While reading other responses to Architecture School, i stumbled upon the conversation at Veritas et Venustas and felt compelled to add my 28 cents. I have reprinted my response below. As a Tulane School of Architecture alumnus (’05) I feel a need to chime in with a few points. 1) There was, and i assume still is, an underlying conflict in the school and architecture as a whole. There are those modernist professors who put an emphasis on partis and design over neighborhood scale and character and they are continually in conflict with the preservationists/critical regionalists who emphasis context and character over grand design strategy. This studio would have been better suited being under the purview of a non-modernist professor, whose emphasis would have been on neighborhood development instead of personal architectural statements. 2) The problem with the existing houses and the neighborhood’s reaction is multifaceted. There is a severe air of distrust in New Orleans between the poor black neighborhoods and the rich (mostly) white gentry for very good reasons. The horrendous housing projects that were built during urban renewal were dehumanizing spaces (many not much better than stacked slave cabins), the construction of which allowed for the forced [...]
The New York Times has a write up about this house which is built on an Island in Naraganset Bay. The views from the house are amazing, water views from every window, this is owing to its placement – perched all alone on a tiny rock of an island. Apparently it was a wreck when it was bought by a pair of Boston architects in 1961, one of whom was a distant relative of the original builder. For the past 4 decades they have restored and renovated the house and it is still a work in progress. [Who Lives There - Clingstone - The Old House and the Sea - NYTimes.com]
I just found a great blog focusing on New Orleans mid century modernism. Check it out! Regional Modernism :: The New Orleans Archives
Curbed has an article about an early 20th century façade being torn down in Manhattan to put up a glass box (apparently, this project has been in the works for some time, but is just starting construction, see this other article for before and after pictures of the overall building). The preservationist in me cries out in disgust.
This building is a great example of early 20th century architecture. The chicago style windows fitted between corinthian columns and thinner windows above that emphasis the vertical nature of this early 20th Century skyscraper scream pre-Modern to me. In an other time, the loss of a fabric building like this wouldn’t even be a story, but in the age of historic preservation and with New York City rekindling its romance with glass and steel it begs me ask the question: Do famous buildings, like famous people, deserve celebrity treatment, or is the fabric of a city an integral part of its cultural landscape worth preserving just as much as its standouts?
In my fourth year of Tulane I discovered one of the little known great secrets of New Orleans, the vietnamese market in New Orleans East and Dong Phuong Bakery on Chef Menteur Blvd. That first trip, we left the Willow Street Leadership village at 6am; when we got to the market it was just barely light. In that gray dusk, I felt transported unto another place, this was not the New Orleans I knew, nor was it even a part of the US as far as I knew. The sounds and smells were all so different, so alien.
World Architecture News has an interesting article about the plan to save Venice from rising sea levels by raising the city above sealevel. At first mention this seems like a crazy idea. It doesn’t seem logical to raise a building and then add below it, a little force called gravity seems to argue against this; it would seem that it would be easier to building up and out instead. In reality, this is not the case, raising a building is actually a preferred method of renovation for a number of reasons. First, shoring (the process of supporting a building for raising) allows for a new stronger and more stable foundation to be created. Second, raising a building from below allows for the opportunity to build the walls and integrate modern electrical and HVAC systems into the new interstitial spaces. Third, raising a building allows for a more Historic Preservation friendly adaption; an addition below can be built to so that the design of original building above is minimally affected. This method of house renovation has been continually used in New Orleans for over a hundred years, if not more. In fact, this can be used not just to raise a [...]