Inside, Outside, Rooms, Memory.

“Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.” Zadie Smith Two memories emerged with startling clarity recently. Prompted by a television program, and for reasons which I do not understand, I was at once transported to Louis Kahn's Unitarian Church (1962), where an orchestra was performing on the screen and, …

Faster, Faster

We live in a city quite totally dominated by the automobile. It has taken us 100 years to ruin what was once a beautiful and urbane metropolis, but by God, we've done it! These pages are littered with the evidence of that ruination, but in case you needed a bit more proof: Albert Stone shows …

Other Cities

Hong Kong - a subway extension. Tianjin, two hours from Beijing, before and later, after. The arrow on the drawing, below, indicates the building, a ship terminal, above. Singapore - a subway extension. And Phuket - phooey.

Patterns for Next Cities

Nightfall in the Qianmen hutong, Beijing. Image by Ruth Fremson, New York Times. I was reminded again the other day of the muddle-headed New York Times article I have complained about here on several occasions. In that piece (the June 8th NYT Magazine), "The New, New City," writer Nicolai Ouroussoff says, of exploding city development in China or …

Beijing, CNN, and A Town Square

Steven Holl's Linked Hybrid in Beijing. Image from flickr. Stephanie Busari of CNN in London wrote today to offer a link to the CNN International article she wrote about Beijing. Take a look. It's nice to have been able to give her our perspective. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/06/18/beijing.hybrid/index.html

Thoughts for Building in the Next City

After writing about the New York Times articles of June 8th in the last two posts, I was contacted by a young woman in London who writes for CNN. She is doing a piece on Steven Holl's 'Linked Hybrid' (LH) development in Beijing, shown below. She wanted me to chat with her about the project. …