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Author Archives: cosmopolitanscum
The Journey of an Accidental Unionist
A few weeks ago, I went to see a play about Scottish independence in the Stratford that doesn’t sit upon the Avon but the Stratford that sits not far from Westminster. I cycled there from my place in Hackney and … Continue reading
Gillespie Kidd and Coia finally getting props
This week sees the start of the Mountain Biking at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow: which will tickle the whiskers of very few of the readers of this blog, I realise. However, the event marks in many ways the final … Continue reading
Mr Goldberg’s Bridges in the Sky
One of the great forestalled ideas in the repetoire of 20th century utopian urbanism is the skybridge. This idea of a new elevated street hierarchy was first pioneered by Ludwig Hilberseimer in his book City Plan which he published whilst … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Engineering, Image of the week, Urbanism
Tagged Architecture, Bertrand Goldberg, chicago, hilberseimer, river city
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Looking at the #indyref from Montreal
What is the significance for the trouncing of the Parti Québécois (PQ) in last month’s elections in Quebec for the situation in Scotland? I’d say it is an important one but it is not an obvious one. At first glance … Continue reading
In search of the Brutalist churches of America…
I have been trying to find Brutalist churches in the Americas as part of my interest in the different attitudes to Brutalism on either side of the Atlantic. In doing so I came across the story of the demise of … Continue reading
Jane Drew: A Teller of Stories
We know little of Jane Drew through her writing. Of course, she co-authored works on building in the tropics with her husband but these are generally technical in nature; part of the programme of international expertise that Drew was part … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture
Tagged Architecture, Chandigarh, Jane Drew, le corbusier, Maxwell Fry, modernism, Ove Arup, Walter Gropius
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Why I think Ian Nairn is not just rubbish but wrong and rubbish.
The recent BBC 4 documentary on Ian Nairn is just the latest attempt to bolster the reputation of a writer and broadcaster who is often described as desperately needing of rediscovery yet who has in fact had a singular, negative … Continue reading
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The Rockefeller Center Wants To Disappear or Something That I Thought When I Went to New York Recently Part II
It didn’t turn out quite as I had expected. From the moment the tour guide announced that he had helped Andrew WK write the lyrics for his latest album to watching the outside audience for NBC’s Today Show form an … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Engineering, Urbanism
Tagged Delirious New York, Diego Rivera, Marshall Berman, rem koolhaas, Rockefeller
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On the urban character of the Arab Spring
It may have started with noble intentions; to halt the idea that social media somehow brought about the Arab Spring and to remind us that real protest – people in the street – actually delivered the end of regimes. However, … Continue reading
The Highline and Social Voyeurism or Something That I Thought When I Went to New York Recently Part 1
There is something pleasantly unsettling about the Highline and it is not just the richness of the plantings in an urban context; prairie dropseed; spiked gayfeather; wild quinine; yeah whatever. It is the inversion of the usual egocentric co-ordinates of … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Design, Urbanism
Tagged Diller and Scofidio, High Line, New York, Voyeurism
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cosmopolitan scum 