by Witold | Feb 5, 2013 | Architects
A recent documentary film on the Erich Mendelsohn (1887-1953), Incessant Visions, is a reminder of how history has treated the great architect: not well. He is best rememberd today for the idiosyncratic Einstein Tower in Potsdam, and for a series of expressionistic...
by Witold | Jan 31, 2013 | Architects, Architecture
I attended a public lecture by my friend Enrique Norten last night. He described recent work: a museum in Puebla, a business school for Rutgers, and a city hall in Acapulco—all three competition winners, and all three under construction. All are impressive buildings...
by Witold | Dec 21, 2012 | Architects
In an idle moment, I made a list of celebrated architectural dynasties. There are many examples in the past, when knowledge was passed down informally from father to son: Bartolomeo Sanmicheli and his brother Giovanni and his son Micheli Andrea Palladio and his son...
by Witold | Dec 7, 2012 | Architects, Modern life, Urbanism
One should not speak ill of the dead, it is said. Yet in a week fill with encomiums for Dave Brubeck (1920-2012) and Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) it is hard to hold back. When I started listening to jazz, in the late 1950s, the Dave Brubeck Quartet was already famous—or...
by Witold | Nov 29, 2012 | Architects, Architecture
Michelangelo Sabatino, who is researching the Canadian architect Arthur Erickson (1924-2009), recently sent me photographs that he had taken while visiting an early work by the architect. The 1959 Filberg house is in Comox, on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, and...
by Witold | Oct 18, 2012 | Architects, Architecture, Design
During a recent lecture, Princeton architecture grad Richard Wilson Cameron talked about how he designed Ravenwood, an estate in Chester County, Pennsylvania belonging to the film director, M. Night Shyamalan. What turned into a five-year project involved...
