2004.04.09
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts School
2004.04.19 13:48
branding and architecture
The Philadelphia Savings Fund Society skyscraper (1929-32, now a hotel) has an iconic PSFS sign on the roof. The design of this sign, which is lit at night, has two faces, one facing the city and west, and the other slightly angled facing the Benjamin Franklin bridge, the entrance to Philadelphia from New Jersey. The other signage/branding on the building was also carefully designed as part of the architecture.
2004.04.21 13:12
branding and architecture
...the precedence of McDonald's and Howard Johnson's within the realm of branded architecture is historically sound. Moreover, these architectures manifest the notion of widespread repeated application (for widespread instant recognition) which is a required ingredient for any genuine branded architecture.
Given the above, I would then place the PSFS skyscraper in the category of ur-branded architecture. The branding and the widespread recognition is there, but not yet the large scale repeated application.
2004.05.02 20:16
Re: the design of incarceration
Opened in 1829 as part of a controversial movement to change the behavior of inmates through "confinement in solitude with labor," Eastern State Penitentiary quickly became the most expensive and most copied building in the young United States. It is estimated that more than 300 prisons worldwide are based on the Penitentiary's wagon-wheel, or "radial" floor plan.
2004.05.04 17:19
Re: videologists: a new species ?
Note how you too 'witnessed' the US Iraqi War Memorial, even though you are not even in the USA, and both of us are very far apart, yet both of us experienced the same memorial.
As you also note, this memorial can be further experienced by a replay of the broadcast; this too is part of this memorial's design. The problem of storing this data is not of grave concern, however, since the original data is digital and thus easily duplicated continuously.
Oblivion takes many guises. I can think of five war memorials within a 3.5 mile radius of where I live:
Civil War Memorial of Grubbtown - a small stone obelisk near where Adams Ave. crosses Tacony Creek
World War I Memorial - a small somewhat stylized stone obelisk at the intersection of Rising Sun Ave., Mascher St. and Wyoming Ave.
World War I and World War II Memorial - a brass plaque with names within a classical pedimented stone niche on the side wall of the Olney Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia at 5th St. and Tabor Rd.
Veteran's Memorial - a small stepped brick pyramid where Tookany Creek Parkway crosses Tacony Creek in Cheltenham Village
World War I and World War II Memorial - a medium sized three-sided stone pilaster at the intersection of Rising Sun Ave., Oxford Ave., and Cottmann Ave.
There may even be others that I don't know about, but, of the hundreds, if not thousands of people that pass by these memorials everyday, I feel confident that very few pay any attention to them at all.
Nonetheless, all the above memorials, with the exception of the Civil War Memorial of Grubbtown, receive a wreath on Memorial Day.
| |
2004.05.11 15:03
Re: ducked around ?
A few years ago Otto learned that the first psychiatric hospital of the USA, Friends Hospital in Philadelphia, is situated in 'ancient' parkland along Tacony Creek and that, although now-a-days surrounded by dense urbanism, there are still deer in the park. This immediately reminded Otto of his many years of confinement at Schloss Fürstenried and the deer in the park there. Otto visited Friends Hospital for the first time in 1999, and that is when he first met Gordon Matta-Clark who lived "across the street." Gordon subsequently introduced Otto to Eva--in the years immediately after his death Gordon lived at the dilapidating Whitemarsh Hall. Otto thereafter introduced Eva to Ludwig, knowing that they would immediately like each other since they both reenacted Versailles. And from these modest beginnings emerged the Horace Trumbauer Architecture Fan Club.
2004.05.15 15:27
Koolhaas Library NY Times
Compare the new Seattle Library with Kahn and Tyng's design for a Municipal Building, Philadelphia, 1952-57 (as seen on pp. 30-31 of Louis I. Kahn: Complete Works 1935-1974).
Also look at the color sketck on page 27 which is evocative of the other recent Koolhaas architecture of irregular shape.
2004.07.18
Mikveh PMP 2346
| |
2004.07.19
Rising Sun Avenue
2004.07.22 16:26
Re: Virtual Synagogue in Berlin's Fasanenstrasse
...an analytical rendition of Kahn's Mikveh Israel Synagogue (Philadelphia, 1961-70, unexecuted) where the cylinders of light are replace with reduced versions of Venturi & Rauch's Tower for Princeton Memorial Park (New Jersey, 1966, unexecuted).
Gordon [Matta-Clark] sees the PMP Tower design as Venturi & Rauch's consummate homage to Kahn, specifically to the Mikveh Israel Synagogue.
While Gordon studied architecture at Cornell (BA 1968), he well remembers Perspecta 9/10 where Mikveh Israel is featured, as well as the then forthcoming excerpt from Complexity and Contradiction--"Is it a building split in two or two buildings coming together."
And who could forget the "Avant-Garde Anachronist" article on Louis Kahn in Time June 1966--"Carving in Light" indeed.
And remember how everyone was eating up the Progressive Architecture Award Citations January 1967.
2004.07.29
Grey Towers 1896
2004.08.09
Romaphilia 2348
2004.08.31
5233
2004.09.19
Irvine Auditorium 1932
2004.09.22
5233
2004.09.26
Your Colour Memory 2004
2004.09.29
da Vinci Gallery
2004.10.07
Your Colour Memory 2004
Grey Towers
Stotesbury Estate
| |
2004.10.08
Chelten House 1896
Curtis Hall 1895
Elstowe 1900
Elstowe Powerhouse 1900
Georgian Terrace
Lynnewood Hall
2004.10.26
Philadelphia model development
First off, place the Mikvah Israel Synagogue redux into the model. This type of redux design is then inspiration for more design interpolation of Center City sites and buildings. For example, Independence Mall, Penn's Landing, Vine Street Corridor, Market East and Kahn's plans could all be "developed". At least the model should be the venue for all kinds of 3d design development, be it trees, paving, facades, new buildings/ideas--always a virtual museum of architecture.
2004.11.26
Briar Hill
2004.12.14 16:11
Re: where the Barnes might move to
The site for the Barnes Foundation on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway has just been chosen--site of the present Youth Study Center (euphemism for juvenile jail) across 20th Street from the Free Library of Philadelphia, designed by Horace Trumbauer and soon to be appended by a Moshe Safdie addition. The proposed Calder Museum by Tadao Ando on the south side of the Parkway will be across from the Barnes.
I'm pretty sure the radio newsman said that a "replica" of the present Barnes Foundation (a design by Paul Cret) will be built on the Youth the Study Center site of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Gosh, just what the Parkway needs, another reenactment.
2004.12.17
5233
Future Site of the Barnes Foundation
Youth Study Center 1953
Calder Exhibition on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
2004.12.19
ideas
Develop Girard College/Collage [Girard Collage] re: quondam, (ancient) temple architecture (clue: Temple U.).
2004.12.21
Philadelphia Museum of Art
2004.12.26 12:20
Re: cityscape collage
It started more than eight years ago when it was realized that Hadrian's Tomb and Logan Circle share the same circular footprint. Then, about two years ago, it was realized that ancient Rome's axis of life, as delineated by Piranesi, and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway share the same length and design articulation, with again Hadrian's Tomb and Logan Circle being the key register.
Now delineation of the 'bilocalopolis' begins. The Tiber and the Schuylkill flow through the cityscape. Augustine's tomb and City Hall have their similarities. Rome's Corso is now the same as Broad Street, the longest cardo in the world. X marks the spot of the first Gothic camp outside the walls of Rome and the no-man's land of the Vine Street Expressway interchanges.
I wrote something on 16 December 2004 which turns out to be a succinctly worded culmination of over 10 years of investigation, and also the touchstone for a finally foreseeable catharsis.
|