I have read enough @adapalmer.bsky.social to gasp audibly at a *whole sarcophagus made of porphyry* (William I of Sicily in Monreale cathedral, late C12)

A 🧵 about Canada’s second First Minister (a stonemason), Ottawa’s tallest tower (for 50 years), and the awkward, unlikely pairing of dour characters and exuberant structures, of banality and bombast, of statecraft and the building trades.

Our piece on single stair: a crucial change that is slowly coming to Canadian cities By me and @johnlorinc.bsky.social

Short 🧵 about the structural virtuosity of an anonymous builder in a traditional Maltese courtyard house:

Buttress weatherings in carpenter gothic: St. Peter – St. John, Baddeck NS; board and batten skin is continuous, without drip St. Mary’s, Mabou NS; shingled cladding maintained, but a drip expressed St. John’s, Lunenburg NS; lapped boards with drip, contrasting with shingled cladding

“my place Saturday tapping a new cask of amontillado come on over”

Red brick in the sun. East Garfield Park, Chicago. A couple of mysteries here, too.

Suffering for my art - absolutely pouring down in Bishop's Cleeve, #Gloucestershire, but a #AdoorableThursday door like this needs to be photographed! I've brightened it slightly so you can see better than I could in the ghastly gloom! #Romanesque and lovin' it...

Christ in Majesty flanked by angels, on a tympanum within a doorway at Essendine, Rutland, presumably 12th Century, for #AdoorableThursday.

For those interested Misremembrance of things past: 168 Upper Street by Amin Taha share.google/sWdlIXJuPQye...

#TuesdayTerrace 📷 #LifeinaNorthernTown

Kengo Kuma pineapple cake shop morning! We love hinoki shomei joints without nails!!!!

rock house liquors, texarkana, arkansas, 1979

A groovy mid century "Motor Bank" in Fort Madison, Iowa

St Anselm Catholic Church and St Louis Abbey, built in 1962 and designed by architect Gyo Obata of Hellmuth, Obata Kassabaum. This is probably my favorite mid century Catholic Church in St Louis

These medieval wall paintings in the Franciscan church, Salzburg , show how late medieval masons worked to build our churches

What @mark-carney.bsky.social should be articulating right now, *before* the US decides they need Baffin Island. Any denial of Canadian sovereignty over current borders, any support for separatist movements within Canada triggers this:

For the new Bluesky people who finally realised Twitter was a little too fascist, if you're into architecture I made this list last year. I'm sure there are more people to add now, and other lists, but it might help you land: 1/2 go.bsky.app/Eq9YBeY

When you live with an engineer. And she wants to make a new lampshade

More please “a steel frame with clay brick façade costs around 40,000kg of CO2e, and a reinforced concrete equivalent 32,000kg. By contrast, this demonstrator registers a mere 3,000kg.“ www.architectsjournal.co.uk/specificatio...

This is probably the best summary of how the American right wing has depicted, and will continue to depict Canada. An atomized, mongrel country ruled by henpecked judges, rife with 5th columnists and unable to define itself. Probably doomed even if we’re not put out of our misery by Washington.

This is obviously a deeply stupid and bizarre piece that is simultaneously up its own ass, but I think it’s worth taking a look through it. On the one hand, to admire the derangement- but on a darker note, to consider how this stuff could make it’s way into more “serious” pro-annexation messages.

Les camemberts à Noisy-le-Grand les Arènes de Picasso conçues par l'arch Manuel Núñez Yanowsky en 81 et inaugurées en 85 L'axe de ces 2 immeubles cylindriques sont parallèles à l'équateur. Ils représentent les roues d'un chariots. 4 entrées pour y accéder, nord, sud, est, ouest.

93 Noisy-le-Grand, Les Espaces HLM d'Abraxas, de Ricardo Bofill, en 1985 incarnent un des derniers vestiges des utopies des années 1970. Cette cité atypique, qui a servi de décor rétro-futuriste pour des films dystopiques, attire des curieux du monde entier.

Raffi Against the Machine

FUCK EM UP, RAFFI

It's a horrible horrible example of Atwood's "men are scared women will laugh at them, women are scared men will kill them"

Indignantly quotes Chrystia Freeland describing the US as a predator, then goes on to describe the way Canada should be broken up and annexed. What a clown-shoed shitweasel (not OP, the author of the article)

Sometimes when I want to feel better about the world I sort endlessly through a pile of 2x4s at the Home Depot

looking at this like a kid with his face pressed up against the toy store window knowing he’s not getting it

The Spanish version is “the left liberates, the right oppresses” and once I learned that, both screws and politics made more sense

Vaults spring 360 degrees from a central pier purportedly celebrating the wholeness of confederation but the ribs at the cardinal points, identical in profile, are distinguished with spring points defined slightly lower on the tas-de-charge. All ribs are equal but some are more equal.

Attention architectural historians: Vincent Scully's house is for sale... @langealexandra.bsky.social @christinecipriani.bsky.social @bgoldst.bsky.social www.zillow.com/homedetails/...

I've wanted to see the crypt of Oxford Castle for a very long time. I crossed it off the list today and it didn't disappoint #Romanesque

What a day to finally see the Elizabeth Catlett exhibit at the Art Institute

#ThursdayBins in Bethnal Green

love these label-stop vignettes of bowtied civil servants or members of parliament

bx storage

Looking up

Fun find today, tucked up under the ceiling of the House of Commons: graffiti left by stonecarvers Marcel & Maurice Joanisse. The two started under Dominion Sculptor Eleanor Milne in the early 70s, but apparently were already working here in the 60s. Maurice would become Dominion Sculptor in 1993.

Love that entering the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Tower, a sacred space dedicated to Canada’s war dead, one passes under a tympanum commemorating the animals who also died in war, the horses and mules and pigeons and dogs.

View from the office

Keeping it together

When you die the funeral director should ask your next of kin if you were a side sleeper

Merry Xmas to me

Doges Palace, Etobicoke franchise

Excited to see one of the best modernist buildings in Memphis, the 1956 Rust Hall by Roy Harrover, under renovation to reopen in 2026 as the home of the National Ornamental Metal Museum!

Love this control joint

Common bond brick at the vertical points of support and non-structural basketweave at the spandrels.