Marieanne Khoury Vogt

New apartment building in New Jersey. I don't know much about the architect or this project, but from the photo it strikes me as very urban, timeless, non-modern:

After some googling, I found this, an interview with the architect, Marieanne Khoury-Vogt in her role as town architect, Alys Beach, FL.

And here is a night photo of the swimming pool that she did at Alys Beach:

The Descent

At least we got an Ascent from Libeskind, not the drooping proposal that Berlusconi recently said (in the center of image) was in need of Viagra:

 

The writer Umberto Eco weighed in support of Berlusconi's words saying: "Milan is full of people with crooked members..."

Brandevoort

I'm on an email list of similarly minded "trad-urb" types, and some people recently submitted these photos of a new town being built in The Netherlands. This is by Leon Krier, from whom I posted an anti-modernism quote a few weeks ago. This is anti-modern. He laid out the town, and designed some of the buildings. The rest were constructed following guidelines he developed.

I'm posting these, not because I think it is necessarily relevant to downtown or to OTR, rather these are more relevant to suburban development. That's because, this is a "greenfield" development, the Netherlands equivalent of a suburban development on farmland. It is walkable, has two schools, and has a train stop:














Some more links on Brandervoort here and here.

Some of the photos on this page show some residents, who almost look like Americans, people washing their cars etc...

Link to a similar development in England: Poundbury.

Typical architect's response: "Rubbish"

A driving tour of Poundbury on Youtube:




Recent awards for similar projects.

Kid Play on CAC Curved Wall

Kids love running up this wall at the Contemporary Art Center.

 

But you are definitely not allowed to climb the wall inside, no matter how tempting:

 

[Where: 44 E. Sixth Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202]

Water Damage

 

This is what you get after one winter when a Florida starchitect is hired to design a building in a midwestern climate.

Contemporary Arts Center

On select Sundays, the CAC has art projects for kids on the 6th floor. We went yesterday for a lazy Sunday afternoon, and had a great time. The artists that were helping to direct activities were very encouraging to our son who was making a sculpture out of used toys.

If you don't know, the top floor of the building is called the UnMuseum, and has kid-friendly, hands-on exhibits. We like it alot, but the rest of the museum is not usually suitable for young children. Mondays are doubly good, as they are open until 9pm and admission is free.

Below, a photo I found online of Zaha Hadid (architect of the CAC) with Margaret Thatcher in 1984: