• Towering madness in Portland

    A rebuttal to my friend Rob Steuteville’s recent post.
    Rob Steuteville and I agree on many things, and in a recent post of his, I agreed with most of it – up to the last paragraph. “Although the new towers—linked by a 670-foot-high bridge with a botanical garden—would remake the Portland’s skyline, the towers have similar width and depth to other Pearl...Read more

  • L’Enfant’s sacred design for Washington DC

    Pierre L’Enfant created the physical framework for a resilient, dynamic, and sometimes disorienting city—now the hidden celestrial meaning behind the patterns is finally revealed.
    To the extent anyone thinks about the layout and pattern of streets in Washington DC (and really, who doesn’t?), the common perception is that there are two systems at work. First, a basic grid arrangement of streets running north-south and east-west, and a second wheel-and-spoke pattern of avenues...Read more

  • Grand plaza highlights history

    A dilapidated former municipal building, embodying decades of history in the historic Mexican city of San Cristobal, has been converted into a civic museum complete with an elegant and dignified new plaza. “Making the City Hall a museum was an extraordinary shift,” says Susana Utrilla, cultural...Read more

  • Responding to character of context

    New deco mixed-use building in Pasadena broke a community log jam with distinctive and lovable design that responds to its surroundings.
    In Pasadena, California, the Playhouse Plaza has replaced a single-story furniture store with “an architectural triumph that has added to Pasadena’s legacy of well-designed, beautiful buildings,” says Susan Mossman, Executive Director of Pasadena Heritage. Located in the city’s revitalizing 32-...Read more