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October 31, 2005
Them Are Fightin' Words
The above photo, of the new Herzog & de Meuron de Young Museum in San Francisco, is by Ben Lepley - posted at Archinect. Lovely.
Mike Davis is sure picking some fights, he recently penned a piece on the rebuilding effort in NO and MS. I quote, "Into this fraught and sinister situation now blunders the circus-like spectacle of the Congress of New Urbanism (CNU): the architectural cult founded by Miami designers Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk ... Duany, who never misses an opportunity to push his panaceas to those in power, has foolishly made himself an accomplice to the Republicans' evil social experiment on the Gulf Coast." Whoa. Davis is whipping up some serious barbs here. Inside the Charrette, some excellent coverage from John Massengale at Veritas et Venustas.
A few weeks back I featured the work of Edward Burtynsky, in particular his photographs of the Three Gorges Project. Today he's featured in the Washington Post (which includes a lovely audio slide show) in lead up to a retrospective of his work on view at the Brooklyn Museum until Jan 2006. Another hat tip to the work of Edward Burtynsky.
NYT on housing development in the Lower Hudson River Valley, just north of New York City.
The shrinking pedestrian space of New York City, an excellent juxtaposition at Starts & Fits.
A walk around the 2012 London Olympic sites, before anything is built. A flickr photo set from a fine London blogger, Diamond Geezer.
From SquatterCity an interesting & little know legal concept concerning property and the investment in it by those other than the owner... This could have some interesting implications down south.
Posted by jmarston at 02:37 PM
1.2 Million Dollar Shack
"Corchuelo’s home is one block off Las Vegas Boulevard and across the street from the future home of the Allure, a 41-story luxury complex under construction"
What was it that Mark Twain said, something to that effect that 'buy land, they're not making it anymore'. No Veg/Ass weather is in the midst - surely as its always been - of a stupendous boom in land values. The above photo was taken from this article on MSNBC, from which I quote, "The cost of a vacant acre in the Las Vegas area has hit $601,600 — an 88 percent increase over last year ... At last count, there were 93 luxury condominium projects, totaling 175 towers, proposed, planned or under construction in the Las Vegas valley in the second quarter of this year, according to a report released in September by Applied Analysis."
Posted by jmarston at 11:25 AM
October 28, 2005
Dubaious Hype, Dog-shit Planning & Mad Landscape Love
We Need Answers People!!! The City Smells Like Maple Syrup and The People Are Talking About It!!! GET ME SOME ANSWERS!!!
Apologies to anyone who posted comments recently and had them deleted. In my endless battle against xanaxed, over-mortgaged, car loaning, penis power pills, I accidentally lost some comments. I'm sorry about that. Onward!
Paul Goldberger on Calatrava as king of the "latest architectural fashion: bespoke luxury-apartment towers." Although the praise is caked a bit thick, this most excellent point is made: "What is clear is that Calatrava—along with Richard Meier, whose glass towers in the far West Village went up in 2002—has helped create a more ambitious climate for apartment design in New York."
On the WTC site: "dog-shit planning," where each architect lays his piece, and the space left over is considered public space. --Danish urbanist and architect Jan Gehl.
This is a fantastic read of Berlin and New York, as cities, as routes towards being. Excellent illuminations and nuggets of observation. A small conversation she had with Rem Koolhaas about the Palast.
He said something like, "Let's turn this around. How did you feel when you first walked into the building?"
I faltered. I knew how it made me feel. The building made me want to cry.
"I never felt so...overcome by a building before," I said into my cell phone. I felt stupid as the words spilled out of my mouth, but I couldn't stop them from spilling. "The minute I walked in, I felt...I never felt a building's power like that before. I never felt so affected by a building before."
"Yes," he said. "That's exactly it. That's how architecture should make you feel."
I hereby refuse to speak any further about the furor in the desert, Dubai. This will be Transfer's 4th and final entry, marked by Fox News' jump into the fray that is Dubaious Hype. Using their trademark hard nose journalism, penning the Hippest City, it’s worth a click to their photo essay, which has some actual pictures of Dubai, and then some... Yet it makes perfect sense that Dubai has got to be Fox's favorite city, their hippest city, a totalitarian - seemingly moral government - building a fantastically unsustainable mirage of banality for the delight of the global elite on the backs of an international caste of guest workers and undocumented disposables. Oh yea, they keep their women in check too. Perfect! Fuck Dubai and Fuck Fox News.
"It is vital to remember that this American suspicion of state power goes back to the Revolution itself, which was anti-statist and libertarian in many important ways. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights both reflect deep anxieties about the potential tyranny of state power.
The conservative reaction against environmentalism in 1980s arguably flowed from this source. It represented not a failure to love the land, but a fear that the environmental laws and regulations of the 1970s at least potentially represented a new form of state tyranny.
The collapse of bipartisan support for environmentalism (which to my mind is among the greatest losses to our national politics in the past quarter century) was primarily a reaction not against nature, not against the environment, not against the American land, but against centralized government power and its feared abuse."
--- William Cronon. "Saving the Land We Love: Land Conservation and American Values" Keynote Address for the Land Trust Alliance Rally Madison , Wisconsin , October 17, 2005
Bloomberg, you've got to be fucking kidding me? I don't remember the last "ticket blitz" you delivered to the fat asses I see parked in the bus lanes on 42nd St - every single day. I don't remember the last speed trap I've seen on Hwy 9th Ave, shit, I can't remember the last car I've seen pulled over for blowing thru a red light. You threaten to ticket heavily for Blocked Boxes with your big white signs and crisscrossed paint jobs. Yet, Never, Ever, since I've lived in this city have I seen someone ticketed for blocking the box. No, you gave 'em thru streets instead. Yet, here you are, on a ticketing blitz against Bicycles? Sure, obnoxious law breaking bikers are just as that. And say what you will about critical mass, but you've intimidated, harassed, and unlawfully bullied that into the ground already anyway. Please, for fucks sake Bloomy, take a course at Transportation Alternatives. They've got a great short film about how much New Yorkers love some peace on the streets. They've also got a short film about how pissed off people are in the Bronx about traffic murder. Maybe Ferrer is polling so well up there because he even knows about it? Here is a nice neat colorful guide on how to make streets safer for pedestrians. Pass it onto your unresponsive DOT. You don't like TA? Well, how about this easy little audit you can do from the comforts of your new hirise. I'm looking for some coloring books it that’s a more efficient way to communicate these ideas.
Constructing Frank Lloyd Wright from five pencil drawings. A new building... An engineering mammoth, bringing Long Island trains into Grand Central Terminal.
Posted by jmarston at 10:31 AM
October 24, 2005
The Anti-Sit: No Steam for You
Posted by jmarston at 03:40 PM
Hats Off
Posted by jmarston at 03:37 PM
When Crap Ages
Time isn't kind to the undesigned.
Posted by jmarston at 02:50 PM | Comments (2)
Determined Lifelessness
Add these two lifeless shells to the list.
Posted by jmarston at 02:21 PM
October 21, 2005
By 2007, 3.2 billion people— more than the entire global population in 1967—will live in cities
While in Paris this summer, I snapped the above shot, it was wonderful to note how frequently the bollard was executed for the safety of the pedestrian. So please read Aaron Naparstek's excellent post on Bollards. A must read. Bravo Aaron.
Outstanding long read on today's Mega Cities, each of those you might expect in the list, are analyzed individually. Dhaka, Bangladesh: "had only 3.5 million people in 1951; now it has more than 13 million. The city has been gaining population at a rate of nearly seven percent a year since 1975, and it will be the world’s second-largest city (after Tokyo) by 2015". Fantastic broadview. In related news, Shadow Cities author Robert Neuwirth asks the right questions in a recent Fortune article, "70 million people a year are migrating to cities. That’s 130 people arriving every minute, and two every second. Where will all those people live?"
The journal Space & Culture published an interesting article on Brooklyn's Prospect Heights' neighborhood this month... "This article uses photography and ethnography to understand and represent residents’ emotional-phenomenological experiences of walks through their neighborhood."
Forbes slide show of the ten most expensive homes in the US. Spatial Alienation comes at a premium.
A history of the Northland Shopping Mall outside St. Louis MO, and a documentation of its slow destruction. A template for so many urban areas, it is the great American snafu.
New York Times excellent coverage of China's building Boom... has a great slide show.
Musings from 3 Quarks Daily on the airport architecture of Kennedy Airport.
From UK paper Building Design, London Mayor Ken Livingston is trying to wrest control of housing & planning from the local authorities, "Livingstone argued that many of London’s councils lacked the experience to deal with property developers. He said: “We need five planning authorities rather than 33 boroughs. You can’t take people that are dealing with backyard extensions five years out of six and then expect them to get on top of some of the most rapacious bastards on the planet.”
Unsettling b&w photos documenting the human toll of Katrina... and a fantastic photoblog, Operation Eden, from a resident with a filmic eye for post-Katrina New Orleans.
Posted by jmarston at 11:34 AM | Comments (1)
The Anti-Sit: Fence Sitters
Posted by jmarston at 11:29 AM
The Anti-Sit: Stars and Bars
Posted by jmarston at 11:25 AM
The Anti-Sit: Impaled
Posted by jmarston at 11:21 AM
October 19, 2005
Damming the Third Largest River
The above photographs are by Edward Burtynsky, who has a fantastic collection of photos of China, and in particular the Three Gorges Project, documenting the massive demolition of cities and villages by this colossal piece of engineering.
The Yangtze River is the world’s third-largest river. China is damming it, in an 18 year project that will submerge 104 cities, forcibly resettle 750,000 people, and flood an estimated 62,000 acres of the farmland. Here are some of the environmental impacts of hydropower, and the Three Gorges project in general.
Here are some of the probing criticisms of Yangtze Dam project...
"The Yangtze River Valley, encompassing an area roughly one-fifth that of Canada’s, is China’s agricultural and industrial heartland. Supporting roughly 400 million people, one-third of China’s population, the valley produces 40 percent of the nation’s grain, 70 percent of its rice, and 40 percent of China’s total industrial output."
PBS has an interesting documentary, Great Wall Across the Yangtze. Also, an interview with Medha Patkar who knows first hand the social, environmental, and economic repercussions of such dam development projects.
Steven Benson has many fantastic photos of the Three Gorges Dam and the Yangtze River Valley, documenting the project in eloquent B&W photographs. Here are some more documentary photographs of the Three Gorges Reservoir before it was filled.
Posted by jmarston at 09:48 AM
October 13, 2005
Longest 2ndz
New York wouldn't be my lover if it weren't for her Bridges, her many beautiful bridges. Much bridge love today. In expression of this love, Transfer is bringing some cool bridge pictures for your Thursday the 13th. Storebæltsbroen, The Great Belt Bridge, is the second longest suspension bridge in the world. Located in Denmark, it stretches 1,624 metres. The most lovely Verrazano Bridge is 1,298 metres, the Manhattan Bridge is 448 metres, and the Williamsburg Bridge is 488 metres. Photos are by Shaggy Court, on Flickr.
Posted by jmarston at 10:12 AM | Comments (1)
October 12, 2005
Dubai X3
Transfer has been tracing Dubai's refraction as it explodes forth from the desert, as well as watching the western media scraping slowly behind, first Mike Davis' excellent read, as well as some interesting architectural reads. Now the New Yorker has jumped in with a print only article by Ian Parker and a stellar slide show of Robert Polidori's photographs, from which the two pix above were taken. In related resources, Emporis has a fairly large collection of hi-rise construction pix from Dubai UAE. Brian McMorrow has an engaging 36 pages of photographs of Dubai's megaprojects on his PBase site, offering a personalized view of this realized mirage. Below are two photos he took of the Palms.
Posted by jmarston at 02:34 PM
October 11, 2005
Park Slope Plane Crash
...Of 1960. Fantastic article on the 7th Ave / Sterling Place crash of Brooklyn yore. In addition, an interview with a women who lived around the corner and was one of the first on the scene. Fascinating piece of Brooklyn History from the Park Slope Reader.
Posted by jmarston at 01:41 PM
Two Photo Shows
The Whitney has an interesting show for archiurban types, The New City: Sub/Urbia in Recent Photography, works by artists Walead Beshty, Gregory Crewdson, Tim Davis, Corin Hewitt, Zoe Leonard, Karin Apollonia Müller, Catherine Opie, Michael Vahrenwald, and Amir Zaki are featured. A review from Art Forum of Southern Calironian artist Amir Zaki's photography... The above image is an Amir photo.
At the Museum of the City of New York, starting Nov 1st, The Mythic City: Photographs of New York by Samuel H. Gottscho, 1925-1940. Some fantasitc historic photos tha helped to create the national imagination of New York City - from which, the below images originate.
Posted by jmarston at 10:31 AM | Comments (1)
Metro
Beautiful subway stations from around the world, gathered in one resource. The above image, from the Metro Bits site, is of a station in Munich. Metro Bits also gathers a nice list of metro lines with a view, and photographs of various cities lines, as well as maps, logos, and other Subway/Metro fanalia.
Posted by jmarston at 10:17 AM
October 10, 2005
The Anti-Sit: Edging the Green 2
Posted by jmarston at 03:56 PM
The Anti-Sit: Splatto
Posted by jmarston at 03:53 PM
October 07, 2005
Happy Birthday Amma
October 11 is actually my Amma's birthday. But all the family is up in North Dakota celebrating. Happy B-Day!!
Posted by jmarston at 04:27 PM | Comments (2)
More Keno Fallout
Monday we pointed to a an outlandish abuse of Eminent Domain in Florida, which blogger Urban Cartography dug a little deeper into... It appears the dominoes have started to fall with real velocity. DC will be (ab)using Eminent Domain to gain control of 21-acres for the siting of a new 535 million dollar Washington Nationals ballpark.
Posted by jmarston at 02:36 PM
325 Fifth Ave
Last time Transfer checked in with this project was back in March (we were grumpy about it), the foundation was just getting dug and the Times hadn't yet christened the neighborhood SoFi. Now they've started putting in the windows at 325 Fifth, the 50-story anchor of this new residential hi-rise neighborhood. Frontside / Backside pictured below...
Posted by jmarston at 02:06 PM
Atelier Bow-Wow
Byway of the excellent Spanish language architecture blog, Actos y Potencias, came this interesting Japenese photo blog tracking the construction, from the model stage, to the framing stage, to present of a private home by the firm Atelier Bow-Wow, who has done some excellent homes in Tokyo.
Posted by jmarston at 11:52 AM
Virilio Moment
MVRDV's Hannover building, constructed for the World Expo 2000, has been reduced to a rotting body in just 5 years. Like all World's Fair/Expo architecture, the Germans have left this dazzling one shot to the elements, and in a truly Virilian compression of time, the architecture is undergoing decomposition. Look at the before and after photos - and a plea to save the structure.
Posted by jmarston at 11:39 AM
October 06, 2005
Architectural Preservation in Dntwn Brooklyn
Brownstoner points to a fantastic report from the Municipal Arts Society on buildings of architectural significance in Downtown Brooklyn. Long overdue survey of Brooklyn's gems. Especially appropriate considering much of the areas gaudy signage... Bravo MAS. Forgotten New York has a great tour of Fulton Mall's architecture and history.
Posted by jmarston at 11:29 AM
The Anti-Sit: Green Edges
Posted by jmarston at 11:27 AM
Grand
Posted by jmarston at 11:23 AM | Comments (2)
October 05, 2005
Blocking Boxes and Crosswalkezz
A big fuck you to all the drivers in this city who think running reds, using bus lanes, cutting over bikes paths, blocking boxes, and taking up our crosswalks is all Part & Parcel of the NYC traffic game. Cause it ain't, and best prepare yourself for the Pedestrian revolt. You've set the record this year for hit & runs, wooed our Mayor into giving you turn lanes and thru streets, run roughshod over unenforced speed limits, and ruthlessly polluted our city, using your horn even an anticipation of a green light. You just wait. Your day will come, fucking steel boxed twits. You've generally made this city a fucking frogger game, transforming the bipedal amongst us into a wrathful, misanthropic bunch. A resounding Fuck Off! Its a privelage to drive here, not your consecrated birthright. While I'm at it, Eh Bloomberg, you think you could use your traffic enforcement division for something more than accruing revenue from parking tickets? Its about more than your goddamned budget.
Posted by jmarston at 12:36 PM | Comments (6)
Ram Me
Posted by jmarston at 12:08 PM | Comments (1)
The Anti-Sit: Edinburgh
The first international Anti-Sit submission here at Transfer, from Stuart Thomson of Edinburgh Scotland. Thanks Stuart!
Posted by jmarston at 11:52 AM
A Time to Love Rising Sea Levels
Floating Houses! Speed Boat Commutes! The technocrats have delivered us from environmental constraint. Who said House Boat? Leave it up to the Dutch, who have carefully considered the challenges of places like New Orleans, as a quarter of the Netherlands lies below sea level, and "climatologists predict that precipitation in The Netherlands could increase as much as 25 percent." No worries folks. The answer floats in a bottle of architectural ingenuity. Read Der Spiegel here...
Posted by jmarston at 11:34 AM
October 04, 2005
Guarding the Right Angles
Posted by jmarston at 12:18 PM
October 03, 2005
Slips, Slides, Slaps, and Slopes
Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development, was disgustingly frank in regards to post-Katrina New Orleans, in a bold revealing of what most expect from this administration, he stated "New Orleans would not reach its pre-Katrina population of "500,000 people for a long time," and "it's not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again." To think people didn't expect NO to become a whitewashed amusement park...
The Guardian reviews the "stunning" new Danish Museum by Zaha Hadid. The Danish Museum website also has some great construction photos here as well.
This summer The Guardian interviewed folks who work in some of the United Kingdom's finest examples of contemporary architecture... and it seems folks who actually use the buildings love them, deflating the arm chair pundits who thrash on star architecture in their name. Yes, even the much maligned Scottish Parliament.
Interesting new building technique, employing some fairly clear, common sense. Enertia® Building System. "An air flow and access channel, or Envelope, runs around the building, just inside the walls - creating a miniature biosphere. Here solar heated air circulates, pumping and boosting geothermal energy from beneath the house, storing it in the massive wood walls. Thermal inertia causes the house to "float" between the cycles of night and day, and even between the seasons."
Posted by jmarston at 02:25 PM
Keno Fallout
While many people didn't bemoan the June 23rd Supreme Court ruling on Kelo as critically as they should have, because arguably it does make Eminent Domain a state's rights issue, Yes, in John Roberts subterfuge, this is true. But more importantly, it solidified the confidence of developers and city officials flush with kickbacks in using eminent domain, demonstrating that the government will refuse to grant protections against it's abuse. Which is of course especially true in states governed by the likes of Jeb Bush. And here comes the first major exploitation since the decision. "Florida's Riviera Beach is a poor, predominantly black, coastal community that intends to revitalize its economy by using eminent domain, if necessary, to displace about 6,000 local residents and build a billion-dollar waterfront yachting and housing complex" ... "Mr. Brown and others said this could be one of the biggest eminent-domain actions ever. A report in the Palm Beach Post said it is the biggest since 1954, when 5,000 residents of Washington were displaced for eventual development of the Southwest D.C. waterfront, L'Enfant Plaza, and the less-than-successful Waterside Mall."
Posted by jmarston at 12:47 PM