Tag: architecture

2010
0
ARTS

Having your Stalinist Cake & Eating it, too

I’ve had these wrappers laying around on my desk for over a year, already, sheesh! Elizabeth Kaske brought them when she visited us for a brunch last summer, explaining that her Russian friend always had plenty to share. These chocolates are part of the Red October (Красный Октябрь) series of confections, commemorating the Soviet takeover of Petrograd in 1917. My favorite is the “Capitol Candy” label, featuring one of the famous Stalinist Cake buildings in Moscow. Of course, the squirrel is amusing, too. I didn’t know squirrels in Russia had sea monkey antennas. Thanks, Elizabeth!

2009
0
IDEAS

It Smells A Rat - Americas Collapsing Cities

Attending Antonio Di Mambro‘s lecture last night at Boston Public Library, it was amazing to see the giant crowd that packed Rabb Lecture Hall. Who would have thought that an urban planning talk — stoked with dire warnings and gloomy facts — would bring out such a vibrant cross-section of the city? It is almost as if, after thirty years of vapid hand-wringing and self-gratifying acts of “green” living, the mass of architects, planners, designers, and technocrats are beginning to realize that if they do not actually change the way America is built starting immediately, that our cities are literally going to fall apart. Cities can only take so much pillaging by the greed heads, then they go belly up.

2008
0
MACHINES

Bust Out of Energy Addiction

Isn’t it about time we moved beyond the idiotic “central heating” concept and kicked our energy habit? But how, you might ask, do we get this 100 quadrillion BTU monkey off our back? The answer, as