Alexschi - White.wine

Okay, I’m sure you know a bit more than that, but unless you’re a Renaissance scholar, you’re certain to find yourself amazed and surprised at how much you didn’t know about the quintessential Renaissance man when you encounter a compilation of his notebooks—Codex Arundel—which has been digitized by the British Library and made available to the public.

Happy Int'l Women’s Day to all the vamps and flappers out there!

In the photo: actress, producer, director, and writer Mary Pickford at the camera in the 1910s.

Social Housing

I have received a lot of follow up questions and comments to my post about social housing and my opinion that vertical social housing is a dying typology including:

What is Vertical Social Housing? Google didn’t return anything obviously useful.

Hi, different anon, but what impact are you referring to when it comes to vertical social housing?

A dying typology? You are wrong

What is Social Housing? Social housing is affordable housing. A key function of social housing is to provide accommodation that is affordable to people on low incomes. Limits to rent increases set by law mean that rents are kept affordable. 

Vertical Social Housing brings up images of identical towers like the Pruitt–Igoe complex which was composed of 33 buildings of 11 stories each, located on St. Louis. Its demolition was one of the first demolitions of modernist architecture; postmodern architectural historian Charles Jencks called its destruction “the day Modern architecture died." Its failure is often seen as a direct indictment of the society-changing aspirations of the International school of architecture. [via]

In the United States, policies included "urban renewal” and building of large scale vertical social housing projects. Urban renewal demolished entire neighborhoods in many inner cities to accommodate these projects as a solution to the lack of affordable housing; but in many ways, it was a cause of urban decay rather than a remedy.

This type of architecture segregated and isolated its residents from the cities around them. Effectively trapping them in buildings that quickly deteriorated because of poor maintenance and overcrowding. Like in every typology you find some successful examples but many of these projects have been demolished to be replaced by low rise urban infill projects. The idea is to thread social housing into the tapestry of the city instead of creating isolated pockets.

You can read more on how cities have tried to redirect their efforts to provide affordable housing in books like Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival and American Project.

Architecture should not reinforce the old stigma of living in social housing, and architects should find the joy in tight budgets, limited briefs, and seemingly mundane programs.

Here are some recent successful examples of low-rise social housing: 

Le Lorrain – Brussels, Belgium

Honeycomb Apartments – Izola, Slovenia

Monterrey Housing – Nuevo León, Mexico

Vivazz, Mieres Social Housing – Asturias, Spain

Tête en l’air Social Housing – Paris, France

😂😂😂😂😉

Joshua L Jones, USF School of Architecture, Class of 2011

Class: “A House for Two Orphans” - Spring 2011, Dr. Levant Kara

Architectural drawing of Eisenstein’s The Return.

The City: A Formalist View of American Urban Architecture William W. Fuller

A 35 year photography project on architecture in great American cities culminates in the first book of William W. Fuller fine-art large format B&W work. His work captures the urban thread of our cities in clean black and white images, emphasizing the play of light and dark, texture and patterns, building and sky. 

Images via text via

May Day – a potted history

In addition to the spring equinox (which is around 20 March in the northern hemisphere), 1 May was a traditional date for marking the arrival of spring. Across Europe there have been – and still are – many rich traditions representing fertility and (hopefully!) warmer weather.

The month of May is named after the Greek goddess Maia, depicted here with flower garlands and wreaths.

The Romans marked the start of May with the Floralia. They held a five-day festival to honour Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, which was declared a holiday by Julius Caesar. People would dance, gather flowers and celebrate with public games, theatre and merrymaking to mark the arrival of longer days and the start of the farming season.

The Romans also used the Greek myth of Persephone (Roman: Proserpina) and Demeter (Roman: Ceres) to explain the changing seasons. 

In the UK, May Day has long been celebrated with a mix of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic traditions. The Celtic festival of Beltane takes place on 1 May. In Celtic tradition, the sun was held prisoner during winter months and was released each spring to rule the summer sky. Celtic peoples celebrated this with a huge feast, with great fires and dancing. You can find out more about Celtic festivals here.

Other UK May Day traditions include dancing round a maypole, as seen in this 19th-century print imagining life in Elizabethan England. Although maypole dancing clearly goes back centuries, and is prevalent in many European countries, there is no agreement on when it began, or why!

The eve of 1 May (the night of 30 April) has also been celebrated for centuries in Germanic countries as Walpurgisnacht. The 8th-century abbess St Walpurga is credited with bringing Christianity to Germany. In Germanic folklore Walpurgisnacht, also called Hexennacht (literally ‘Witches’ Night’), is believed to be the night of a witches’ meeting as they await the coming of spring. As Walpurga’s feast was held on 1 May, she became associated with this May Day folk tradition. The eve of May Day, traditionally celebrated with dancing, came to be known as Walpurgisnacht. 

In the late 19th century, a group of socialists and communists chose May Day as the date for International Workers’ Day. Although they fall on the same day, International Workers’ Day and the traditional May Day are essentially different celebrations.

‘May Day’ by Walter Crane. Watercolour and gold, 1874.

‘Maia. Mayus’, the goddess Maya on a cloud at centre, holding flower garlands and wreaths; the zodiacal sign of Gemini beyond. Print made by Jacobus Harrewyn. Engraving, 1698.

‘Flora, Goddess of Flowers’.  Mezzotint with some etching, 1800.

‘May day in the reign of Queen Elizabeth’ by James Henry Watt. Etching and engraving on chine collé, 1836.

‘The Triumph of Labour’ by Walter Crane. Inscribed in capitals along the lower border: ’ Designed to commemorate the International Labour Day May 1 1891 / and dedicated to the wage workers of all countries’. Woodcut, 1891.

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20 of the Most Spectacular Drone Photographs of 2017

absolutely lovely.