeks sketchpad make-over.
Groucho : Can you notice it from there? I'm always that way after I eat radishes.
"You come to these FEMA centers, you sit all day," said Myrna Guity, 43, whose import business was wiped out by the storm, along with her home in New Orleans East. "You get no answers to your questions. They're evasive. You're constantly 'pending.' What are you going to be doing, 'pending' for the rest of your life? I've lost everything."
Others wondered fearfully what was on the other side of their current privation. "We're almost begging them, 'Please, bring this trailer before Christmas,' " said DeLois Kramer, 43, who said she is "sort of living out of the car" with her 7-year-old daughter, Katlyn.
Author Ken Emerson
Sunday, December 4th, 7pm - 9pm
on Bob Brainen's show 91.1 wfmu
Bob Brainen welcomes Ken Emerson, author of the brand-new book, "Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era," and previously of "Doo-Dah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture." We'll be discussing the seven songwriting teams Emerson chronicles: Lieber and Stoller, Pomus and Shuman, Bacharach and David, Sedaka and Greenfield, Goffin and King, Mann and Weill, and Barry and Greenwich. We'll also cover an assortment of other characters and publishing and record companies that helped the music from 1619 and 1650 Broadway flourish in the late 1950s and early 1960s. We'll be playing lots of music by these writers whose collective efforts helped create a soundtrack for several generations.
burt bacharach hal david at spectropop
653 songs (many hits)
jeff barry and ellie greenwich
brill building series the hits
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller have written some of the most spirited and enduring rock and roll songs: "Hound Dog" (originally cut by Big Mama Thornton in 1953 and covered by Elvis Presley three years later), "Love Potion No. 9" (the Clovers), "Kansas City" (Wilbert Harrison), "On Broadway" (the Drifters), "Ruby Baby" (Dion) and "Stand By Me" (Ben E. King). Their vast catalog includes virtually every major hit by the Coasters (e.g., "Searchin'," "Young Blood," "Charlie Brown," "Yakety Yak" and "Poison Ivy"). They also worked their magic on Elvis Presley, writing "Jailhouse Rock," "Treat Me Nice" and "You're So Square (Baby I Don't Care)" specifically for him. All totaled, Presley recorded more than 20 Leiber and Stoller songs.
and:
Smokey Joe's Cafe", the Robins, 1955) to rock ("Black Denim Trousers" the Cheers, 1955) without realizing that this change of venues (the funky greasy spoon of the former for the motorcycle of the latter) was about to produce a new culture and an undreamed of source of income. In fact, one of the songwriters' most successful rock vehicles was a spin-off from the Robins, the much better-remembered Coasters, who recorded their "Searchin'" b/w "Young Blood" for Atco, a subsidiary of Atlantic, in 1957, a year after Elvis's pelvis-shaking "Hound Dog". The same group scored in 1958 with the pair's "Yakety Yak", tickled by King Curtis's sax work, and in 1959 with "Love Potion No. 9 (Searchers, 1960)", "Charlie Brown", "Along Came Jones", "Poison Ivy", and "I'm a Hog For You". But a major source of Leiber and Stoller's success and power was their ability to bridge both racial barriers and musical genres. Their funny and funky contributions to the Coasters stand in contrast to their ethereal "Dance With Me" (the Drifters, 1959) and the gospely "Stand By Me" (Ben E. King, 1961). The breadth is even evident in their association with their most famous single partner, Elvis Presley, who managed to ride some of Big Mama's rollick in "Hound Dog", to choreograph Leiber and Stoller's high-spirited title tune for his "Jailhose Rock" film, to tame himself down to a genteel jump in "Treat Me Nice", and to croon passionately on "Don't".
mort shuman and doc pomus - brill building series
barry mann cynthia weil - brill building series
a m geller's grandson jake gorst's email to curbed regarding pearlroth house:
We've managed to raise enough money to move the house, but the Town of Southampton now requires that we put $25,000 in a passbook savings account so they can access it in the unlikely event that we abandon the restoration project before February 2007. Essentially they want us to pay to have it torn down if we "give up" - which is not in our vocabulary.
too clever by half
From 28 June 1965 to 31 March 1967 many American teenagers rushed home from school to watch Where the Action Is, a weekday ABC-TV program produced by Dick Clark Productions. The show aired at 3:30 p.m. central time and began with Freddy Cannon's song "Action": "Oh, baby, come on, let me take you where the action is/ . . . It's so neat to meet your baby where the action is."I was 11 when it started and 13 when it ended. i saw sonny and cher often. paul revere + raiders were regulars. it was a great summer and run home after school show though for sure. it laid the ground work in garage band appreciation. psych was still just around the time corner but that would only come from the radio. that was the end of reality youth culture on tv for a while (not counting the monkeys.) next would come don kirshner's rock concert. but that was what seamed to be much later. i was loosing interest in american band stand as soul train took on more relevance late 60's early 70's.
psychotic reaction the count five
New York Review of Books reviewed
Santiago Calatrava: Clay and Paint, Ceramics and Watercolors
an exhibition at the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute, New York,October 19–November 26, 2005
Santiago Calatrava: The Complete Works
by Alexander Tzonis
Rizzoli, 432 pp., $75.00
Santiago Calatrava: The Bridges
by Alexander Tzonis and Rebeca Caso Donadei
Universe, 272 pp., $29.95
Santiago Calatrava: Milwaukee Art Museum, Quadracci Pavilion
by Cheryl Kent
Rizzoli, 128 pp., $35.00
Santiago Calatrava: The Athens Olympics
by Alexander Tzonis and Rebeca Caso Donadei
Rizzoli, 176 pp., $50.00
"Draw a picture of a house," the big sister instructed the younger one, and the little girl's sketch was remarkably accurate. Her drawing was not the predictable A-frame with requisite chimney and smoke, but a squat, domed structure with striped siding. It was Alaska in the 1960s, and the girl was drawing her idea of the typical family home: a Quonset hut. This story, along with oral histories, essays, artifacts, and photographs, has been collected in Quonset: Metal Living for a Modern Age. In addition to the book, the NEH-supported project includes a Web site and an exhibition now on display at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art.
During the housing crunch of the late 1940s, thousands of people across the nation converted these surplus military huts into unconventional homes, churches, and restaurants. Today, the Quonset has largely vanished from most of the American landscape--and most people's memory.
photo murals
i really dont care for this container guy kalkin
wwl the big 870
"between 3 and 7 in the afternoon (PST) and click on Listen Live. (They'll make you fill out a form, but it's nothing and worth it.) It's a call in-show hosted by a pair of chicory-steeped who-dats named Deke Bellavia and "Pal" Al Nassar. For four hours a day, they buck up a devastated city, giving practical advice -- "Sha, you best make sure all your circuit breakers is thrown when they come round to turn on your power" -- listen to people going bugshit about bureaucracy -- "I told that FEMA lady, 'Hon, I got a contractor fixin' to take OFF my new roof if you don't get the check over here soon'" -- and give the latest news about the city and state governments tripping all over each other."via v zars
They're passionate and local in a really fucked-up locale.
---for example: a call from a honeysuckle-toned woman the hosts called Miss Margaret. She'd obviously lost everything, but was full of sweet southern optimism. Seems her earlier calls to the show had caught the attention of Life (or, as she called it, Life's) Magazine and they've done a story on her that's coming out soon. She was thrilled and convinced that "help is on the way" for the people who live on her street. "I know it's true because you keep getting calls from people who say, 'I'm coming to New Orleans next month and I'm going to go to Constance Street to see Miss Margaret. And now it's going to get bigger." (I guess word's gotten out on the internet stream.)
Deke: Miss Margaret, I'm going to be in the city all day tomorrow and I want to find you and have a rich coffee with you.
Margaret: Love to, Brother Deke, but you know I don't have my kitchen
back. I'm going to have to make it for you instantly.
Deke: I'll take it however you got it, dawlin'.
CVI painting stretchers
Philip Johnson is gone, but not forgotten. A slick sales campaign by real estate marketing firm The Sunshine Group tells us that the Urban Glass House, a vestige of the final projects designed by the late, renowned architect, is rising as we speak in a fast-changing urban industrial outpost at the western edge of SoHo and just north of Tribeca.
The neat marketing package belies a convoluted backstory: First, this isn’t the building Johnson intended as his last legacy (in fact, it is more of a tribute design than one of his own.) Second, the man who dreamed up the project and hired Johnson’s firm-restaurateur-turned-developer Nino Vendome, who after 9/11 turned his nearby restaurant into a home-away-from-home for thousands of rescue and recovery workers at Ground Zero-has all but vanished from the project as well.