March 2010

Anish Kapoor Does All Towers At Once

Like the love child, or a genetically spliced clone of, the DNA of the Eiffel Tower, Tatlin's Tower, and Umschreibung, Anish Kapoor has unveiled his proposal for the London 2012 Olympics: ArcelorMittal Orbit, which seriously makes no sense to me, is...

Herzog and DeMeuron Get Tough

While more of a concept than a realized building idea, Herzog and DeMeuron's design for the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in Porta Volta, Milan is brutally straightforward.  In fact, the brutal finalness, the balance between grace and heaviness, the superscale and...

Mayer Rus On The Tyranny Of Taste

Ah, we wondered what Mayer Rus was up to these days.  It's good to see his wit has found a suitable outlet....

Hollin Hills Is Where Home Is

Hollin Hills is a modernist residential development from the middle of the last century in Alexandria, Virginia, not far from the US capital.  This is our thing, and we have several bookmarks around these developments.  The development was designed by...

Acido Dorado: Mies Finally Loses Control And Gets Giddy

For those of you who thought Rosa Muerta was pretty sweet (and most of you did, the house got jillions of hits and went on a magazine tour) we would like to direct your attention to the amazing Acido Dorado....

Tropolism Corrections: Oscar Niemeyer Did Not Design Brasilia

Tropolism Corrections: we almost never do them!  But this merits one.In my last post, I stated that Oscar Niemeyer designed Brasilia.  This is wrong!  In fact, the city was designed by Lucio Costa in 1956-7.  It was Costa who developed...

Oscar Niemeyer: Never Say Die

Oscar Niemeyer, the guy who designed Brasilia in 1737, is still alive, and designing buildings!  He just finished the design for Torre Digital, a new TV tower for the capital of Brazil, on his Atari 2600, and the rendering has...

Pop-Up Affordable Housing Storefront

Yes, the title says it all.  CUP, Tropolism's favorite NYC urban activist group, has done it again.  Their Affordable Housing pop-up storefront offers workshops on creating affordable housing, a place to get their Affordable Housing Toolkit, and a street-level visible front...

Building Buildings Out Of Photographs

The folks at the University of Washington are on the cutting edge of creating models of buildings out of millions of internet based photographs.  With the wittiest of titles, Building Rome In A Day is a proof of concept that cities...