With a short career of only thirteen years, Italian architect Giuseppe Terragni (1904-1943) left an important legacy of built works that are now used as classic references of modern and rationalist architecture.
We traveled to Como and Milan to visit Terragni's emblematic works that clearly reflect his style. These projects are based on the organized configuration of architectural elements that individually appear clean, pure, and expressive, but together also form a harmonious whole.
These are: Novocomum, Casa Rustici, Asilo Sant'Elia, Casa Giuliani Frigerio and Casa Lavezzari.
Image: Courtesy of Historic New England, photography by Justin Goodstein.
Haymarket, The Soul of the City presents images by photographer Justin H. Goodstein, as well videos featuring the sights, sounds, and voices of Haymarket that reflect the stories of long-time vendors and more recent immigrants who have created a diverse cross-section of cultures at the site. Interviews conducted by Historic New England’s Ken Turino document the market’s history, special holiday foods, and specific challenges facing the market today.
Image: Courtesy of Historic New England, photography by Justin Goodstein
In association with Haymarket, The Soul of the City on view at BSA Space this fall, this engaging presentation looks at how Boston’s Market District evolved from a small central location for peddlers at Town Dock to today’s busy market of halal butchers, artisanal cheese mongers, and Cambodian fruit sellers.
Image: Courtesy of Historic New England, photography by Justin Goodstein.
Don't miss the opening reception for Haymarket: The Soul of the City. This special event is the first opportunity to view the exhibition while enjoying complimentary drinks.
Haymarket: The Soul of the City presents images by photographer Justin H. Goodstein, as well videos featuring the sights, sounds, and voices of Haymarket that reflect the stories of long-time vendors and more recent immigrants who have created a diverse cross-section of cultures at the site. Interviews conducted by Historic New England’s Ken Turino document the market’s history, special holiday foods, and specific challenges facing the market today.
From the Cradle of Civilization in ancient Mesopotamia to the modern urban explosion in China, cities are among the most obvious and dramatic evidence of human existence. In a recent paper published in Scientific Data, a team led by Yale University researcher Meredith Reba mapped the emergence of cities between 3,700 BC and 2,000 AD based on when their populations were first recorded in historical accounts.
Taking the data from this study, Max Galka of Metrocosm has produced this fascinating animation showing the history of cities worldwide. "Most datasets available go back only a few years or decades at most. This is the first one I've seen that covers 6 millennia," Galka told CityLab. "I'm a big fan of history, so after reading the study, I thought it would be interesting to visualize the data and see if it offers some perspective." The steady flow of time may seem a little slow at first, but stick with it through the early BC years and the shifts in urban development start to get intriguing. And—spoiler alert—buckle up as you approach the 20th century.
Boston City Centre, Boston City Bridge, credit: Phil Songa, Flickr, modified. Used under Creative Commons
Boston has repeatedly reinvented its urban fabric to accommodate a growing population, the needs of business and industry, and the development of public and private transportation. From the first subway through the Big Dig, Boston has led the nation in transforming its cityscape. Join the BSA Foundation and Boston By Foot on this guided walking tour to uncover some of Boston’s many layers and explore its physical evolution, from the first American subway to the rise and fall of interstate highways to the recovery of Boston harbor.
Image: Detail from 1844 map showing the Bulfinch Triangle in Boston, George W. Boynton, credit: NewtonCourt, Creative Commons License, modified.
Known as America’s first architect, Charles Bulfinch (1763-1844) defined the Federal style of architecture and the physical fabric of Boston, capturing the vision and spirit of the young Republic. As an architect, town planner, and selectman, Bulfinch designed some of the city’s most enduring buildings, including iconic Beacon Hill mansions and the area now known as the Bulfinch Triangle near the Boston’s TD Garden. Join the BSA Foundation and Boston By Foot for an exploration of some of his greatest works, including the Massachusetts State House, the sites of Boston’s first theater and first Catholic cathedral, and the Tontine Crescent—his architectural masterpiece and ultimately his financial ruin.
Scary Shadow, James Vaughan, credit: yeowatzup, Creative Commons License, modified.
Join the BSA Foundation and Boston By Foot for an exploration of the darker side of Boston! Based on historic events, this guided walk proves that fact is often stranger than fiction. Topics include the scourges of smallpox and the Great Influenza, the dangers of Richmond Street, the vandalization of the Royal Governor's House, the Molasses Flood, body snatchers, and the infamous Brink's Robbery, all against the backdrop of the varied architecture in one of Boston's oldest neighborhoods.
This 90-minute tour, co-sponsored by the BSA Foundation, hosted by Charles Riverboat Company, and led by Boston By Foot guides offers spectacular views of historic and contemporary Boston architecture while providing fascinating information about many renowned architectural landmarks, including the Hancock Tower, Marriott’s Custom House, and Rowes Wharf, as well as cutting-edge contemporary buildings by today’s top architects.
The Society of Architectural Historians’ prestigious H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellowship will be offered for 2016 and will allow a recent graduate or emerging scholar to study by travel for one year. The fellowship is not for the purpose of doing research for an advanced academic degree. Instead, Professor Brooks intended the recipient to study by travel and contemplation while observing, reading, writing, or sketching.
In this series, entitled Stacked, photographer Malte Brandenburg takes a closer look at the architectural merits of Berlin’s post-war housing estates. Captured against a flat blue sky, the images seek to strip away the historical and social burdens carried by the buildings, presenting them instead as pieces of pure architecture.
It's no secret that architects are often fascinated by maps, and in the age of Google - where access to accurate maps of almost anywhere in the world has become universal - maps have become one of the most powerful ways to understand our cities. Interestingly, Google has in a way enabled a new way to interrogate maps from the past, as historic maps can be more easily overlaid with the Google interface to make comparisons to the present day. That's just what the website Locating London's Past has done, creating a tool to compare three maps: the current version of Google Maps, the first Ordnance Survey map from 1863-80, and John Rocque's 1746 Survey of London, allowing web users to see the growth of the UK capital over the past 270 years.
The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) has announced the winners of the 2016 Publication Awards and SAH Award for Film & Video as part of their annual International Conference Awards ceremony in Pasadena, California.
Awarded annually, the SAH Publication awards honor excellence in "architectural history, landscape history, and historic preservation scholarship," alongside outstanding architectural exhibition catalogs. Eligible publications must have been published in the two years immediately preceding the award, with nominations for the 2017 Publication Awards and SAH Award for Film & Video opening on June 1, 2016
Learn more about the winning publications after the break.
Initial Blueprints for Edison's 1908 Patent.. Image via Slate
Concrete is one of the most widely innovated and improved upon building technologies in the world. With applications in both pre-fabrication and continuous pouring, the material has become a hot-bed for applications in fabrication techniques, from incredible, monolithic forms, to 3D-printing.
But behind all of the successes, there have been countless failures, including a well-intended innovation by famous American inventor Thomas Edison. Filed on August 13, 1908, Edison’s ill-fated patent was a home that could be built with a single pour of concrete, reports Slate. Although Thomas Edison had previous ventures in concrete, including a cement plant in Stewartsville, New Jersey, as well as several patented improvements in the cement-making process, his venture into concrete construction may have just been too ambitious.
Chicago is one of the most architecturally rich cities in the world with the history of modernism embedded in its skyline. From the Willis Tower to the Aqua Tower, the skyscrapers of Chicago have led the development of tall buildings, the city becoming a breeding ground for innovations in structure and design. The Windy City has solidified itself among other metropolitan giants like New York and London as having one of the most recognizable skylines in the world.
This new infographic by Chicago Line Cruises offers a look at some of the most visible figures in Chicago’s skyline, with embedded information on each of the buildings. View the infographic after the break.
Darkness, light, warmth, cold, silence and sound – the ground zero of creating space – are the focus of a mystical experimental exhibition currently open at the Museum of Estonian Architecture in Tallinn.
An attempt to speak about space, its creator and its user as a coherent whole, the exhibition acts as an intimate meeting with professionals who create the environments we inhabit. "Expedition Wunderlich: 11 Interior Architects" is only open on Saturdays and Sundays, 1 hour at a time (12 pm – 1 pm).
Historic preservation activism in New York City did not begin in the 1960s with the fight to save Penn Station and the effort to pass the Landmarks Law—it began in the late 19th century. Little-remembered preservation pioneers like Andrew H. Green and Albert Bard, as well as various women's garden clubs, and patriotic and civic organizations laid the groundwork for the generations of preservationists that would follow. Join us to recount the triumphs, failures, and tactics of these early preservationists, and discuss what they might teach us moving forward.This program delves into the themes of our exhibition Saving Place: 50 Years of New York City Landmarks, on view through January 3.
"Manhattan: 42nd Street (West) - 6th Avenue", Harold Kaye (1931). Image Courtesy of The New York Public Library http://www.oldnyc.org/
Discover historic New York with "OldNYC," a digital archive of the New York Public Library's "Photographic Views of New York City, 1870s-1970s" Collection. Bringing together an extensive catalogue of images from the library's Milstein Collection, OldNYC organizes photographs geographically, allowing users to view images specific to individual blocks and streets.
The project is also collaborative, asking visitors on the site to comment on photographs with "what's there now, what's changed, and what's stayed the same." Users can edit or add to captions on the back of each of the photos, creating a personal element in the latest retelling of New York's vibrant history.
Learn more about the project and view selected images after the break.
