Architectural AH

[Roger II]

OOOF that will show me for attempting to talk like I know things. That makes a good deal of sense.

BTW, what do you think of Louis Kahn?

 

[Guernsey Donkey]

OOOF that will show me for attempting to talk like I know things. That makes a good deal of sense.

BTW, what do you think of Louis Kahn?

An american great, i like some of his buildings though i haven't really studied him extensively, though i do have a book on him. Not that that is saying much as i am a bit of an architectural book hoarder

 

[Alex Richards]

I think an interesting WI from a Americentric perspective would actually derive from the Wren plan-what if instead of hte tendency towards grid plans that originated in Savannah and Philadelphia and came to the forefront with the Comissioner's Plan for NYC, plans more in the Baroque mode with blocks interspersed with grand avenues became the main kind of urban layout? So more cities would be like Annapolis and DC with those layouts?

I think you'd struggle to some extent- the natural tendency to want to just parcel land into neat squares would work against this. You'd probably need Philadelphia at least to be built in this style. but it would still be tricky to get it adopted on a broader basis.

 

[Roger II]

Yea, I don't mean there'd be no blocks so much as there'd be blocks intersected by diagonal and tranverse streets instead of a strict grid-the model I was thinking was the Wren plan above, or OTL's model for DC (the federal city specifically) or Annapolis. If you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Enfant_Plan#/media/File:L'enfant_plan_of_Washington,_D.C..jpg for example it's not hapazard and there's still a strict grid within the plan but it's got a network of avenues worked in. It'd still be an uphill climb to get it used(you'd need to slow the speed of urbanization taht required extremely quick platting out of towns) but it could be interesting.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I think you'd struggle to some extent- the natural tendency to want to just parcel land into neat squares would work against this. You'd probably need Philadelphia at least to be built in this style. but it would still be tricky to get it adopted on a broader basis.

This is why we voted leave.

As a Londoner I mock your straight lines and 90 degree corners, mock them I say.

 

[Roger II]

It is itneresting though-how much we naturalize the urban(and architectural!) forms taht we are already used to.

 

[Alex Richards]

This is why we voted leave.

As a Londoner I mock your straight lines and 90 degree corners, mock them I say.

By the 18th Century it was certainly a thing when it came to untamed wilderness.

 

[Roger II]

I too want to live in a city designed by Capability Brown.

 

[Artaxerxes]

By the 18th Century it was certainly a thing when it came to untamed wilderness.

America has always been unnatural.

They made up for the straight state lines with the randomness of electoral ones.

 

[Roger II]

Oddly enought, the whole "straight lines in states" is mostly a western/mountain west thing, with some exceptions.Most eastern and midwest states do have some natural borders.

 

[Hendryk]

It's very much in the background, but With Iron and Fire attempts to explore the effects of the TL on architecture and urbanism. Bruno's story "The Road to Yakutia", for example, drops various hints about architectural trends in said country, with late Eclecticism being decisively vanquished by Art Déco in the 1930s.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I do like the look of old St Paul's and the gradual narrowing of the river Thames also fascinates me.

Does anyone know if the Thames, especially the isle of dogs, has changed course much in the last couple of thousand years?

Oddly enought, the whole "straight lines in states" is mostly a western/mountain west thing, with some exceptions.Most eastern and midwest states do have some natural borders.

Presumably because at first the states met resistance and had to do deals, as they pushed further east simply saying "we're taking all of it" to the few survivors left.

See also Texas.

 

[Guernsey Donkey]

This is why we voted leave.

As a Londoner I mock your straight lines and 90 degree corners, mock them I say.

You realise that London is pretty much just a collection of small(ish) mixed use developments with the spaces between Just filled in.

 

[Alex Richards]

You realise that London is pretty much just a collection of small(ish) mixed use developments with the spaces between Just filled in.

Also, Bloomsbury wants a word.

 

[Thande]

This is why we voted leave.

As a Londoner I mock your straight lines and 90 degree corners, mock them I say.

I like how after the Great Fire of London all the architects got together and started doing grand designs to build a grid system from scratch, only to go out and find the scorched Londoners had already roped off the patches of smoking waste land where their houses and roads had been to ensure they were built back just as they had been.

 

[RyanF]

A favourite from Glasgow has always been the Tait Tower built in Bellahouston Park as part of the 1938 Empire Exhibition. Standing 300 feet high and with three observation decks at the top, it was intended to be a lasting monument to the exhibition. It was torn down in 1939 due to fears it would act as a marker for approaching bombers. If it still stood it would be a pretty iconic landmark for the city.

 

[Roger II]

I do like the look of old St Paul's and the gradual narrowing of the river Thames also fascinates me.

Does anyone know if the Thames, especially the isle of dogs, has changed course much in the last couple of thousand years?



Presumably because at first the states met resistance and had to do deals, as they pushed further east simply saying "we're taking all of it" to the few survivors left.

See also Texas.

Northern Ireland as a US state ?

“Err, guys! You know that bit about the right to bear arms? Do you think we could add ‘Except in Northern Ireland’ to it ? Apparently they’re used to that sort of thing.”

How The States got Their Shapes is the book for you. And a more natural river Thames is A) impossible and B) deeply interesting-what if the waterfront remained how a lot of buildings were approached?

Anyhow here's a PoD for you: Borromini doesn't kill himself and builds more buildings. Whither Baroque, especially in western Europe? does he get work outside Rome?

 

[Alex Richards]

How The States got Their Shapes is the book for you. And a more natural river Thames is A) impossible and B) deeply interesting-what if the waterfront remained how a lot of buildings were approached?

Anyhow here's a PoD for you: Borromini doesn't kill himself and builds more buildings. Whither Baroque, especially in western Europe? does he get work outside Rome?

More use of curved forms in Baroque architecture perhaps?

 

[Guernsey Donkey]

Ok here is something, what if the Case Study House Project in the post war era became the premier domestic house style in america rather than an continuation of the colonial styles which then shifted into MCMansions.

 

[RyanF]

Ok here is something, what if the Case Study House Project in the post war era became the premier domestic house style in america rather than an continuation of the colonial styles which then shifted into MCMansions.

Colour me shocked that the Stahl house was designed as an inexpensive model home, it's design and location so speaks of some bespoke retreat for one of the A-list Hollywood stars.

Also, the pilot of Columbo ends there.