BUTT: A Zine Proposal

Pruned proposes a zine that goes where MONU and Pin-Up so far have stayed away: scatology and porn. As most architectural magazines do. But Pruned's proposal for BUTT magazine (not to be confused with the real BUTT Magazine, pictured,...

Biloxi Homes

On August 29, 2005, Katrina made landfall in Biloxi, Mississippi. It was their 9-11. In an effort to help rebuild the city, the Biloxi Model Home Program paired design professionals with families affected by the disaster. “This program approaches...

Pretty Pictures: Stone Spaces #1

1. Ningbo Historic Museum by Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio. Photo by Iwan Baan, found at ArchDaily. 2. Pedreres de s'Hostal, by Josep Triay Tudurí, via Pruned. 3. The historic quarry of Denia, Spain, at Vicente Guallart....

Tropolism Books: Andrea Cochran Landscapes

Title: Andrea Cochran: Landscapes Author: Mary Myers Publication Date: April 13, 2009 Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press ISBN: 9781568988122 Available at Amazon. The work of Andrea Cochran can be seen, to those of us who have admired landscape design abroad,...

Starchitectural Disasters

We're rather proud of this one: "Much like Martha Stewart's attack on the Travertine House, this house also lost its roof to a hurricane."...

Utopias Reloaded

Plataforma Arquitectura has a great survey on utopian architectural visions past and present. Mostly past, showing us old favorites like Archigram and Superstudio, but introducing us to some we hadn't seen before, like Yona Friedma (pictured, prefiguring today's shipping...

Furniture Friday: Kerk Apartment

Behold the built in greatness of the Kerk Apartment by Dutch firm Stijn Bisscheroux. We do love it when furniture gets all architectural on us. Via Materialicious....

MONU #10: Holy Urbanism

Archinect has a great piece on MONU Magazine's issue #10, titles "Holy Urbanism". The issue focuses on how building by religious organizations, and religious experiences in general, affect cities. It's a brilliant topic rarely discussed ever by anybody, so...

Pretty Pictures: Under Construction #1

1. Ocho al Cubo House, Toyo Ito, via Arch Daily. 2. The existing conditions concrete shell for Vakko Headquarters and Power Media Center, REX Architects, via Arch Daily. 3. Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture, Steven Holl Architects....

Tropolism Newsletters

Tropolism Newsletters are still going strong! Be sure to sign up for the newsletter in the upper right hand field on this page so you get in on the action....

More Meta: Mention In New York Magazine

Someone at New York Magazine is reading us, because we were picked up on their Approval Matrix. You'll find us over halfway to brilliant, over halfway to lowbrow, right where we belong....

Tropolism Lectures: Gentrification Begins

Gentrification, suburban sprawl, homogenization----we all have our takes on it. Inflated rents, overpriced restaurants, and multiple Starbucks are the clear symptoms. At the Municipal Arts Society talk at the Urban Center on Wednesday night, Francis Morrone takes us back in...

OMA Beijing Hotel Destroyed In Blaze

Sad news: fire destroyed the bent-tower hotel in the CCTV complex designed by OMA. The New York Times has video, too. More at ArchDaily....

Yes, More Mies Gas Station News

Tropolism means being completists. The Mies Gas Station is getting a new life: The local council in Verdun, where the station is located recently unveiled a project called the "Maison des générations", "House of Generations" which will give a new...

Brazilians Tell Niemeyer To Just Chill Already, You're 101 Yo

Oscar Niemeyer experienced the first setback of his career a couple of weeks ago. He is 101 years old. His Plaza of Sovereignty idea, rendered by his office in what looks like Autocad version 1.5, would have added a...

Chicago Spire Tower Spawns Chicago Hole

The Chicago Spire, Santiago Calatrava's tower design that would have been the tallest building in the United States, had it been built, has been able to be referred to in the past tense for a little while now. What...

Documenting Disappearing St. Louis Continues

So much of St. Louis's architectural heritage is being destroyed that blogging it is a full-time project. Tropolism favorites B.E.L.T. and Vanishing STL have enough content to post frequently, and with terrifying stories of destruction of great works by...

20 Peacocks Shop

We stumbled on L.E.FT's work while writing for Curbed this week. There's a lot of great work there, but innocuously filed under "Interiors" is project #137, the 20 Peacocks shop on 20 Clinton Street on the Lower East Side....

Keith Haring's The Ten Commandments

New York fans of Keith Haring tend to get bored easily: his stuff is everywhere, still. His work is an icon for New York Nineteen Eighties. It's subway, tshirt, storefront graffiti, and if you live in New York it...