In celebration of nascent 2013, below are some photographs of Times Square (or Longacre Square as it was known before 1904), from New York Public Library and the New York Historical Society, two organizations with some lovely photographic collections. Note that in these early images one can actually see the Times building! [Note that these [...]
Archive | December, 2012
Nativity Scenes: from the largest to the smallest.
The first Nativity scene is attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi in 1223. He hired Giovanni Vellita to build a manger scene out of straw in a cave in Greccio, Italy. In the seventeenth century, the baroque master Gian Lorenzo Bernini created an elaborate nativity scene for the Barberini family of Pope Urban VIII. By the beginning of the eighteenth [...]
Happy Holidays!
Since Buckyballs are no longer for sale, and in keeping with the festive consumerism that annually wraps our country into a frenzy, here are a couple of [last-minute] gift ideas for the urban enthusiast who enjoys games (in no particular order)… Urban Sprawl: Our own Alex recommends this one. It is a city building game [...]
Oscar Niemeyer
On December 5, 2012, the pre-eminent Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer died at the age of 104. He was the creator of some of the most iconic architectural buildings and monuments built in the 20th century and was one of the last masters of this craft practiced by the likes of Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. His [...]
Planning Dogmata: Affordable Housing
It occurred to me recently that “affordable housing” qualifies as dogma, since I have yet to meet a planner who does not accept it unquestioningly. I am assuming this has a lot to do with how well we are paid, and possibly living conditions in grad school when we are being indoctrinated. This came up [...]
Manufacturing vs. Services: Who gets paid the most?
Similar to the Industrial Revolution and the effects the economic shift had on agricultural employment during the turn of the 20th century, the manufacturing sector continues to lose jobs while simultaneously maintaining its productivity: Like farming, this evolution has been good for consumers: the sectors are more efficient and products are cheaper and more plentiful, [...]
A couple thoughts to start the week
Sandy threw off the planned posts I was going to write over the past month, so thought I would compile a couple shorter thoughts for sharing today… Designing for the Deaf Some of you may recall that a while ago Gallaudet (a Washington, DC based school for the deaf) came up with some design guidelines for the deaf. There was a [...]
Grammar of Habitat: Can we apply Muir Webs to Development and Planning?
“When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe.” - John Muir Expanding on this quote, Eric Sanderson, the author and lead landscape ecologist behind the Mannahatta project, helped develop an ecosystem identification [...]
