City Notes — Reading the City

When the fabric of Back Bay reaches Copley Square, it turns into a city of buildings.

Most Popular, UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Boston, USA, North AmericaComment

Schinkel's Eye

By the time the figures in the drawing reached the upper terrace and can look across the Lustgarten back to the city, they have crossed the most elaborate sequence of thresholds.

Urbanism, ArchitectureGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019ArchitectureComment

A Tourist Map of Weimar

When I first saw the map of Weimar, I couldn't help seeing it as a human figure, with the historic center as the body and the green spaces as the limbs.

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Weimar, Germany, Europe, VeniceComment

Städtebauhaus

Yes, even Berlin--population 4 million in 1925--appears on an outside circle of Dessau--population 70,000 the same year.

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Dessau, Germany, Europe, BerlinComment

A Little Urbanism?

How is urban design different from architecture?

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Architecture, GermanyComment

Clorindo's City

When it came to the city, his brand of childishness was expressed in his refusal to accept the well known English proverb admonishing that "you can't have your cake and eat it too."

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Buenos Aires, Argentina, South AmericaComment

Berlin in 1652

A mid-17th century map of Berlin shows what the foundational core of the city was: Berlin proper to the east and the more elongated area know as Cölln to the west.

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Berlin, Germany, EuropeComment

The Bauhaus in Dessau (random musings 1)

When Fritz Hesse, the liberal mayor of the city, invited Gropius to move the Bauhaus to Dessau, he sweetened the deal with the funds for a new building.

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Dessau, Germany, EuropeComment

The Bauhaus in Dessau (random musings 2)

The comparison may be a little funny but, in a similar vein, when Walter Gropius moves the Bauhaus to Dessau in the mid 1920s, he seems to make every effort to bring with him a lot of Weimar.

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Dessau, Germany, EuropeComment

The Bauhaus in Dessau (random musings 3)

Which one is the front façade of the Bauhaus?

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Dessau, Germany, EuropeComment

Table Urbanism

This is not serious.

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Boston, USA, North AmericaComment

Mies and the City (in 1921)

Then, in 1921 Mies submitted a stunning entry to the competition for a high-rise office building near the Friedrichstrasse train station in the heart of Berlin.

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Berlin, Germany, EuropeComment

Mies and the City (in 1922)

Shortly after his entry to the 1921 Friedrichstrasse competition, Mies produced a second project for a high-rise office building.

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Architecture, Berlin, Germany, EuropeComment

Mies and the City (in 1923)

In the highrise projects of 1921 and 1922 Mies was mostly concerned with the relation between structure and enclosure and the properties of the glass as a skin.

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Berlin, Germany, EuropeComment

If Richelieu won't come to the city...

Even after almost four hundred years, Richelieu's urban rectangle seems like an apparition amidst the vineyards and wheat fields of the Loire Valley.

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Loire Valley, France, EuropeComment

Where is Vienna?

Where is, exactly, a city?

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Vienna, Austria, EuropeComment

Wiener Linien

At a time when satellites and computers have accustomed us to the most detailed and accurate maps, transportation networks, particularly subways, seem to be one of the last refuges for an almost medieval mapmaking sensibility.

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Vienna, Austria, EuropeComment

Conspiracy (Urban) Theory at the Ringstraße?

I'm not sure about this, but there may have been two competing visions at work when Vienna's epochal Ringstraße was developed in the second half of the 19th century.

UrbanismGabriel FeldMay 1, 2019Vienna, Austria, EuropeComment