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There are numerous fabulous buildings of every style that one has never seen before. The modern houses of the 30's between Modernism and Art Deco are particularly rare and rich.

This villa in the Czech Republic was built for the successful Jablonec costume jewellery exporter Jaroslav Hásek and his family (1930–31). The inspiration for it came from the Wohnung und Werkraum (WUWA) exhibition in Bratislava where he was intrigued by the design of a family home by the architect Heinrich Lauterbach. Lauterbach designed two family houses in Jablonec, this one for Jaroslav Hásek and the second was for Friedrich Schmelowský.

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Harry Wolf has died. This is the story of life. The greatest amongst us are not those who receive the greatest approbation. They are those who live their lives unwaveringly dedicated to an idea. Harry Wolf was a rare breed. Seemingly a Richard Meier knock off in his early years, his work had an emotional depth entirely alien to someone like Meier. RIgorous beyond human capablities, yet human at its most powerful. An unrepenting Modernist, yet I am not one. An inspiration.

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History can be amazing. The Concorde and the Spitfire were just thirty years apart. And thirty plus years before the Spitfire there were no airplanes at all!

https://engineerine.com/concorde-and-spitfire-two-icons-of-aviation-separated-by-only-30-years/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIIhihleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHVGiGGXZc9180Sv1cHDVkxH7Lki2WYgHcKU2pu5u4YEjfAWJfEsiUBCcxA_aem_uQ1-1kJRivAiu1on8PT6OA

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Welcome to the New Year! Sometimes we feel as though the world around us is collapsing, but worry not, with hard work this will be a great year!!

(The abandoned church at Megalopoli, Greece, surrounded by a a lignite mine.)

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The Japanese architect Hiroshi Hara died on Jan 3rd. You have to have been an architectural enthusiast in the 1980's to know his name. Not a Post Modernist per se, but a modernist with the emotive sensibility that was prized by Post Modernists. Kyoto Station (first two photos) is one of the few buildings in the world on my bucket list. The contemporary Tokyo International Forum by the Argentinian American architect Raphael Vignoly (last photo), which established his reputation, had the same complexity typical of the era, but not the same emotional wallop.

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Lucy the Elephant: Snow Day!

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Io Saturnalia!

‘Tis the season to be jolly, and what better way to express your joy than a sacrifice to the god Saturn? The Romans had some odd festivals and traditions, and Saturnalia was one of them. It was a special event that provided liberation to slaves, gambling across the city, and crowned the “King of Saturnalia.”

If you are in Beijing, you can attend the Saturnalia rave on Saturday evening. Unfortunately, you missed the celebration in London last night!

Link to our Holiday Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/efa2c350fa86/quarterly-vo-2-no-4

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I have been quiet for a couple of weeks. Here is the beginning of a new week online!

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I have been quiet for a couple of weeks. Here is the beginning of a new week online!

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IDEAL CITIES Tessenow, last week's subject, had an influence on the drawings and ideas of leading New Urbanist Leon Krier. But Leon Krier as a young man had worked for James Stirling and learned his drawing style first, also spare and powerful and ink on vellum. Stirling was a champion of urban life and his muscular, colorful, provocative buildings are often urban plans in miniature. His Stuttgart museum, one of the greatest (perhaps THE greatest?) of Postmodern buildings, is forty years old this year. One building, articulated into numerous parts that occupy an entire block. It is not a monolith but an urban environment. It was a great influence on me as a student in a studio with Michael Wilford, Stirling's partner, where, of course, we did our best to imitate the drawings that the young Leon Krier was doing in the Stirling and Wilford office!

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IDEAL CITIES - YES!!

Today I share something that is the opposite of the (admittedly alluring) urban dystopia of Chongqing, the topic of some of my recent posts. Heinrich Tessenow (1876-1950) was a German architect whose response to the horrors of the First World War was a return to small town simplicity. Overly idealistic perhaps, but endlessly seductive. He was an important influence on the thinking of Leon Krier and the entire New Urbanist movement, and not just in the power of his simple drawings. His work is a powerful reminder that inspite of our obsession with the new and trendy, there are eternal truths.

The building is his school for Jaques-Dalcroze, the founder of Dalcroze eurhythmics, the study of music through movement.

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IDEAL CITIES - NOT!

This is a video of Yanjin County, Zhaotong, Yunnan, reputedly the narrowest county in China, with only one main road. Amazing! What is unfortunate, of course, is that the buildings show no connection with their dramatic site. This is one of the most depressing things about the economics of modern design and construction. Except in exceptional cases, the ability to create environments in which we truly would want to live is entirely absent.

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THIS IS NORMAN FOSTER'S HOUSE IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE!!! Which is currently on the market, if you are interested. This is the problem with architects and architecture. While Lord Foster, one of the leading Starchitects of our age, is currently building glass sheathed skyscrapers and glazed Apple stores in cities around the world, he himself lives in the gemutlich 18th century mansion we all crave. Modernism is for the masses, but a real HOME is just for me. Disgusting.

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IDEAL CITIES - NOT

Chongqing again. Here are the buildings we designed, neither of which have been built 12 years later, judging from Google Earth images from February of this year. The first was an exercise in an Art Deco influenced design which they love so much over there. It was planned to be built at a major new transit hub of crossing train and subway lines. On top of the subway station, which was very deep, there were to be several levels of an underground shopping mall. Judging from the aerial, the underground structures may be in place. The first image is our original concept, the second a later toning down.

The second project is unapologetically modern. It was to have been built near the National Theater at the junction of the two rivers, across from where Safdie's Raffles Center was built. There is a hole in the ground, waiting to be filled.

All of the unbuilt projects one has designed could populate ones own little ideal city. Maybe we will put them all together one day!

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IDEAL CITIES - NOT Chongqing again, not ideal, but mesmerizing. Unlike, perhaps, Beijing and Shanghai, the architecture of this city in the heartland more readily expresses popular and not elite tastes. In spite of all the wild modern architecture one sees in the press, there is a ton of historically inspired architecture of wildly varying quality, all fun (at least to me). The historic architecture of the West is a constant fascination, especially an Art Deco icon like the Chrysler builiding. Their own history inspires as well, if less so. We are reminded of Las Vegas, but on a gargantuan scale. And BTW, blue skies are a rarity. 1. Chrysler inspired office building. 2. At night. 3. The Sheraton Chongqing 4. Government buildings in Classical and Post Modern classicizing styles. 5. A gated community for high rollers. 6. The Hongya Dong shopping center. 7. The Peoples' Auditorium of the 50's and finally, 8. IF you have never eaten in the buffet of a Chinese hotel, you have not lived!

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IDEAL CITIES – NOT

Chongqing is one of the most amazing places on earth. A teeming metropolis of over 30 million people, one of the fastest growing places on the planet. It has grown from a mud road village, the wartime capital of China that was bombed to smithereens during World War Two, to one of the largest high-rise metropolises on earth in the early twenty first century.

Though located in the province of Sichuan, Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the Central People's Government, along with Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin. It is the only directly administrated municipality located deep inland. The municipality covers a large geographical area roughly the size of Austria.

The central urban area of Chongqing, or Chongqing proper, is a city of unique features. It is built on mountains and is partially surrounded by the Yangtze and Jialing rivers. I was there for several extended visits ten years ago and designed a high-rise office building that in the end was not built. Since then construction of buildings has continued at a breakneck pace, creating an environment that could almost be out of Blade Runner.

Pictures: 1. View of Safdie’s Raffles Center, similar to his casino in Singapore, 2. The juncture of the two rivers with the Raffles Center in the foreground, 3. The Raffles Center skybridge, 4. City Planning model ten years ago, 5. Colorized photo of the city during WW 2.

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Dawn in East Falls at the end of summer!