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Of the seven wonders of the ancient world, only the Great Pyramid of Giza remains. An estimated 2 million stone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons went into its construction. When completed, the 481-foot-tall pyramid was the world's tallest structure, a record it held for more than 3,800 years, when England's Lincoln Cathedral surpassed it by a mere 44 feet.

We know who built the Great Pyramid: the pharaoh Khufu, who ruled Egypt about 2547-2524 B.C. And we know who supervised its construction: Khufu's brother, Hemienu. The pharaoh's right-hand man, Hemienu was "overseer of all construction projects of the king" and his tomb is one of the largest in a cemetery adjacent to the pyramid.

What we don't know is exactly how it was built, a question that has been debated for millennia. The earliest recorded theory was put forward by the Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Egypt around 450 B.C., when the pyramid was already 2,000 years old. He mentions "machines" used to raise the blocks and this is usually taken to mean cranes. Three hundred years later, Diodorus of Sicily wrote, "The construction was effected by mounds" (ramps). Today we have the "space alien" theory--those primitive Egyptians never could have built such a fabulous structure by themselves; extraterrestrials must have helped them.

Modern scholars have favored these two original theories, but deep in their hearts, they know that neither one is correct. A radical new one, however, may provide the solution. If correct, it would demonstrate a level of planning by Egyptian architects and engineers far greater than anything ever imagined before.

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No matter how the work of Atelier Bow-Wow (the mild-mannered, brilliant husband-and-wife team of Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima) tends to be interpreted or misinterpreted -- an exploitation of contextual constraints, an elaboration of personal quirks, an exploration of the potential of narrow spaces, and so on -- it is above all based on taking things seriously. Being serious, as Susan Sontag has said with regard to literature, includes being funny, but excludes being cynical. The houses of Atelier Bow-Wow may embody a subtle critique of the city that spawned them, yet for all their compositional humor, they always avoid subverting or mocking the desires of their clients. Quotidian pleasures and individual idiosyncrasies are all treated equally.

Like many of their contemporaries, Atelier Bow-Wow draw inspiration from French philosophical thought, yet not from the theoretical ambiguities and compositional analogies provided by figures such as Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze. Instead, the texts accompanying Atelier Bow-Wow projects often directly and indirectly reference canonical works of sociology such as Michel de Certeau's The Practice of Everyday Life, or Henri Lefebvre's Critique of Everyday Life and The Production of Space. Indeed, the current exhibition of Atelier Bow-Wow's work at Gallery MA is called Practice of Lively Space. This is architecture to be judged as a platform for enabling activity rather than for its sculptural beauty.

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inhabitat


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this house construction blog is nearing completion :

The "old" house is gone. I'll have some footage up here are some point, or at least some stills of it being torn down. Wow. You think about a house and how it stands up and shelters you, and then you watch a single piece of equipment tear it down and mash it into little bits. Then, the big trucks show up and drive off with the debris, the foundation gets scraped away, and all that's left is the bricks from the chimney in one pile and a line of tree roots looking like commuters waiting for a bus.

If I thought the internal destruction was rough, the ease with which the house was torn down was both fascinating and disturbing - mostly disturbing.

The lot is now wide open, and while I'm sure it'll look great once the house is up, it's scary to see everything scraped away.

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barnboard (appearing) floor mat

via vz
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rip laurie baker

Born in Birmingham in England in 1917, Mr. Baker came to India as an architect to the World Leprosy Mission in 1945. He spent two decades in the Himalayas and the Western Ghats, working among rural and tribal folk, and finally settled down in Thiruvananthapuram with his wife Dr. Elizabeth Jacob in 1970. He received Indian citizenship from the President in 1989.

His work included housing for the middle and lower classes and construction of educational and health institutions, industrial and religious buildings. He believed that a house should blend with the environment, without disturbing the natural features. Most of his creations feature unplastered brick walls, jalis or trellises in the brickwork and frameless doors and windows that let in natural light and air.

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The Quiet Evils Of America's 'Favorite' Buildings

The American Institute of Architects recently threw its authority behind a list of America's "favorite architecture," ranking three centuries of design and aesthetic nationalism from one to one-hundred-and-fifty. The resulting menu, culled by survey, of buildings, bridges, monuments, and other solid things amounts to a joyous celebration and a remarkable commentary on America's embrace of beauty. It also reinforces the desperation that arises when aesthetics and nationalism mix.

I have my opinions on the potency of the Empire State Building (1), the sublimity of the Vietnam Memorial (10), and the disappointment of Disney Hall (99), but no matter. Those we can argue over demitasse. Before we go romping through architecture’s greatest hits, it's probably worth asking, why do we recognize individual architects and individual works? And why do it in a country so awash in mediocrity?

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Steven Holl may be known for his innovative use of materials, but his award-winning designs have deliberately avoided a signature style


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placemaking (bookmark this)


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