Topic / architecture

Roman ruins at Schönbrunn. Carl Moll, 1892.

Western Electric Plant. Cicero, IL.

Western Electric was the captive equipment arm of the Bell System and produced the majority of the telephones and related equipment used in the U.S. for almost 100 years.

“They died to make the desert bloom”

Hoover Dam bas relief.

Bell Labs Holmdel Complex. New Jersey.

Winged Figures of the Republic. By Oskar Hansen at Hoover Dam, 1937.

The dome of Sta Maria Della Salute. Venice.

My latest post is a deep dive on Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn. If you can’t tell from the length, this book is full of gold, and one of my favorites in a long time:

The amazing spillway at Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Plant , Iceland.

I can’t see brutalism without thinking of Dune. Upper image looks like Caladan.

Bixby Creek Bridge. Big Sur, California.

The PCH is a national treasure.

Zaghouan Aqueduct. South of Tunis, Tunisia.

Visited in 2014. Built by the Romans almost 2,000 years ago, and channeled water from the springs to the south to coastal Carthage.

Saint John Church of Sohrol. East Azerbaijan Province, Iran.

The blue and white architecture of Sidi Bou Said. Tunis, Tunisia.

Teatro Regio. Turin, Italy.

That lighting.

Adalaj Stepwell. Gujarat, India. Built in 1498.

We should build more stepwells.

My latest essay. Comparing the notion of “pattern languages” across domains, like writing and architecture:

The central control building of a solar farm in Karapınar, Turkey.

Future site of an unnamed science fiction film location shoot.

I’m no big fan of the high modernist flavor of neoclassicism, at least when made real.

But damn Étienne-Louis Boullée ’s concepts are incredible.

We should build more moongates in our gardens and backyards.

From Austin Tennell on X.

The Eden Project is a complex of geodesic domes housing different biomes — a Mediterranean climate, and the world’s largest indoor rainforest. An island of foreign terrain in a retired mining pit in cold Cornwall, England.

The Magic City , by Russian artist Artur Skizhali-Veis.

Cross-section of Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City.

Let’s return to conversation pits.

The interior of Wrocław Cathedral , Poland. Built in 1272.

Chillon Castle , island fortress on Lake Geneva, Switzerland.

The building originally dates to the 11th century, but there’s evidence the Romans had forts on the small island a millennium earlier.

It’s functioned as fort, prison, and summer home to counts and dukes. Added to my one-day-Swiss-vacation list.

Dragon Bridge. Da Nang, Vietnam.

Centuripe — a Sicilian town that looks like a person.

Browsing maps is my favorite way into new rabbit holes. Now central Sicily is on the travel wishlist.

“Depthscrapers”

When will we build one?

archiveofaffinities:

Rhone and Iredale Architects, Bogue Babicki and Associates (Structural Engineers), Westcoast Building, Vancouver, B.C.

Rhone and Iredale Architects, Bogue Babicki and Associates (Structural Engineers), Westcoast Building, Vancouver, B.C.

Brutalism / modernism carries great aesthetics. Interestingness for the magazine, terrible for the user.

uroko:

京都 貴船 / Kibune, Kyoto

Japan has some of the best examples of vernacular architecture. Buildings are a perfect fit for the surrounding environment.

Novanoah — Paolo Soleri’s floating city.

Atsushi Wakamatsu, Tower of Babel.

thevaultoftheatomicspaceage:

Johnson Wax Building, Mijdrecht, Netherlands (Hugh Maaskant, 1966)

Typically modernist architecture is a travesty, but occasionally it’s glorious.