Transfer: September 2005 Archives

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September 30, 2005

Now & Then

Brilliant juxtapositions that detail the sad destruction of Pittsburgh's east central neighborhood, The Hill. You can pick out the one or two existing structures, the rest, decimated. Taken by herodotus, well known in the world of urban BBSing. His photo collection of American rowhouse architecture can be found here.

Posted by jmarston at 12:48 PM

One Year and Two Days

Transfer quietly celebrates 284 entries, 1 year and two days of selfpublishing. Between the incoherent mutterings from my airshafted studio in Brooklyn and the Midfrown induced rages from a S.A.D office block, its nothing but Love Love Love. I think there are at least two or three people that come for more than the Anti-Sit. I hope you continue to come back as the coming year promises more more & MORE! Thanks, and please, if you do refer back more than once, drop me a note anytime.

Posted by jmarston at 09:52 AM | Comments (5)

September 26, 2005

Wood Brooklyn

Posted by jmarston at 10:40 PM

Slow Moving State St Site

Rumors are confirmed on the slow moving progress of the Atlantic/Smith/State St lot adjacent 14 Towhouses, pictured back in early June... Below illustrates the Upstate pace.

Posted by jmarston at 10:17 PM | Comments (1)

Facade Fumbles

Last week Transfer covered this bangin joke of a facade, Philip Johnson's 1001 5th Ave, and this week The New York Times covers the same facade in the Streetscapes column. Christopher Gray, who penned the piece, seems to think Philip Johnson's facade is "Humorous", a postmodern pun. Umm, vile jokes are not to built, always. The egotistical gusto necessary to see these plans thru not only makes a joke of those titilated enough to see it as Funny, but funnier so when those who do, find it architecturally engaging.

Posted by jmarston at 03:55 PM

September 24, 2005

Not Funny Anymore

Another notch in the club of substandardism, this triumph of trash resides in the heart of Cobble Hill.

Posted by jmarston at 06:34 PM

State St Update

Update from the June 8th post...

Posted by jmarston at 06:27 PM

The Anti-Sit: Spiked Hatch

Posted by jmarston at 06:24 PM

September 23, 2005

Not Fooling

Appearing below are photos from the hilarious, and subtly disturbing, Not Fooling Anybody, "chronicling bad conversions and storefronts past". Peruse the reuse of branded architectural banality...

Posted by jmarston at 03:47 PM

September 20, 2005

Nibbles & Bits & Bits

Appears London is suffering from the same white/middle class flight that has scourged American cities for some time, with "the white population of London falling by nearly 400,000 in the 1990s...[Richard] Rogers said that the mayor’s programme to create or improve 100 public spaces, the third phase of which was announced this week, would encourage white middle class Londoners to stay." But not without valid criticism, "Elsie Owusu, of the Society of Black Architects, said: “People of all races should be encouraged in the making of public spaces.” Read more at Building Design.

On that note, check a dismal but engaging slide show of London's Council Estates - read - Public Housing Projects. California sprawl shots from Matt Jalbert. Photographs of the building of an adobe - in Gobi - from Earth Architecture. And finally, photographs of Los Angeles' vast concrete river beds...

In related news, Richard Rogers' Welsh Assembly is complete, The Guardian takes stock, of what appears to an environmental triumph - with an array of fantastic green strategies. And in related related news, blog Land+Living points us to a great new reference guide, Green Building Products.

Architecture Week features the work of Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, worth the look see... And Steve Holl's new winning Belgian commission...

New York's infrastructure report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Data chunks outlining the challenge of our aging outfit...

-38% of New York's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
-New York's drinking water infrastructure needs $13.15 billion over the next 20 years.
-New York recycles 17.1% of the state's solid waste.
-Congestion in the NYC metropolitan area costs commuters $893 per person per year in excess fuel and lost time.

Blogger Starts and Fits details the ways New York's bridge infrastructure has changed - for the worse - over time. Why does Flushing Queens need a boost? Revealing Q&A with planner Wellington Chen. Trump continues to unleash his locusts on the banks of the Hudson River.

The third annual Open House New York is set to take place Oct 8th & 9th, and in order to build some excitement - for an already wonderfully exciting event - my favorite London blogger, Diamond Geezer, has some photos and three entries musing on last weekend's London Open House. If you haven't, I highly recommend taking Diamond Geezer's trip down the River Fleet. Fantastic.

East Village rezoning that might stop the communities facilities height bonus that brought you the fabled "Dorm", that piss ass building on Third st. Speaking of which, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) keeps the recent West Village zoning meeting hot & heavy - the planning commission votes Sept 28.

Most of the news emanating from China speaks of enormous environmental catastrophe. Here, a dust particle of good news in the stream of bad. Seems William McDonough is in the trenches, "He's co-chair—together with Deng Xiaoping's daughter, Deng Nan—of the China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development." Promising.

More Katrina fall out, with Baton Rouge's population doubled - 400.000 to 800.000 - big questions face planners and architects in the region.

A cool new blog, Pruned: on landscape architecture and related fields... and another blog, new to me, but not the web - Exuberance.

And... For any family reading this, from the Bldg Blog, all about Icelands Soil Bombing Campaign... and some lovely antique maps of Iceland.

Posted by jmarston at 10:16 AM

September 19, 2005

The Anti-Sit: Allege

Posted by jmarston at 07:44 PM | Comments (2)

September 18, 2005

Yep U Betcha

east side exit gas...

Posted by jmarston at 06:50 PM

Facade Failure

Chances are most New Yorkers have seen this joke, a 5th Ave flunkie & Duke Semans neighbor...

Posted by jmarston at 06:30 PM | Comments (1)

September 16, 2005

Click Clack

All of the above photographs - Tokyo, Baotou, Hong Kong, Shanghai - are the work of Sze Tsung Leong, recently on display at Lehman College in the Bronx. Beautiful, sublime, and devastating.

Great man of letters and landscape, and FSG's finest meal ticket; John McPhee, writing on the flooding of New Orleans and the mighty Mississippi, back in 1987.

Loving this, what Hatin' chins up to, documenting the very worst buildings; a compendium of 10 of Britain’s most detestable - compiled by the BBC.

Noah Sheldon photographs Oral Roberts University, which doubles as Oklahoma's own variation on Brasilia modernism.

A short read taken from Wallace Stegner's The Sense of Place. Quoting Carl Jung, a placeless human, "lives a life of his own, sunk in a subjective mania of his own devising, which he believes to be the newly discovered truth.”

Get to know the built environs of Pittsburgh with this fantastic collection of photographs of the CBD and variety of residential row house architecture in this little known, but very urban, Burgh.

Martha's Vineyard, while a playground for the NE's bluest of blue bloods, is also an island with some of the strongest land trust institutions in the nation... and some of the best preserved costal habitats on the NE seaboard. Nearly 20% of the island is under conservation easement, preserved in perpituity. Massachusetts land trust reach... One of the varied ways - albeit a strategy of the wealthy - of protecting the landscape from sprawled insanity.

Posted by jmarston at 02:55 PM

The Anti-Sit: Nuts & Bolts

Posted by jmarston at 02:52 PM

September 15, 2005

Mister Mister

I absconded from commenting on the Katrina horror, perhaps because the images and realities were saying a whole lot more than Rove could muster any spin on. It was enraging, completely & horrifyly detestable, on every level. This was never a question of Federal capacity or logistical gymnastics as the acrobats on pay from this administration would have some believe. But in terms of Architectural questions, the interrogation has just begun. Jack Shafer penned an honest picture on the social conditions of much of New Orleans, especially the areas most dramatically effected. Its a divisive piece, but a necessary contribution to the debate. More recently, Joel Garreau took a similar position, highlighting the most important (and disgusting) development that has become more apparent with todays announcement that the French Quarter and CBD would be opened by next Monday. There is more and more evidence that New Orleans will become a caricture of its former self. Minus the undesirables, the soul, the heart, of what made that city everything it was. The Big Easy will become the Big Eracesure. Here is to hoping at least some of the architectural heritage of the Bywater will be saved.

Nice Times piece on the the rise and fall of cities past.

The RIAS, Best Building in Scotland Award for Architecture, was recently awarded. See the top 5 entries, in photograph, that vied for the prize. Of the 5, comes Scotland's most controversial building - 'at risk' of being demolished by reality tv vote. Here is a fairly extensive collection of photographs of the new New Scottish Parliament Complex.

Village Voice interview with the great urbanist thinker, Mike Davis. Who, I might add, should head back to his roots. A book on Dubai already. I digress.

Transfer covered the Kelo vs New London case quite closely, until the victory of the city. A somewhat dated article in the Fairfield County Weekly that claims " the homeowners are being offered buyouts based on the market rate as it was in 2000." Yea, fucking classy isn't it? Read it here.

Fantastic new competition - Urban Voids - sponsered by Van Alen Institute and Land Visions, whose goal it is: "Philadelphia needs a compelling long-term vision for developing its vacant lots, a strategy that envisions how vacancy in Philadelphia can be changed from an obstacle (vacancy as absence) to an asset (vacancy as possibility)." Yes Yes - It is my hope this will raise the bar on Infill housing. Which, at least here in New York, has been all but shit.

Land+Living blog draws attention to one of the most fantasic hwy overpasses... Stellar. Wow.

Posted by jmarston at 10:12 AM | Comments (3)

September 14, 2005

The Anti-Sit: Medieval

Posted by jmarston at 04:56 PM

The Anti-Sit: Mohawk

Posted by jmarston at 04:54 PM | Comments (1)

Chelsea Angel

Posted by jmarston at 04:48 PM

Utility Boxes as Architecture

detail of the main utility box entrance

Continuing the fall Under Construction update... Another Renzo project, this one moving into its final stages - 6 years on - the JP Morgan Library expansion (first snapped back in March). At the risk of sounding dismissive to a project heavily restricted by Landmark designation, still shrouded in scaffolding, and notably triumphant in its geological challenges, it does seem Renzo plopped three Utility Boxes on the site, and bolted. Could it be a boney middle finger to the legacy of one of America's most ruthless capitalists? Sure appears so... Judge for yourself.

Madison Ave

36th St

37th St

Posted by jmarston at 03:51 PM

September 13, 2005

Cook+Fox on 6th

An update on the Bank of America tower - One Bryant Park - rising at 42nd & 6th. Much ado since the last Transfer snap.

Posted by jmarston at 08:03 PM

Renzo Rises on 8th

An update on the New York Times building Transfer snapped back in May. The Piano plays the Port Authority block.

Posted by jmarston at 03:09 PM

The Anti-Sit: Silvery Snaps

Posted by jmarston at 02:59 PM

The Anti-Sit: Junker Edition

Posted by jmarston at 01:02 PM

The Anti-Sit: Three Times A Lady

Posted by jmarston at 12:54 PM | Comments (1)

The Anti-Sit: Variety is the Spice