Seven cities submitted bids to host the 2014 Winter Olympics:
Almaty, Kazakhstan
Borjomi, Georgia
Jaca, Spain
Sofia, Bulgaria
Pyeongchang, South Korea
Salzburg, Austria
Sochi, Russia
Shark Sandwich
I hope Telemundo broadcasts the basketball tournament at the Bolivarian Games (Juegos Bolivarianos) to be held this August in Colombia. No way I'm gonna miss Nolan Richardson's coaching debut with the Panamanian National Team.
Down the Garden Path: The Artist's Garden After Modernism
Organized by the Queens Museum of Art, Down The Garden Path: The Artist's Garden After Modernism (26 June - 9 October 2005) examines the contested terrain of the garden, offering a selection of divergent positions taken both from lived experience and scholarship.
“Gardens are a relatively young subject for academic study. They have often been subsumed by art history and considered lower still than landscape architecture, which has only recently gained its own independence as a sub-field of architecture. This is not surprising when traditionally the emphasis has been placed on garden design, strangely divorced from meaning. The idea that gardens have an ideology is a contentious point for garden historians, creating a divide between scholars who know gardens to be cultural constructs that must be seen in a broader sociological and political perspective, and those who consider gardens as neutral or pure, devoid of political or professional interests.”
Read also Ken Johnson's review of the exhibition in the New York Times. “This big, messy, uneven, but - for patient and interested viewers - intellectually stimulating show at the Queens Museum of Art is about how contemporary artists have cultivated gardens in fantasy and reality.” But watch out for his liberal use of the word ”traditionally” and whatever comes after that. Well, it was used only twice, but twice too many. The idea and form of the garden is anything but fixed.
Stoned!
A much more raucous fracas than the one reported earlier is simmering in the tranquil plains of Salisbury in England. Plans to preserve Stonehenge and provide modern amenities for tourists have been underway for over a decade. With the refusal this week by the Salisbury District Council to a proposed visitor center, so goes the entire plan.
In its present state, the Stonehenge site is bisected by a double-lane road. In fact, the road passes just a few feet away from the area of the stone circle. The facilities and infrastructure are woefully inefficient and incapable of supporting the large number of tourists. As any landscape architect would tell you, the approach is a key element to the experience of a place. The approach to the ancient stones is through a concrete tunnel under the road. “A national disgrace”? Oh, no. An international disgrace.
Under the aegis of the English Heritage, the current proposal calls for the road to be converted into a long-bore tunnel, thereby uniting the site, eliminating the noise and light from the road, and providing a calm setting more in keeping with its role as a landscape of rituals. The now rejected visitor center and light transport link to ferry people within the site are part of that plan.
Yet groups such as Save Stonehenge! oppose the plans, saying they will do more harm than good. While the tunnel would not disturb the stone circle, construction would still entail bulldozing through the World Heritage Site, disturbing many archeological sites and artifacts yet to be discovered and/or studied fully. Moreover, the plans fall short of reuniting the Stones with their landscape as most of the four-lane highway (no longer just a two-lane road) would still lie above ground.
For more on this battle for the idyllic, Save Stonehenge! provides a vast array of information. The official site, The Stonehenge Project, provides suspiciously little.
Maev Kennedy, “Set in stone?” The Guardian (15 September 2004)
“Stonehenge centre plans refused.” BBC News (26 July 2005)
Maev Kennedy, “Stonehenge plan stopped dead by council decision.” The Guardian (28 July 2005)
The Stonehenge Project
Stonehenge World Heritage Site Management Plan [PDF, 64.4MB]
A303 Stonehenge Scheme @ Highways Agency
Save Stonehenge!
Stonehenge @ English Heritage
Stonehege @ UNESCO World Heritage Centre
The Stonehenge Saga
Echinacea a hoax?
If you believe the study released today by the New England Journal of Medicine it appears that the efficacy of this herb is in question.
The study is hardly applicable to the real world, as the subjects spent 5 days in a sequestered setting, but they are negative enough to suggest that further study is needed in relation to this herb.
The only issue that I take with the whole study is the certainty of the scientists that their results are conclusive:
Note: it proves that in a sequestered setting, with presumeably little physical activity.
Big difference between that setting, and the immunosuppresion drivers in the bodybuilding lifestyle.
The study is hardly applicable to the real world, as the subjects spent 5 days in a sequestered setting, but they are negative enough to suggest that further study is needed in relation to this herb.
The only issue that I take with the whole study is the certainty of the scientists that their results are conclusive:
The results of this study indicate that extracts of E. angustifolia root, either alone or in combination, do not have clinically significant effects on infection with a rhinovirus or on the clinical illness that results from it.
Note: it proves that in a sequestered setting, with presumeably little physical activity.
Big difference between that setting, and the immunosuppresion drivers in the bodybuilding lifestyle.
Polders: The Scene of Land and Water
In conjunction with the 2nd International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, the exhibition Polders - The Scene of Land and Water examines the past, present, and future impact of polders in the Dutch landscape. The biennale has ended but the exhibition will run until September 4, 2005.
“The rectilinear Dutch landscape of polders (reclaimed land) with its characteristic locks, dikes, windmills, farms and cows is instantly recognizable. This rational landscape is unique, but also fragile. The Netherlands has more than three thousand polders, which have undergone various spatial developments over the years. They will continue to change as a result of pressures from urban and rural factors. But how? Must we preserve the aesthetic value of the polder landscape? Will they become building sites? Or will they be partially surrendered to the forces of nature?”
“Don't move that fountain!”
The beleaguered renovation of Washington Square Park in New York remains beleaguered. A lawsuit was filed Friday, July 22 to stop the “arbitrary and capricious” repositioning of the fountain to align with the Washington Arch.
“The park's designers,” the lawsuit points out, “made plazas purposely asymmetrical according to what is known as Olmsted's naturalistic design theory espoused by Frederick Law Olmsted.”
Earlier fracas had flared around a plan to enclose the park with a fence and gate (the gate was eliminated but the fence was kept in) and a donation by the Tisch family for naming rights to the fountain.
To keep abreast of the saga, visit Preserve Washington Square Park.
The Open Washington Square Park Coalition
Panoramic Photographs (1851-1991)
The US Library of Congress and its gargantuan collection never cease to amaze me.
The Panoramic Photograph Collection contains approximately four thousand images featuring American cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits. These panoramas offer an overview of the nation, its enterprises and its interests, with a focus on the start of the twentieth century when the panoramic photo format was at the height of its popularity. Subject strengths include: agricultural life; beauty contests; disasters; engineering work such as bridges, canals and dams; fairs and expositions; military and naval activities, especially during World War I; the oil industry; schools and college campuses, sports, and transportation.
Roadside America
You will not find many if not all of the places toured by Roadside America listed in Fodor, Frommers, or even in the bible of alternative tourism, Lonely Planet. Yet these places tell us more about the American cultural landscape than Central Park. Well, not quite perhaps, but I bet an afternoon in Petrified Wood Park and Museum or Dinosaur Kingdom in Natural Bridge, Virginia will teach us more about landscape than a Peter Walker civic center. Plan your summer road trip now.
XXII Winter Olympiad Host City Endorsement
luridtransom will endorse one city's candidacy to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. My endorsement will be announced at a press conference early next year. The candidate cities are:
Almaty, Khazakstan
Bakuriani, Georgia
Harbin, China
Jaca, Spain
Ostersund, Sweden
Pyeongchang, South Korea
Reno/South Lake Tahoe, USA
Salzburg, Austria
Sochi, Russia
Sofia, Bulgaria
Tromso, Norway
Almaty, Khazakstan
Bakuriani, Georgia
Harbin, China
Jaca, Spain
Ostersund, Sweden
Pyeongchang, South Korea
Reno/South Lake Tahoe, USA
Salzburg, Austria
Sochi, Russia
Sofia, Bulgaria
Tromso, Norway
You do your job, I'll do mine
DeLoss,
I notice Texas has three early season TBA games in both the 2007 and 2008 seasons. Work your magic and schedule a home-and-home series with Northwestern. It's perfect. They're a Big 10 team, but one that Texas should easily handle. But more importantly, the trip to Chicago in September would be totally sweet. Be sure to schedule the game at Northwestern on a weekend when the Cubs are in town.
I notice Texas has three early season TBA games in both the 2007 and 2008 seasons. Work your magic and schedule a home-and-home series with Northwestern. It's perfect. They're a Big 10 team, but one that Texas should easily handle. But more importantly, the trip to Chicago in September would be totally sweet. Be sure to schedule the game at Northwestern on a weekend when the Cubs are in town.
Forest Grove by Maya Churi
Forest Grove is a haunting web piece about the suburban condition. After being banned from the community pool, young Charlie decides to swim in every pool in bucolic Forest Grove Estate, encountering along the way its assorted inhabitants who seem less alive and more like phantoms in existential crisis. Part epic, part allegory, part damning social critique, filmmaker-artist Maya Churi unravels the promise of planned communities. The gates and fences here do not keep the undesirables outside but instead have corralled them inside this pastoral prison.
Equal Protection
Pop Diva Britney Spears has her own perfume called Curious. I hope Kevin Federline's fragrance is out by Christmas at the very latest.
Polar Intertia
The always engrossing Polar Inertia has come out with their July/August 2005 issue. The sites are quite geographically disparate this time around, but still thematically alike. Go see.
How Communities Are Re-Using The Big Box
Julia Christensen began investigating How Communities are Re-Using the Big Box in January of 2004. Throughout the spring and summer of 2004, she traveled over 17,000 miles around the country in her car, visiting the sites and meeting the people who are transforming empty Wal-Mart buildings, K-Mart buildings, Target buildings and more into useful structures for their community. She has been collecting a growing collection of photographs, interviews, stories, and documents relating to the renovations, and has been giving presentations in communities about how towns are dealing with this common situation.
Fog Water Project
“Fog collectors are inexpensive, passive devices that each produce 200 to 600 liters of fresh water a day by collecting the tiny wind blown water droplets present in fog. Arrays of collectors produce an average of 5,000 to 15,000 liters of water per day. The low-technology fog collectors are well suited to providing water to villages in the dry mountainous parts of developing countries. The technology is sustainable, environmentally friendly, and can be cared for and expanded upon by the community members.”
FogQuest
Saltwater Think Tank
Add to my platform: Put good movies on iControl. Currently, the available movies are mostly unwatchable, straight-to-iControl crap.
Mapped
Paul B. Anderson maintains a huge collection of 317 educational-quality historical map projections. They range from the familiar to the prosaic to the bizarre to the marvelous.
Nature is dead. Long live Nature.
Collaborating with scientist Joe Davis, the Japanese “art venture” Biopresence plans to create so-called “Transgenic Tombstones” by transfering human DNA into a tree's DNA, so that insdead of a cold slab of stone, the bereaved will be clutching and hugging trees in their moment of tear-drenched anguish.
Which leads me immediately to wonder a couple of things:
1) Might tomb cities be soon abandoned and succumb to the encroaching forest? Gone are the crypts and mausoleums and the neatly tended lawns, and in their places would be the botanically re-encoded dead.
2) And how will this forest be designed? Will Le Nôtre as a model reign supreme or will Capability Brown?
UNESCO World Heritage List
UNESCO yesterday added 17 cultural sites and 7 natural sites the day before to its World Heritage List. Particularly noteworthy in the selection of cultural sites is the opportunity to compare several urban planning schemes in various geographical, temporal, and philosophical context. The breadth of examples is astounding.
1) Cienfuegos, Cuba (Spanish colonial grid system)
2) Gjirokastra, Albania (well-preserved Ottoman town)
3) Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works, Chile (South American company town)
4) Le Havre, France (post-war modernism)
5) Macao, China (East meets West meets East)
6) Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina (multicultural urban settlement)
7) Syracuse, Italy (the Greeks abroad)
8) Yaroslavl, Russian Federation (18th c. neo-classical radial plan)
“It's OK, Officer. I'm just going for a stroll.”
iSee is a web-based application charting the locations of closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras in urban environments. With iSee, users can find routes that avoid these cameras (“paths of least surveillance”) allowing them to walk around their cities without fear of being “caught on tape” by unregulated security monitors.
ctrl[space] : Rethorics of Surveillance
The Surveillance Camera Players
NYC Surveillance Camera Project
Open Loop
CBS: Big Brother 6
Panopticon @ Wikipedia
EarthCam
Raw Deal
Dear Azuma sushi restaurant at the Rice Hotel,
Turn down the A/C in there - it's freezing. Also, your service is pretty crappy. You should look into that as well.
Turn down the A/C in there - it's freezing. Also, your service is pretty crappy. You should look into that as well.
Name Dropping
Copa Frontera final: Monterrey 1, Club America 0. How ya like them apples, Cuauhtemoc Blanco?
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
As you may have guessed, Pruned likes free things, and is always in the hunt for useful resources that come with no charge, registration, and required affiliation. One recent discovery is the complete electronic fascimile of the original Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a staple of any introductory landscape history survey.
“The enigmatic, polyglot Hypnerotomachia Poliphili has fascinated architects and historians since its publication in 1499. Part fictional narrative and part scholarly treatise, richly illustrated with wood engravings, the book is an extreme case of erotic furor, aimed at everything — especially [landscape] architecture — that the protagonist, Poliphilo, encounters in his quest for his beloved, Polia.”
Unfortunately, no translation of the original text in any other language is provided.
Prelinger Archives
The best things in life are free, which is why the Prelinger Archives, a massive collection of “ephemeral” films in the public domain, is one of the best things on the internet. Here are some of the many gems that should interest Pruned readers.
1) Park Conscious (ca. 1938)
Elegy to recreation and relaxation in state and national parks.
2) The River (Part I and II) (1937)
Classic documentary history of the exploitation of the resources of the Mississippi River Valley and the work being done to rehabilitate and reclaim the area.
3) Gardening (1940)
Follows a boy and a girl through a garden-raising project from the selection of seeds to the harvesting of the crops. Includes radishes, carrots, tomatoes and potatoes. Emphasizes aspects of soils, growth, role of the sun, insect pests and the various parts of plants used for food--leaves, stems, buds and roots
4) Operation Cue (1955)
Eerie nuclear tests on houses and dummies at the Nevada Test Site.
5) Freedom of the American Road (Part I and II) (1955)
Henry Ford II introduces this film designed to encourage private citizens to unite and support road improvement. Part of the lobbying campaign that culminated in legislation authorizing the Interstate Highway system in 1956, this film shows community efforts to improve and increase safety on the Bayshore Highway in the San Francisco Bay Area; congestion in Pittsburgh and the Golden Triangle redevelopment area; the economic benefits of Boston's circumferential highway, Route 128; and safety education in St. Joseph, Missouri.
1) Park Conscious (ca. 1938)
Elegy to recreation and relaxation in state and national parks.
2) The River (Part I and II) (1937)
Classic documentary history of the exploitation of the resources of the Mississippi River Valley and the work being done to rehabilitate and reclaim the area.
3) Gardening (1940)
Follows a boy and a girl through a garden-raising project from the selection of seeds to the harvesting of the crops. Includes radishes, carrots, tomatoes and potatoes. Emphasizes aspects of soils, growth, role of the sun, insect pests and the various parts of plants used for food--leaves, stems, buds and roots
4) Operation Cue (1955)
Eerie nuclear tests on houses and dummies at the Nevada Test Site.
5) Freedom of the American Road (Part I and II) (1955)
Henry Ford II introduces this film designed to encourage private citizens to unite and support road improvement. Part of the lobbying campaign that culminated in legislation authorizing the Interstate Highway system in 1956, this film shows community efforts to improve and increase safety on the Bayshore Highway in the San Francisco Bay Area; congestion in Pittsburgh and the Golden Triangle redevelopment area; the economic benefits of Boston's circumferential highway, Route 128; and safety education in St. Joseph, Missouri.
They're always changing corporation names
Message to DeLoss Dodds and Joe Castiglione:
Don't move the Texas/Oklahoma game from the Cotton Bowl. If the stadium itself is so decrepit and outdated that you no longer deem it adequate to host the game, make the series home-and-home. Whatever you do, don't move it to Jerryworld.
Don't move the Texas/Oklahoma game from the Cotton Bowl. If the stadium itself is so decrepit and outdated that you no longer deem it adequate to host the game, make the series home-and-home. Whatever you do, don't move it to Jerryworld.
“That is not a park”
In a very fascinating article in today's New York Times, comments made by NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe perpetuated the Victorian image of a park — an idyllic setting of well-trimmed vegetation, for genteel strolling by right honourable citizens in pursuit of physical and social betterment amidst merry-go-rounds, cotton candies and baby carriages. Geoffrey M. Croft, president of New York Park Advocates echoed this delightful sentiment: “Having prostitutes and drug users fill a park when a community needs parks, goes against everything government is supposed to do in terms of providing services and protecting people.”
What seems ironic is that the parks do provide services and some measure of protection to a marginalized segment of the community, which the city had neglected and still fails to provide some modicum of assistance, the same neglect that had marginalized them in the first place. What is even more ironic is that these “disgraceful” public spaces see more activity and actual people than so many urban public spaces, which downtown office workers avoid like the plague, and fenced-off boutique parks that give park crews heart attacks whenever so much as a candy wrapper enters and defiles their sacred precincts.
Cheers!
Congratulations to London, which was yesterday awarded the 2012 Summer Olympics. Hard as it is to imagine the 2012 Summer Games without the Astrodome, I'm sure London will be a splendid host.
Glamor shots
I'm overhauling my lifestyle to accomodate my new raison d'etre: getting my photo printed in 002+ Houston magazine.
And one more thing
Platform edited to add another brilliant idea:
Platform:
- Adopt the metric system
- Introduce universally compatible cell phone chargers
Platform:
- Adopt the metric system
- Introduce universally compatible cell phone chargers
Don't get me started
The Burnt Orange Roses party in LA was the biggest rip off ever. I still get pissed off just thinking about it.
The American Lawn
Like so many other aspects of modern life—the interstate highway system, fast food chains, telephones, televisions, and shopping malls—the lawn occupies a central, and often unconsidered, place in America's cultural landscape. In spaces as diverse as city parks, town squares, and suburban backyards, it has played an essential part in the development of our national identity. The site of political demonstrations, sporting events, and barbecues, and the object of loving, if not obsessive, care and attention, the lawn is also symbolically tied to our notions of community and civic responsibility, serving in the process as one of the foundations of democracy.Edited by Georges Teyssot, The American Lawn: Surface of Everyday Life (1999) examines the lawn within its historical, artistic, literary, and political contexts, situating it on the boundary between utopian ideal and dystopian nightmare.
Anxious Terrains
The Washington Monument will open this weekend in time for Independence Day celebrations in Washington, D.C. A refurbished landscape by Laurie Olin delineates a 400-foot security perimeter with an elliptical pathways lined with a 30-inch high retaining wall, a strategy that is part English ha-ha and part medieval moat. In a post 9/11 city and country where obtrusive Jersey barriers and closed access permeate the landscape, Olin's design finds a balance between the aesthetic gaze and contemporary realities.
Petula Dvorak, “Washington Monument Subtly Fortified,” The Washington Post (1 Jul 2005)
Catesby Leigh, “Balancing Security and Aesthetics,” The Wall Street Journal (30 Jun 2005)
Vernon Mays, “Invisible Barriers,” Landscape Architecture Magazine (Sep 2002)
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