It is done! The book Elliott, Manu and I have been working on for over two years got published earlier this month. 400 pages, 300+ images, almost a kilogram in weight, it’s become quite a tome! Some uncollated thoughts after the jump.
Southwest tourings
Having lived in the US for two years, we only found the time to do some road-tripping towards the tail end of our stay. My knowledge of the States had hitherto been limited to some of the bigger cities; New York, DC, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago. And although we had planned a coast-to-coast trip as early as last summer, we ended up postponing it. Then a friend approached us several months back with the idea to do a loop starting from Denver. It didn’t take long to convince us.
En route from Denver, towards the Rocky Mountains
Readers’ comments
From time to time, I receive some comments on the by now more than 200 blog posts on this site. As I have been doing quite a lot of “before and after” photo sets, quite a few people have been able to reconnect with their own past as a result.
September 1953 – Perry Apartments, left, with Harris Apartments on the right (Antonin Raymond), photograph from Gerald & Rella Warner Japan Slide Collection, reproduced with permission.
New York in July
We just got back from a short weekend trip to New York and I wanted to jot down some notes from the things we did and saw in the sweltering heat. With this, I hope to return to blogging a little bit more regularly.
Model of Clorindo Testa’s Banco de Londres in Buenos Aires
Shifting horizons
Much has happened since I last posted some of my thoughts on the ongoing Eurozone crisis three years ago. Although I do not follow the debate with the same level of vigour now than I once did, a few uncollated notes after the jump nonetheless. I notice that my political views have changed rather considerably over the past couple of years.
Chicago Federal Center
I spent last weekend in Chicago, my first time in the Windy City. One of the highlights was to see Mies in action, particularly in the Federal Center’s Post Office.
Yangon Architectural Guide
The book in its final design has now been officially submitted to the publisher. This concludes an important step of a journey that has taken almost two years to this day.
This is what Manuel’s been busy with…
A Tale of Technology: Kenzo Tange’s 1964 Yoyogi National Gymnasium and the Japanese Economic Miracle
Japan’s initial success after the Second World War had a lot to do with the copying of Western technology. The economic miracle of the 1960s, however, rested on Japanese firms’ ever-increasing capability to innovate. The world was to get a taste of this when thousands of spectators visited Tokyo for the 1964 Olympic Games. Kenzo Tange’s Gymnasium provided a central venue of great symbolic power.
All photos by Manuel Oka (www.manueloka.com)
Former Iranian Embassy
I have been living in D.C. for a good eight months now, and make a habit of zooming down Embassy Row when cycling into the centre. I always pass this abandoned building on my left, just a little past the British Embassy and its waving Winston Churchill statue. Why did I only find out yesterday that this is the former Iranian Embassy?
The Hotel Okura’s Last Days: History in the Unmaking
It is hard to conjure up a hotel building more emblematic than the Hotel Okura in Tokyo. In contrast to the Japanese avant-garde architecture of its days and the faceless corporate behemoths that came to dominate the city in the 1970s and ‘80s, this 1962 building synthesises traditional Japanese features with modernist architecture.
