Dream Spheres and Urban Development
When she first told me her apartment complex was off NICE road I thought I heard ‘a nice road’. “Oh, great!” I replied, trying to show enthusiasm for surface pavement, “But what is the name?” “NICE”, she said again, “The toll road, about 3 kilometers from Electronic City.” There is a lot of ambiguity in … Continue reading
Oslo Under Construction
Europe has many crane cities (Brussels immediately comes to mind) but, as I pulled into Oslo Sentralstasjon, I wasn’t expecting to see that horizon. Yet similar to many other major cities (e.g. London, Amsterdam, New York), Oslo is focusing on waterfront redevelopment. Also similar, the city seems committed to predominate global waterfront ideologies (e.g. young, … Continue reading
Some Thoughts on Transportation Education II
Every year I watch the Superbowl I’m reminded about what’s wrong with American….every…well, no, let me keep it simple: with American transportation ideology. I mean our obsession with the car. Let me be specific. The purpose of every car commercial during the Superbowl is to inspire men to own (and drive) motor vehicles. This inspiration … Continue reading
Material Proximity
Where does sculpture end and geography begin? That was the unshakable question that developed in my head during a recent trip to the Noguchi Museum in Queens. A few days prior, I’d been reading Derek Gregory’s Ideology, Science and Human Geography chapter “Structural explanation in geography,” a discussion of Maus and Levi-Strauss’s elementary methods of … Continue reading
Utrecht: Stad Naar Mijn Hart
My encounter with Utrecht has been nothing short of serendipitous. What started as a spontaneous trip to the Schroderhuis (1924) morphed into Rietveld’s Universe and a delightful ode to Dick Bruna. “Architects aren’t supposed to lower space,” mused Schroder in a documentary reflecting on her relationship with Rietveld. But Rietveld wasn’t an architect in the … Continue reading
Utopiography 