Editor's Picks #314

2013-05-07T13:14:00-04:00

Over at the LA Times, Christopher Hawthorne reported on LACMA Director Michael Govan’s plan’s for $650-million new building by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor...Eric Chavkin commented "New construction has always been fundraising tail that wags the museum dog. Big names to draw bigger money...Now that AMPAS is leveraging it's Oscar prestige to be a part of LACMA, a new name to entice donor dollars is Zumthor, a name that means absolutely nothing to most.

News
Michael Z Wise reviewed the newest edition of Albert Speer, Architecture by Léon Krier for the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Wise concluded his review "Though he is again bemoaning a contemporary inability to regard classicism in a detached manner, it is Léon Krier who is in a delirious thrall to a malevolent aesthetic".

Will Galloway was surprised "wow, i didn't need another reason to dislike krier, but this one certainly seems more than enough to set aside any other complaint about the guy and never revisit them. its amazing that someone could hate modernism so much that even hitler's vision for the world seems palatable to him. nasty". For his part Steven Ward
argued "I'd rather see the swastika redeemed for its original associations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika) than see any redemption of Speer's work. It's not that the style(s) from which he borrowed were bad so much as his intentional bombastic over-scaling of everything. These buildings were meant to communicat...

Sesame Street is your street, too

2013-01-08T11:42:00-05:00

"A block of row houses -- narrow, tall, brick- or stone-faced homes, connected side-by-side -- is my shorthand for city perfection....Blocks of row houses generate a perfect urban scale: large enough to support neighborhood groceries, bars, and shops, but not so dense as to create parking crunches or attract huge stores"

Eric Fredericksen examines how Sesame Street was his first experience of urban living. He then draws parallels between Sesame Street and his current living situation, his preference for row houses and stoop-life and the comings and goings of his neighborhood.

H/T toasteroven who notes "I have this theory that an entire generation of americans are all subconsciously trying to find sesame street".

Archinect - News

Editor's Picks #314

Sesame Street is your street, too