Browsing: architecture
On March 4, 2014, Ruin Lust opened at the Tate Britain. The show hosts a parade of famous artists from throughout the canon of art history who used scenes of architectural decay and environmental abandonment as central motifs in their…
The Providence Preservation Society recently released their annual list of the Most Endangered Properties in Rhode Island’s capital. The list is a tradition around which preservation efforts in the city coalesce, focusing the efforts of advocates for historic properties. Numerous…
Boston City Hall is the building Bostonians love to hate the most. As one of architecture’s “ugly” ducklings, Boston City Hall symbolizes the city’s coming of age in the late 1960s. It began in 1961 with a nationwide, juried competition…
In the opening scene Manhattan, Woody Allen’s 1979 romantic comedy, George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue plays as the voice of the protagonist, played by Allen, describes the uniqueness of New York City. On the screen, the City is depicted in…
Memory and the built environment are inextricably linked, and most potently so in places where historic events—and the need to remember them—collide. The memorial, the time tested place-marker for moments of significance, is a particularly challenging form for architects and…
One of the many joys in New England living is the palpable sense of history in all of the region’s best urban spaces. The inconveniences of slender alleyways and tightly packed neighborhoods are forgiven because these features, seemingly anachronistic to…
Brutalism is arguably one of architecture’s most challenging styles. This mid century aesthetic is typified locally in buildings like Boston’s City Hall, built in 1968, and the campus of Southeastern Massachusetts University (now University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth), which…
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s beautifully written story of the Jazz Age, details many aspects of the lost generation’s party life including the built environment. From Nick Carraway’s beat up cottage tucked in the shadow of his neighbor’s…
In an 1885 poll of the top ten buildings in America, Henry Hobson Richardson’s ecclesiastical masterpiece on Copley Square was voted as the number one building in the country1. That building is Trinity Church (1872-1877) and in 1986 just over…
In real estate, location counts. This importance, of the site on which a building stands and the neighbors it abuts, has never been lost on the art institutions of Manhattan. Henry Clay Frick started collecting art in his Fifth Avenue…
The Bostonian Society announced on March 18 that it is the recipient of a $14,000 gift from the Boston Duck Tours toward the restoration of the unicorn atop the historic Old State House building. Both symbols of the British monarchy,…
Brutalist buildings are the great unloved structures of our time. No other style of architecture can get a rise out of the public faster than an all-concrete behemoth in the center of town, usually surrounded by an abandoned, windblown plaza.…
I’m loving these promotional videos by Pacific Standard Time and the Getty Trust celebrating the people, art and architecture of Los Angeles. If you find yourself in the city this spring and summer, don’t miss Pacific Standard Time presents: Modern…
The Boston Society of Architects in partnership with the City of Boston has selected The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab Complex as the 2012 winner of the Harleston Parker Medal Award. Established in 1921 by Boston architect J.…
I remember why I wrote that short paper on Maya Lin for my Introduction to Architecture course in college. I wrote it because I admired Lin’s resiliency during the moments leading up to and after the completion of the…
Photo: Harry Heleotis Architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable, the first-ever to win in 1970 the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism, has died at 91. Through her passionate and articulate writings, Ms. Huxtable paved the way for many of us…
I’m always on the lookout for mobile apps whose goals are to help people explore the built environment and landscapes of historical significance. The National Park Service (NPS) recently introduced an official app to the Boston National Historical Park…
These are hard times for historic house museums. According to research conducted by the Pew Charitable Trust in 2008, there are more than 15,000 historic house museums in the United States (see footnote for more information on this statistic). This…
In 1974, at the eve of the national bicentennial, the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum—then known as the deCordova Museum—organized a major survey of New England buildings completed between 1963 and November 10, 1974, the exhibition’s opening. With New…