Schwarz
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via fab-prefab newsletter 11
What would you do if you were asked to build a house on a rocky island with only five pencil drawings to go by? This was the challenge given to Thomas Heinz, AIA, a renowned Frank Lloyd Wright scholar. The house he was asked to model and execute was designed by Wright in 1950 but never built.
What Heinz had to start with were floor plans, three elevations, a section, and a perspective, with no materials, no dimensions — very few notations at all. Unlike Wright's designs for "Usonian" residences, which followed a rectangular or square grid, this house was to be triangular in plan, based on a grid of equilateral triangles five feet (1.5 meters) on a side.
The design incorporated an existing 60-foot long, 12-foot wide, 12-foot high (18 by 4 by 4 meters), whale-shaped rock extending through the center of the house, and the site presented many other technical challenges for the architect and the builders.
It is quite a thrill: zooming from outer space through cloud layers into your continent, country, state, city and neighborhood, finally onto the roof of your very own house, then zooming back out again, twirling the globe and landing at another spot. But after a while, you might want to explore the higher applications of Google Earth - for example, browsing modern and contemporary architecture.
Pointingit (0lll.com/pointingit) started last month with the sole purpose of linking Google Earth (which only Windows users can download at earth.google.com) to 0lll.com (that's a zero and three L's), a Web site that compiles everyday, not-always-glamorous photographs of architecture.
So far, Pointingit, which is quite complicated to use, has posted fewer than a hundred architectural works, mostly in Europe and mostly new. They have been organized into odd categories: five structures designed by Santiago Calatrava; four banks and insurance company headquarters; four Herzog and de Meuron projects under construction; 14 bridges around the world; seven buildings in São Paulo; three egg-shaped structures; seven houses in Heitzing, a residential district of Vienna, plus all the houses within the estate known as the Werkbundsiedlung; and nine past winners of the RIBA Stirling architecture prize.
Jiml's house in NO's fourth ward.
just heard from fellow digitalmediatree blogger jim louis calling in via cell phone from new orleans louisiana. he's driven back down from virginia to check in on his small flood damaged house in (i believe) the impoverished fourth ward. he promises to send digital photos as e.mail attachments which i will faithfully post here on this page. keep an eye out for pictures to follow here and new information showing up on his page
10/26/05 kenny g whispers the names of two thousand dead soldiers from the iraq war
ive been assigned an internet research project by my mothers technically challenged cousin. john mcdowell (big charlie's son) asked me to research our ancestor samuel mcdowell's (aka super sam) involvement in the spanish conspiracy.
notes follow in the comments section
civil war era house in washington va
oldest english church in the us at jamestown va
christopher wren building at william and mary
motel postcards of williamsburg
nested in the heart of colonial wiliamsburg is an interesting enigma. some where along the way the williamsburg inn built a modern annex. it appears to date from the late 50's early 60's. a smart looking late international style two story block of painted white brick apartments with flat roofs, sliding glass doors and handsome little squared off balconies and terraces overlooking the tennis courts. there seams to be no mention of them on line at all. a latter day embarrisment i assume. my relative who lives near by hates them and apologised for them. i assume most of the locals hate them as well. i loved 'em. the white painted brick has been allowed to peal in places giving them a terrific old south patina. i am aware that the rockafeller family has been involved with the CW project since the time of its original restoration. perhaps they recommended someone. i can find nothing on the identity of the architect of this annex. photo follows on 1st comment page of this post.
You know that David Bowie song on Diamond Dogs where he talks about, “Fleas the size of rats suck on rats the size of cats”? Well, most people think he was talking about some imaginary, post-apocalyptic future; but, in actual fact, he’d just spent a few nights sleeping at my flat in the early seventies. We lived by the law of the jungle, man — eat, or be eaten!
There are some who will perceive a confounding desire to gloss over the apocalyptic anxieties that grip the American consciousness, from ground zero to the Gulf Coast. But the show's focus on formal aesthetics does plant it firmly within the Modern's tradition. When Philip Johnson, the founder of the museum's department of architecture, first introduced the International Style to an American audience in the 1930's, he famously stripped the movement of its social and political meanings.
That agenda continued through the cold-war era, when critics charged, with some justification, that the museum's support of abstraction fit neatly within a broader government agenda to project a progressive image to the world.
But in some ways, the show also brings to mind the bent-plywood furniture of Charles and Ray Eames, which became alluring emblems of the postwar American dream. "Safe" seems to be shaped by the innocent belief that good, clever designs can lead to a more enlightened world.
Today, that notion seems naïve. It's hard to remember a time in American history when the unnerving effect of world politics on daily life has been more palpable. A sign in the subway alerting passengers that the police are checking bags and knapsacks triggers a sequence of emotions: fear, repression and, finally, denial. That sign - mounted on a cheap board, with simple lettering - is more likely to leave a lasting imprint than the most beautiful objects in this show.
Composers’ Voices from Ives to Ellington
An Oral History of American Music
Vivian Perlis and Libby Van Cleve
The first opportunity to read—and hear—interviews with and about great American composers and musicians of the early twentieth century
The first decades of the twentieth century were a fertile and fascinating period in American musical history. This book and the two CDs that accompany it present an exceptional collection of interviews with and about the most significant musical figures of the era. Tapping the unparalleled materials contained in the Oral History American Music archive at Yale University, Composers’ Voices from Ives to Ellington is a unique account of what it was like for musicians and composers to live and work in those years. It is also the story of the making of the archive, as told by Vivian Perlis, who personally conducted many of the interviews.
Music aficionados can now hear Eubie Blake describe the birth of ragtime or listen to a firsthand account of how Ira Gershwin came to write those famous lines in “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.” In-depth interviews with such figures as Henry Cowell, Virgil Thomson, Aaron Copland, and Duke Ellington are included in the book, which also features chapter introductions and fascinating sidebars, illustrations, and anecdotes throughout. Two CDs complete the set, enabling today’s listener to enjoy the remarkablen experience of hearing the actual voices and the music of American composers of the early twentieth century.
beyondthebeatgeneration
mc5 concert posters
NEW ORLEANS - Optimism is in short supply here. And as people begin to sift through the wreckage left by Hurricane Katrina, there is a creeping sense that the final blow has yet to be struck - one that will irrevocably blot out the city's past.
The first premonition arose when Mayor C. Ray Nagin announced that the model for rebirth would be a pseudo-suburban development in the Lower Garden District called River Garden. The very suggestion alarmed preservationists, who pictured the remaking of historic neighborhoods into soulless subdivisions served by big-box stores.
More recently, Mr. Nagin contemplated suspending the city's historic preservation laws to make New Orleans more inviting to developers - evoking the possibility of architectural havoc and untrammeled greed.
But politicians and developers are not the only culprits here. For decades now, the architectural mainstream has accepted the premise that cities can exist in a fixed point in historical time. What results is a fairy tale version of history, and the consequences could be particularly harsh for New Orleans, which was well on its way to becoming a picture-postcard vision of the past before the hurricane struck.
As attention shifts from rescue to reconstruction in New Orleans, we must answer the question of how, and in what form, the rebuilding will happen. If we get the answer wrong, Katrina and Rita could turn out to be among the greatest cultural disasters the nation has ever experienced.
On a recent visit to New Orleans, I saw first-hand that the French Quarter and the Garden District are largely intact. That's good news, certainly, because these areas, with their imposing white columns and lacy cast-iron galleries, constitute the world-renowned public face of New Orleans. But the down-home heart of the city beats in lesser-known neighborhoods such as Holy Cross, Treme, Broadmoor and Mid-City, where officially designated historic districts showcase the modest Creole cottages, corner stores and shotgun houses (long, narrow houses, usually only one room wide with no hallway) that are essential ingredients in the rich architectural mix that is New Orleans. These are the buildings that we saw in those haunting images of battered rooftops dotting a toxic sea, and they are the buildings most at risk. Saving as many of them as possible is essential--and I came away convinced that the vast majority of them can be saved.
schwarz is going on vacation tomorrow - family visit to monticello and colonial williamsburg - will take pics...
The culpability compounds with each set of hands that touched this property.
Bunshaft could have put covenants on it before willing it to MoMA, but didn't, possibly on the assumption that the Museum would, by the nature of its mission, take steps to preserve this important design.
MoMA could have put restrictions on the house when it sold it to Stewart but didn't. MoMA's not in the house business, so the idea that MoMA woulda shoulda kept it is naive at best. As is any idea that Bunshaft could've intended for MoMA to do anything but benefit from the gift of the house.
But still, the operating principles here were fiduciary, not curatorial or conservationist; and yet the "understanding" with Stewart and the publicity around it at the time, points to a perceived responsibility beyond merely maximizing the museum's return from a donation. Q: Did the Museum set aside the proceeds from the sale for future acquisitions? "Art-for-art," as befits a deaccession? I highly doubt it. If not, however the sale was presented--or spun-- in the press, on the museum's ledger, the house was a financial asset, not a work of art.
Stewart could have left the house as is, but didn't. Can anyone be surprised by that? Martha Stewart is a hack. The queen of hacks. It was her penury and negligence that let the house deteriorate. She's lucky that an over-inflated sense of your own aesthetic superiority leading to the decimation of a modernist landmark isn't a crime, or she'd still be in jail.
Ever since the sale, MoMA said it had a "good faith agreement" with Stewart to preserve the house, which was a stripped, weed-covered shell when her lawsuits with the house's next door neighbor were finally settled.
Pawson's a frickin' hack, but he coulda--no, he was just Stewart's hack.
Alexis... this was a wealth transfer mechanism, nothing more.
Maharam's a hack, and a spineless hack at that. He could have restored the house if he cared to, instead he hides behind the excuse that it was beyond help. The incremental expense of doing so is approximately zero compared to the price of the land. And it's not like he can build anything else; wetlands zoning restricts him to Bunshaft's original footprints (and whatever Stewart/Pawson managed to get approved.)
Did someone mention approvals? That'd be the East Hampton town board who sat by while one of the few interesting feats of architecture in the whole place was modified and destroyed. But then, why should important modernist design get any better treatment in the potato fields of the Hamptons than they do on the corner of Central Park?
So what do I find in a number of blogs? Yep, advertising via BlogAds. Not only that, the majority of the ads are on sites that are part of the Liberal Network.
So here I am, trying to make a living through blogging and they think it's cute to have bloggers like me basically advertise their project for free.
Well, here's the deal people : You have crossed the line. It is not viral marketing on my blog when you pay for advertisment to other bloggers. When you do that, you have an ad campaign in place. Asking me to do it for free is in labor-talk, "explotation".