Do you recognize your neighbors, I wonder. Neighbors who I have known for months, years, decades are changing into a people I do not recognize. No, not merely the bandit masks that disguise faces, nor the isolated eye that shows fear or anger, even unto the strange attitude of the knotted brow, but that deeper…
As for myself, I cannot imagine the Mid-Century Modern sans steel and glass. Steel, glass, and technology is the sine qua non of the old-fashioned “Modern“. And, steel and glass, and energy-efficiency is the sine qua non of the new modern.* Trouble is, the old steel and glass are expensive, mostly energy consuming … ever…
Equity Diversity Inclusion: Firmness, Commodity, and Slight of Phrase “Equity diversity inclusion” is a pretty little phrase, quaint, nice and polite, well suited to swimsuit contests, campus riots, and advertising campaigns. We find this fawning phrase graphicly projected on smart boardroom screens, carelessly taped to smudgy coffeehouse windows, and boldly italicized upon preachy university…
Civic Art: The Progressive or the Classive Remarks Delivered at the Cosmos, Club, Washington, D.C., 14 September, 2021: Progressive, or Classive Civic Art? When asked to join this panel, I wondered: “What might I, an old craftsman, contribute to a discussion of architecture and urbanism. Yes, I’ve tinkered with civic planning, designed some little…
Perhaps your school-desk was alike my school-desk covered edge-to-edge in sketches. The desk surface, as you know, is an almost perfect blank canvas, a clean slate, a tabula rasa*, of sorts, where knowledge acquired might be reflected eye to mind to hand, to nun who might correct wayward drawing knuckles with a smart, wood-ruler, snap,…
The God of War; May 1, International Workers Day, and Other Considerations When next you float down Yangtze River through Jingzhou City, likely you will notice Guan Yu, God of War, looking rather ambitious, rather restless; at 190 feet in height, a bit imposing, at 1,320 tons, quite a bit threatening, a person out-of-place at…
The story of the American home is the story of the “American Dream”, beautiful, abiding, good: “The Beautiful Home” tells this story. INTRODUCTION The story of the American home is the story of the American Dream, our story, the story of us, a people beautiful, good, true, and sometimes, silly. The Beautiful Home, introduced today,…
The song of the breeze of the morning in a field peopled with fragrant flowers is one of the many delights in having life. And the song of the breeze is, to those who pause to listen, the voice of eternal wisdom. Listening to the morning breeze is for me an almost daily occupation from…
