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blech + architecture   201

A Field Guide to AC Units | Urban Omnibus
"Air conditioning is not an aspect of urbanism whose implications we often consider. What follows is Alison Carafa’s fresh and cheerful journey through some of the unintended uses for, hacks to and consequences of this unloved but, for many, indispensable addition to urban windows."
newyork  newyorkcity  architecture  planning  airconditioning  energy  environment  from instapaper
6 weeks ago by blech
Space and Architecture in Battlestar Galactica | Mediascape
Annie Dell’Aria: "The architecture and design of the new Battlestar Galactica’s (SciFi, 2004-2009) narrative world mirrors the complex political, ethical, and moral questions posed by the narrative arc of the entire series."
battlestargalactica  tv  television  culture  architecture  comment  from instapaper
7 weeks ago by blech
The New Aesthetic and I | Damien G. Walter
"Images are made in Photoshop and Illustrator. Video is edited in Final Cut Pro. Buildings are rendered in Autodesk. Books are written in Scrivener. And so on. To paraphrase McLuhan “the hardware / software is the message” because while you can imitate as many different styles as you like in your digital arena of choice, ultimately they all end up interrelated by the architecture of the technology itself."
newaesthetic  mac  computing  photoshop  mcluhan  architecture  technology  criticism  from instapaper
7 weeks ago by blech
Will Self reviews Owen Hatherley on architecture | LRB
"Hatherley is ostensibly a critic in the mode of Reyner Banham: freewheeling, spinning out ideas, theories and evaluations that may have their origin in the stony core of the built environment, but which spread to encompass most other aesthetic realms as well. Aesthetic but in Hatherley’s case also political: for it is the great strength of his writing – as well as its besetting weakness – that he aims for an explicitly politicised critique." Full of fancy words, and sympathetic yet still Self is scathing. It's worth a read, anyway.
architecture  criticism  politics  culture  review  lrb  willself  owenhatherley  from instapaper
9 weeks ago by blech
The sad story of Battersea: a graveyard of architectural visions | things magazine
"Few buildings have been submitted to as many masterplans and schemes as Battersea Power Station. Once again in limbo, the great red brick hulk on the south bank of the Thames has acted as a canvas for the shifting architectural visions of the decades, from fun palace to theme park to science centre to culture park to non-descript icon."
london  architecture  battersea  batterseapowerstation  thingsmagazine  history  timeline  from instapaper
9 weeks ago by blech
Icon of the Month: Battersea Power Station | Icon
Owen Hatherley: "Architecture, at Battersea Power Station, was an afterthought." "Giles Gilbert Scott was brought in at the last minute to head off complaints. It is telling that what is London’s best-loved piece of 20th-century architecture is so un-modernist – applied decoration on a big shed."
london  architecture  battersea  batterseapowerstation  owenhatherley  from instapaper
9 weeks ago by blech
The London Terminals: Kings Cross | London Reconnections
"The opening will not mark the final completion of the Kings Cross project – that will not come until late 2013 when the green canopy that currently hides the impressive facade of one of London’s oldest stations will finally be removed. It will, however, arguably mark the biggest point of change for passengers – because from Monday the way-finding through Kings Cross will change significantly." The usual worthwhile look at a public transport project.
london  kingscross  railway  engineering  architecture  design  londonreconnections  via:iamdanw  from instapaper
10 weeks ago by blech
The Future According to Mead | The Architect's Newspaper
Craig Hodgetts: 'Joining the throngs of the faithful as they jostled for a better view of his paintings, and searching in vain for even one fellow architect, one could not help wondering why the place was not swarmed by young designers. And one was reminded once again of just how insular the architects of the “Me Generation” had become. On display were images depicting cityscapes and buildings that might have been snatched from the most recent international competitions. Lustrous metallic surfaces, twisting towers, parametric volumes, all hauntingly beautiful, and all bearing dates—wait for it—from the early 1970s and ’80s!'
sydmead  sciencefiction  images  architecture  design  art  future  from instapaper
11 weeks ago by blech
The Right Fit | Los Angeles Review Of Books
"By taking the space suit as a topic, then, de Monchaux stakes a claim for architecture as a wider pursuit — one that does not presuppose buildings. In the same period as the Apollo space suit’s production, architecture was undergoing changes of its own. Technical professions like engineering came to develop more and more of what might be thought of as the real machines for living: standardized components, HVAC systems, tempered glass — the real architecture." A good review of my favourite book of last year.
book  review  spacesuit  architecture  design  space  technology  human  from instapaper
11 weeks ago by blech
Barbican Estate: Concept & design | City of London
"Many of the terrace blocks are raised on columns, a device employed to give continuity between different parts of the layout and to avoid what may otherwise have been, in a high density development, blunt and oppressive enclosures by buildings forbidding in scale."
london  highwalk  barbican  planning  architecture  1960s  cityoflondon 
11 weeks ago by blech
The Museum of London by Powell and Moya | Architectural Review
Michael Brawne’s 1977 review of the Museum of London, one of the final parts of the London Wall development from the 1950s to the 1970s. "It is not only such specific site conditions which cause difficulties but rather more the general problem of approaching a building divorced from the ground and also, or very good reasons, presenting blank surfaces to the spaces which link it to the urban mesh that inevitably continues beyond its boundaries. Somehow the architectural act of recognising that the surroundings are alien, at the same time alienates the building itself from its setting."
london  museum  museumoflondon  architecture  highwalk  barbican  powellandmoya  review 
12 weeks ago by blech
Alexander Garvin Looks at Public Spaces in New York | NYTimes.com
'“The public realm is what we own and control,” he told me the other day when we met to look around Midtown. More than just common property, he added, “the streets, squares, parks, infrastructure and public buildings make up the fundamental element in any community — the framework around which everything else grows.”'
nytimes  newyork  publicspace  architecture  planning  environment  from instapaper
february 2012 by blech
Lunch Hour Lecture: The Metaphysics of Concrete | UCL
"Almost three tons of concrete are produced every year for each man, woman and child on the planet. It is now second only to water in terms of human consumption. Yet how has the astonishing take-up of this new medium within little over a century been accommodated into our mental universe?" A lecture at UCL's Bartlett School tomorrow.
london  architecture  building  materials  concrete  via:@foe 
february 2012 by blech
HWKN Wins 2012 PS 1 Young Architects Program | A/N Blog
"New York-based HWKN has been selected for this year’s MoMA/PS 1 Young Architects Program. Their proposal, called “Wendy,” uses standard scaffolding to create a visually arresting object that straddles the three outdoor rooms of the PS 1 courtyard. Tensioned fabric coated in smog-eating paint provides shelter and programming areas including a stage, shower, and misters."
newyork  newyorkcity  moma  ps1  architecture  pavilion  todo  from instapaper
february 2012 by blech
Paul Goldberger and Jason Barr on the Manhattan Skyline | The New York Observer
On why the New York skyline isn't a product of bedrock depth, but is a result of various economic, societal and geographical pressures.
newyork  newyorkcity  architecture  planning  urbanism  skyline  from instapaper
january 2012 by blech
Design Perfectionists at Home | NYTimes.com
The captions on the photos are hilarious, and there are some good laughs in the first few paragraphs, but there's a good deeper point in this post about minimal and perfect homes.
architecture  living  design  culture  perfectionism  minimalism  nytimes  from instapaper
january 2012 by blech
Skyscrapers aren't always about corporate pride before a fall | guardian.co.uk
"From the Empire State to the Burj Khalifa, skyscrapers predict recession. But not all towers are built by phallic capitalism." Owen Hatherley on skyscrapers.
guardian  architecture  skyscrapers  empirestatebuilding  from instapaper
january 2012 by blech
The Very Model of a (LEGO) Architect | Architectural Record
"Tucker, who designs stone-faced architecture sets for Lego in his Arlington Heights studio and has created 11 kits so far -- from a 546-piece replica of Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House in Plano to a relatively modest, 208-piece Guggenheim Museum -- had delivered, as promised, another retail-friendly Lego interpretation of iconic architecture. In fact, it was his biggest, most ambitious set yet.
lego  architecture  design  toy  building  via:antimega 
january 2012 by blech
cityofsound: Journal: Passport Control to Pimlico
Dan Hill on Pimlico. When I worked just over the Lambeth Bridge I got to wander through the area a bit, and I was lucky enough to do a walking tour looking at the various social housing with Owen Hatherley. There's a good section on second housing, too.
london  housing  architecture  design  living  danhill  from instapaper
december 2011 by blech
#walkshopping (winter edition) | Matt Edgar
"We made a walkshop! At sunset on Tuesday, undeterred by George Osborne, high winds and torrential rain, 17 of Yorkshire’s finest designers, technologists and geographers gathered to walk and talk, to see Leeds in a new light." Sounds good.
leeds  architecture  environment  cities  design  from instapaper
december 2011 by blech
Sutured San Francisco | BLDGBLOG
"Upon moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2007," [Leigh Merrill] writes, "I began looking at the complexity of its urban environment. The Bay Area presents a unique blend of residential living that sits between urban and suburban in a way that never quite reconciles one with the other."
sanfrancisco  architecture  photography  manipulation  essay  via:stml 
december 2011 by blech
Anatomy of a 21st century skyscraper | Ars Technica
On The Shard, at London Bridge, and simulating load. "We use sophisticated finite element analysis and advanced nonlinear dynamic analysis. It's the same software car designers use except we're modeling steel and concrete, and how they interact."
london  architecture  engineering  theshard  via:ohskylab 
december 2011 by blech
UC Planners Envision “Bay Line” Park | Streetsblog San Francisco
Speaking of the High Line, this proposal for a new urban area on the Bay Bridge is somewhat interesting, very Gibsonian, but utterly impractical. Still, that's kind of the Bay Area all over.
sanfrancisco  sfba  baybridge  bridge  park  design  architecture  planning  from delicious
september 2011 by blech
eyes-above-street-high-lines-second-installment
bruces: http://t.co/D9oAWQU *The elite among urban "stuffed animals" #GothicHighTech #Chic #NYHighLine
newyork  newyorkcity  highline  park  urbanism  design  architecture  from instapaper
august 2011 by blech
55 Broadway's Future Under Review | London Reconnections
"The continued occupancy by London Underground of 55 Broadway, its iconic headquarters, is currently under review. The Grade 1 listed building, which includes St James Park station, is widely regarded as one of Britain’s finest pieces of architecture – one of the lasting legacies of Frank Pick’s time at London Underground." Sigh.
london  underground  architecture  design  history  heritage  from delicious
july 2011 by blech
Jeremy Hunt turns down Broadgate for listing | Building Design
"BD revealed last week that bookmaker William Hill was predicting that Hunt would refuse to list Broadgate, thanks to an unpredecented lobbying campaign by the City of London and the wider financial sector in favour of Make’s proposed new building." This is not a surprise at all.
london  architecture  broadgate  planning  englishheritage  from delicious
june 2011 by blech
Alexandra Lange: New Apple HQ, 1957: Observers Room: Design Observer
"After marveling at the idea of an endless corridor of offices, and speculating on Twitter about which firm could handle all that curved glass, I realized Apple's ring reminded me of something else. And it wasn't the future. It was 1957." A very good critique of the conceptual framework behind Apple's proposed new Cupertino campus.
architecture  apple  business  planning  from instapaper
june 2011 by blech
The Gorge - Electricity Pylon Design
Flash Bristow's guide to the changes in British pylon design over the last eighty years or so. This was the best bit of another Jonathan Glancey Guardian piece: http://gu.com/p/2p972/
uk  design  architecture  infrastructure  electricity  energy  guide  pylons  from instapaper
may 2011 by blech
On Pylons | Exquisite Tweets
Various architecture critics on Twitter debating pylons and classic modern design.
twitter  commentary  architecture  design  pylons  electricity  via:mondoagogo  from delicious
may 2011 by blech
The gaunt, skeletal beauty of pylons | The Guardian
From a couple of years ago, Stephen Spender's poem The Pylons quoted in a piece by Jonathan Glancey.
guardian  infrastructure  architecture  electricity  energy  poem  stephenspender  pylons  from delicious
may 2011 by blech
10 of the best art galleries in Manhattan | The Guardian
David Zwirner / Art in General / New Museum of Contemporary Art  / Christopher Henry Gallery / Sperone Westwater / Storefront for Art and Architecture / The Drawing Center / The New York Earth Room / Greene Naftali / L&M Arts
newyork  newyorkcity  art  architecture  todo  galleries  guardian  from delicious
may 2011 by blech
BLDGBLOG: Aerotropolis: An Interview with Greg Lindsay
A must-read interview with Greg Lindsay, author of Aerotropolis, a book that argues - if the interview is anything to go by, persuasively - that the cities of the 21st century will be designed around airports.
cities  future  urbanism  architecture  airport  travel  peakoil  from instapaper
april 2011 by blech
Anatomy of a Crushing | Pinboard Blog
A typical Maciej Ceglowski writeup, in that it's entertaining, filled with great phrases, and also informative. As ever, Pinboard's use of Good Old Fashioned Stuff That Just Works is worth noting.
pinboard  architecture  mysql  scaling  from delicious
march 2011 by blech
Chapter One - Beginnings | Outside Lies Magic
There are so many parts of this introduction to John Stillgoe's book, based on a lecture course, that I want to quote that there's no way I can, and no way I can do it justice (not thank britta enough for posting it in the first place). If you want a synposis, it's about colour and light and seeing and exploring and the built environment and being a pedestrian and... magic. Look, just go and read it.
books  exploring  seeing  architecture  colour  light  via:dreamyshade  from delicious
february 2011 by blech
London’s latest landmark | FT.com
A Financial Times article on the construction of the Shard, including a sequence of construction photos, and some details about the way they plan to use an internal crane to finish the construction. Worth battling the FT's crazy article limits for.
london  shard  architecture  construction  photography  via:antimega  from delicious
february 2011 by blech
Be my valentine, Arlington House | Margate Architecture
"Designed by Russell Diplock Associates and built by Bernard Sunley, Arlington was a high spec building."
margate  architecture  concrete  modernism  heritage  from delicious
february 2011 by blech
Stealing from the poor, to give to the rich... | entschwindet und vergeht
"I thought I’d take a quick look at the Blackwall Reach Regeneration Project, picking out some of the more significant points." "I think that Architects do themselves no favours by aestheticising something that has to be lived in, without a care for the residents, but the regenerators certainly have nothing like the best interests of the residents at heart." A good read on the area around Robin Hood Gardens.
london  architecture  urbanism  politics  housing  via:mondoagogo  from delicious
february 2011 by blech
Robin Hood Gardens remodelled | Building Design
"Sarah Wigglesworth Architects has devised a scheme that could save east London flats Robin Hood Gardens from the bulldozers. The architect has shown how the blocks could be remodelled into modern family homes." I doubt this has any chance given the priorities of Tower Hamlets and central government, but it'd be nice if it did.
london  architecture  publichousing  housing  urbanism  modernism  via:cityofsound  from instapaper
january 2011 by blech
Owen Hatherley: A flat festival tonic for Britain | The Guardian
"The new festival – especially if it gives in and rebuilds the Skylon – will be an exercise in nostalgia, in morbid and wildly inaccurate historical analogy, at a time when we desperately need an infusion of the original festival's socialist, futuristic spirit."
london  architecture  modernism  history  austerity  owenhatherley  via:mondoagogo  culture  nostalgia  comment  from instapaper
january 2011 by blech
The Movie | Into Eternity
"Every day, the world over, large amounts of high-level radioactive waste cre- ated by nuclear power plants is placed in interim storage, which is vulnerable to natural disasters, man-made disasters, and to societal changes. In Finland the world’s first permanent repository is being hewn out of solid rock – a huge system of underground tunnels - that must last 100,000 years as this is how long the waste remains hazardous." While I'm collecting links to documentaries, this one is also on the too-see list.
film  documentary  finland  nuclear  waste  architecture  from delicious
january 2011 by blech
Home | Utopia London
"These young idealists were once united around a vision of using science and art to create a city of equal citizens. Their architecture fused William Morris with urban high-rise; ancient parkland with concrete. Utopia London examines the, social and political agendas of the time in which the city was rebuilt. The story goes on to explore how the meaning of these transformative buildings has been radically manipulated over subsequent decades. Inspired by the optimism of the past it poses the question; where do we go from here and now?" I didn't bookmark this before; this rectifies that.
documentary  film  london  cities  urbanism  architecture  housing  planning  via:cityofsound  via:everyone  from delicious
january 2011 by blech
Our peculiar relationship with service stations | Motortorque
"We can all expect to have to pull into a motorway service station from time-to-time." An interview with the author of Food on the Move.
uk  motorway  architecture  food  culture  modernism  1960s  book  interview  from instapaper
january 2011 by blech
Mumbai Builds 'Skywalks' | WSJ.com
"Mumbai's muddled streets are too packed to walk through, so India's commercial capital has come up with a solution. Uplift the masses—not in some fuzzy metaphysical way, but on "skywalks" made of steel." I can't remember if this is the article I read last year, but it's a good summary.
skyway  highwalk  mumbai  architecture  infrastructure  urbanism  from delicious
january 2011 by blech
Lofty Idea: “Skywalks” for Mumbai Pedestrians | TheCityFix Mumbai
"In response to this overcrowding, the city is building more than 50 elevated walkways, dubbed “skywalks”" A good roundup of links and coverage, not just of Mumbai's skywalks, but similar things elsewhere (including Winnipeg and Cinncinnati).
skyway  highwalk  mumbai  architecture  planning  infrastructure  from delicious
january 2011 by blech
A walk in the Mumbai sky | Urbanized
"Once I arrived in the city, I became fascinated by its new system of Skywalks, 36 elevated walkways that are basically extended exits from the urban railroad stations. The city planners’ position was that commuters wanted to be able bypass the swarm of taxis and hawkers that surround the station exits, and have the Skywalks deposit them several kilometers away which would more equally distribute the amount of exiting pedestrians."
highwalk  skyway  mumbai  architecture  planning  urbanism  infrastructure  via:@kassita  from delicious
january 2011 by blech
5 Broadgate, London - review | The Observer
"A pedestrian route across the site will be closed, forcing people to squeeze round the edges of the new building's bulk. A covered arcade through the block might have been possible, but this is banned for security reasons, as are shops or cafes at the building's base. The ban is a deal-breaker, apparently: if the City's planners insisted on these humanising touches, UBS would up and go – to Canary Wharf or, worse, Frankfurt." Rowan Moore's worth-reading dissection of Make Architect's plans for 5 Broadgate. (Only 20 years old, yet still down for demolition and rebuilding.)
london  architecture  observer  rowanmoore  broadgate  finance  via:antimega  from delicious
january 2011 by blech
On location at Euston Station | Verso Books
'The Modernist station, built in the 1960s, replaced the original station of the early 19th century, demolished along with the iconic Euston Arch. Whilst Stamp laments the “gratuitous destruction” of the old Doric gateway, Hatherley thinks that the new complex is “unspectacular but reasonably decent.”'
london  euston  architecture  radio  interview  from delicious
november 2010 by blech
Miracle on 33rd Street - NYTimes.com
What has been forgotten in this hysterical nostalgia is that our current Penn Station is also a miracle: pitiless and comically jury-rigged, sure, but miraculous.
newyork  newyorkcity  trains  architecture  transport  publicspace  from instapaper
november 2010 by blech
Euromap | t-reichling.de
A Lego map of Europe, complete with notable buildings in the style of the Architecture series. Impressive.
lego  map  europe  building  architecture  via:antimega  from delicious
november 2010 by blech
On the Telephone | Lee Maguire
"In real life, the phone boxes have become invisible in terms of utility. Billboards with a shape historically determined. Vestigial street-furniture. Bizarro morris columns." Lee on telephone boxes.
telephone  technology  architecture  everydaylife  culture  hardware  comment  from delicious
october 2010 by blech
Charles Holden's Designs for LT | Time Out London
The V&A doesn't have a page for this, so: "A display about the work of Charles Holden and his architectural practice Adams, Holden and Pearson, focusing on the designs they produced for London Transport. Featured are designs for stations created for the Northern line extension during the 1920s and the refurbishment of Piccadilly Circus station, London Underground's headquarters at 55 Broadway and the iconic, Art Deco stations Holden created for the Piccadilly line extension."
london  architecture  design  londontransport  charlesholden  v&a  exhibition  from delicious
october 2010 by blech
International Space Station | Building Design
"A few weeks ago, the final building block was delivered to the International Space Station, thus completing the first building beyond Earth. Here, one of the architects involved in its construction, charts the saga of the most technically advanced environment ever built"
space  iss  architecture  buildingdesign  article  from delicious
june 2010 by blech
Variety of American Grids | Discovering Urbanism
"I wanted a nerdy planning-related poster for my wall (other than the periodic table of city planning), so I made one this week. I scoured Google Earth and measured that quintessentially American grid in about fifty downtowns around the country." There's a surprising variation in block sizes across the cities.
cities  us  design  architecture  planning  urbanism  via:zimpenfish  from delicious
june 2010 by blech
Stuart Whipps ‘New Wooabbeleri’ | Focal Point Gallery
"the artist has produced an ambitious body of work, this time with the Thames Gateway as his focus of attention." Requires a trek to Southend, but might be worth it. Closes 3 July, 2010.
southend  art  gallery  photography  architecture  todo  from delicious
may 2010 by blech
Beautiful Brutes - Slide Show | NYTimes.com
"Every architectural style falls out of fashion [...] but after spending a generation in exile, it’s usually welcomed back." "A similar reconsideration is under way for Brutalism, that brawny mix of concrete walls and soaring cantilevers that first appeared in postwar Europe."
nytimes  ilustration  sketches  blackandwhite  nyc  slideshow  architecture  brutalism  from delicious
april 2010 by blech
Fortress America, London SW4 | Warren Ellis
On the proposed US Embassy in Battersea: "It's a fortress with a fucking moat". (It's worth clicking through to the Guardian for their belaboured pun headline and the either ironic or wrongheaded Glancey commentary.)
architecture  uk  london  us  culture  design  politics 
february 2010 by blech
City Planning with the Bressey Report | Ptak Science Books
"Bressey didn’t really try to 'kill' London, of course, though parts of his Greater London plan for redirecting and accommodating increasing vehicular traffic certainly would’ve destroyed some great beauty" "Trafalgar Square as a triple-decker parking deck. (What can one say?)" A curiously British pre-war approach.
london  architecture  cities  planning  future  motoring  failedfuture  transport  via:mondoagogo 
january 2010 by blech
yay more email clients | jerakeen.org
A good piece by Tom, explaining why the putative new email project by Brent Simmons and Daniel Jakult might be doomed. The short summary: "Brent’s effort is never going to produce a truly great mail client because ‘Uses IMAP‘ is one of his core requirements."
email  imap  server  gmail  architecture  re:jerakeen 
january 2010 by blech
Christian Skovgaard: SELVTÆGTSMANDEN | Aben maler
A comic about Robin Hood Gardens, in Danish. Really wish I'd gone down to the ICA yesterday now...
comic  architecture  london  via:@tragedyhatherle 
november 2009 by blech
buckets of vessels | this is aaronland
Lovely stuff. Maybe I should set up an account for 30 St Mary Axe...
flickr  architecture  cities  sanfrancisco  people  building 
november 2009 by blech
Hanging gardens of Barbican | click opera
Momus on the Barbican. "[It] has grown on me. It has its own charm. With age, it's becoming more weird, eccentric and unique. Yesterday, before running through the Brel show in the big theatre, I had a good rummage through the building." I think it does perhaps take time and effort to like the place.
london  barbican  architecture  culture  highwalk  momus  via:blackbeltjones  via:cityofsound 
october 2009 by blech
Helpless towers are being buried | Building Design
"The mania for recladding post-war high-rise office or council blocks is more pronounced in some places than others, but it extends all over Europe. It was very popular in the eighties and nineties with municipal towers, where it was (rather bafflingly) thought that encasing the buildings in plastic would remove the stigma of poverty." I miss the old concrete Stock Exchange Tower.
architecture  building  comment  owenhatherley  via:cityofsound 
september 2009 by blech
ruricomp | russell davies
"I've been listening to and reading all sorts of incredibly smart people talking about urban computing and cities for a while now. ... What if we thought about the countryside instead?" Good stuff here from Russell.
design  architecture  ubicomp  urbanism  countryside  counterpoint  via:adamgreenfield 
september 2009 by blech
Wolfram Blog : Twisted Architecture
"I wondered how convincingly I could model [30 St Mary Axe] in Mathematica." Somewhat interesting stuff (although possibly more so if you note that the original buildings themselves were digitally modelled as part of the design process).
architecture  london  30stmaryaxe  normanfoster  mathematica  mathematics  design  modelling  graphics  3d  via:zimpenfish 
september 2009 by blech
Farewell to brutalism | Building Design
"It is hard to believe that it is five years since Portsmouth’s Tricorn Centre (1962-7) was demolished, to the sound of the 1812 Overture. Nothing has happened to the site, but the building’s busy campaigners have produced this affectionate celebration." A good review of an interesting-sounding book.
architecture  books  review  culture  1960s  via:cityofsound 
september 2009 by blech
Cambridge Spies | sit down man, you're a bloody tragedy
Well, this isn't your usual Cambridge travelogue. Interesting, though.
architecture  comment  cambridge 
september 2009 by blech
Sealand | sit down man, you're a bloody tragedy
A brilliant post on Southampton, the Titanic ("The Titanic ought to be a bitter, painful memory for Southampton, because most of the crew - those who weren't allowed into the lifeboats - were from the town, and ... their pay was cancelled immediately; White Star gave no benefits or compensation"), shipping and container ports.
history  architecture  southampton  heritage  titanic 
august 2009 by blech
When David Fought Goliath in Washington Square Park | NYT
A review of 'Anthony Flint’s well-carpentered but breezy “Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City.”'
nyc  nytimes  book  review  architecture  planning  urbanism  via:adamgreenfield 
august 2009 by blech
Design 1972 Journal: Dunlop's easy rider | VADS
"Dunlop's Speedaway applications research has covered a proposed link between commuter train terminals north and south of the Thames. Photomontages, right and opposite, show the Speedaway crossing the new London Bridge."
london  architecture  planning  future  failedfuture  movingwalkway  1972  magazine  scan 
august 2009 by blech
Birmingham Central Library’s final chapter? | Building Design
"John Madin’s 1974 Birmingham Central Library was designed to be flexible, for a possible future without books. English Heritage would like to see it listed, but the city’s political elite say it is impossible to refurbish for modern needs and want it demolished." Shame.
uk  birmingham  architecture  modernism  library  buildingdesign  via:cityofsound 
august 2009 by blech
France's Concrete Dreams- Utopian Housing near Lyon | NYT
'Started in March by Lyon’s urban regional authority, the tour spotlights four avant-garde housing projects and one priory, all within easy reach of central Lyon. Along the way, it traces “the development of a new language in architecture,” said Gilles Ragot'
architecture  travel  france  modernism  nytimes  via:antimega 
august 2009 by blech
Public walkways | Mondial House
"internal walkway around the building, at first floor level" as with many other contemporaneous buildings. All gone now, of course.
london  highwalk  mondialhouse  architecture  planning 
july 2009 by blech
Shock refusal for British Museum extension | Architects Journal
"Camden Council has unexpectedly rejected Richard Rogers’ £135 million British Museum extension project."
london  architecture  planning  britishmuseum 
july 2009 by blech
Why Robin Hood Gardens deserves to be listed | guardian.co.uk
Alan Powers: "Robin Hood Gardens, still council-owned, could become a demonstration of less wasteful funding – if, instead of falling victim to a profit-led development with some affordable housing alongside, it could be refurbished without the high environmental costs associated with demolition."
london  architecture  housing  city  todo 
july 2009 by blech
Robin Hood Gardens | RIBA
"See recent photographs by Ioana Marinescu of the twin slab blocks, along with archival images and a documentary film by Martin Ginestie, giving a fresh interpretation of the formal quality of the architecture, the integration of the estate in the transformed landscape around London's docklands, and the intimate lives of its residents"
london  architecture  1960s  todo 
july 2009 by blech
Glass Age Development Committee | Wikipedia
Today's random Wikipedia discovery, via Vauxhall Bridge. Pilkington try to sell glass by promoting crazy modern architecture. "The Glass Age Development Committee is best known for its ambitious 1971 proposal for a glass and concrete offshore city housing 21,000 people, to be anchored off the coast near Great Yarmouth and accessed from the mainland by hovercraft."
wikipedia  history  1960s  britain  london  architecture 
july 2009 by blech
Professor Sir Colin Buchanan | Telegraph
A 2001 obituary of the author of Traffic in Towns, 1963. "In the larger cities, he proposed underground car parks, as well as the demolition of existing buildings and roads to allow traffic to proceed at ground level with shops - and pedestrians - on a level above."
telegraph  obituary  highwalk  motoring  architecture  planning 
july 2009 by blech
JG Ballard on what's wrong with London | Architects Journal
"London is a low-rise city of of vast area rather like Los Angeles - it’s about the same size. LA built the freeway system, and that’s what we need - a freeway system all over London - roads up in the air, carrying people free of the ground so that the ground is left for local traffic" He's also amusingly scathing about London's housing stock.
london  losangeles  planning  architecture  motoring  interview  jgballard 
july 2009 by blech
Draper's Gardens | Post-War Buildings
One of my most-missed post-war London towers, described by Mike Althorpe, who wrote The Car And The Elephant site mentioned previously. Obviously a chap to keep an eye on.
london  drapersgardens  architecture  history  design  highwalk  mikealthorpe 
july 2009 by blech
Home | The Car & The Elephant
A visually striking (but as migusrki points out, somewhat fiddly to use) site about the interaction of London's Elephant and Castle with the post-war rebuilding, whose planning was informed by the advent of mass motoring. There's some interesting interplay with the City's highwalks in here.
london  history  modernism  motoring  cars  planning  architecture  highwalk  mikealthorpe 
july 2009 by blech
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