Month: June 2009

  • Property Porn

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    “Porno is the unconsciousness of culture, the libido of humanity.” (unknown) A comment from one of our contributors, ‘Helen’, suggested that we explore the proposal of Property Porn. Very well, Helen, we’ll see what we can come up with. Innuendo, for a start, I guess. But first a choice quote or two (seeing as we…

  • Video of the Week XX: Architectural history 101

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    Architectural history for the young at heart …

  • Ever Near a Fairy-Land

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    The Architecture Centre pays hommage to the passing of the King (of Pop) pity he wasn’t also a king of architecture. As the Architect’s Journal yesterday said: the ranch was a disneyfied mashup of Queen Anne Style and New England vernacular. Not that I’ve got anything against mash-ups, Charles Jencks & Terry Farrell made them…

  • bete comme un vrai architecte?

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    So where have the loquacious architects gone? Have architects become, like the tradition of French painters, dumb… ‘bete’ also suggesting ‘beast’, an animal without speech. It is true isn’t it? If you think of the Athfields and Walkers, not to mention the Fowlers and Waldens, architects used to be rampant orators, at times difficult to…

  • Video of the Week XIX: lunchtime!!

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    Despite its architectural intent this how to “Architect’s Fish and Chips” may put you off fish’n’chips forever – or perhaps gourmet cooking them…

  • Ferris Beuller’s Day Off

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    Iconic moments from the tail end of the eighties haunt me still: one of them the propensity for high hair and giant shoulderpads, another being the film Ferris Beuller’s Day Off. Although I never saw it at the cinema, I’ve watched it countless times since on video, cheering along with the crowd to “Save Ferris”,…

  • Barbie Architecture: yep it’s pink

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    A casual comment about architect costumes at the last Arch Centre committee meeting made me wonder what the most fashionable fashion victim of all time: Barbie – might be able to offer to the subject of architects and architecture.

  • Video of the Week XVII: heritage of course

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    A nice reminder of that there’s potential and merit in almost every architectural addition … or “repurposing” … Compelling juxtapositions and more!!

  • Urban conveniences: post-cellphone city spaces

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    I am one of those achronistic beings who doesn’t wear a watch, and doesn’t own a cell-phone. This perhaps means I have become particularly aware of the urban accessorizing, from which I often try to glean the time or a phone call from, which has undergone huge changes over the last 10-15 years in New…

  • Is architecture at odds with politics?

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    In a rare moment in April, I bought a copy of The Economist, but it was not the obvious architecturally related homeownership article which caught my eye – but rather it was pages 63 and 64, and an article titled: “There was a lawyer, an engineer and a politician …”Well spotted – no architect in…

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