On Cathedral St.
phone-shot of north tower from Wilson Ave.
Took advantage of a Baltimore Heritage tour offering to get acquainted with the Baltimore Basilica — that is, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the United States’ first Roman Catholic cathedral — today for the first time. I wish I’d bothered to do it long ago. As cathedrals go, around the globe, this one’s not an especially impressive specimen, really. But it’s hardly without architectural or historical interest. In fact I think it probably ought to be acknowledged as quite a fine instance of the problem of the church in the modern world, expressed in the occasion of a building. I’d like to return to the subject. (Also, before long, with any luck, to the building.)
Mid-century modest
“The sheer ubiquity of equipment for the manipulation of the natural environment,” Fitch wrote, “has led architects, engineers, and planners to behave as if this circumambient environment could be ignored as a factor in design.”
Architect & revolution
I like reading both Reno and Alderman, generally, but I don’t like fist-wavers like these articles, generated it seems to me for little more than a bit of public venting, among sympathizers, over Modernism. It irks me especially that old owl-rimmed Corbusier must be singled out, and his most apparent defects of character linked without nuance to the manifold defects of his vision as an architect & urbanist.
Hearth
Some of the domestic spaces and layouts that most affect us aren’t even rooms or sequences of them, but special microenvironments. Indeed, the true heart of a house or apartment can be a nook or fireplace, porch or furniture arrangement that architect Donlyn Lyndon . . . calls an aedicula. The Latin word originally referred to a miniature house or shrine, sometimes imagined as a hearth surrounded by four posts, that formed the ancient Roman home’s spiritual center. A modern aedicula can take many forms, Lyndon says, but it too is always a well-defined place that can accommodate several people.
An aedicula requires some serious thinking. As Lyndon explains: ‘It’s a little house within a house that helps you understand the larger one. That marks a place in the home that you care about, or that your life moves around, or where you put the stuff you like best. . . . The aedicula sets up a counterpoint between the fluid, improvised, changeable aspect of domestic life and this thing that keeps saying, “There’s something central that’s always here.”’
From House Thinking (2006), by Winifred Gallagher.
Detailing
Practicality, a top concern for most homeowners, was seemingly not high on the list for those involved with the house. The LivingHome demonstrates edgy design and green construction, but it fails the “prosaic detail” test, lacking mundane features most homeowners expect, such as closets.
Haha, architects & their whimsical ways!
From a Washington Post real estate section look at the recent International Builder’s Show — here particularly, high-flying Philadelphia firm KieranTimberlake‘s fab prefab showhouse, designed for NAHB industry mag Builder.
Golden
From today’s email. — I’m not much for end-of-year partying, really, but this invite has me wishing I lived closer to Kansas City.
Gap
The best architecture, at least the ideal in my mind, would be urbanisms and architectures that mediate between large and small, between rich and poor, between formal and informal. But most of the time, the best examples of architecture we see published benefit one of those extremes. In that sense most of the architecture that is emblematic of progress are top-down redevelopment projects that are built at the expense of many communities.
— Teddy Cruz
Are we having fun yet?
Oh boy. Speaking of hot dog stands, novelty architecture, and ‘the ambition to transform all of life into a playground’ — have a glance at ‘Worship Centers Create Town Center Atmosphere’ in today’s edition of AIArchitect This Week.
Both Waldon Studios and Visioneering Studios have collaborated on several church projects around organized themes. The design is set in the context of the overall site plan, says Waldon. While Northeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., has a main street design, Heritage Christian Church in Fayetteville, Ga., is designed with the idea of the Georgia State Parks and includes a lake, Georgia Pines, and campground. The Northside Church in Texas actually suggests the wildness of Western towns in casual forms, almost like an old cowboy town, and is based on a crescent of trees.
Kimball on Eisenman/Krier
When someone erects a hot dog stand in the shape of a giant hot dog, the result may be in bad taste — maybe comic bad taste — but no great harm is done. . . . [N]ovelty architecture comes in several varieties. Is a building that allegedly illustrates linguistic vertigo any less preposterous than the hot dog stand? How about something that could have come from the set for Ben Hur?