“The grand columns that you see all around the complex are about creating space. You fill in that space, then you have something that was designed to be open becoming cluttered and oppressive. What makes the Barbican special would be lost.” – CityLab
Author: Douglas McLennan
Franco Zeffirelli, 96
“Critics sometimes reproached Mr. Zeffirelli’s opera stagings for a flamboyant glamour more typical of Hollywood’s golden era, while Hollywood sometimes disparaged his films as too highbrow. But his success with audiences was undeniable.” – The New York Times
Does Owning A McMansion Make You Happier?
To be clear, having more space does generally lead to people saying they’re more pleased with their home. The problem is that the satisfaction often doesn’t last if even bigger homes pop up nearby. “If I bought a house to feel like I’m ‘the king of my neighborhood,’ but a new king arises, it makes me feel very bad about my house.” – The Atlantic
Evening Standard’s Sacking Of Its Theatre Critics Doesn’t Mean Criticism Is Going Away – It’s Just Moving On
“Mainstream theatre criticism is unlikely to disappear. But professional, full-time critics, whose only real job is to review plays, may be a dying breed. It is unfortunately possible for publications to be committed to criticism whilst being utterly cavalier about individual critics.” – The Stage
Palm Beach Opera Director Daniel Biaggi Stepping Down
When Palm Beach Opera promoted him to general director in February 2009, the company was struggling. It was posting unsupportable deficits and the chief administrator job was a revolving door. Under Biaggi’s leadership, the company stabilized and grew. It slashed the budget, reducing the number of operas it produced at the Kravis Center from four to three and eliminating Monday matinees, and re-directed resources to programming designed to broaden its audience. – Palm Beach Post
How The Internet Has Changed (Is Changing) Book Culture
“The personal touch sometimes takes some of the critical edge out of books conversation online. Like many outlets, Bustle is fazing out professional book reviews, and Electric Literature did away with its reviews a couple of years ago now. Instead, these websites are prioritizing personal essays from a diverse group of writers, and both of the aforementioned sites have a women-focused editorial strategy.” – Publishers Weekly
A New Funding Model For Opera, Ballet In Europe That Aims For Younger Audiences
“Since 2014, Fedora has awarded €1 million to help launch 10 new opera and ballet projects, co-produced by 64 cultural institutions across Europe. To do this, they’ve tested new models of raising money and new ways of awarding it to operas and ballets.” – Forbes
The Bauhaus Was Built On Ambitious Ideas (That Both Succeeded And Failed)
This new vision for an art school was explicitly intended to combine knowledge of modern techniques for making things with a medieval attitude toward how and why you are making them. Gropius and his allies were going to save the modern world by shoving it as hard as they could both backward and forward at the same time. – The Easel
How Conservateurs Dismantled And Reassembled An Angkor Temple To Save It
“In recent decades a shift in the flow of water across Phnom Bakheng amid heavy tourist traffic had jeopardised its long-term viability, prompting the WMF to seek a solution. Devotional shrines erected on the various levels had become destabilised because of a gradual change in the pitch at the ground level of the various terraces.” – The Art Newspaper
Redefining London Culturally
“More of us than ever consider ourselves culturally engaged, and we are now expanding the definition of culture “possibly to the point of extinction”. ‘Big c’ and ‘small c’ culture now intermix with a day-to-day theatricality that we all welcome, and the stage for this activity is places, from small community-owned plots to large brownfield regeneration sites, where these elements can be brought together in ways that benefit a range of communities and tell great stories.” – Arts Professional