Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Absorbing essay on decline of American cities, how to create thriving urban areas. "To plan or not to plan is a false choice. Instead, civic leaders should think in terms of fostering beauty through the use of aesthetic constraints"
On the work of Ada Louise Huxtable, New York Times architecture critic until 1992. Write about what you see, not what the architect imagined. Never work from photographs. It's not so much the buildings as the space around them
"Speer’s planned rebuilding of Berlin is too readily dismissed as a Nazi pipedream; a still-born manifestation of Hitler’s architectural fantasies thankfully confined to the drawing board." In fact, it was central to Nazi ideology
"As an object in the urban landscape of London, Battersea stands supreme, having swallowed millions of pounds in a quarter century of procrastination, missteps, and thwarted ambition." A picture gallery with commentary
How much has fashion, art, music changed over past 20 years? Little. Certainly far less than in the previous 20. Why is this? Does the rapid rate of political, technological, economic change make us yearn for cultural stability?
In-depth look at design, engineering of Shard London Bridge, tallest building to be erected in Europe. Lots to interest on safety, environmental impact of skyscrapers, and why they remain essential for cities in 21st century
London mayor and his predecessor have turned city into a "phallocracy". "Those of us who have long argued that London could be a thriving economy within a dignified civic environment lost this battle"
Why do architects so often build monstrous things and destroy beautiful ones? They view the world differently. They're trained to prefer industrial forms and surfaces over natural ones. They see buildings, not landscapes
"We are profoundly immersed in the tortuous, commercially controlled currents of postmodern design and thought, and its weapons of mass psychic deconstruction. Has this made our lives richer in meaning, or just richly vacuous?"
On the construction projects taking shape where twin towers once stood. Footprints of towers themselves kept as monuments. "You wouldn't mistake it for an ordinary park or urban piazza, but it isn't a cemetery, either"
This generation's contribution to public architecture: Bollards and blast-proof walls. When did we get so nervous about government buildings? It wasn't 9/11 that did it, oddly. Trigger was the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995
On the aptness of Norman Foster as designer of Apple's new headquarters. He and Steve Jobs very similar in management style. "The boss sits independently from the structural hierarchy, and can descend on some element at random"
