We checked out two modern art museums in San Telmo, Buenos Aires the other day. The Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Buenos Aires (MACBA) and the neighbouring Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (MAMBA) were, while almost completely empty, really worth the visit.
Category Archives: Architecture
Sky High
Super-slender residential skyscrapers are taking to the skies south of Central Park. They are an increasingly brazen display of economic inequalities and a seizing of one of the world’s most distinctive skylines by the super-rich.
Midtown zoning plans on display at the Skyscraper Museum, New York
Tokyu Den-en-toshi Line
Japan is any rail buff’s heaven. The punctuality and efficiency of the trains is one thing, the sheer scale of the network another: 82 out of the world’s 100 busiest train stations are in Japan. The role private rail lines played in the post-war urbanisation of Tokyo is explored in the post below, using Tokyu’s Den-en-toshi Line as an example.
Den-en-toshi Line signage. Thanks to kawawa for taking the shot!
East Germany and Japan 1: Kajima Corporation
Japan’s post-war rise is often mentioned in the same breath with Germany’s spectacular economic miracle – the “Wirtschaftswunder”. For someone born on the other side of the wall in East Berlin, it is interesting to read about the less-documented relationship between economic superstar Japan and socialist East Germany during the decades of the cold war. The first installment in a set of some anecdotes is about Kajima Corporation’s export of Japanese construction practices to Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden.
Hotel Merkur Leipzig model presentation by Kajima Corporation in 1978
American embassy housing
While in Tokyo we lived in a serviced apartment in Ark Hills, right next to Roppongi-itchome station. We could see the 1983 US embassy residences opposite Roppongi Dori from our windows. I found some pictures from before they were built. They illustrate how the area has changed since the war and bring back to life two historic buildings that occupied the site before. 30 Nov: Update at bottom of the post
September 1953 – Perry Apartments, left, with Harris Apartments on the right (Antonin Raymond), photograph from Gerald & Rella Warner Japan Slide Collection, reproduced with permission.
History on Seventh Avenue
A stone throw away from where I live stand two buildings that occupy a special place in Harlem’s history. They are the First Corinthian Baptist Church on the southwest corner of 7th Avenue and 116th Street and Graham Court diagonally across the street. Theresa Hotel is another landmark building, nine blocks uptown on 7th Avenue and 125th Street.
Strivers’ Row
One of the stops on my Harlem-for-visitors tour is Stivers’ Row on West 138th and 139th Streets between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd and Frederick Douglass Blvd. Some photos and a little history after the jump.
The courtyards acted as an alleyway with horse stables
Marunouchi: before and after (+ bonus)
Owing to the popularity of my post from the other day I thought I’d assemble some more “Tokyo: before and after” shots. What follows are images that illustrate how Marunouchi has been transformed over the decades. Another example, my personal favourite, shows the area east of Shinagawa.
World Trade Center
I was meant to put up a quick post on the World Trade Center after I went to the small but informative Skyscraper Museum a few weeks ago. A Banksy editorial – rejected by the NYT and instead posted on the artist’s website – served as a timely reminder to get it done.
Harlem housing projects
I took a short bike ride up north today and took a few photos of housing developments from the 1960s. A great long-form article for background to the current debate surrounding the New York City Housing Association can be read here.
Esplanade Gardens, boundaries West 145th Street, Lenox Avenue & West 148th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd