I recall sitting on the grass in my chiton, waiting for my turn to throw the discus in our 4th-grade reenactment of the Olympic Games. Whereupon a swarm of red ants bit my butt! The pain and embarrassment sting to this day! Thank Zeus our quick-witted principal came to the rescue. One might think there’s a special place in…
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Do Creative Minds Matter?
Once the curtains lifted and the explosive, starburst chandeliers had risen to the ceiling, Plácido Domingo, Renée Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky brought cheers and tears at the Met’s fiftieth anniversary gala at Lincoln Center this year. Baritone Hvorostovsky in a surprise return, despite a brain tumor, sang “Cortigiani, vil razza dannata” from Verdi’s Rigoletto.
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Architecture in the Age of Anxiety
If we don’t know who we are, how do we find the confidence to build things? And if our buildings won’t speak to us, how can we know what they are all about? Self-induced highs of perception just won’t get us get us to this point of understanding, according to architectural historian Mark Jarzombek. Nor, in his view, can we count…
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A Straw in the Sky
For a miracle machine, capable of nudging humanity back from the rocky ledge of eco-suicide, it looks inauspicious—like a fridge with waffle-like filters finning the air. It’s the kind of thing Sears will gladly remove and replace. But hold on!
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Messy, But Not Too
A 3,500-acre retreat in the Western Ghats of India: a 100-room lodge, a spa with 12 villas, cultural programming demonstrating the role of the music, art, and literature in promoting a sustainable way of life. A summons from the City of Philadelphia for growing grass over ten inches high around her house, as reported by Anne Raver in the New York…
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Low Engagement
Why this column on marketing your firm and your projects through social media? We’re glad there’s so much great work coming to this blog, but we also worry that all that fine work might not be getting the amount—and especially the kind—of publicity it deserves. Social media offers an unprecedented opportunity to get the word out about architecture. It’s…
