Tag: urban art

A Terrific Review of Martin Krieger’s Urban Tomographies

Lisa Schweitzer

My delightful colleague, Dowell Myers, brought to my attention that this issue of the Journal of the American Planning Program has terrific review by University of Texas Dean, Fritz Steiner of
 of Martin Krieger’s Urban Tomographies

Dowell selected from terrific quotes from the review:

Some quotes that give Steiner’s frank opinion about the Krieger book:

“He presents a a fresh, well-identified, yet also open-ended method for reading urban landscapes through photography.”

“He is a terrific writer.”

and concludes with this final comment about

“…. the keen intelligence, careful observational skills, and sincerity that Martin Krieger exhibits in this excellent book.”

I don’t suppose I.M. Pei counts here

Lisa Schweitzer

According to Joe Queenen at the WSJ, where I am pretty sure nobody vets stories anymore, there is an Iowan philanthropist willing to give $300 million to a city to build something, so long as they use an architect other than Frank Gehry:

A city planner who wishes to remain nameless for fear that he will be branded an enemy of iconoclastic swoopiness says that municipalities dread not having a Frank Gehry building somewhere within the city limits, even if it’s only a postmodern nursing home or a puckish, irreverent library.

Way too many unnamed sources for me to love this story, and yet I do love this story. As for people afraid to criticize Frank Gehry, there have been a lot of critiques of starchitecture and of Gehry before.

Voila Capture40

Urban Art–Jeremy Mann and Matteo Pericoli

Lisa Schweitzer

Some incredible artwork of San Francisco done by Jeremy Mann. His web page, from whence this image came, is here and contains a list of his upcoming shows.

A new, fantastically fun book was recently published by Simon and Schuster:The City Out My Window. It is a collection of Matteo Pericoli’s line illustrations of the views enjoyed by wealthy and famous New Yorkers (like David Byrne) and….wait for it…normal New Yorkers, too.


HT to If It’s Hip, It’s Here.

Edward Caswell’s New York

Lisa Schweitzer

HT to Orange Crate Art.

Edward Caswell’s illustration of a willow tree, shown above, served as illustration for one of my favorite books about the city: Here is New York (1949). Caswell’s sketches of New York appeared in numerous periodicals throughout the 1940s and 1950s before he passed away in 1963. This tree was still standing in 2002.

As Professor Leddy notes, there are a few Edward Caswell illustrations available for sale at Deep Archives.