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Britons and the Irish can still down a pint of beer, walk a mile, covet an ounce of gold and eat a pound of bananas after the European Union ruled today that the countries could retain measurements dating back to the Middle Ages.
Under a previous European Union plan, Britain and Ireland would have been forced to adopt the metric system and phase out imperial measurements by 2009. But after a vociferous antimetric campaign by British skeptics and London’s tabloid press, European Union officials decided that an ounce of common sense (or 28.3 grams) suggested that granting a reprieve was better than braving a public backlash.
In 1950, at 83, Frank Lloyd Wright designed a house for a private island on Lake Mahopac, about 50 miles north of New York City. He dreamed it might surpass Fallingwater, his 1935 masterpiece—but then the client ran short of funds, and the house was shelved for almost 50 years. Now, after eight years of planning and construction, the house is finally complete—5,000 spectacular square feet of mahogany, lake stone, hand-troweled cement, and triangular skylights.
But no house, least of all a posthumous construction from the twentieth century’s most famous architect, is an island, and this one has become a particularly hot piece of intellectual real estate. There are those who celebrate its realization: It’s used in the packaging of the Apple-based architecture software that helped bring the design to life and is the subject of an upcoming PBS documentary. And there are its haters: architects, scholars, and amateurs who say it’s not Wright’s real vision—the stones jut too much, the skylights should be flat, not domed, and so on. As it stands, the house is officially unofficial. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation’s chief executive officer, Philip Allsopp, states bluntly, “It’s not a Frank Lloyd Wright house, because it hasn’t been certified by the foundation.”
"quiet" night
35 years of construction in 10 seconds
via vz
For the last three years a team of engineers, conservators and architects has been studying the guts of the Guggenheim, mapping out a thorough but respectful renovation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiraling building on Fifth Avenue, completed in 1959. Although it was clearly in serious need of renewal, with cracks in its facade, a decaying sidewalk and outdated mechanical systems, experts wanted to make a comprehensive diagnosis before determining the best course of treatment.
Yesterday at the flea market I picked up a small cosmetics case stuffed with photos almost all of which were of the same woman. The bulk of the photos were photobooths and portraits documenting her as she aged over the course of about 50 years or so. I'll probably eventually put them all up over at Square America but until then here's a bunch- the dates where available are underneath each photo. Given the date of the first photo I figure she was born in late 1937 or early 1938. The last photo dates from the early 90s so she's somewhere in her early-to-mid 50s there.via mr bc
hill country
via adman