An Architectural Humanism

"UNBUILT WASHINGTON" EXHIBIT

2012-01-24T10:40:00.000-05:00

National Building Museum, Washington, DC

November 19, 2011 - May 28, 2012

Imagine that you are traveling into Washington, D.C., from northern Virginia. As you approach the Potomac River, you see the tall, craggy, medieval-looking towers of the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial Bridge looming in the foreground, largely blocking the view of the National Mall beyond. As you reach the end of the bridge, now you can clearly see the enormous pyramid that was built to honor Abraham Lincoln. Going around to the side of the pyramid, you note the odd, pagoda-like structure dedicated to George Washington—a design that was executed after the original obelisk had stood unfinished for decades. Surrounding these monuments are informal paths that meander through dense woods, which help to filter the noise from the two elevated highways running along either side of the Mall. Barely visible in the distance is the Capitol, a dignified but modest structure that looks rather like a classroom building at a liberal arts college, topped by a tiny cupola.

John Russell Pope, Proposal for Lincoln Memorial, 1912. National Archives.

Unbuilt Washingtonreveals the Washington that could have been by presenting architectural and urban design projects that were proposed but, for widely varied reasons, never executed. Such projects often exercised a profound influence on what was built and may offer lessons that inform ongoing debates about the design and development of Washington and other cities. What were the motives, assumptions, and cultural trends underlying such proposals? Why were these designs never realized? What was their impact on projects that were completed?

The physical character of Washington, D.C., that we take for granted today is the unique result of countless decisions, debates, successes, failures, reconsiderations, missed opportunities, and lucky breaks. To tourists and residents alike, the city’s greatest landmarks may seem so appropriate, so correct—it is hard to imagine that they could have turned out completely differently. But nothing in the built environment of Washington (or in any other city, for that matter) is predestined. J

oin the conversation

Unbuilt Washington Online

Follow @BuildingMuseum and #Unbuilt on Twitter.

Check out an interactive map of some of the Unbuilt Washington sites.

Watch curator Martin Moeller discussing some of the rare models featured in the exhibition.

Read "What Should a Capitol Look Like?" by curator Martin Moeller.

Praise for Unbuilt Washington

Read the Washington Post review.

Read the Huffington Post review.

Unbuilt Washington on the Washington City Paper's Housing Complex blog.

Unbuilt Washington on ABC 7.

Unbuilt Washington on WETA Around Town

Michael Graves wins 2012 Driehaus Prize

2012-01-24T10:30:00.001-05:00

Image provided by MICHAEL GRAVES & ASSOCIATES

By Karissa Rosenfield — from ARCHDAILY

Michael Graves has been chosen as the 2012 Driehaus Laureate, honoring his lifetime contributions to classical and traditional architecture in the modern world. The jury praised Graves for his “brilliant combinations of tradition and imagination” within his architecture and product design, stating that his deep understanding and respect of the past allows him to enrich the architectural process.

“Michael Graves has enhanced not just the architecture profession with his talent and scholarship, but everyday life itself through his inspiring attention to beautiful and accessible design,” says Michael Lykoudis, Driehaus Prize Jury Chair and Francis and Kathleen Rooney Dean of the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture. “The quality and scope of his work have enhanced how people work, live, and interact in public and private realms, making a profound impact on American life.”

View ArchDaily’s interview with Michael Graves here and continue reading for more information on the Driehaus Prize.

Established in 2003 through the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, the Richard H. Driehaus Prize represents the most significant recognition for classicism in the contemporary built environment.

“Beauty, harmony, and context are hallmarks of classical architecture, thus fostering communities, enhancing the quality of our shared environment and developing sustainable solutions through traditional materials,” says Richard H. Driehaus

Recipients receive $200,000 and a bronze miniature of the Choregic Monument of Lysikrates. Graves will be honored during a March 24 ceremony in Chicago. Past winners include Léon Krier, Allan Greenberg, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Andres Duany, Abdel-Wahed El-Wakil, and Robert A.M. Stern.

The Jury:

Adele Chatfield-Taylor (President of the American Academy in Rome)
Robert Davis (Developer and Founder of Seaside, Florida)
Richard H. Driehaus (Founder and Chairman of Driehaus Capital Management)
Paul Goldberger (Architecture Critic for The New Yorker), Léon Krier (Inaugural Driehaus Prize Laureate)
Michael Lykoudis (Francis and Kathleen Rooney Dean of the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture)
Witold Rybczynski (Meyerson Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania and Architecture Critic for Slate)

Reference: University of Notre Dame

CONFERENCE: RECONSIDERING POSTMODERNISM

2011-09-16T10:18:00.004-04:00

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11-12, 2011

Co-Sponsored by the Schools of Architecture of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Miami

Reconsidering Postmodernism will gather leading scholars, practitioners, and critics for a rigorous round of lectures, film tributes, and panel discussions. The fully scheduled two-day conference coincides with the 30th anniversary of Tom Wolfe’s seminal publication From Bauhaus to Our House and the themes of the conference—historic significance, impact on design education and public taste, lessons learned and lessons rejected, theoretical underpinnings, and contemporary appraisal—all attempt to illuminate postmodernism’s overall cultural impact.

More Information or to REGISTER:
Institute for Classical Architecture & Art

The UNBELIEVABLE list of special guests to include:

Paul Gunther
Gary Brewer
Richard John
Robert Adam
Michelangelo Sabatino
Charles Warren
Tom Beeby
Michael Lykoudis
Lizz Plater-Zyberk
Jaquelin Robertson
Martino Stierli
Suzanne Stephens
John Morris Dixon
Paul Goldberger
Mildred Schmertz
Michael Sorkin
Tom Wolfe
Barry Bergdoll
Michael Graves
Robert A.M. Stern
Stanley Tigerman
Paul Gunther
Peter Pennoyer
Reinhold Martin
Ellen Dunham-Jones
Judy DiMaio
Michael Dennis
Dan Solomon
Gwendolyn Wright
Emmanuel Petit
Andres Duany
Witold Rybczynski
Thomas Gordon Smith
Sam Jacob
Léon Krier
Robert Campbell
Charles Jencks
Demetri Porphyrios
Mark Wigley

You have to be there!

The conference takes place at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street. Space is limited and reservations are required. Register online or call David Ludwig at (212) 730-9646, ext. 104.

Column: 'Triumvirate: McKim, Mead & White'

2011-06-08T10:58:00.000-04:00

May 26, 2011 7:23 AM from Architecture Here and There by David Brussat

The photograph above shows the office of McKim, Mead & White in 1892, celebrating its victory in a competition to design the Rhode Island State House. The firm was on top of its profession in America, and rarely deigned to participate in competitions. In the case of the job in Providence, victory came through the sort of social connections set forth in Mosette Broderick's exhaustive, if not quite exhausting, 581-page book Triumvirate: McKim, Mead & White, published last year about the architects Charles Follen McKim, William Mead and Stanford White.

Charles Follen McKim, William Rutherford Mead and Stanford White

Stanford White's sketch of Henry Hobson Richardson's Watts-Sherman House, in Newport

Norman precedent for McKim Mead & White's early work

Isaac Bell House, in Newport

Newport Casino

Boston Public Library

Library and Hall of Fame at New York University

Pennsylvania Station, in New York

"When the office won the competition for the Rhode Island State Capitol," writes Broderick, "the draftsmen decided to celebrate with a high-spirited parade led by a bevy of office men who would later be stars of the profession [in their own careers. Frank Hoppin (of Hoppin & Koen), John Mead Howells (William R. Mead's nephew) and Henry Bacon dressed up as High Commissioners of Architecture performing an architectural Mass. Hoppin played pope wearing a mitre and holding a T square as a substitute for a crosier. The acolytes followed swinging an old Venetian lamp as if incense. (Passage omitted from quote to save space.)] Henry Bacon carried a cutout of the winning design while the office sang a hymn to the tune of

'Onward Christian Soldiers':

"Onward, All ye Draughtsmen,
Marching as to War,
With our office T. Square
Going on before.
We are not divided
All our office, we,
In all competitions,
Ours the Victory . . .

Foes may struggle vainly,
We will Vanquish all,
For they are not in it,
They will have to crawl.
Providence is with us
Thro' the darkest night;
In our blest profession
We're simply out of sight."

That passage is almost all there is about one of the firm's major works, cited but twice in the index, as "Rhode Island State Capitol, [page] 304" and "Rhode Island State House, [page] 407." [The latter mentions the project in passing.]
So, yes, a little local pique slightly affects my assessment of Triumvirate. The Ocean State capitol offered Broderick a tasty nugget: winning a commission by social connections even in a competition, in this case perhaps scandalously so. She did not bite. Too bad. Still, by the time of McKim's death, in 1909, the firm had some 940 buildings under its belt. Triage, however inexplicably achieved, was mandatory.

The book has been praised for its social tapestry and criticized for going overboard in detailing that tapestry, and also for lapses in the quality of its prose and the paucity of quotation from primary sources, and for many vague references (mostly free of sniggering) to the sexual bent of its subjects. My big problem with the book is its prejudice against the neoclassicism responsible for much of the firm's fame.

Broderick observes repeatedly that the firm relied heavily on precedent. She rarely manages to avoid looking down her nose at the architects for this supposed infraction.
Broderick puts the blame on Joseph Wells, an architect at the firm whom she nevertheless considers the office's chief genius: "He taught the partners how to find precedent in the volumes of Letarouilly and others in their growing library -- and by showing them that the pages of books contained all the answers, he removed their life force. By the end of the century, everything came out of books.
This unwarranted sneer hints at an important subsidiary bias in Broderick's assessment. The "copying" done for the firm's earlier, Shingle Style work based on the quaint vernacular styles of England and Normandy -- rambling masses of gabled roofs, turrets, porches -- is tut-tutted with less severity by Broderick until the firm embraces neoclassicism. She seems dismayed that, as the importance of their commissions increased, the architects adopted an increasingly lofty architectural vocabulary.

A lot of the book is set in Newport. The Isaac Bell House (1883) and Rosecliff (1902) are representative of the firm's earlier and later work. Broderick's ill-concealed contempt for the latter mars her book's scholarship.
Notwithstanding my regrets, Triumvirate is a monumentally fascinating catalogue of how money and social intercourse dressed the Gilded Age in beauty. We may sigh at the evaporation of the past -- so many of the buildings of McKim, Mead & White razed! But many remain to be studied for inspiration today, and we must be mindful that, however rich America was then, now, despite its current travails, it is far, far and away richer, in almost all respects except for its appreciation of beauty -- a need that architecture could easily supply.

David Brussat (dbrussat@projo.com) is a member of The Journal's editorial board. His blog at projo.com is called Architecture Here and There.

Steven Semes this Thursday in Newport

2011-05-16T08:58:00.000-04:00

- Free lecture by Steven Semes this Thursday in Newport (Classicist New England)

May 15, 2011 by classicistne
By David Brussat

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Chapter members who missed the lecture by Steven Semes a year ago at the College Club can hear the author of The Future of the Past for free at Rosecliff, on Newport’s Bellevue Avenue, this Thursday, May 19, at 6 p.m. Mr. Semes, whose book is a must-read for architects, preservationists and planners, runs the Rome program of Notre Dame’s School of Architecture.

Again, the lecture is free but space is limited, and registration is required. Go here to register with the Preservation Society of Newport County, which is sponsoring the event along with the City of Newport. Or you can call 401/847-1000 ext. 154.

This is the society’s annual lecture honoring Noreen Stonor Drexel, one of Rhode Island’s most dedicated preservationists.

Mr. Semes’s superb book, subtitled “A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism, and Historic Preservation,” can be purchased here. I reviewed it here about a year and a half ago.

Mr. Semes makes the case that preserving the places we love means allowing them to evolve naturally, by adding new buildings and additions that fit with their historical character – not attack it, according to the orthodox practice of preservationism, which is led by the nose into bed with the modernists. Modernists aim to lull preservationists into helping them destroy places worth saving. The modernists’ plot has been operating smoothly, alas, to the detriment of civic beauty everywhere, for at least three decades.

The professor is on to their game. What he says is unlike anything you’ve ever heard before (if you missed last year’s lecture), and it behooves rank-and-file preservationists to listen, learn and challenge the professional preservationists who’ve turned preservationism on its head. However novel, much of it will seem intuitively self-evident to us classicists, but how enlightening, indeed enchanting, to hear it from the author himself. And we can bring a friend for whom it might be a revelation.

New Beaux-Arts Atelier Announced

2011-04-01T09:58:00.002-04:00

via Programs — Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America.
March 18, 2011

The Beaux-Arts Atelier is a non-accredited, one-year intensive program in the study of architectural design following in the method of the École des Beaux-Arts. Students will receive in-depth instruction in an atelier setting while also pursuing coursework in observational drawing, architectural drafting, systematic design methodology, the classical orders, geometry and proportion, traditional methods of architectural wash rendering and drawing, the history and theory of classical architecture, and modeling and sculpting. Students will also conduct detailed studies of New York City’s architectural masterpieces through on-site observation and field drawing. In addition, field trips will be conducted to leading architecture, decorating, and craftsman studios during each term.

The school year runs from September to June, and is divided into 5 six-week terms and a 2-week travel term in Rome.

APPLICATIONS
Applications due May 15, 2011. Any application received after the deadline will be reviewed and processed within 2-3 weeks.

Click here to download the application.

CURRICULUM

DESIGN STUDIO
The Design Studio is the heart of the program, where students integrate what they learn in other courses into a series of architectural compositions of increasing complexity. All coursework is related directly to the Design Studio, which meets 3 times per week. Crucial to the Design Studio’s approach is the imposition of time constraint in learning to design. This was a central precept of the École des Beaux-Arts method. Each six-week term begins with a new design problem followed by an intensive one-week exercise in establishing a ‘parti’ or preliminary design. The subsequent five weeks are dedicated to working with the studio instructors to develop the student’s design in detail and render it for presentation to an invited jury of distinguished practitioners. At the discretion of the jury, prizes are awarded at the end of each session to the top projects.

COURSES
The curriculum is based on the following areas of study:
GEOMETRY AND PROPORTION
THE ORDERS
AWING AND DRAFTING
MODELING & SCULPTING
ANATOMY, FIGURE DRAWING & CAST DRAWING
ARCHITECTURAL RENDERING IN WASH
HISTORY AND THEORY OF CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE
STUDY OF NEW YORK BUILDINGS

Students must complete a series of courses in the above areas of study, each building upon the last in range and difficulty. Students will be expected to complete a specific set of drawings, models and sketchbooks for each of the courses. Certificate completion will rely upon the instructors’ evaluation of all required student work.

Each term also includes field trips and tours to local museums, traditional craft workshops, the city’s principal monuments, and local offices.

ROME TRAVEL TERM
All students are guaranteed a spot on the ICA&CA annual Rome Drawing Tour. This trip provides an invaluable completion to the students’ year of study. The experience of Rome is central to understanding the history of classical architecture as well as the inspiration for the great buildings of America, and will be a vital part of the students’ artistic and intellectual development.

All Atelier students are eligible for Rome program scholarships in addition to their existing scholarships. These scholarships will be awarded to students during the spring study term.

INTERNSHIP PLACEMENT
Interested students will be assisted by the Registrar and the Atelier’s instructors in obtaining an internship in one of ICA&CA’s professional member firms. The internship will provide students with professional experience in firms that practice traditional and classical architecture.

HOUSING
Housing is not provided by the ICA&CA. The registrar’s office is available to help with inquiries and will assist students in finding appropriate housing.

TUITION
Tuition for the program is $15,000 for one year.

SCHOLARSHIPS
Scholarships and financial aid are available to all students and are decided on the basis of merit and need. Please inquire for additional information.

Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America
20 W 44th Street 3rd Fl
Attention: Beaux-Arts Atelier
New York, NY 10036
212-730-9646, http://www.classicist.org/
Questions about the Beaux-Arts Atelier may be directed to Anne Wolff Lawson,

212-730-9646 × 108, alawson@classicist.org

This program does not lead to a degree, academic credits that can be counted towards an academic program, and is not registered as a higher education institution by the state of New York.

Is Landscape Urbanism the new New Urbanism? The RPA continues the debate

2011-03-31T09:50:00.000-04:00

from Veritas & Venustas by John Massengale

The winning design for Horticultural City in Xi'an China, from the AALU website

THE LATEST E-LETTER FROM THE RPA (New York's Regional Plan Association) has an interesting contribution from the RPA's Vice President for Environmental Programs called When a Park Is More Than A Park, and a Building more than a Building. He looks at Landscape Urbanism, and seems to agree that it's "the next big thing."

"Academics at the Harvard Graduate School of Design are attempting to capture these [environmental] practices under the label 'Landscape Urbanism,'" the VP writes, "and are saying it's the new 'New Urbanism' or 'Smart Growth.' As theory, it's an appreciation of city form that relies less on traditional notions of mass and density and aesthetics as it does on process." But if you study Landscape Urbanism, you discover that it was actually an aesthetic long before it found what could be called its marketing theory. The process the VP refers to is only a secondary or tertiary part of the theory, and it grows naturally from the philosophy of the aesthetic.

A little background helps explain why. New Urbanism advocates the preservation and creation of a strong public realm (in America, that usually means "streets" and "parks"). The form of NU is an update of the time-tested city, town and neighborhood, indistinguishable from what the RPA advocates in our region. That's antithetical to the philosophy of Harvard's GSD, which is ideologically (one might even say "rabidly") Modernist, and therefore opposed to the traditional form of the city. As the sustainable, walkable model of New Urbanism gained ground across the country, Harvard needed to fight back. Professors in the school came up with the theory of Landscape Urbanism to support their aesthetic, which was essentially the straight-out-of-the-box 20th century Modernism taught at Harvard since Gropius arrived there in 1937, heightened by the latest CAD drawing fashion. It favored auto-based planning over the more sustainable walkable planning of NU, preferring the model of Atlanta or Houston to New York's.

Modernism was a materialistic philosophy that substituted ideas like Form Follows Function for traditional concepts of design, which balanced function, construction and beauty. Ancient Romans called those Utilitas, Firmitas and Venustas, and they were considered the three legs of all architectural and urban design until Modernism banished history and said that function equals beauty. The RPA VP seems to be at least partially agreeing when he explicitly endorses LU's sound environmental ideas and process and implicitly endorses their aesthetic. But there are three problems with that: LU's sound environmentalism is everyone's sound environmentalism; much of it has been used for centuries without determing or being mistaken for being beauty; and the LU process has little to do with making places that people enjoy. (An academic friend who slogged through the entire reader-hostile Landscape Urbanism Reader points out that people are not shown or discussed in the book.)

The details of New Urbanism come from observation of what works and what doesn't work, including the details and dimensions that produce spaces where people want to be. The details of Landscape Urbanism often come from more intellectual parts of the design process. In a famous example (because there is a limited amount of LU built so far), a leading Landscape Urbanist designing a park used the location of dead tree trunks to determine some of the fundamental geometry of the park's plan. Someday those trunks will all be gone, and the conceptual meaning of the geometry will be gone. But that is typical of the way that LU designers favor intellectual concepts over the experiential placemaking New Urbanists use, and it is consistent with the Modernist desire to generate design details from the process rather than fromverboten concepts of beauty.

Looking at the history of Modernism, we can see that form rarely follows function.* And the form of auto-dependent Modernism is simultaneously environmentally unsound and bad for the making of walkable places. Add to that that before Modern engineers told us they could rebuild the world, we often had to build environmentally soundly, because our cities had poor stormwater systems, for example, or we didn't have modern fertilizers and biogenetics to sustain unsoundly planted trees or crops. Of course we had many unhealthy practices, many of them introduced by the Industrial Revolution and agribusiness, but before Modernism gave us the means to re-engineer the world, we often had to live more closely with the consequences of our actions.

One result of our actions is that we can all agree on the need to be more environmentally responsible to preserve future life on Earth. The first built New Urban works were Seaside, Florida and Manhattan's Battery Park City, both started in 1981 and both proposed community and walkability as a way of reducing our carbon footprint. But it's a little known fact that Seaside was also one of the first planned xeriscape developments. The term was actually coined in the same year, although not well known outside very small circles of Western environmentalists.

Architects Experimenting on the Poor (Again)

2011-03-29T12:40:00.000-04:00

from The Civitas Chronicles by Clem Labine, May 26th, 2010

The New Carver Apartments in Los Angeles provide 97 small living units for homeless residents. Upon approaching this bleak, hard-edged structure, however, it’s hard not to feel that one is about to be locked up in some sort of detention facility. The building looks more like a jail than a residence. Photo: Abitare

In the mid-20th century, Modernist architects were notorious for trying out social engineering theories on projects for low-income people. Many of these experiments were ended by dynamite.

But it looks like design experiments on the powerless continue. In Los Angeles, architect Michael Maltzan has just completed the 97-unit New Carver Apartments next to the Santa Monica Freeway to provide housing for the homeless. The 57,000-sq.ft. project was built by the Skid Row Housing Trust, a nonprofit organization devoted to creating various types of low-income housing. All laudable goals; so far so good.

Besides providing affordable housing, however, apparently the Trust is also devoted to the Modernist ideal of creating “architectural icons.” Molly Rysman, the Trust’s director of special projects, summed it up best: “It’s not about blending in, but about having an impact.”

No one will accuse Michael Maltzan’s building of “blending in” – or looking anything like a traditional apartment building. But the structure certainly fits right into the pattern of stand-alone sculpture-buildings that architecture critics routinely label “iconic.” Because of its bizarre appearance, commentators love the New Carver Apartments, with the cheering being led by Nicolai Ouroussoff, architecture critic for the New York Times.

The critics love it, but what about the people who have to live in the structure? Architectural critics seem to make a point of never interviewing the people who actually use these “iconic” buildings. To this observer, the building looks like a prison – not a residence. Do men and women who are already powerless feel comfortable in a cold, machine-like, sharp-edged building? In my opinion, this building does not say “home” but rather gives residents the feeling of being in the grip of a powerful alien force.

The New Carver Apartments are a perfect example of the different world views of Modernists and Traditionalists. Modernists can’t help but project their own egos onto a project in a never-ending quest for novelty and “something entirely different.” That’s what they were taught to do. A Traditionalist architect handling this same project would have been more concerned with giving psychic comfort to the residents by furnishing them with forms and ornament that provide emotional connection to their homes of memory.

It’s a shame that well-intentioned designers serve the ultimate users of their buildings so poorly because they’ve been blinded by the ideology they’ve been dosed with since architecture school.

2011-03-28T08:56:00.021-04:00

Tear Down the Corviale!

New Urbanism Comes to Rome

from Planetizen

24 May 2010

Author:

Nikos Salingaros

Nikos Salingaros presents the case for demolishing a modernist eyesore in Rome and replacing it with a high-density, mixed-use New Urbanist neighborhood.

The Corviale building outside Rome is a social housing block that exemplifies the established Corbusian tradition of treating human beings as battery chickens. It was built during 1972-1982 as a single one-kilometer-long building. It is now estimated to house 6,000 people. Apologists who are nostalgic of Soviet-era social experiments continue to defend its paradigmatic modernist design on the grounds that every resident is EQUALLY oppressed in this inhuman environment, an ideal consistent with totalitarian notions of social equality.

Apartments in the Corviale Building. (Photo courtesy of Flickr user Matteo Dudek)

I am involved in an architectural revolution that is occurring today in Italy, and which may hopefully spread to the rest of Europe and the World. We are proposing tearing down the Corviale and replacing it with new urbanist fabric consisting of 3-5 storey buildings tightly knit together with pedestrian and vehicular connections, and supported by a network of urban spaces and green on the human scale. This comes as a shock to many Italian readers.

Immediately after the Italian elections of just a few weeks ago, incoming politician Teodoro Buontempo announced that he is going to tear down the Corviale. The Corviale monster (also called the "Giant Serpent") will be replaced by a high-density mixed-use city. At this moment, we have three very nice projects by three of my friends in Italy: Ettore Maria Mazzola, Gabriele Tagliaventi, and Cristiano Rosponi. These very different new urbanist designs offer three responses to the problem of building new urban fabric and replacing existing urban tissue that is gangrenous.

The Corviale site as it is currently planned.

It is worth discussing what these solutions represent within their broader political, historical, and social implications:

This is probably the first time that new urbanist projects are laid out in front of the Italian public accompanied by strong political support. Thus far, the press has conspired with the Universities to bury any traditional urban projects so as to be able to deny their very existence. That way, the architectural establishment could continue to live off the deception that buildings and cities "simply cannot be built that way anymore".
Mazzola's project is new (2010). Tagliaventi’s project (A Vision of Europe, 2008) was published in magazines and on the internet but was ignored by the mainstream media so that no one remembers it as having existed at all. Rosponi's project (Agenzia per la Città, 1997) was presented to the Italian government about 13 years ago, which then included Teodoro Buontempo in a less powerful position than he holds today, but the design was not implemented and was buried in the cupboard by the succeeding administrations.
Having three very different new urbanist projects on the table exposes the second great deception of modernist urbanists: the claim that traditional architects supposedly offer the same tired solution which copies old buildings. This self-serving statement is false. Having discovered the correct mathematical rules for human-scale architecture and urbanism, we can generate an infinite number of adaptive solutions, each one different from the other, yet all comparably human. It is the modernist image-based pseudo-solutions that turn out oppressively similar in their non-adaptivity to human needs.

The Gabriele Tagliaventi Plan

The Ettore Maria Mazzola Plan

The Cristiano Rosponi Plan

Since all three protagonists are my friends, and I could be involved with the detailed execution of one of the designs when it is chosen, I will not compare the relative merits of these three alternatives. They are distinct in approach and show many interesting differences in implementation. All three are viable alternatives and have valuable urban lessons to teach. Suffice it to say that we welcome having even more new urbanist suggestions on a new Corviale: even a fourth and fifth design of a living quarter on the human scale, just to show the Italian public the rich variety of adaptive design possibilities without the need for any duplication.

All three proposals plan to build one portion of new city, then move some of the residents and demolish the vacated space, repeating this process in stages until the entire Corviale has been replaced. Increasing the eventual total area of habitable space without spreading beyond the original grounds will enable the new urbanist projects to largely pay for themselves.

The Critics
We are facing competition, unfortunately supported by the Italian press as being of comparable value to our more radical proposals for rebuilding, coming from young architects who are still fixated upon formal geometries and propose some superficial changes such as paint, making the wall surfaces look "contemporary", and other palliatives. Those architects haven't learned that the human use of architecture depends upon its basic geometry, not upon surface appearances. It is the inhuman scale of the cement slabs and they way they are arranged that create the Corviale's deadly oppressive environment. The absolutist out-of-scale geometry was wrong to begin with, and that error has to be admitted before the built environment can be fixed. Friendly surfaces are certainly essential, but if placed upon the wrong forms they can never fix the basic problem.

Another argument that has blocked previous attempts to condemn the Corviale in the past as an architectural, social, and political failure is the following. Apologists keep mentioning the "incompleteness"of the project, supposedly needing more investment to realize its initial dream (of course); with just some more money everything will turn into a dreamland of joy and happiness. The planned shops on the fourth storey were never completed; the lovely play gardens were never built. But children are happy to play anywhere they feel psychologically comfortable, yet such spaces are sadly missing in the Corviale. Here, the most basic laws of urban structure were ignored, because urban complexity arises through people's movement, which can never occur on the fourth storey. Healthy commerce develops and thrives from network connectivity. What happened instead is that the optimistically labeled "commercial" spaces were occupied by squatters (and still are). Calls for evicting those illegal settlers ignore that they are merely obeying urban pressures to occupy vacant unconnected interior space. The squatters turn out to be better informed about urbanism than the original architects.

Commerce did in fact develop as appropriate to the Corviale's geometry of dreary and dark corridors. The Corviale is recognized as a thriving center for the narcotics trade, prostitution, and a variety of criminal activities. The business perfectly matches the architectural and urban form. If you want retail commerce and schools, then you simply need to change the geometry.

Another view of the Corviale Building. (Photo courtesy of Flickr user Matteo Dudek)

Tearing down the Corviale is a great opportunity for human-scale urbanism. But there also exist strong obstacles of a deep ideological nature. I urge readers around the world to watch this battle because the modernists and their political allies could choose to make a last stand. It is not simply an argument about a monstrous and ugly building, but about the monstrous and ugly ideology that permitted such a building (and many others like it) to be built in the first place. Losing Corviale to New Urbanism could well represent the beginning of the end of totalitarian rule in urban morphology, and so for the entrenched ideologues, it's worth fighting to preserve it.

The Corviale was sadly built just at the time when the US recognized that monstrous social housing blocks were an inhuman mistake, a failed experiment on a massive scale. Pruitt-Igoe in Saint Louis began to be dynamited by the Government in 1972, whereas Corviale was begun at exactly this time. It’s a pity that the Italian architecture community did not learn from American mistakes, as it would have saved them a lot of grief. Corviale was called "visionary", a term still used in Italian academia. Urban crimes against humanity are taught to architecture students as examples to follow, and their architects presented as heroes. Severe criticism of inhuman housing projects in Italy over several decades has not made the slightest difference.

If the reader does not mind me quoting from one of my papers, I wish to conclude on a note of warning about the seriousness of the underlying issues:

"Choosing to erect anonymous blocks without the slightest reference to the essential properties of a house, projects are then executed with pseudoscientific accuracy… they have been planned, exalted, advertised, and studied in all the universities. Those projects have been taught as positive examples to students, by architects who have transformed a vision they originally declared to be "ethical" into an "aesthetic" dimension, which ended up as a mix of mechanization and political ideology… Four examples of public housing built in Italy: Monte Amiata in Milan, Corviale in Rome, Scampia in Naples, and Zen in Palermo, were condemned by European urbanists in 1991 as being total and abysmal failures. Nevertheless, 15 years later, those very projects were spotlighted in an exhibition of innovative Italian architecture, which toured the major Italian universities. These examples, wherein similar cases gave rise to opposite lessons, underline that the discipline itself stubbornly sticks to a failed ideology."

-P. Pagliardini, S. Porta & N. A. Salingaros, "Geospatial analysis and living urban geometry", Chapter 17 of: Bin Jiang and Xiaobai Angela Yao, Editors, Geospatial Analysis and Modeling of Urban Structure and Dynamics, Springer, New York, 2010.

Dr. Nikos Salingaros is professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and is also on the architecture faculties of the University of Rome III and the Delft University of Technology. He is consultant to the Schools of Architecture of the Catholic University of Portugal, Viseu, and the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico. Dr. Salingaros is Associate Editor of Katarxis III -- an online journal of New Architecture, New Science, and New Urbanism; the Nexus Network Journal; and the Online Planning Journal. He also ranked 11th in Planetizen's 2009 poll of Top Urban Thinkers.

Corviale is one of the housing projects built on the outskirts of Rome in the 1970's as part of the 1964 regional plan to alleviate crowding in the older central city. It is well-known as the longest single residential building in Europe: an 11-story high slab of apartments nearly 1 km in length. Conceived as an independent community for about 8000 people including other facilities such as schools, shopping, recreation facilities and even a church, the building was based on the idea of social housing to provide all needed infrastructures of a city within the complex itself, and to encourage social contacts between the occupants. For internal and political reasons many of these originally planned structures were never realized or are, almost 20 years after the first occupants moved in, still unfinished. The area suffers from the lack of an adequate metropolitan infrastructure and it remains isolated from the greater city of which it was intended to be a part.

Il Nuovo Corviale, Roma, Ricostruzione Urbana

Sunday, 6 February 2011 New Palladians
architect, Ettore Maria Mazzola, Roma

Why Hire an Architect?

2011-02-10T13:27:00.004-05:00

Architects are more than building designers—they are men and women who create the spaces in which we live, work and play. Architects are creative problem solvers who translate the requirements of an owner into a three dimensional form by visualizing the design and communicating it, both verbally and in drawings, so that it can be built.

No matter what kind of project you have in mind, you should speak with an architect who is a member of The American Institute of Architects (AIA) at the earliest stage of the design process.

Licensed by the state to practice architecture, the architect is the only professional specially trained to design the places in which people live and work and to manage all aspects of potentially complex projects from design through construction. Architects must balance multiple requirements in each design: functional, aesthetic, economic, environmental, life safety, and regulatory. Architects have the education, training, experience and vision to maximize your construction dollar and ease the entire design and construction process.

Architects are the single participant in the building industry most capable of guiding the overall design and construction process to a successful conclusion. They respect the industry’s traditions and train themselves to be masters of technology and change. An architect listens to you and serves as your advocate throughout the project.

Licensure as an architect is the result of a special educational process, rigorous training, and completion of a complex series of exams. An architect usually has a minimum of five years of professional schooling and three years experience in the workplace before becoming eligible to take the licensing examination. Only licensed architects may use the title “architect” and their project drawings should bear the architect’s seal before construction may begin. To check on the status of an architect’s license in Connecticut, contact the AIACT or by phone 203-865-2195.

Value of Working with an Architect

Architects provide a broad range of services and can provide value at every stage of the design and construction process. By working directly with you and assessing your requirements in great depth, the architect tailors the design to suit your personality, needs, budget, and lifestyle. The architect’s extensive study of design alternatives allows you to choose the design most appropriate to your needs. An architect’s knowledge of site-planning and natural energy processes helps accommodate your project to the site characteristics and neighborhood context. By overseeing construction, your architect helps to make sure that your project is built according to design.

The architect also saves you money and time. By keeping abreast of the latest construction materials and technologies, architects can recommend materials and systems that fit your budget. Your architect provides documents for the contractor bidding process, which should result in a fair contractor price. Construction is expedited through an architect’s careful planning and complete drawings and specifications. The architect serves as your agent with the contractor, resolving disputes that may arise and analyzing additional costs the contractor proposes.

The design aesthetic of the project is perhaps the most obvious area in which an architect makes a unique and valuable contribution, creating a visually appealing place with pleasing character and style. Ultimately, your property’s value is increased through appropriate design, improved functionality, and high-quality detailing.

Selecting an Architect
You will benefit by involving an architect in your project as early in the process as possible. The most popular, and usually the best, way to select an architect is by interviewing several candidates. You can also learn about reputation and ability of architects in your community by visiting completed projects, talking with clients and users, and checking design awards programs and professional design publications.

A brief call to an architect can help determine if his or her expertise is appropriate to your project. When you find a few with related experience, set up interviews with them to discuss your project and review photographs and other samples of their work. You will then be able to narrow the list and, after more meetings, it will become obvious to you which architect is best for you.

Check the architect’s education, training, experience, and references. Most importantly, however, is good “chemistry” between you and your architect — you will need to feel comfortable with each other and will get to know each other well. Your architect should be a good listener, responsive to your phone calls, clearly interested in your needs, and able to communicate without using jargon. Be patient: This process will take some time and it is one of the most important decisions you will make to shape the success of your project.

20 Questions to Ask Your Architect

What does the architect see as important considerations in your project? What are the challenges of the project?
How will the architect gather information about your needs, goals, etc?
How will the architect establish priorities and make decisions?
Who from the architecture firm will you be dealing with directly? Is it the same person who will be designing the project? If not, who will be designing it?
How interested is the architect in this project?
How busy is the architect?
What sets this architect apart from the rest?
How does the architect establish fees? When will fee payments be expected?
How will you be able to relate fee payments to milestones in the architect’s scope of work?
What would the architect expect the fee to be for this project?
What are the steps in the design process?
How does the architect organize the process?
What does the architect expect you to provide?
Does the architect have a specific design style? Can he/she show examples of past design work?
What is the architect’s experience/track record with cost estimating?
What will the architect show you along the way to explain the project? Will you see models, drawings, or sketches?
If the scope of the project changes later in the project, will there be additional fees? How will these fees be justified?
What services does the architect provide during construction?
How disruptive will construction be? How long does the architect expect it to take to complete your project?
Can the architect provide a list of past clients with whom he or she has worked?

Information from AIA New Hamphire website

Winsted selectmen vote 'no' on land trust's preservation plan

2011-02-09T09:20:00.000-05:00

Published: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 The Register Citizen

By RICKY CAMPBELL

WINSTED, CT — Townspeople and taxpayers won’t be voting on the Winchester Land Trust Proposal and the $450,000 grant that comes with it, the Board of Selectmen decided Monday night.

photo by John Nordell on Flicker.com

Coming down to a 4-3 vote, the board decided not to take the next step in the bureaucratic process. Instead, the majority voted to deny the proposal, which would have allowed the trust to protect 360 acres abutting Crystal Lake and the Algonquin State Forest, as well as small parcels along Highland Lake altogether.

“They stopped it in its tracks,” said land trust president Shelly Harms. “I’m disappointed the voters didn’t get the chance to decide.”

“We thought it was a win-win for everyone,” she added.

During its discusssion, members raised a few issues with the proposal which would have cost the town $50,000 over the span of eight years, including a $10,000 fee up front. The remaining cost for the easement would break down to $5,000 for every year following.

One of the issues the board had with the proposal was terrorism.

The land trust’s proposal would have allowed for one guided tour a year for outsiders visiting the area — and some board members were worried about allowing people near the area’s source of drinking water.

“I don’t care,” said Selectman Karen Beadle, defending her opinion that water at the lake could be affected somehow. “That’s one day too many.”

“That money — it’s a big number,” Selectman Glenn Albanesius said. “It’s seductive. You’re making a decision for future boards.”

Even if selectmen in future years won’t have to worry about the cost, some of those in charge today said they felt like a golden opportunity was botched.

“This grant isn’t going to come again,” said Mayor Candy Perez, who agreed the proposal may not be perfect, but it was better than nothing. “If we don’t do this...we won’t increase fund balance.”

“This was denied to the taxpayers,” said land trust member Susan Closson. “That was an opportunity as a once in a lifetime.”

Harms said the trust, made up of volunteers, is not quite sure what its next step is or if it will have the opportunity to apply for other grants soon. She also believed the board made a mistake in dealing with its future federal funding.

“I wonder if anyone is going to want to deal with the town of Winchester now,” she said.

Ricky Campbell can be reached by e-mail at rcampbell@registercitizen.com and followed on Twitter at Twitter.com/rickycampbellRC. Follow us on Twitter at Twitter.com/registercitizen.

The Sustainable Urbanism Summit - CNU New England

2011-02-02T08:32:00.006-05:00

The New England Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism is proud to be hosting the Sustainable Urbanism Summit on March 17 & 18 in New Haven, Connecticut.

Throughout the chapter's history we have focused on improving the built and natural environment throughout New England. After many years of advocacy and design guidance, we recognize that NOW is a critical time for our region to work together to address our environmental and urban crisis. The Sustainable Urbanism Summit is an opportunity to inspire and connect a group of professionals, public servants, academics and citizens, who together can seed a larger campaign. Innovative thinking about our built and natural environment is needed. If we are to adapt to these uncertain times we must come together swiftly and advance the best ideas for combating our climate crisis and plan for a better, more resilient way of life in New England.

The Summit will address our current environmental, social, and economic issues as they apply to New England. As a group, we will seek to develop new strategies for responsible development in our region. The Summit will provide a platform for speakers and attendees to collaborate on a pragmatic plan to move New England into a new era of progress. Critical discussion topics include the implementation of low-impact infill development and the preservation of natural open space, the reclamation of streets as social spaces, improved mobility and the promotion of healthier lifestyles. Working sessions will explore approaches for providing access to alternative modes of transportation, augmenting local agriculture, creating lifelong communities, and reforming policy related to land use.

Registration for the Sustainable Urbanism Summit, on March 17 - 18 in New Haven, Connecticut, is now open. The Summit will bring together leaders from across New England who are involved in shaping our built and natural environment. The program of the Summit will provide an opportunity for people to share innovative ideas and seed a larger campaign for moving forward a sustainable land use agenda. As our economy resets, now is a critical time to lay the groundwork for creating the types of places in which we all want to live and work.

On Thursday, March 17, Robert Orr will lead the group on a tour of New Haven, a city rich in history and diversity. That evening, Doug Farr and Dhiru Dhadani ( 2011 Seaside Prize Winner) will present a keynote address followed by the Urbanism Awards during a cocktail hour at BAR. Friday will feature a talented and engaging line-up of speakers who will also take part in the interactive group discussions on Friday afternoon. Multiple technology platforms will be used as a way to capture ideas, maintain connections, and help move forward initiatives identified by speakers and participants.

Please take a look at the Summit website, and pass on this information to other talented people who you think should be a part of this timely dialogue.

Wednesday Book Review / Promotion

2011-01-19T08:59:00.000-05:00

Lost Secrets of Beaux-Arts Design

The Study of Architecture
by John F. Harbeson

with new introduction by John Blatteau and Sandra L. Tatman
W.W. Norton & Co., New York, N.Y., in association with the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America; 2008; originally published 1926
310 pp; softcover; 404 illustrations; $45 Amazon: $28.66

Reviewed by Clem Labine

When you say, "Beaux-Arts style," everyone instantly thinks of the handsome, classically influenced buildings that were the centerpiece of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and those buildings that were continually added to America's urban landscape through the 1920s as part of the American Renaissance and the City Beautiful movement. However, if you say "Beaux-Arts teaching method," chances are you'll get a blank stare. That's because virtually nothing is known today about the rigorous architectural design process that was taught at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and which was imported into the U.S. in the late 19th century. A modified version of the Beaux-Arts teaching method dominated architectural education in the U.S. until World War II. When Modernist theory swept into the architectural academies after WW II, Beaux-Arts methods were tossed into the trash can along with countless thousands of pre-war architectural books.

The lack of understanding about Beaux-Arts teaching methods is a result of Beaux-Arts training being largely a skill that was passed from generation to generation via oral tradition and individual mentoring. The only American textbook on the Beaux-Arts method did not appear until 1926. The book was an expansion of articles that the author, John F. Harbeson, had written for Pencil Points magazine – and has been out of print for many decades. Now, thanks to W.W. Norton and the publishing program of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America, Harbeson's lost masterwork is back in print – and provides an invaluable insight into architectural training methods from an age that produced giants.

Although the term "Beaux-Arts" is inextricably linked in most people's minds to the ornamented classical style of the late 19th century, there was nothing inherent in the teaching method that required a classical outcome. Rather, the Beaux-Arts philosophy was based on the belief that architectural design should be anchored in a systematic method that can be taught. This idea that architectural design is a rational process that can be developed through rigorous discipline is at complete variance with the Modernist dogma that dominates most architecture schools today.

Compared with today's architectural education, the Beaux-Arts method relied less on bursts of individual inspiration and more on detailed analysis and application of basic principles. By contrast, contemporary attitudes toward teaching architectural design has best been summarized by Notre Dame's C. W. Westfall: "The most prestigious programs . . . follow the one rule of the Abbey of Theleme, 'Do what thou wilt,' which reduces the design instructor to an enabler of the fantasies of eighteen-year-olds or cocky graduate students."
There were five basic elements of the Beaux-Arts method as practiced at L'Ecole:

The division of students into ateliers run by practicing architects;
The tradition of older students helping the younger;
The teaching of design by practicing architects;
Starting design work as soon as the student enters the atelier;
The system of the esquisse, or preliminary design sketch, as the core of the design process.

Of all the features of the Beaux-Arts method, probably the most unusual to us today is central importance of the esquisse. This was a preliminary sketch showing the student's main ideas for solving a design problem. The esquisse was done in a short time period (usually under 10 hours) and done without the aid of books or advice. The ultimate finished version of the student's design project needed to contain the main features shown in the esquisse – or else the competition jury would disqualify the project. The purpose of the esquisse was to teach mental discipline and avoidance of fuzzy thinking at the project's inception.

Another element of the Beaux-Arts method was an emphasis on carefully delineating shadowed areas in the final rendering of a design. The idea was to demonstrate the critical importance of light and shadow in articulating an architectural surface. Harbeson's book was originally intended as a textbook for both architectural students and teachers. He provides practical step-by-step guidance for developing designs for everything from basic elements like doors and windows to plans for grand civic complexes. Along the way, he also gives avuncular advice to students about working hard and avoiding bad habits.

Of particular value to this reprinted edition is the new introduction by John Blatteau, AIA, noted classical architect and founder of John Blatteau Associates, and Sandra L. Tatman, executive director of the Athenaeum of Philadelphia. Blatteau and Tatman lucidly outline the impact that L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts had on architectural education in America from the 1880s through 1940, and paint a vivid picture of the ideas that animated the architectural community in this period. Harbeson lived to a remarkable 98 years of age, and the introduction is enriched by details that Tatman elicited during an oral history she did with Harbeson.

John Frederick Harbeson (1888-1986) attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied in the Department of Architecture under Paul-Philippe Cret. Cret, a Frenchman, had been educated at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and had been brought to the University of Pennsylvania to introduce Beaux-Arts principles into its curriculum. Harbeson progressed from being Cret's gifted pupil to become a senior designer and partner in the Cret firm. As professor of design and eventually chairman of the Dept. of Architecture at University of Pennsylvania, Harbeson taught the Beaux-Arts method and, with the publication of The Study of Architectural Design, became its principal American chronicler.

The reprint of Harbeson's textbook is a great addition to the architectural literature. It will be valuable to architectural historians, architects and interior designers – and especially to anyone teaching architectural design courses today. Though critics of the Beaux-Arts method assert that it stifled "creativity," most will concede that it produced virtually no bad buildings; some might be mediocre, but few were aesthetic failures. The same cannot be said for the fruits of Modernist training. TB

Clem Labine is the founder of Old-House Journal, Traditional Building and Period Homes magazines. He has received numerous awards, including awards from The Preservation League of New York State, the Arthur Ross Award from Classical America and The Harley J. McKee Award from the Association for Preservation Technology (APT). Labine was a founding Board Member of the Institute of Classical Architecture (ICA), and served in an active capacity on the board until 2005, when he moved to Board Emeritus status. He is also a regular blogger on the Traditional Building and Period Homes websites.

The Perpetual Modernity of Palladio

2011-01-13T08:54:00.000-05:00

from New Palladians
Sunday, 2 January 2011

CALL for PAPERS

From Vernacular to Classical:

The Perpetual Modernity of Palladio

Conference: June 10-12, 2011

University of Notre Dame

South Bend, Indiana

“As architects we recognize a colleague, a guild master who, in spite of more than four hundred and fifty years’ distance, we yearn to see as one of us.”

Palladio’s Children: Essays on Everyday Environments

N.J. Habraken and Jonathan Teicher

Framing the venue of two important exhibitions (the Royal Institute of British Architects’ traveling exhibit “Palladio and his Legacy: A Transatlantic Journey” and “New Palladians: Modernity and Sustainability in 21^st Century Architecture”), the University of Notre Dame will host a conference addressing synergies and dialectics across vernacular and classical architecture, discussing the possibilities of a broader Palladian tradition in the 21^st century. It will bring together scholars, practitioners, educators and students from a variety of disciplines related to the built environment to explore and discuss Palladio as an inspiring master whose works forms a vital foundation – and a revitalizing platform – from which an evolutionary process of Tradition and Classicism that intelligently integrates the vernacular and classical is made possible.

The conference will address a complex range of ideas, work and proposals that encompass, consolidate and emulate the Palladian paradigm and/or explore sustainable architectural and urban design endeavors of the 21^st century articulated by various threads in New Classicism, New Urbanism and recent “New Palladian” arguments and designs.

Palladio is often mentioned restrictively for a few of his exquisite villas, and caricatured for adding temple-fronts on his villas in the Veneto on the presumption that he was giving undue monumentality and sacred status to the private country residences of local landed aristocracy. The legacy of the built and un-built work of Palladio, however, merits a more sophisticated analysis and a more comprehensive contemporary assessment.

It requires a revised appreciation of how the combined art and intelligence of vernacular craftsmanship, local building traditions and precedents, as well as the “ archaeological” study of Roman Antiquity, sensitization to Classical principles and expertise in humanist theories, among others, have achieved a generous, unique and original collection of masterworks that continue to resonate, inspire and fascinate the architectural world.

Traditional cultures typically evolve a rich memory of types and models, developing elaborate expressions of art and knowledge on the one hand, and sophisticated expression of crafts and know-how on the other.

Classical and vernacular cultures interact and emulate one another in complex and subtle dialogues, inspiring, borrowing and learning from each other. Since their common origin in the “mythical hut,” the temple, the house and the palace have evolved into a rich genealogy of refined types that continue to foster inventive dialectics and synergies. Neither the Classical nor the Vernacular should be considered mere stylistic categories, as they function as proposals of the most appropriate, beautiful, safe, and comfortable dwellings and public spaces. Though style emerges as an expression of particular cultures, Classicism itself is not a style, nor is the Vernacular; both foster refined foundations of stylistic appropriateness, excellence, integrity, sound and sustainable construction, elegant tectonics and composition, durability, comfort and enlightenment. As such, numerous possible connections for innovative contemporary practice and education exist.

The conference, then, seeks papers that examine relationships across Palladio’s legacy of Classical and Vernacular architecture that may include any of the following: 1) History and theory; 2) Contemporary practice; 3) Academic education, research and scholarship. More specifically, papers may radiate around these themes:

· The Classical and Vernacular in Palladio’s work

· Palladio in America: The Rustic, the Vernacular, the Classical

· The Classical and Vernacular in Contemporary Practice and the Academy

· Teaching Palladio in the 21^st Century

· Classical or Vernacular: Palladian, Neo-Palladian and New Palladianism

· Palladio’s Legacy and the Urban Realm

· The Vernacular and the Classical in New Urbanism

· What does it mean to posit a Classical Modernity?

· Reconsiderations of Res Publica – new dynamics for civic, sacred, public and monumental space in contemporary building

· Reconsiderations of Res Economica – new dynamics for residential, commercial, technical and industrial infrastructures

· Craftsmanship in historical and contemporary contexts

· The Future of Palladian Ideals

Deadlines and Submission Instructions

Abstracts submission deadline: February 10, 2011

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted on CD in a (MSWord) .doc or .pdf file. Please also include examples of illustration intended to accompany your paper and a current CV. Please also send these materials digitally to Karen Voss at kvoss@nd.edu. CDs should be postmarked by February 10 and mailed to the following address: Palladio Conference at Notre Dame, Attention: Karen Voss, School of Architecture, University of Notre Dame, 110 Bond Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556

A confirmation of receipt of submissions will be sent by February 20, 2011. If you have any questions, contact Karen Voss by email (kvoss@nd.edu) or phone (574.631.2872).

Notification of Accepted Abstracts: March 5, 2011

Abstracts will be reviewed and selected by a committee of expert practitioners, scholars and academics. Selection criteria will include the papers’ relevance to the Conference, scholarly merit, and interest with regard to the event’s intended thematic range and emphasis on the dialectics and synergies of the Vernacular and the Classical within the wider Palladian tradition.

Papers due: April 10, 2011

Final papers should be no longer than 1500-2000 words (maximum) and should fit into a 20- minute presentation, including illustrations. Applicants are asked to respect the 20-minute time frame to ensure all are heard fully and accommodate discussion periods. To this end, applicants might be invited to revise or adjust the length of their final papers after final submission.

Conference: June 10 - June 12, 2011

The Conference will be organized around plenary sessions and concurrent sessions addressing parallel conference topics. The Steering committee will schedule papers accordingly into relevant panels.

University of Notre Dame

School of Architecture

110, Bond Hall

Notre Dame, 46556-5652

Tel (574) 631-6137 fax (574) 631-8486

Robert A.M. Stern wins the Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture

2010-12-22T08:19:00.000-05:00

Posted by archipae on 12/15/10

December 13, 2010. Blair Kamin

He’s designed everything from Chicago’s ubiquitous bus shelters to Philadelphia’s tallest skyscraper and the future George W. Bush presidential library. And he’s done it in just about every style.

Acerbic, energetic and incredibly prolific, New York City architect Robert A.M. Stern is, above all, a pluralist, whose free-wheeling formal approach has alienated purists across the aesthetic spectrum. Yet even his critics might admit that he’s had a powerful impact on contemporary design.
On Tuesday, the 71-year-old Stern (left) will be named the 2011 winner of the Richard H. Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture, adding a jolt of star power to an award that has garnered relatively little media attention since it was established in 2003.

Named for its sponsor, Chicago venture capitalist Richard Driehaus, and given through the Notre Dame School of Architecture, the prize recognizes a leading practitioner of classical or traditional architecture and comes with a cash award of $200,000—twice as much as the older and more prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, which was established by the billionaire Pritzker family of Chicago and typically goes to a leading modernist.

Nashville Public Library, RAMSA, 2001

Asked in a telephone interview what the Driehaus Prize means to him, Stern cited architecture’s polarized factions of traditionalists and modernists, as well as his reliance on principles that date back to ancient Greece and Rome.

“It’s a great honor,” he said. “It’s recognition that in our sadly bifurcated world of architecture one can pursue a great tradition of architecture that goes back thousands of years and bring it into the modern world.” (at left, his Nashville Public Library).

In a career that began in the mid-1960s, Stern made his name—and enemies–by championing a post-modern architecture that departed from the rigid orthodoxy of steel-and-glass modernism.

Comcast Center, Philadelphia

Flip through his brick-sized monographs and you find an astonishing assortment of styles—brown-shingled seaside cottages, Art Deco hotels, Gothic revival prep schools, glass-sheathed office towers (his Comcast Center, at left, is Philadelphia’s tallest building), even a baseball stadium (the Anaheim Angels’) festooned with baseball cap-shaped entrance pavilions and a bat-supported marquee.

His portfolio extends to urban design. He helped shape the nostalgic, Disney-backed new town, Celebration, in Florida and played a major role in the tourist-friendly revitalization of New York’s 42nd Street.
Stern’s non-ideological approach has managed to upset both of architecture’s camps—the modernists, who accuse Stern of shaping a stage-set historicism, and the classicists, who claim he takes liberties with cherished archetypes.

Spangler Campus Center at Harvard Business School

But the eight-member Driehaus jury, which includes the prize’s sponsor and experts from throughout the field, set aside such objections, valuing such robust reinterpretations of the Beaux-Arts as the Harvard Business School’s campus center (left) and Stern’s body of contributions to the field.

Those contributions include Stern’s wide-praised deanship of the Yale architecture school, to which he invites regularly invites leading modernists and traditionalists, and his decades of provocative, literally heavyweight scholarship. He has, for example, co-authored a five-volume architectural history of New York City that has 5,400 pages and weighs in at 38 pounds.

Stern was recognized “for his scholarship, his role as dean, and for his overall impact on the architecture of our time,” said jury member Paul Goldberger, the New Yorker’s architecture critic.
“Bob has brought classicism into the mainstream,” said Michael Lykoudis, dean of the Notre Dame School of Architecture and the chairman of the Driehaus jury

Stern, who will receive the prize in ceremonies on March 26 in Chicago, said he would donate his winnings to a Yale architecture school endowment devoted to teaching the classical tradition in the school’s design studios.

He has never designed a major building in Chicago, but has nevertheless made his presence felt here.

He worked with the late Bruce Graham and Stanley Tigerman on unrealized plans for a 1992 Chicago world’s fair, taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s architecture school when Tigerman led it and contributed a memorable entry to the 1980 Late Entries to the Chicago Tribune Tower Competition. His exercise in post-modern classicism sought to marry Adolph Loos’s column-like entry to the original Tribune competition of 1922 with the glass prisms of Ludwig Mies van Rohe.

Chicago bus shelter photo by Chicago Tribune

In addition the bus shelters, which have touches of classical ornament but have drawn criticism from CTA riders for letting in the wind, his built work here includes two North Shore houses and a remodeled apartment in the Gold Coast. Stern’s current projects include the design for a new law school building at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Like many architects, Stern has had to downsize because of the economic downturn. His office has 220 employees, down from a high in 320 in the fall of 2008. He’s on the lookout for new projects, but his bitingly frank manner may not win him friends, especially at the University of Chicago, where he finds fault with the recent crop of modernist buildings, such as the new business school by New York architect Rafael Vinoly.
“They don’t seem to like their traditional buildings,” Stern said, referring to the university’s neo-Gothic quadrangles but overlooking its new limestone-sheathed dorm—a building whose mix of the Gothic and the contemporary betrays the influence of one Robert A.M. Stern

(Robert A.M. Stern portrait courtesy of Robert A.M. Stern Architects; photos of Nashville Public Library, Comcast Center and Spangler Campus Center at Harvard Business School by Peter Aaron/ESTO; Chicago bus shelter photo by Chicago Tribune)

Source- http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2010/12/the-pluralist-robert-am-stern-his-portfolio-a-stylistic-smorgasbord-wins-the-driehaus-prize-for-clas.html#tp

Learn New Urbanism On Line!

2010-12-17T08:27:00.000-05:00

The Principles and Practice of New Urbanism is a self-paced online course offered by the University of Miami School of Architecture, a world leader in New Urbanism.

Looking for an in-depth introduction to the theory and practice of New Urbanism? You can learn at your own pace,on your own schedule, from anywhere in the world, with The Principles and Practice of New Urbanism.

For anyone interested in a comprehensive introduction to New Urbanism
Developed by the University of Miami School of Architecture, a world leader in New Urbanism
Receive a certificate from the University of Miami School of Architecture upon successful completion of the course
Provides preparation for the Congress for the New Urbanism's (CNU) Accreditation Exam
The CNU-Accreditation Exam can be taken online via the course web site at the conclusion of the course

Winery Buildings

2010-12-07T10:13:00.000-05:00

Mandola Estate Winery
Driftwood, Texas

Casa Rondena Winery
Albuquerque, New Mexico

The Mountain Winery
Saratoga, California

Nicholson Ranch Winery
Sonoma, California

Mission Hill
Kelowna, Vancouver, Canada

Raffaldini Vineyards
Ronda, North Carolina

Yadkin Valley Winery
North Carolina

Meerlust Winery
Capetown, South Africa

Viansa Winery
Sonoma, California

Opus One Winery

Oakville, California

Simple Gifts

2010-12-06T09:08:00.000-05:00

From modest cottages at the iconic village of Seaside, FL, to large-scale traditional structures elsewhere, Merrill, Pastor & Colgan Architects celebrates the discipline and purity of form found in traditional building.

By Kim A. O'Connell

from Traditional Building Magazine

A church is, without question, an expression of faith – faith in a higher power, as well as the power of religion to be a force for good. A church also expresses the faith that community traditions will be strong enough to warrant the time, money and materials spent in its design and construction. Historic beliefs and future hopes alike are embodied in the liturgy, as well as the windows and walls. So it is at the relatively new chapel in Seaside, FL, the iconic traditional town conceived more than 20 years ago by developer Robert Davis and master-planned by the New Urbanist duo of Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. Even as some critics have written off Seaside as a kind of traditionalist fairyland for affluent vacationers, the erection of the chapel underscores the fact that Seaside is a real town and a real community. The chapel's spare design, by Vero Beach, FL-based Merrill, Pastor & Colgan Architects, reflects not just the high-minded Gothic of traditional churches, but also the down-home rural roots of the Southeast.

These somewhat countervailing influences represent not a paradox in the firm's approach but a central philosophy. Founder Scott Merrill, AIA, "is in love with the vernacular and classical traditions of architecture," writes Vincent Scully in a new monograph on the firm. "His design shows that he knows and respects them all so well that he is determined to build them correctly, that is, with the exactitude, the sense of discovery, even the originality, they deserve."

The firm was founded amid the traditional renaissance that spawned Seaside – now a model for other traditional neighborhoods, built in what was an otherwise underdeveloped, anything-goes part of the Florida panhandle. There, Scott Merrill designed buildings that were Classical in their purity of form and precision, but also simple and unpretentious as beachfront properties ought to be. Later, Merrill and his partners crafted luxurious private residences that evince a rustic Classicism. More recently, the firm has expanded its scope to include larger public buildings in a variety of locations, forging intriguing design solutions in terms of composition and scale.

The Honeymoon Period
As an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, Merrill worked in the historic Rotunda and often crossed the famed Lawn with its Classical pavilions, which he says remain his favorite group of buildings. Although Merrill was an economics major, Jefferson's "academical village" inspired him to consider architecture as a career, and he went on to Yale University to earn a master's degree in the field. The faculty there placed a strong emphasis on broadening students' experiences with visiting critics' studios. "The great thing about the Yale experience was the sheer number of people with different bents and emphases that we learned about," Merrill says. "The Yale campus is like a classroom itself; it's the most amazing set of urban quadrangles. You have this pastoral complex of buildings at UVA and then you have this beautiful assembly of urban buildings at Yale, so I was exposed to the best of both worlds."

By the mid-1980s, Merrill had launched his professional career working for two Washington, DC, firms – McCartney Lewis and Cass & Pinnell (which later moved to Connecticut). At the latter firm, Merrill met Duany and was in turn introduced to Davis, who brought the young man to Seaside to serve as town architect. Merrill would have been content to fulfill that job's main function, which was to oversee the implementation of the master plan and facilitate construction. But Davis and Duany believed in Merrill, giving him the plum assignment of developing a series of rental cottages along the shoreline in the late 1980s.

Called the Honeymoon Cottages after the abode that Thomas Jefferson lived in while he worked on Monticello, the six identical houses face the Gulf of Mexico – a row of miniature Greek revival temples wrought in wood and painted white like the sand below. Jefferson's cottage is built into the hillside, an aspect that Merrill emulated by situating the cottages so that they appear as one-story volumes from the beach but pull up to their two-story height when viewed from the road.

Merrill still finds the Honeymoon Cottages to be instructive. Seaside was planned as a modest American village in which the houses were to be crafted in only a few types, and where the people would be relied upon to provide the local color and diversity. As it developed, however, Seaside's denizens constructed larger and larger houses with fat columns and other details that were "undigested and overscaled," according to Vincent Scully – while the exorbitant prices limited the socioeconomic diversity so praised by the New Urbanists. The Honeymoon Cottages, by contrast, advocate for the original vision of Seaside, which heralded simplicity.

"The Honeymoon Cottages are a distillation of a lot of important ideas, a very reducive type, which comes from the program," Merrill says. "They are incredibly simple buildings and very frankly repetitious….This was a chance to demonstrate that Seaside was really about a repetition of a limited number of types, not about the increasing individualization that was happening there."

The Classical Ideal
In 1990, Merrill started his own practice, which he moved to the Atlantic coast town of Vero Beach, FL. A year later, he hired George Pastor, AIA, who became an associate in 1996 and a partner in 1997. Pastor and Merrill had common roots, with Pastor having earned his Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Miami and his master's degree at UVA. During graduate school, Pastor recalls, he spent a summer working at Monticello as it was being restored, gaining a hands-on education in traditionalism. Now he plays a key role in the firm's projects and handles much of its contract administration.

David Colgan, AIA, joined the firm in 1994 and became the third partner five years later while concurrently opening the firm's only additional office in Atlanta. He received his Bachelor of Architecture from Notre Dame. Today, the firm has grown to 11 people, and Merrill is proud of the fact that they have never had to let anyone go.

"I think that Scott and George bring to the table such valuable and complementary skills that working together is never a shoving match for territory authorship, but a well-ordered and balanced effort," says Colgan. "I cannot say enough about Scott and George's ability to manage the talented staff that we have. The ability to assign work with just enough information to explain the task, but not so much that the exercise is rote, allows lots of ideas to be tested before the best are culled and further developed. It is a distillation of ideas that, in my mind, strives for the Classical ideal that nothing can be added or taken away without detriment to the whole."

The move to Vero Beach coincided with the firm's decision to work with Duany and Plater-Zyberk on their traditional resort town of Windsor. There, Merrill and his partners sought to create a distinct pattern language from which guest houses, community areas, and garden features would all be derived – a perfection of the Seaside model. The firm's design for the Windsor town center is first and foremost a beautifully executed plan, in which a group of public buildings form a collective unit that sits at the convergence of five roads. The diverse program is divided among eight separate structures, including two apartment buildings, a small store, post office, fitness club, observation tower and three gardens. The buildings showcase disciplined Classicism, employing Greek columns and Italianate rooflines tempered by warm Caribbean colors and human-scale volumes. A semicircular exedra serves as a focal point.

Throughout the '90s, in addition to upscale residential work, the firm continued to take on projects at Seaside and elsewhere, collaborating on new buildings at Windsor and at the University of Miami with traditionalist Leon Krier, among others. The firm's buildings, Krier has written, "strike us for the total absence of any of the trivia which mark the majority of contemporary buildings; they truly transcend the period." Its design for the town hall at Rosemary Beach, FL, in just one example, emulates Boston's Old State House in massing and form. Partly because of budgetary restrictions, the firm had to find ways to distinguish the building with broad brush strokes, in this case employing a dramatic parapet gable that evokes Florida's Spanish roots.

In 2001, Merrill, Pastor & Colgan began work on the Seaside Chapel. The building – an interfaith worship space for 200 people – remains a special project for the principals because of its significance as a culminating project at Seaside, the undeniable success of its execution, and the fact that it marks a shift in the firm's mission toward more and larger public buildings. Without resorting to typical religious symbology such as a crucifix, the church embodies the verticality of the Christian Gothic style. At the same time, rather than being heavy and foreboding, the white chapel is built in the rural Alabama Episcopal tradition of Carpenter Gothic board-and-batten churches.

"The Seaside chapel is very close to being the building I wouldn't criticize myself on," Merrill says. "It's very simple in its volume, and it has an affinity with the Honeymoon Cottages." "It was one of our first public buildings which we knew would be accessible to large numbers of people," Colgan adds. "It is a building type that is used at important times in people's lives and we hope it enhances the experience." Colgan should know – he and his wife were married there in 2003.

Public Works
In the last five years, Merrill, Pastor & Colgan Architects has undertaken a broad spectrum of design work representing a wide range of building types. These include a federal courthouse, a fitness center, a clock tower, two post offices, a motor court, several apartment buildings, an equestrian center, a small office building and a sales office. "Even though I've been a party to it, I've been surprised at how lucky we are to do a number of different building types, including several projects that are over 100,000 square feet," Merrill says. "This means that we're constantly shifting gears between scale and between regions. You have projects that are in very different settings, and with that you have programmatic and compositional challenges."

The real dilemma for traditionalists, Merrill continues, will be to design large commercial buildings on a human scale and with discipline and beauty, while accommodating a host of modern concerns, from the vagaries of property ownership to building codes and mechanical systems. He is reminded of Frank Lloyd Wright's dictum about building from the inside out – that is, allowing the building's exterior to offer insight to the spaces and layout within. "At the same time, if you're building in an urban setting, there's a thwarting of Wright's impulse to let the outside look like the inside," Merrill says. "There's tussle between wanting to have order on the street while reflecting the internal complexity. Our buildings are starting to work at this level."

The firm's approach to such complex projects is evident in its plan for the Fort Pierce Courthouse in southern Florida, not yet built, as well as in its submission for a design competition for the new West Palm Beach Library (which was ultimately won by Demitri Porphyrios). In both cases, the solidity and import of the structures are evident in the long, heavy facades, but this is considerably lightened by the extensive use of glass, the multi-story pier language, and the asymmetrical massing of internal components, which is most obvious in the roof lines. The firm's neo-traditional mixed-use plan for a new resort in Alys Beach, FL, and its compound of large apartment buildings in the Bahamas speak to other considerations as well, such as engaging and developing the street grid, accommodating traffic flow and determining pedestrian circulation.

When Merrill talks about this work, he sounds much like the eager young architect he was when he arrived at Seaside years ago – eager to apply the time-tested rules of traditional building with rigor, simplicity and imagination. "Composition has become of much more interest to us," he says. "The reductive quality of the Honeymoon Cottages or the Seaside Chapel is only one of at least two distinct strains in our work, with the other being much more freewheeling composition. While the smaller buildings have the design and the details, there's an intermediate layer of composition that becomes the great promise of the bigger buildings." TB

Connecticut's Mount Vernon

2010-12-02T09:54:00.004-05:00

1430 Asylum Avenue, Hartford (1911)

from Historic Buildings of Connecticut

The house at 1430 Asylum Avenue in Hartford may look familiar to those interested in American history.
It is a virtual replica of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, in Virginia, but features some grand additions to its model, including a much fancier entry with a semicircular fanlight and side lights, as well as an elaborate balustrade along the roof. Mount Vernon also influenced the design of other Colonial Revival style houses, like the Hill-Stead, but this house, designed by Edward T. Hapgood and built in 1911, follows the first president’s home very closely, with some early twentieth century aggrandizement.

Connecticut Magazine Top Town 2010

2010-12-01T10:03:00.000-05:00

Rating the Towns 2010: Population Under 3,500

With just over 2,000 residents at large across its 34.5 square miles,

Lyme

is one of Connecticut’s most sparsely populated towns. It’s one of its most beautiful, too, with plenty of frontage on the Connecticut River, salt marshes galore, and the utterly charming Hamburg Cove right in its midst. It seems almost too good to be true that Lyme also has excellent schools, a very low crime rate and a solid local economy.

We move up to Litchfield County for the next four top finishers. Norfolk is the only town in this population group with above-average scores across the board. Bethlehem also offers some well-rounded numbers as well as a pretty good annual agricultural fair.
Way across the state in Windham County, No. 6 Eastford presents a lovely prospect to young families looking to move: good schools (or at least good test scores), a low crime rate and relatively low real estate prices.

A brief word about crime statistics and these very small towns: The “safest” town is Hartland, which averages about five crimes a year, but even the town with the highest crime rate, Union, reports only one crime a month. Crime probably shouldn’t be a factor when comparing these towns.

It should be pointed out that a good score in the “Leisure” category among these smallest of towns generally indicates an active and well-supported library. Only a handful of towns, such as Cornwall and Kent, offer shopping, galleries and restaurants. For the most part these are towns in which historical societies hold sway and crickets provide the nightlife.

	Town	Education	Crime	Economy	Cost	Leisure	Total
1.	Lyme	1	8	2	26	4	41
2.	Norfolk	2	13	12	9	5	41
3.	Bridgewater	7.5	2	5	25	6	45.5
4.	Sharon	19	10	4	18	3	54
5.	Bethlehem	10	6	13	17	9	55
6.	Eastford	9	4	18	7	19	57
7.	Andover	3	7	20	12	16	58
8.	Warren	12.5	5	7	19	15	58.5
9.	Roxbury	7.5	21	1	27	8	64.5
10.	Goshen	12.5	11	8	23	10	64.5
11.	Hartland	18	1	15	8	24	66
12.	Kent	16	20	6	24	1	67
13.	Canaan	12.5	18	10	20	7	67.5
14.	Cornwall	17	24	3	22	2	68
15.	Colebrook	4	15	9	15	26	69
16.	Union	6	27	11	14	12	70
17.	Scotland	25	9	19	3	18	74
18.	Voluntown	24	12	23	2	14	75
19.	Morris	12.5	17	14	21	11	75.5
20.	Hampton	21	3	24	11	22	81
21.	North Canaan	20	22	22	5	13	82
22.	Barkhamsted	5	16	21	16	25	83
23.	Franklin	15	26	16	13	17	87
24.	Sterling	27	14	26	4	21	92
25.	Chaplin	26	19	25	6	20	96
26.	Sprague	23	25	27	1	23	99
27.	Bozrah	22	23	17	10	27	99

A Guide to Institutions Teaching New Urbanism and/or Traditional Design

2010-11-30T09:42:00.003-05:00

The Prince's International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism (INTBAU) in London has posted a
List of Schools
teaching New Urbanism and/or Traditional Design.

We are told that it is updated often and is meant to be the most current list of schools.

This is invaluable for those who would like to learn more about traditional design and urbanism. I cannot reproduce it here, but HIGHLY RECOMMEND you check out their link below:

http://www.intbau.org/archive/academic.htm

About the INTBAU:

The International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism (INTBAU) is an international organization established in 2001. The organization arose from a research project initiated in 2000 at The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment. Since April 2004 it has been an independent registered educational Charity no. 1103068 under the patronage of Prince Charles. INTBAU is "dedicated to the support of traditional building, the maintenance of local character and the creation of better places to live", and has a Central Office located with three related charities in The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment building in Shoreditch, London United Kingdom.

New Churches

2010-11-23T08:45:00.023-05:00

from Katarxis No. 2

New Hall Church and Baptistery, Sauvie Island, Oregon

by Duncan McCallum McRoberts

New Sacred Architecture

Chapel of Our Lady of Corpus Christi

by Michael Imber Architects

Chapel of Our Lady of Corpus Christi

Ground Floor Plan

Michael Imber Architects

Proposed Chapel of Saint Thomas Aquinas College

by Michael Imber Architects

Proposed Chapel of Saint Thomas Aquinas College

by Michael Imber Architects

"......that the sanctity of the Temple is protected from all terrestrian corruption, and that because of the fact that the architectural plan of the Temple is the work of the gods, and consequently is in the vicinity of the gods, in Heaven.

The transcendant models of the Temples benefit from a spiritual, uncorrupted and celestial existence. By means of the divine grace man has access to the fulgurant vision of these models, and he then dedicates himself to reproduce them on earth."

Mircea Eliade

"The Sacred and the Profane"

Gesu Church

by John Blatteau Architects

New Church in Miami, Florida

by Duany & Plater-Zyberk

Trinity Church, Vero Beach, Florida

by Scott Merrill and Georg Pastor

Igreja Da Azoia, Sintra, Portugal

by José Cornélio da Silva and José Franqueira Baganha

(Photo by J. C. da Silva & J. F. Baganha)

Interior of Igreja Da Azoia, Sintra, Portugal

by José Cornélio da Silva and José Franqueira Baganha

(Photo by the Architects)

"The ancient Temple builders knew the meaning of contemporaneity. They gave their temples the proportions of of the cosmos, and they planned to allow for changes in the order of heavenly creations."

Hassan Fathy

New Oratory in Chicago, Section of Entrance Tholos

by William Heyer

New Oratory in Chicago

Oratory of Saint Philip of the Loop, Chicago

by William Heyer

The oratory of Saint Philip in the Loop by architect William Heyer is located in the core of historic Chicago. The program includes the Oratory, the 'Oratorium Parvum' (daily chapel above the entry residences, refectory, library, court, bookstore, subway station, belting shops, theatre, and student music school.

The Oratory of Saint Philip of the Loop, Urban Context

by William Heyer

Plan of the Oratory of Saint Philip of the Loop, Chicago

By William Heyer

"Essential for something to be called a religious activity is its capacity to allow the participant to acknowledge that there is something superior to himself which he cannot explain and whose hold he cannot resist."

Carroll William Westfall

"Architectural Principles in the Age of Historicism"

(Published at Yale University Press)

Making a Stronger Connecticut, One Downtown At a Time.

2010-11-22T09:10:00.000-05:00

Connecticut Main Street Center

(from the Connecticut Main Street website)

We are the state’s leading resource for cities and towns seeking to comprehensively revitalize their “main street” districts.

We provide solutions to help Connecticut’s main streets once more become thriving centers of commercial and social activity. A member of the respected National Main Street network which has been in place for over 25 years, we are a nonprofit organization committed to bringing Connecticut’s downtown commercial districts back to life.

Connecticut Main Street Center helps communities analyze core issues and set attainable objectives. We provide education and training, resources and tools, and advocacy. Our organized yet flexible approach allows communities to identify and develop their unique assets in an integrated and comprehensive way.

CT Main Street Center’s Founding Partners are The Connecticut Light and Power Company and the State of Connecticut Department of Economic & Community Development. Growth Partners are The United Illuminating Company and The Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism.

The good news is there’s a growing movement to revitalize and renew our central business districts. Nearly 40 Connecticut communities have recognized the value of a vital downtown – and they are doing something about it. Main Street partnerships work to create more sustainable living and working environments – with more walking, more small independent businesses, and preservation of architectural gems.

Connecticut Main Street Communities:

Ansonia
Barkhamsted
Bridgeport
Canaan
Cornwall
Danbury
Darien
Enfield
Glastonbury
Goshen
Hartford
Kent
Madison
Manchester
Meriden
Middletown
New Britain
New London
New Hartford
New Haven
New Milford
Norfolk
North Canaan
Niantic
Norwalk
Norwich
Putnam
Salisbury
Seymour
Sharon
Simsbury
Stamford
Storrs
Suffield
Torrington
Vernon
Wallingford
Waterbury
West Haven
Willimantic
Windsor
Windsor Locks
Winsted

Connecticut Main Street Center • PO Box 1344 • Avon CT, 06001 • 860.280.2337

Public Policy Partners

1000 Friends of Connecticut
Connecticut Chapter, American Institute of Architects
Connecticut Chapter of the American Planning Association (CCAPA)
Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM)
Connecticut Council of Small Towns (COST)
Connecticut Economic Development Association (CEDAS)
Connecticut Economic Resource Center (CERC)
Connecticut Housing Coalition
Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation
HomeConnecticut Campaign
Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)
Partnership for Strong Communities
Tri-State Transportation Campaign

Board of Directors 2010-2011

Shelly Saczynski, Chair
Director, Economic and Community Development
The United Illuminating Company

Professor Alan J. Plattus, Secretary
Director, Yale Urban Design Workshop
Yale School of Architecture

John Baker, Treasurer
Senior Vice President
Webster Bank

Timothy H. Coppage
Vice President-Housing Development (ret.)
CT Housing Finance Authority

David Grant
Senior Director, Business Intelligence Design
Travelers

Kim A. Healy
Executive Director
New Alliance Foundation

Sheila Hummel
Community Development Manager
State of CT DECD

Bernard Kavaler
Asst. Vice Chancellor, Public Affairs
CT State University System

Sara Kovacic
Business & Technology Analyst
The Hartford

Thomas E. Marano, CEcD
Business Development Consultant
Northeast Utilities

Calvin Price
VP, Director of Community Development
Liberty Bank

Robert W. Santy
President & CEO
CERC

David V. Sousa, R.L.A., A.I.C.P.
Landscape Architect and Urban Planner
CHA, LLP

Staff

John Simone
President & CEO
Phone: 860-280-2023

Kimberley Parsons-Whitaker
Associate Director
Phone: 860-280-2556

EPA Supporting SmartGrowth on Their Own Website

2010-11-18T08:36:00.002-05:00

About Smart Growth

from the EPA website

Backgound

Development decisions affect many of the things that touch people's everyday lives - their homes, their health, the schools their children attend, the taxes they pay, their daily commute, the natural environment around them, economic growth in their community, and opportunities to achieve their dreams and goals. What, where, and how communities build will affect their residents' lives for generations to come.

Communities across the country are using creative strategies to develop in ways that preserve natural lands and critical environmental areas, protect water and air quality, and reuse already-developed land. They conserve resources by reinvesting in existing infrastructure and reclaiming historic buildings. By designing neighborhoods that have shops, offices, schools, churches, parks, and other amenities near homes, communities are giving their residents and visitors the option of walking, bicycling, taking public transportation, or driving as they go about their business. A range of different types of homes makes it possible for senior citizens to stay in their homes as they age, young people to afford their first home, and families at all stages in between to find a safe, attractive home they can afford. Through smart growth approaches that enhance neighborhoods and involve local residents in development decisions, these communities are creating vibrant places to live, work, and play. The high quality of life in these communities makes them economically competitive, creates business opportunities, and improves the local tax base.

Smart Growth Principles

Based on the experience of communities around the nation that have used smart growth approaches to create and maintain great neighborhoods, the Smart Growth Network developed a set of ten basic principles:

Mix land uses
Take advantage of compact building design
Create a range of housing opportunities and choices
Create walkable neighborhoods
Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place
Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas
Strengthen and direct development towards existing communities
Provide a variety of transportation choices
Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost effective
Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions

Resources from EPA

Environmental benefits of smart growth
Smart growth issue pages, resources, and examples of smart growth communities
Publications from EPA's smart growth program
National Award for Smart Growth Achievement. Annual award recognizing communities that use the principles of smart growth to create better places.
Smart Growth Illustrated. Shows how smart growth techniques look in communities around the country.
EPA Smart Growth Strategy (2003). Strategy for how the EPA should focus its smart growth efforts to achieve the maximum environmental results.

Resources from Smart Growth Online

Smart Growth Online. Clearinghouse of smart growth-related news, research, presentations, publications, and other resources. Supported by EPA funding.
This Is Smart Growth (2006, International City/County Management Association and Smart Growth Network). Illustrates how communities can turn their values, visions, and aspirations into reality, using smart growth techniques to improve development. Features 40 places around the country, from cities to suburbs to small towns to rural areas, that have found success by implementing smart growth principles.
Smart Growth in Action. Case studies of smart growth communities and projects that offer models for other communities.
Getting to Smart Growth, Volumes I and II (2002 and 2003, International City/County Management Association and Smart Growth Network). Each volume provides 100 smart growth policy ideas, along with additional resources and brief case studies of communities that have applied these approaches to achieve better development. Both volumes have been translated into Spanish.

Wednesday Book Review / Promotion

2010-11-17T09:59:00.008-05:00

Summerour: Architecture of Permanence, Scale and Proportion

by William R. Mitchell, Jr.

summerour.net | Southern Architecture Foundation

Well, I guess I am a relative late-comer in my admiration of Keith Summerour. Nevertheless, this monograph is worth a look.

One of the newest in a century-long line of Southern architects who have focused on classical themes is Keith Summerour of Summerour and Associates. This volume includes representations of projects completed between 1998 and 2005 by this young firm, from a cracker-style hunting plantation to a mountain-top Tudor Revival retreat. The four phases of the firm’s design process are illustrated: charrette and esquisse; model; construction drawings, and finally, the finished structure.

There is a distinct, century-long line of Southern architects whose careers have centered in Georgia and whose talents have focused on classical themes. Author and architectural historian William R. Mitchell, Jr., has referred to them as the “Georgia school of classicists,” and he traces their beginnings to J. Neel Reid and the firm of Hentz, Reid & Adler, which was formed in Atlanta in 1909.

The lineage of Georgia classicists following Reid through the twentieth century includes such recognizable names as Shutze, Crook, Ivey, Jones, Means, Ford, Dunwody, Cooper, and McCall. Midway through the first decade of our new century there are several architects whose names now deserve to be added to this distinguished list, and one, according to Mitchell, is Keith Summerour, founder and principal architect of Summerour and Associates, Architects. This practice is notable not only for the talent Summerour possesses, but also for the methods his firm employs.

Mitchell states: “Time-honored artistic terms and design ideas, such as atelier (studio/workshop), charrette (consultation) and esquisse (free-hand sketching), are normal in its practice. . . . As our new century evolves, this firm enlarges and enhances the practice of architecture for which Beaux-Arts classicists in the past set high creative standards of ‘well-building.’”

Remarkably, this is still a young and growing firm; this volume includes representations of projects between 1998 and 2005, from a cracker-style hunting plantation in coastal Georgia, to a mountain-top Tudor Revival retreat in North Carolina. Illustrated are the four phases of the firm's design process, from charretteand esquisse, to the model, then to construction drawings, and finally to the finished structure. Examples are shown from the mountains to the sea, from cities and suburbs to the country.

Within the pages of this monograph one can clearly see why Lewis Crook, one of Summerour’s architectural ancestors, once proclaimed: “There are cycles in architecture, but people always return to the classics.” (from Golden Coast Books )

About Keith Summerour:
(from Summerour and Associates website)

Keith Summerour studied architecture at Auburn University. His architectural course of study included a yearlong study abroad, concentrating on the classic architecture in London, Paris, and Florence. Following his graduation from Auburn University in 1987, he went on to win the Ritchie Fellowship, allowing him to dedicate time to developing his distinctive style of architecture. Summerour further developed his talent for design while interning for several architecture firms, including the Ritchie Organization, Robert McAlpine, AIA, Herkommer Architectur and Plannungs Buro in Stuttgart, Germany, and Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart and Stewart Architects. His duties while employed with these companies included regional projects, such as designing Olympic housing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and international projects for the Ritz Carlton Corporation in Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and Indonesia. Summerour’s work has been featured in many publications, including Architectural Digest, Southern Accents, Metropolitan Home, Veranda, Southern Living, Coastal Living, Trends Magazine, Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles, and Atlanta Style and Design.

The firm’s most recent publication, Garden and Gun, features Summerour’s personal dream, a stone tower in rural Georgia. This tower serves as a rural studio where members of the firm can get away to work without interruptions and Summerour can getaway most weekends with his family. The firm has also received recognition as one of the top 100 architecture firms by the Institute of Classical Architecture. In 1991, Summerour founded Summerour and Associates Architects, Inc., a firm that specializes in residential design, boutique commercial projects, mixed use buildings, institutional and resort development.

In December of 2004, he added Summerour Interiors, in his efforts to translate a seamless transition from his unique vision of architecture to interior design. Since that time, Summerour Interiors has become an integral part of Summerour and Associates. While the majority of the firm’s projects are located in the Southeast, you will find the designs of Summerour and Associates are also on the West Coast, the Mid-West and New England.

Hardcover: 160 pages
Publisher: Golden Coast Publishing Company (October 30, 2006)
Retail: $50.00 Amazon: $35.00