First, a current, nonfictional look at houses of the future. Note: I am not saying I agree w/ P.J. O'Rourke about this or about anything, nor am I particularly vouching for this essay as great writing. But it is worth reading.

Second, an early-21st-century fictional take on 1950s houses of the future, by me.

Here's me in my now-rare guise as architecture journalist, typing about a big red house.

And for those of you who plan to attend Readercon 2008, here's my schedule there. I hadn't planned on doing any programming at all, but ( Read more... )

Wow. Kansas City Southern tore down the wildly historic/important Union Tank Car dome. At least the linked newspaper article has the necessary indignant tone. But, indignant tones don't magically bring buildings back. Neither do LJ posts, for that matter. Maybe Kansas City Southern should think about changing their name too, I don't know, Weird ( Read more... )

(Extra credit to folks who get the subject line without googling.)

Where does cooperative capitalism end and predatory capitalism begin? Free market worshippers would argue that such a distinction is meaningless and impossible. In the predatory department, I submit this story from outlookindia.com on the plundering of Corbusier artifacts from ( Read more... )

In case I haven't pimped this elsewhere, this is my latest architectural profile for the News and Observer. I don't know why the paper posts such tiny photos on their Web site when the dead-tree version has nice big photos. Anyway. Check it out if you want to read about a modernist house that managed not to get knocked down ( Read more... )