The Nigerian images that proliferate this particularly web search have to do with the fact that Nigerians will pretty much do anything hilarious for money.
419 is the code word for Nigerian email scams.
Anyways, you can get back a bunch of hilarious pictures if you tell a Nigerian to do a bunch of awful things and you'll pay them a $100.
"Enlarged for your viewing pleasure" made me giggle dirtily.
I had a lovely day yesterday. The Swedish architecture duo VisionDivision are in town doing a proposal for the Indianapolis Museum of Art's 100 Acres sculpture park, and I spent yesterday driving around Naptown and meeting with various architecture firms to give them a taste of the city. It was fun and funny - very talented, curious couple of young designers, they are! And my local architecture gang are all so wonderful - Hoosier hospitality was truly on display all afternoon.
If you check out the VisionDivision website, make sure to look at Cancer City. It sounds sadder than it is: Cancer means crayfish. They made a crayfish habitat!
Now I have to catch up on all the work I missed yesterday because i was being an ambassador. Honestly, I'd much prefer to ambassador all day than draft. Such is life. At least there's a new Savage Love podcast to listen to while working!
if any of them were as christian as they claim to be, they'd get out of government and do the sort of community organizing for which they so enthusiastically derided obama, helping the poor. now you can't even use the word "poor" (you have say working families or something) without triggering the GOP dogwhistle for ranting about entitlements, anchor babies and welfare queens, etc. these people aren't conservatives, or christians, they're just corporatists.
Nam, it's a travesty, and we're all fighting it. Our brand new mayor stepped in it, I think. he's trying to find a graceful way out now, and I hope we don't lose these buildings - a centerpiece of our downtown, really - because of his anxious efforts at showing how business-friendly he is.
saving the facades has certainly been proposed. the current situation is not simply a matter of finding a good solution, unfortunately, because multiple good solutions have been discussed.
there were/are layers of protections in place for these buildings. mr blue simply figured out a way to do an end run around those protections by purposefully neglecting the buildings (including not repairing roofs that were known to be delivering water to the interiors of the structures) so that he could eventually (now) apply for an 'emergency demolition' permit based on public safety.
from all indications, though the city is pushing for at least saving of the facades, blue is really only interested in a blank slate site. the mayor's unfortunate agreement with him would allow him to tear the buildings down and leave a surface lot for up to 5 years until he could find financing for whatever he wants to do. the 90-day waiting period has given the caught-off-guard community a little bit of time to organize to defend them, but not much.
the irony of all of this is that the developer's earlier plans indicated that he intended to save the front sections of these buildings. these plans were widely published and celebrated around town. but the state/community have recently invested millions in the neighboring new arena and now mr blue's property is worth significantly more because of this public investment - yet he feels no responsibility back to the community for his unexpected windfall.
he acts like he's shocked - shocked! - that anyone cares about these buildings (which much of the city loves because of their location, their relationship to the origins of the city, etc, in addition to their architectural merits). his challenge to the community: 'if you care so much about them, raise the money to buy them from me!' of course, since the arena - and despite his neglect of the buildings - his price is 3x what he paid 4yrs ago.
it's a mess. we may lose these buildings, and the unfortunate larger effect is that the new mayor's efforts to build community trust will suffer a huge set-back after this closed-door agreement with mr blue.
"The free market" is such a fallacy in this country, isn't it? As you say, Steven, this developer's investment is valuable now because of the public infrastructure built around it, yet he expects the public to continue to increase his investment potential.
It's unfortunate the fleecing of public interest can't be made the core of the anti-demolition argument here. There are too many people completely turned off by any notion of historic preservation because it sounds, to them, like restrictions on the free market's ability for an owner to do whatever s/he wants with their property. Historic pres people are a bunch of boring old ladies with their panties in a bunch, right?
But the value of a property comes in many ways from the good decisions made by the neighboring community. You move into a "good" neighborhood because other people have already done the quality work to make the neighborhood "good" in the first place. Spitting in the face of your neighbor's investment is the true mark of an asshole, especially in this case (and personally, Steven and I both know the people involved in turning one of the neighboring existing buildings into a hugely popular bar/restaurant - and that developer managed to not only save but feature the historic building at GREAT personal investment - it's not an easy job to save this kind of building, but it's not outrageously expensive, either.).
Can I get in on techno/dia's funny conversation above and state that Blue has tiny round ones? Or would that be too crass?
steven - that's awful - and bit presumptuous of me to think that there wasn't already a history.
I just realized I've fallen prey to this northeast mentality that the rest of the country doesn't know how to do anything. the same mentality that pissed me off when I first started working here.
no problem, toast. we DO apparently have an issue with communicating to a larger public the value of our historic buildings.
the saving-the-facades model has a long history here. our downtown science center was done this way in the late 70s and there are several more including, more recently, the REX proposal for museum plaza which was to use the area behind three facades of demo'd buildings as its entry court. that one's not done, of course... but the facades have been stabilized and are being maintained well.
the preservation community would prefer to save whole buildings, obviously, and we have a pretty good record of that as well. but some of these 19thC warehouses of unreinforced masonry and wood that's been soaked/dried/soaked/dried over decades just aren't redeemable - at least not in a normally feasible way (i.e., without significant subsidization or tax credits or other external influences).
when i click the link and see abra's awesome pup at the bottom of the first page of TC, it always distracts me from the current conversation. i have no idea what i was gonna say. happy friday, all.
Problem with historic preservation fighting a filthy developer (not all of them are like that) is that weeks after preservationists win on legal front, the buildings will go up in flames.
Homeless man did it, of course. Until it's proven that it was an act of arson. Yet noone ever gets brought up to justice.
This happens all the damn time across the continent.
I wish modern architecture was better at creating urbanism. For whatever reason its horrible at it. Thus most cities rely on century old buildings to create any sense of habitable streetscape.
I can't think of a single successful neighborhood that was created from scratch in the last 30 years or so. Can anyone name any? I would love to see some successful examples.
West 8's borneo/sporenburg district in Amsterdam is pretty successful, although almost 100% residential. There are some other modern areas in Amsterdam, as well as Copenhagen, that are pretty successful. Rotterdam's Lijnbaan is a mixed-use area built just after the war that is pretty successful, particularly in maintaining a scale similar to the old city but in modern architecture.
Rusty, I'd say the reason for that is that successful neighborhoods aren't created "from scratch." Mediocre neighborhoods are created, lived in, eventually improved upon and expanded, and then become successful.
Baldwin Park, Orlando is a decently successful new development. Would definitely not call it modern, though.
The developers of the project, however, went to great lengths to use mostly "authentic" construction methods. Most of the apartment buildings, for example, are cinder-block, covered in real stucco and the 'architectural details' are cast concrete.
Most of the people seem happy to live there even if it is a little bit bland and fake.
And it has a relatively high business occupancy rate for an over-priced, New Urbanist planned urban development. However, big patches of it are still relatively unfinished.
And because most of the construction is 'authentic,' you can't touch a 3 bedroom house for less than $400,000.
the free market isn't even determining demolition. much of recent building demo since the economic crisis was from stimulus money which is now used up. this means its getting very difficult for the company i work with to find material to produce reclaimed wide plank heart pine flooring. the demand is there but the supply is a trickle of what it was.
Vado funny you say that cause a friend of mine who recycles timbers into flooring travels all over the eastern seaboard in search of lumber. Alot of his Travels have taken him to the Southeast in search of suitable product. I guess in general it is harder to come by.
However with our record snows we have had alot of old barns cave in this past winter so we will see an influx of new timbers in our neck of the woods.
Night all off to eat a chocolate bar and watch a TV movie. The things we do in hard times.
Crepes for 14 tonight - our first time ever making crepes. Went very well, and the guests of honor seemed to enjoy themselves. I'm going to plug them again here: VisionDivision, because they are freaking cool!
Steven, they are Woodford fans, but tonight I gave them some Elmer T. Lee - my obsession since you introduced me to it. I feel it's important for international visitors to understand the bourbon bounty this region has to offer...by "region" I mean the far cooler state to my south, of course.
Steven I only just realised that I took pictures of the buildings you are talking about and felt very moved by your city's sympathy towards it's older buildings and not in a kitschy way either. Sad.
Rusty Modernism was never of the opinion to raze older cities, but I do agree that their view of the modern city was too myopic and fuelled by people like Robert Moses and Lewis Mumford.
I just wrote myself a paycheck for the first time. I'm freaked by it, and at this moment not at all happy I've made this change in my professional life, although I imagine it's like buying your first house: the closing is terrifying, but after the first couple monthly payments it's no big deal at all.
What does that mean, to write yourself a paycheck? Don't tell me you haven't been paying yourself since you've been self-employed. I hope it means you are an S-Corp now or something?
Yes, I'm now as of 2011 an S-corp, but haven't paid myself until this month because, honestly, I've been afraid to - I've accumulated a little pad in my business account now and hate to pay it out, but I need a paycheck!
<sigh> the things I'd do if I had a million dollars. I'd send a big check to David Lowery for one, just to thank him for all the joy his music has brought to my life. Then one for Cake and for Ike Reilly. Then one for Archinect, of course.
Thread Central
Wasn't Straw investing money just a page ago?
Nigerian prince approves.
Atechno...
The Nigerian images that proliferate this particularly web search have to do with the fact that Nigerians will pretty much do anything hilarious for money.
419 is the code word for Nigerian email scams.
Anyways, you can get back a bunch of hilarious pictures if you tell a Nigerian to do a bunch of awful things and you'll pay them a $100.
"Enlarged for your viewing pleasure" made me giggle dirtily.
I had a lovely day yesterday. The Swedish architecture duo VisionDivision are in town doing a proposal for the Indianapolis Museum of Art's 100 Acres sculpture park, and I spent yesterday driving around Naptown and meeting with various architecture firms to give them a taste of the city. It was fun and funny - very talented, curious couple of young designers, they are! And my local architecture gang are all so wonderful - Hoosier hospitality was truly on display all afternoon.
If you check out the VisionDivision website, make sure to look at Cancer City. It sounds sadder than it is: Cancer means crayfish. They made a crayfish habitat!
Now I have to catch up on all the work I missed yesterday because i was being an ambassador. Honestly, I'd much prefer to ambassador all day than draft. Such is life. At least there's a new Savage Love podcast to listen to while working!
Morning all,
Steven and any other Louisville contingent I would be interested in getting your take on this... link
douchenozzles: new breed of dog which looses no hair but barks like a political animal!
if any of them were as christian as they claim to be, they'd get out of government and do the sort of community organizing for which they so enthusiastically derided obama, helping the poor. now you can't even use the word "poor" (you have say working families or something) without triggering the GOP dogwhistle for ranting about entitlements, anchor babies and welfare queens, etc. these people aren't conservatives, or christians, they're just corporatists.
never heard the archpaper, thats pretty cool, I learn new things everyday haha
just registering the change...
archinecteur formerly known as diabase - now I'm going to think big round ones each time I see your name (dia-meter)
Donna I'm tickled that made you smile, though totally unintentionally
atechno, I am not sure if I should be alarmed or delighted at the thought of you thinking of my big round ones
Now settle down boys.
Nam, it's a travesty, and we're all fighting it. Our brand new mayor stepped in it, I think. he's trying to find a graceful way out now, and I hope we don't lose these buildings - a centerpiece of our downtown, really - because of his anxious efforts at showing how business-friendly he is.
steven - that sucks - hopefully the developer doesn't try to start demo before they halt things.
what they've done in Boston is save the facades and build up behind. maybe that's an option?
enter "296 congress street boston" in google maps and look at the street view. you can see a building going up behind a supported facade.
hi toast, that's where the new BSA HQ is going to be, right?
oh yeah - I forgot...
here is more info...
btw - that link is only to the BSA headquarters design.
CBT did the whole building - might be worth dropping them a line to see if they'd be willing to help you guys out in louisville.
ok - back to work before my brain completely quits on me.
hey donna--are the indianapolis proposals posted or published anywhere? i'd love to see them.
saving the facades has certainly been proposed. the current situation is not simply a matter of finding a good solution, unfortunately, because multiple good solutions have been discussed.
there were/are layers of protections in place for these buildings. mr blue simply figured out a way to do an end run around those protections by purposefully neglecting the buildings (including not repairing roofs that were known to be delivering water to the interiors of the structures) so that he could eventually (now) apply for an 'emergency demolition' permit based on public safety.
from all indications, though the city is pushing for at least saving of the facades, blue is really only interested in a blank slate site. the mayor's unfortunate agreement with him would allow him to tear the buildings down and leave a surface lot for up to 5 years until he could find financing for whatever he wants to do. the 90-day waiting period has given the caught-off-guard community a little bit of time to organize to defend them, but not much.
the irony of all of this is that the developer's earlier plans indicated that he intended to save the front sections of these buildings. these plans were widely published and celebrated around town. but the state/community have recently invested millions in the neighboring new arena and now mr blue's property is worth significantly more because of this public investment - yet he feels no responsibility back to the community for his unexpected windfall.
he acts like he's shocked - shocked! - that anyone cares about these buildings (which much of the city loves because of their location, their relationship to the origins of the city, etc, in addition to their architectural merits). his challenge to the community: 'if you care so much about them, raise the money to buy them from me!' of course, since the arena - and despite his neglect of the buildings - his price is 3x what he paid 4yrs ago.
it's a mess. we may lose these buildings, and the unfortunate larger effect is that the new mayor's efforts to build community trust will suffer a huge set-back after this closed-door agreement with mr blue.
"Demoliton thru neglect," a great tool for developers with no heart for Architecture.
"The free market" is such a fallacy in this country, isn't it? As you say, Steven, this developer's investment is valuable now because of the public infrastructure built around it, yet he expects the public to continue to increase his investment potential.
It's unfortunate the fleecing of public interest can't be made the core of the anti-demolition argument here. There are too many people completely turned off by any notion of historic preservation because it sounds, to them, like restrictions on the free market's ability for an owner to do whatever s/he wants with their property. Historic pres people are a bunch of boring old ladies with their panties in a bunch, right?
But the value of a property comes in many ways from the good decisions made by the neighboring community. You move into a "good" neighborhood because other people have already done the quality work to make the neighborhood "good" in the first place. Spitting in the face of your neighbor's investment is the true mark of an asshole, especially in this case (and personally, Steven and I both know the people involved in turning one of the neighboring existing buildings into a hugely popular bar/restaurant - and that developer managed to not only save but feature the historic building at GREAT personal investment - it's not an easy job to save this kind of building, but it's not outrageously expensive, either.).
Can I get in on techno/dia's funny conversation above and state that Blue has tiny round ones? Or would that be too crass?
elinor, this particular proposal for the IMA sculpture park is not, yet, published anywhere. I'll put it up when I see it!
donna as in blue's balls..... heheh
Thanks for viewpoint steven.
morning all
steven - that's awful - and bit presumptuous of me to think that there wasn't already a history.
I just realized I've fallen prey to this northeast mentality that the rest of the country doesn't know how to do anything. the same mentality that pissed me off when I first started working here.
no problem, toast. we DO apparently have an issue with communicating to a larger public the value of our historic buildings.
the saving-the-facades model has a long history here. our downtown science center was done this way in the late 70s and there are several more including, more recently, the REX proposal for museum plaza which was to use the area behind three facades of demo'd buildings as its entry court. that one's not done, of course... but the facades have been stabilized and are being maintained well.
the preservation community would prefer to save whole buildings, obviously, and we have a pretty good record of that as well. but some of these 19thC warehouses of unreinforced masonry and wood that's been soaked/dried/soaked/dried over decades just aren't redeemable - at least not in a normally feasible way (i.e., without significant subsidization or tax credits or other external influences).
when i click the link and see abra's awesome pup at the bottom of the first page of TC, it always distracts me from the current conversation. i have no idea what i was gonna say. happy friday, all.
Problem with historic preservation fighting a filthy developer (not all of them are like that) is that weeks after preservationists win on legal front, the buildings will go up in flames.
Homeless man did it, of course. Until it's proven that it was an act of arson. Yet noone ever gets brought up to justice.
This happens all the damn time across the continent.
I wish modern architecture was better at creating urbanism. For whatever reason its horrible at it. Thus most cities rely on century old buildings to create any sense of habitable streetscape.
I can't think of a single successful neighborhood that was created from scratch in the last 30 years or so. Can anyone name any? I would love to see some successful examples.
West 8's borneo/sporenburg district in Amsterdam is pretty successful, although almost 100% residential. There are some other modern areas in Amsterdam, as well as Copenhagen, that are pretty successful. Rotterdam's Lijnbaan is a mixed-use area built just after the war that is pretty successful, particularly in maintaining a scale similar to the old city but in modern architecture.
Rusty, I'd say the reason for that is that successful neighborhoods aren't created "from scratch." Mediocre neighborhoods are created, lived in, eventually improved upon and expanded, and then become successful.
Baldwin Park, Orlando is a decently successful new development. Would definitely not call it modern, though.
The developers of the project, however, went to great lengths to use mostly "authentic" construction methods. Most of the apartment buildings, for example, are cinder-block, covered in real stucco and the 'architectural details' are cast concrete.
Most of the people seem happy to live there even if it is a little bit bland and fake.
And it has a relatively high business occupancy rate for an over-priced, New Urbanist planned urban development. However, big patches of it are still relatively unfinished.
And because most of the construction is 'authentic,' you can't touch a 3 bedroom house for less than $400,000.
the free market isn't even determining demolition. much of recent building demo since the economic crisis was from stimulus money which is now used up. this means its getting very difficult for the company i work with to find material to produce reclaimed wide plank heart pine flooring. the demand is there but the supply is a trickle of what it was.
Vado funny you say that cause a friend of mine who recycles timbers into flooring travels all over the eastern seaboard in search of lumber. Alot of his Travels have taken him to the Southeast in search of suitable product. I guess in general it is harder to come by.
However with our record snows we have had alot of old barns cave in this past winter so we will see an influx of new timbers in our neck of the woods.
Night all off to eat a chocolate bar and watch a TV movie. The things we do in hard times.
did you guys see last thursday's daily show? - great pieces on education...
Crepes for 14 tonight - our first time ever making crepes. Went very well, and the guests of honor seemed to enjoy themselves. I'm going to plug them again here: VisionDivision, because they are freaking cool!
Steven, they are Woodford fans, but tonight I gave them some Elmer T. Lee - my obsession since you introduced me to it. I feel it's important for international visitors to understand the bourbon bounty this region has to offer...by "region" I mean the far cooler state to my south, of course.
Gotta go clean up my kitchen!
mmm, woodford, a Salutary Sunday too you all.
We're actually usually about 10d warmer down here, Donna.
You should try Russell's Reserve next.
And, just a tease: we were just talking today about what if... We moved to Indy!
Aside from me and Scott, Steven, I honestly have absolutely no idea why you would want to leave a cool place like L'ville to come to Naptown.
Granted, me and Scott are fairly awesome (him especially), but really. That's just crazy talk.
The Ice Mountains have become Rivers....as the rain continues to fall.
Steven I only just realised that I took pictures of the buildings you are talking about and felt very moved by your city's sympathy towards it's older buildings and not in a kitschy way either. Sad.
Rusty Modernism was never of the opinion to raze older cities, but I do agree that their view of the modern city was too myopic and fuelled by people like Robert Moses and Lewis Mumford.
I expected to find Robert Moses in a Bowtie:
He is on the right......far right! Need to resize that pic...HELP!
Snook, after you paste the image URL, press space, and type width=400, then close off your img brackets.
Morning.
[img]http://theageofnepotism.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Robert-Moses-NYC1.jpg width =400[/img'
I'll try!
That is the ticket..
Rock on, Mr. Moses you sociopath.
I just wrote myself a paycheck for the first time. I'm freaked by it, and at this moment not at all happy I've made this change in my professional life, although I imagine it's like buying your first house: the closing is terrifying, but after the first couple monthly payments it's no big deal at all.
Donna ... congratulations.
What does that mean, to write yourself a paycheck? Don't tell me you haven't been paying yourself since you've been self-employed. I hope it means you are an S-Corp now or something?
Yes, I'm now as of 2011 an S-corp, but haven't paid myself until this month because, honestly, I've been afraid to - I've accumulated a little pad in my business account now and hate to pay it out, but I need a paycheck!
<sigh> the things I'd do if I had a million dollars. I'd send a big check to David Lowery for one, just to thank him for all the joy his music has brought to my life. Then one for Cake and for Ike Reilly. Then one for Archinect, of course.
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