I was going to do a snarky QT of this but I’m trying to decide if I want to see Muti & the CSO do Hindemith & Brahms next week & the thought of getting to Northridge on a Thursday evening is giving me the vapors

The Applegate

We could have built thousands of units of athlete housing that became affordable housing the day after the games ended

Every gay Lutheran is like

Thanks to everyone who joined the autumn cycle of movie nights; introducing my winter cycle, wine & popcorn chez moi

this is why I initially had at least some faith in Bass, a congresswoman rather than a city insider – but what a mistake

That’s two times in a month someone’s quoted John Donne at the security council

We respected Mary’s rules & never took photos inside except when Pádraig made me lasagne for my going away dinner party

continuing my annual tradition of being the only one (Lutheran) on time to the party (Catholic)

our robotic designated driver is absolutely loving my Júlia Várady playlist

babe I’m asking to visit Chicago in February, you should be paying me

This is a deeply third-tier city take

My boss told me he wasn’t taking calls so when I answered the phone & it was Jason Statham I took a message & then my boss was like what the fuck

Angelenos need to demand the firing of the people responsible for this shit

Incredible things coming out of BoE

"I think it's the future of city living" has sent me into orbit

I’m just not interested in anything but Heated Rivalry sorry

at Christmas dinner my host told me he had just read this great book all about parking & there was a section where some architect said even our housing is designed around parking & I was like yes that was me

If only a certain competition entry had successfully addressed this, alas

Incredibly bleak but important story

you will be visited by three spirits

me: "people should talk about architecture more" me when people talk about architecture "oh fuck stop"

"It's entirely about architecture" - me, an architect, reading an architecture publication

Kate’s ballroom piece is good & a lot of people are posting hideously bad takes or just intentionally misreading it

I felt like I was losing my mind watching everyone weep about the desecration of beautiful, sacred white house. God bless Kate for articulating exactly why that's dumb.

the perfect bldg doesn’t exi -

designing for tall windowless lot-line walls in most of America is stupid

it's okay to say some things are substandard, actually

obviously not the most critical issue here but NCAR might also be I M Pei's best bldg

A reminder I live just off the Expo line & I have a popcorn maker

Fondly recalling when the anti-YIMBYs went off on single stair as dangerous deregulation w/o a scrap of evidence beyond “we don’t like Mike”

that's right

Gays, Nureyev’s COMPLETE 1968 London Nutcracker is up on YT & it’s absolutely sensational

Update: still mad

this tout court is the crux of resi zoning & it’s always funny to see who comes out storming to say “well actually”

L'architettura della città

looking at the single stair winners & I think I might have a stroke

The corollary to LA municipal consolidation is that the city of LA must be dissolved

So after the city failed to implement its own mobility plan & then voters approved a measure holding them to it they just stopped doing anything; truly no limit to the fecklessness of city leadership

you will be visited by three spirits

This gets is right: the late 70s projects (Cabrillo aquarium, Spiller house, Familian project, Arnoldi triplex, Gemini GEL, the NoHo bank, & above all Loyola) are the key to understanding Gehry's work, even the later sillier stuff

hahahahaha

Rationalisms & Irrationalities: Hugo Häring, Asnago Vender, & George Finch (a talk I just gave)

I honestly thought this would be kind of lame but having like 6 friends over on a regular weeknight has been really rewarding

very favorable opinion of Fredegund

wild to think about how much this record meant to me at a certain age

The answer, as it often is, is Paul Scofield

LA has two parallel sets of very complex and expensive infrastructure, one is designed to bring fresh water over long distances at great effort and expense, the other designs to flush fresh water into the ocean as fast as possible.

also me on every project I've ever worked on