Veritas et Venustas

Quote of the Day

"New York's loss is Los Angeles's gain."

— Los Angeles architect Stefanos Polyzoides, after Herbert Muschamp hand-picked Nicolai Ouroussoff, the architecture critic of the Los Angeles Times, to succeed him as the architecture critic of the New York Times.

Randal O'Tool & Bunkogenicism

Over at the City Comforts blog, my friend David Sucher has been writing about Randal O'Tool's "crimogenics" in Reason — and O'Tool has responded.

Click here for David's post, and here for O'Tool's response. I said something here. There are numerous links here and here.

Cliche of the Day

"The best architects working today grasp that it is possible to be respectful of context and history without mimicking it; and, what's more, that mimicking the past only serves to dilute its meaning."

— Herbert Lite, in the New York Times

Which of these two new university buildings do you prefer? Which do you think the architecture critic of the New York Times prefers?

Architects say the darndest things.

NU Quotes of the Day

An article in today's New York Times called Why New Urbanism Isn't For Everyone says,

Building industry estimates put the share of [New Urban] homes at up to 10 percent of all new homes sold annually, depending on how these communities are defined.

That's interesting, since less than 2 years ago, the best estimate was 4% to 5%. Does that mean that in 2007 we'll be seeing a 20% to 25% market share?

[The National Association of Home Builders]'s research shows that less than 20 percent of consumers want to live in an urban setting. "Most are trying to get away from urban density," Mr. Ahluwalia said, "and getting away means the suburbs with big lots, plenty of room between houses and cul-de-sacs to reduce traffic."

Of course, to most people "urban" means something like New York or Philadelphia, while approximately half of all New Urban developments are built at the scale of the American small town, with many single-family houses on tree-lined streets around denser centers. But most members of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) want to continue doing what they've always done, and it sounds as though the newspaper of record is swallowing some NAHB propaganda.

It would be interesting to compare it with the questions and respondents in the Better Homes & Gardens survey, where

88% of survey respondents said that "a neighborhood that's walkable" is important to them more so, in fact, than spacious rooms or acreage.

There's no question that most Americans like their single-family houses, but many are also more and more tired of all the Big Box Space Invader detritus and Big Road traffic jams that came with them. And New Urbanism reminds us that you can have the house without the soul-numbing strip.

Last but not least, we are finally coming to point where we can clearly see that anyone who thinks our cheap gas world is going to last much longer is delusional. The SUV, SprawlMart, McMansion way of life will inevitably change as the price of a barrel of crude goes up and up.

Dale Borders is shopping for a home in Orlando, Fla., and he's unabashedly enthusiastic about joining the area's suburban sprawl.

Not that the father of five hasn't been enlightened about life in so-called new urban neighborhoods, which tout pedestrian-friendly, close-knit mixes of houses, apartments, parks and stores. Many of the houses feature large front porches and have rear alleys that lead to detached garages. All this is supposed to hark back to a simpler time - and a better one.

"We want to spread out and do our thing," he said. "We want a big backyard and a swimming pool." New urbanism's sales pitch that residents can walk to the market or doctor's office isn't for him. "Walk everywhere with five kids? I don't think so," he added.

How you gonna 'em keep down in Paree, after they've seen Orlando?

Grand Mere State Park, Michiana 4 pm, Saturday, March 12

UPDATED:Slow Food, South Bend, Yuppies & Chicago

Nota Bene: A reader from South Bend thought the post that follows was an attack on South Bend and Michiana (see the comments after the post). That's not true, for two reasons.

First of all, I'm really enjoying my time at Notre Dame's architecture school. Second, I haven't had a lot of time to explore the surrounding area, and the following are just some initial impressions. Blogging is impressionistic, not encyclopedic.

SURE, nobody likes Yuppies, but they're the reason that here in the US we have better food, better cities and better places than we had 20 years ago. Spending the semester in South Bend, I've found a state that's missed many of the effects of Yuppiedom — which means the downtown is barren, the upscale food store is a Super Target in the Big Box Land that's killed the downtown, and the best coffee comes from the Fast Food franchises of the Slow Food world, Starbucks. (And in Indiana, the Starbucks outlets have automated espresso machines, instead of the the real thing.)

After a while, you find it's not quite true that Super Target is the best you can do. Example: there's a "superette" with very good imported foods, and it's across the street from a Farmer's Market that's open on Saturdays. The market's very different than a New York farmer's market (most of it looks like you've stumbled into a 1950s time warp), and you don't expect to find a lot of local produce in Northern Indiana in February. But I bought a salad there last week that was the best salad I've had at home.

Nevertheless, the most jaded faculty will tell you the best thing to do in South Bend is to visit Chicago, 90 miles away. So when my wife was here, we went for the day. To Eastern eyes, Chicago's a very unclassical city — meaning that the buildings that make the fabric of the city are usually not Classically proportioned or Classically beautiful. And you see right away, of course, that it's a real city, with great places like the Art Institute, Prairie Avenue Bookstore and Wrigley Field.

You also see that on the whole the yuppie-based urban gentrification of the last quarter century has been a good thing, making our cities better, more pleasant places to be. They look better, and they're more interesting places to walk, because of all the stores that have grown up in neighborhoods like Lakeview (locally known as Boystown — see Richard Florida's Creative Class).

These yuppified neighborhoods have new restaurants that are 100% better than what used to be commonly available. The Slow Food movement is a yuppie movement, and it's a wonderful thing. New York and Chicago now have Slow Food guides, and that's what led us to Lakeview, which has a cafe that sells what the guide called "the best coffee in Chicago." Called IntelligentsiA, it's one of those third good places that every neighborhood should have. Its coffee is at least 50% better than Starbucks'.

The original cafe in Lakeview is a little funky and hippy, with rough wooden tables and overstuffed sofas. The new, second location in the Monadnock Building in the Loop is more elegant and urbane, as fits its different place in the Chicago Transect.

I once saw a Time memo that in the early days of the word debated whether "yuppie" stood for "young urban professional" or "young upwardly-mobile professional." Actually, it's both, and it's also the nature of these yuppified neighborhoods that they are more diverse and egalitarian than the old single-class neighborhoods they replaced. They benefit from the public life on the "yuppie" streets and in the yuppie cafes.

Spring Has Sprung IV —Pale Male & Lola Update

(even educated fleas do it)