This is a “flicker light” from my childhood. The green lacquer coating on the bulb is coming off, but amazingly it still works. It makes a soft tinking sound as the filaments hit the glass on either side.
Balafire flicker bulb
December 5, 2015
design
Harvey Molotch’s “The City as Growth Machine”
November 12, 2015
Sociologist Harvey Molotch
“A city and, more generally, any locality, is conceived as the areal expression of the interests of some land-based elite.”
Harvey Molotch‘s seminal 1976 article “The City as Growth Machine”—which is equally applicable today—just happened to be published the same year of the UN Habitat Conference on Settlements that took place in Vancouver (and is the subject of my upcoming book).
The Tudor house, colonialism, white gold and toothache
October 20, 2015
“This is why we love the Tudor period so much, because it’s the age of discovery, and there’s a sense that anything was possible.”
“Discovery”?
Categories:
architecture,
cities,
design,
film & TV,
furniture,
interiors,
Uncategorised,
urban planning,
video
Keep it in the ground! Guardian animation on solar power
October 6, 2015
Short animation by the Guardian on solar power, as part of their “Keep it in the ground” campaign against fossil fuels. The price of solar panels has come down by 75% since 2009, and other interesting facts.
From Syria to Greece to Corbusier: Hozoviotissa monastery
September 5, 2015
Earlier this summer a number of the Syrians fleeing civil war landed on the Greek island of Amorgos. Amorgos is not a common landing point in the exodus—most people are now landing on Kos not far from the Turkish coast.
Weather
August 30, 2015
Compulsive restaurant decor commentary
June 27, 2015
The receipt says October 21, 2013. I was at a local restaurant (which shall remain nameless) with two architect girlfriends. As I looked over the restaurant’s faux-Victorian, Yukon gold rush brothel decor (readers of this blog know is something that has been irking me for a while) I asked for their opinions.
Categories:
architect,
British Columbia,
Canadian design,
design,
interiors,
Uncategorised,
Vancouver
More colonial craft
June 25, 2015
Once you start seeing something, it’s suddenly everywhere (and it doesn’t help that people keep sending me examples). After noticing that we seem culturally obsessed with our colonial settlement of this city/province/country/continent right now, and that this pioneer DIY craft style has spread as far afield as Brisbane and Berlin, based on what people have written me, I feel compelled to keep collecting it.
Categories:
British Columbia,
craft,
design,
DIY,
graphics and signage,
politics,
Uncategorised,
Vancouver
National Aboriginal Day – Wab Kinew’s “500 years in 2 minutes”
June 21, 2015
Happy National Aboriginal Day everyone!
Wab Kinew, always concise, does 500 years of ‘Canadian’ history in 2 minutes.
Post-mortem on the old Eaton’s building: an interview with Cesar Pelli
March 2, 2015
The TD Bank building and Eaton’s building by Cesar Pelli, photo © Michael de Courcy, mid-1970s
This is not a true post-mortem, since Cesar Pelli‘s 1973 Eaton’s building has not actually been demolished—and how rare it is to be able to say that in Vancouver, now one of North America’s capitals of demolition.
Tags:
1970s
Cesar Pelli
demolition
downtown
Eaton's building
facade
glass
James Cheng
loss of history
TD building
Vancouver
YOU HAD ONE JOB
Categories:
architect,
architecture,
British Columbia,
cities,
design,
Uncategorised,
urban planning,
Vancouver
