Archive for the 'History' Category

Newness / Oldness

August 22nd, 2021

There’s an excitement about newness. Moving into a new space, with fresh paint, unmarred counters, crisp door frames. The shininess of a countertop says “new,” not just as in “unblemished,” but “made just for you.” It says “this will not have to be repaired or replaced for a long time.” There is an excitement about […]

Street Grids

January 4th, 2017

An interesting look at street grid patterns over the past century, and into the future: https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/publications/en/rh-pr/tech/socio75.html

Multi-Culti Gestures

March 13th, 2016

Norwegian high-pitched roofs, Dutch gables, Russian Orthodox domes, Spanish colonial facades — scores of newcomers have visited upon San Francisco’s skyline the architecture of their homelands. These were built by immigrants, for immigrants, and evinced authentic culture. In contrast, it is downright disingenuous when an institution dons an ethnic pastiche of whatever culture happens to […]

Cultural Expression

January 16th, 2016

Most architects just throw out something in hacienda style when they want to reflect the local culture here in the Mission…

Bus Stop & Toilet Zealots

August 25th, 2015

  There’s a difficulty in designing one thing for multiple locations, such as a bus shelter or a public toilet. You can’t design for context since the surrounding of each installation is unique. Whatever the design, it can only display the unity of its own system. Too often, this frees a designer to promulgate his particular style at the expense of […]

Overproportion

March 22nd, 2013

The very normal-sized side door to this apartment house on Church is given proper entry status by an enormously over-proportioned broken pediment.  Most delightful is how the thing weighs so heavily on the doorway it actually crops off the top of the door within. The architect might have squeezed a normal pediment at the conventional […]

et tu Boulee?

March 19th, 2012

Boulee’s monument to Newton, seems also to have been influenced by ancient mausolea, as I surmised while exploring the roots of Mario Botta’s SFMoMA. This time a spherical top over a windowless cylindrical base, and again, rings of Cypress trees. There’s something in these arrangements that draws together the earth and the heavens, the worldly […]

Favorite Books on Architecture

September 15th, 2010

Every now and then I come across a book so enlightening, so thought provoking, so intelligently written, it makes me want to toss out a score of others on my shelves lest I be tempted to waste time on them.

Art, Death, and the Museum

June 20th, 2009

Early features of Mario Botta’s San Francisco Museum of Modern Art bear resemblance to those of the Mausoleum of Emperor Augustus in Rome. Parallels between museums and mausolea are rife in the history of the de Young as well. What is it about art and death that moves us to inter them so?