This may well be the quintessence of BLDGBLOG.

I read this and thought "This sounds like perfect fodder for Warren Ellis" --- and the next day it showed up in his bookmarks feed.

"But, of course, the H.P. Lovecraftian overtones of this story—a monstrous skull in a church wall—are too obvious not to mention: an easy scenario for imagining whole plots and storylines in which the ancient forms of an unknown species are discovered hidden in cathedral masonry, opening previously unimagined horizons of time and radically revising theories of the history of life on earth." My question: what is the most recent fossilized human ancestor to be part of any place of worship?

"The armchairs had gathered to warn her. But alas, the ferns were already in formation." (I'm sorry, but that room looks awesome.)

"He’d assumed the warm glow that woke him each morning was the sun rising. Now he saw it was actually something far more sinister."

"One obstacle he hadn’t considered during construction: How difficult it would be to convince a one-night-stand he wasn’t plotting to kidnap and kill"

Again: UH should really write a horror novel.

UH should really write a horror novel: "At first, she had attributed the strange scribble on the blackboard to her forgetful memory. Now she descended the stairs each morning with dread, petrified of what the poltergeist wanted to communicate today."

"the new US Embassy in London is intended to be "a 12-storey cube clad in a blastproof glass and plastic façade" surrounded by a 30-metre blast zone. In the proof image above, it looks not unlike a high-end bunker has been simply dropped from space on London, an impregnable and isolated chunk of America. And while security is an obvious and present concern, I think perhaps this building says a little more than it was intended to. In fact, let’s admit it. IT’S A FORTRESS WITH A FUCKING MOAT. It doesn’t say "welcome to a little piece of America, one of the best ideas the world ever had and a country that welcomes the tired and poor and afraid." It says "if you even look at us funny we’ll pour boiling oil on you from the roof. Raise the drawbridge! Release the Mongolian Terror Trout!""

"Many desert creatures glean moisture from the blood and tissue of prey; she found a soak in the kiddie pool easier to stomach." --- But, as usual, I really want this house!

"That's where the Antlers of Perfect Justice drink your blood when the jury reaches the inevitable "guilty" verdict and the judge casts you out the window. I'm surprised it wasn't flowing red when I snapped that shot. Too early in the day, I guess."

If I'm honest, all these buildings and rooms look very appealing to me.

I thought everyone knew this? (Hopefully the "utter stupidity" tag will be completely obscure very soon.)

Monumental architecture by tyrants in the service of high culture: very Timurid. (Misses a "bookpr0n" tag because there are no books in the pictures.)

New Deal building projects. (Yay, Cathedral of Learning!)

Fascinating history of the roots of modern architecture

bruces unleashes some design-speak. But the point is right.

"Tens of millions of years in the future, when all of this urban infrastructure has turned to sludge, and radiative terrestrial heat has cooked old bricks into something resembling trace fossils, our cities could still be beautiful. "

Brief appreciation of the architectural aspect to Lovecraft's "The Shadow out of Time"

"So the zoo – like all zoos, of course – will be a simulation intended for animals. Zoos, in other words, are a particularly bizarre form of trans-species communication, attempted on the level of architecture and landscape design. They're like hierogl

Highly decayed, once-elegant hotel in downtown LA. "The hotel is being renovated. It will remain affordable housing, but will be upgraded to include ceiling fans, small fridges, and two-burner stoves."

More of the same. from the fall

Wow. I imagine that if anything by Piranesi had actually been built it would end up looking like this.

Really interesting book about cognitive modeling of architectural thought

"How to Fix America's Trillion-Dollar Construction Industry"