Behold the creeping bollards of Boston. These globules are found in front of the Tip O’Neill Federal Building on Causeway Street in Boston. Combine post 9/11 paranoia with the endemic American hatred of artistry, with the opportunity to money-grub in the trough of public works, and you end up with another parody of civilized life. Below, more »
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September 2014
Behold the new gerbil cage for children in Queensbury, New York. Notice that there are no children there. The reason: it is a completely unrewarding place to play. In fact, it was designed not for children but for lawyers in this lawsuit-happy land. In attempting remove every possible hazard to health and safety, they more »
August 2014
Behold, the latest addition to the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass, by architect Tadao Ando. Add to your collection of sleek Modernist bowling trophies. The world has had enough of minimalism on steroids; it just doesn’t know it yet. It’s ironic, for sure, arising as it does out of such a maximalist culture more »
July 2014
Behold the proposed new addition to the suite of glass boxes on Granville Street in Halifax, Nova Scotia. O Canada! Are you trying to out-do the stupidity and vulgarity of your neighbor to the south? Apart from the obvious perversity of cantilevering over the historic Province House — an early legislative building — note the more »
June 2014
Behold the Aqua Tower by architect Jeanne Gang, Chicago. Of course, the skyscraper is an obsolete building form because the ones we’ve already got will never be renovated in the coming era of resource and capital scarcity. But that doesn’t stop the developers and architects from creating new ones — especially at this climax moment more »
May 2014
WTF ???? Behold the proposed new public artwork for the Boulder, Colorado, Library. Which part is the “art?” you may ask yourself. Why, the grand affirmation Yes! Straight out of the Nike advertising playbook, this totemic gesture informs all Boulderites (Bouldarians? Boulderopolitans? Boulderholics?) that yes! they can… er… what…? Cross the six-laner safely? more »
April 2014
Behold the new Emerson College “complex” (s0-called) for television, film, and advertising production studies on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, designed by Thom Mayne of the firm Morphosis, which has been reviled on this site before for its techno-narcissistic archi-stunts. This one is as if the Jolly Green Giant dropped a crate of seltzer bottles more »
March 2014
Behold the new Health Center on Russell Street in Missoula, Montana — a demonstration that Murphy’s Law rules absolutely in American architecture and town planning. This is the back of the building; the front is oriented to the interior of the block where the parking is (don’t expect Happy Motoring to continue ten more »
February 2014
Woe and alack a day! A sign of the times in a hyper-turbo-techno-industrial economy rocking in the throes of meltdown, a.k.a. compressive deflationary contraction. Lo, what was once a dollar is now seventy-five cents. In another month, it’ll be fifty cents and perhaps they can sign up the celebrity “Fitty Cent” to shill for them. more »
January 2014
Behold the stylish wastewater treatment plan in Durand, Wisconsin, 30 miles downstream from Eau Claire on the Chippewa River. Notice the interesting placement of the historical marker billboard with the blank planes of the wall, the single window, and the decorative logo — all very Zen gardenish. Of course, the real love was more »
December 2013
Behold this triple-header of 80-plus-story condo towers designed by Toronto hometown boy Frank Gehry for his place of birth (he’s lived in Los Angeles for decades).
November 2013
Behold (above) the wished-for outcome of a project that would turn the Interstate 81 elevated freeway that runs through the heart of Syracuse, New York, into a surface boulevard.
October 2013
Behold the conceptual rendering for this year’s official Flint, Michigan, public art project.
September 2013
The new “farm” office campus of Epic systems, a medical software colossus, in Verona, Wisconsin.
August 2013
“This proposed new facade for the Petersen Automotive Museum is one of two similar designs that has received preliminary approval from the Los Angeles Planning Department.
July 2013
Proposed Film and Media Study Facility by Lafayette College for downtown Easton, PA. This off-campus melange of incoherently orchestrated buildings is anchored at the corner by a blank-wall “Borg” cube.
April 2013
Behold, the proposed new San Francisco Trans-Bay Transit Center at First and Fremont Streets.
March 2013
Get a load of this beauty. Social housing on the outskirts of Paris by the architectural firm Maison Edouard François.
February 2013
Behold the new Perot Museum of Science and History in Dallas, Texas in all its magnificent cubosity! Wow, what an original idea!
January 2013
This abortion, an observation tower for Phoenix, AZ, is described by one wag as a giant toilet cleaning brush. Are you sick yet? Well, then get a load of the view:
December 2012
Behold the landscape of Happy Motoring in its latest iteration in northern Virginia, that is, the Washington DC suburbs. It’s significant that the very seat of policy and governance in our country is the epicenter of cluelessness about the fate of our tragic car dependency. They just see endless new layers added onto the existing more »
November 2012
On view in Kingston, NY. This kind of says it all about the condition of America’s Main Street economy. Note, this is about both the programming and quality of the buildings. Thanks to Martine Hahn from Greenwich, NY, for sending it in. Closeup below:
October 2012
The architect of this addition to Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, Mels Crouwel, dubbed his creation “the Bathtub.” Actually, it looks more like what we in America would call a laundry sink.
Read More
Living in The Long Emergency
Available for pre-order
Publication March 2020
Click for autographed copies from Battenkill Books
Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward
Forget the speculation of pundits and media personalities. For anyone asking “Now what?” the answer is out there. You just have to know where to look.
In his 2005 book, The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler described the global predicaments that would pitch the USA into political and economic turmoil in the 21st century—the end of affordable oil, climate irregularities, and flagging economic growth, to name a few. Now, he returns with a book that takes an up-close-and-personal approach to how real people are living now—surviving The Long Emergency as it happens.
Published by BenBella Books, Inc.
Too Much Magic
Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation
The nationally best-selling author of "The Long Emergency" expands on his alarming argument that our oil-addicted, technology-dependent society is on the brink of collapse—that the long emergency has already begun. Published by the Atlantic Monthly Press.
CBRN: Surviving Chemical, Biological, Radiological & Nuclear Events
"We live in a dangerous world, and it is constantly being made even more dangerous by technological developments, many of which bring with them unintended consequences which technology is often powerless to remedy."
CBRN, by Piero San Georgio and Chris Millenium is all about surviving, chemical, biological, and nuclear events. Important!