May 25, 2010

The CIVITAS Chronicles
Clem Labine

Brad Pitt's Houses: Good Intentions Gone Astray
The Brad Pitt Houses in New Orleans's devastated Ninth Ward are a frustrating example of what happens when buildings are considered as individual sculptural objects rather than as part of an urban ensemble. Brad Pitt has been extremely generous with his time and money in attempting to provide new homes for victims of Hurricane Katrina. And the houses resulting from his foundation's well-intentioned efforts so far have made eye-catching photos for the design magazines.

But viewed in their context, unfortunately, many of the new homes are bad urbanism. The majority of the structures are alien forms plopped down into a city that already has a well-established look and a rich history of vernacular architecture. Many of the Brad Pitt houses built so far detract from the character of the place they are meant to help. Read more.

A Capital Column
Kim O'Connell

DC's Statues: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Part 2)
I received some interesting comments on my last post about Washington, DC's worst statues, including one that described many historic statues as "stodgy and paternalistic." This is an all-too-valid claim. In my post, I didn't even mention all the military equestrian statues that mark Washington's famous circles and squares. Neither best nor worst, for the most part those statues exhibit a grandiose sameness that may hinder attempts to learn about the individual accomplishments of these men. (And they are all men.)

When it came to my choices for the city's ten best statues, I realized that some of them do eschew the "stodgy and paternalistic" legacy of figurative sculpture, while still celebrating a beloved traditional art form. One final note: Readers interested in statuary should pick up Kirk Savage's new book, Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape.

Herewith are my favorite statues in (or near) Washington. Feel free to argue with me! Read more.

The View From Rome
Steven W. Semes

On 'Appropriateness'
I believe the concept of conservation holds the key to re-conceptualizing contemporary architecture and preservation in response to the re-emergence of traditional architecture in contemporary practice. As I use the term, conservation does not mean embalming something that is dead, like insects in amber; rather, it means managing and cultivating something that is alive, as one conserves an endangered species, a rain forest or a garden.

We understand this very well with regard to natural resources, which are conserved by maintaining the ecosystems that sustain them, clearing away invasive growth and taking remedial action to repair damage. In the same way, we can conserve cultural resources by ensuring their physical integrity and allowing them to assume new roles in the ongoing life of the man-made ecosystem of the city. Read more.

A Place for Trades
Rudy Christian

The Barn Builders: Artisans of Agricultural Architecture
This last weekend my wife, Laura, and I enjoyed the culmination of months of planning and organizing when we were part of putting on the 11th annual Ohio Barn Conference (OBC) and Barn Tour. The OBC is the annual conference of the statewide non-profit Friends of Ohio Barns, which was formed here in Wooster, OH, ten years ago. Although the conference is held in a different region of the state every year, this year we decided to return to Wayne County for our tenth anniversary.

Wayne County, OH, is a perfect place to hold a conference about barns. Ohio was the crossroads of the settling of the American West, and as pioneers traveled through Ohio many of them decided to settle here. The rich glacial till of Wayne County was very attractive to many of those early settlers and ended up being the end of a long journey when they decided to purchase land and build their farmsteads here. The rich deciduous forests, which needed to be cleared for crops, provided excellent building materials for the cabins built to provide protection from the elements, and often from the Native American Indians who also called Ohio home. Read more.