August 16, 2006

ARTIFACTS

A few quick links for the middle of the week.

The New York Times on The New Old House. Now you can live in that picturesque country fixer-upper without all the inconvienences of, you know… a picturesque country fixer-upper.

An impassioned plea from The Times Online for “design heroes” to take over roles now occupied by developers. Edinburgh is discussed as an example of everything that’s wrong (but could be right!) with the current urban growth process.

“We should get angry about architecture. When was the last decent row we had about the way our cities are developing, about the big glass boxes that seem to be this century’s only contribution to office design, the lack of vision in so much of our urban planning, and the cheap housing that disfigures our suburbs? Why don’t we care enough? In Rome the other day, Richard Meier’s design for the Ara Pacis was publicly burnt in the streets by an enraged critic, who described it as “an indecent cesspit by a useless architect.” Right or wrong, he seized the headlines. We need a few bonfires.”

Oh, and in the same article, Will Alsop gets an endorsement of sorts for London Design Tsar.

On my recent trip to Portland I saw a few of buildings by Holst Architecture, whom I recently discovered were also responsible for the PNCA building.