The only thing these photographs have in common is that you’ve probably not seen them before. They’re not part of the narratives constructed around the respective buildings. They’re photographs that got lost along the way. They remind us that our knowledge of certain buildings sometimes has little to do with where they are built, what […]
2013AD: Some bits of crusty stuff in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. circa 87BC The original thing had only just been manufactured in Rhodes, Greece when it was plundered by the Romans who had recently begun to control that area. The ship carrying it and whatever else the Romans took a fancy to back to […]
Following on from my previous post about The Kiss Principle and miscellaneous tidbits about the Farnsworth House, I was poking around the internet looking for information about the mechanical services at Philip Johnson’s Glass House. After all, it has no mechanical room. The fireplace looks a bit more the business though. While we’re over here, […]
This is part 2 of a two-part post. Part 1 is here. In Part 2, we’re nearing the then present time of 1963 and we’re finally getting to the kind of stuff you pay a historian to write. My own architectural awareness was very limited at that time but the final pages of modern architecture books […]
This book recently came into my life once again. Inside was written my name and the year, 1974. The chapter on MODERN architecture was probably the only one I’d ever read. It still is. I was interested to read it again, to see what ‘modern’ might have meant in 1963 when the first edition was […]
This post will deal only with Architecture and Building: Chapter VIII of “The International Style” by Hitch & Johnno. Back in 1932, people didn’t use the expression “vs.” other than to describe boxing matches. They should’ve, because H&J describe architecture and building as a type of confrontation that could go either way. You can sense […]
Happy New Year – let’s keep it moving! You could google it but … Fabergé eggs are famous for converting huge amounts of skill, technology and money into an ornament that has no practical use other than to bring ‘delight’ upon being given one and opening it to find a ‘surprise’. The most famous and extravagant eggs […]
Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) … was descended from the Jansen (a.k.a. Johnson) family of New Amsterdam, and included among his ancestors the Huguenot Jacques Cortelyou, who laid out the first town plan of New Amsterdam for Peter Stuyvesant.* Impressive. Johnson was the son of a wealthy Cleveland attorney Homer M. Johnson, and an equally wealthy […]
Q: How can I make my building different? A: Just take a piece of landscape and put something that looks different in it – it’s quite easy really. See? Erm, that’s not quite what I meant. Huh – why not? This looks different on all levels – it’s got a different colour, pattern and shape […]
This is misfits’ second gallery post. It’s slightly off-theme yes but the procedure is the same. Use the form below to send a link to any photo you’d like to nominate for inclusion. This time, nominations must: feature a well-known client or architect – ideally both! include an architectural model, and capture some awkward moment […]
This house and I go back a long way. The “Lincoln House”, designed by Mary and Thomas McNulty, was built in 1965 and featured in the December 3, 1965 issue of LIFE Magazine. I was maybe ten, waiting in the barbershop at the Epsom Avenue shops when I picked up the magazine and saw it. […]
Twelve aready! Doesn’t time fly? etc. Born rich and in the Middle East, it’s never really had much to do apart from indicate a destination. It’s easy to criticise and it’s easy to disapprove but it’s actually quite an amazing building. This gets forgotten. I’ve seen many articles about the building as a hotel – its […]
A nice piece of land doesn’t automatically generate great architecture but it helps. Apart from the pleasures of bathing in a blue bathtub, lounging in the sun, and owning a meadow surrounded by orchards less than an hour’s drive from Paris, the Villa Savoye continues to evoke certain other values that have proved equally resistant […]
Mainly known for his writings, Vitruvius was himself an architect. In Roman times architecture was a broader subject than at present including the modern fields of architecture,construction management, construction engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, materials engineering, mechanical engineering, military engineering and urban planning. Vitruvius is the author of De architectura, known today as The Ten Books on Architecture, a treatise written of Latin and Greek on architecture, dedicated to the emperor Augustus. […]
