by Witold | Mar 30, 2021 | Architecture, Modern life
As one gets older one tends to spend an inordinate amount of time visiting hospitals. Ours is Pennsylvania Hospital, which bills itself as “the first in the nation” and was co-founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1751. The original building was designed in 1754 by...
by Witold | Mar 6, 2021 | Architecture, Modern life
The old Lit Brothers department store (built and expanded between 1859 and 1918) on Philadelphia’s Market Street has a sign over one of its corner entrances, that has always puzzled me. HATS TRIMMED FREE OF CHARGE is embossed into the metal fascia of the canopy. It’s...
by Witold | Mar 3, 2021 | Architecture, Modern life
The pandemic lockdown has turned me into a podcast listener. One of my favorites is GLOP Culture, with Jonah Goldberg, Rob Long, and John Podhoretz. In a recent conversation about woke bullying at the New York Times and Slate, Long made an interesting observation....
by Witold | Feb 26, 2021 | Modern life, Urbanism
A lot has been written about the effect of Covid-19 and the associated year-long shutdown, on cities. The present situation is dispiriting: so many of the amenities that attracted people to cities in the first place—theaters, museums, ball parks, restaurants, bars—are...
by Witold | Feb 25, 2021 | Modern life
“By convention, we erect most of our monuments to salute the heroic spirit, or acknowledge acts of sacrifice of statue-genic soldiers, police, and firefighters or illustrate national ideals, such as the Statue of Liberty or the Gateway Arch,” writes Jack Shafer in...
by Witold | Nov 28, 2020 | Architecture, Modern life
Alex Beam’s article in yesterday’s Boston Globe has a provocative title (for a liberal paper): “Trump may be right about one thing, architecture.” The author seconds Trump’s critique of Brutalism and quotes me that too often we get “courthouses that look like...
