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The China Puzzle

“For architects, China is the land of dreams. The construction statistics tantalize. The Chinese consume 54.7 percent of the concrete and 36.1 percent of the steel produced in the world, according to a 2004 report in Architectural Record. Hungry architects are drawn to China by the abundance of economic opportunities. But Herzog & de Meuron, the Swiss firm that designed the stadium, doesn’t need to drum up business. It has more work than it can handle.” And yet, the promise of China is also the problem with China…

Biloxi And The New Urbanism

“New Urbanism arose as a reaction to sprawl, the default American landscape of highways lined with strip malls and big-box stores and suburban subdivisions populated by a homogeneous and insulated middle class. The New Urbanists proposed higher-density, pedestrian-friendly communities: old-fashioned neighborhoods with schools and shops, parks and offices, single-family homes and low-income apartment buildings, all mixed together and connected by shady streets and wide sidewalks.” But is that what Biloxi wants?

Architecture In The Breach

“In recent years, it is architecture more than any other aspect of contemporary culture that has touched the rawest nerves. It was architecture that Saddam Hussein used to consolidate his grip on Iraq. And it was architecture that the Serbs and the Croats deployed in the first stages of their bloody battle over the division of the former Yugoslavia… Often quite wrongly, architecture is equated with political beliefs…

Zukerman: National Arts Center Orchestra Needs New Hall

Pinchas Zukerman wants a new hall for Ottawa’s National Arts Center Orchestra. “The orchestra needs a new venue because there is not enough space at its current location, Zukerman said. He added that a new building would give the orchestra a new identity and downtown Ottawa some much-needed nightlife. Zukerman said he envisions the new facility to be a world-class building that would have three halls – a 2,000-seater, a 1,200-seater and a 500-seater – as well as an orchestral academy for budding musicians.”

Piano Takes New York

“Unlike most other architectural stars, Renzo Piano has no signature style. Instead, his work is characterized by a genius for balance and context, an ability to establish inventive correspondences between his buildings and those that surround them. Until now, New York hasn’t had a building by Piano, but his expansion of the Morgan Library, which has just reopened as the Morgan Library & Museum, is the beachhead for what may become a significant presence in the city.”

Guy Lit Strikes Back

Benjamin Kunkel’s debut novel, Indecision “is the latest in a spate of books that have collectively been dubbed “lad lit,” the male riposte to “chick lit” — that juggernaut spearheaded by Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary in 1996, which sold two million copies and spawned both a sequel and a companion book, two films, and countless imitators. Each of the recent lad novels is a sort of anti-bildungsroman, in which a sardonic, clever, unapologetic slacker refuses to grow up, get a meaningful job, commit to relationships, or find any meaning in life.”

Canadian Writers Get Some Help

“Canada’s writers, on average, earn less than $9,000 annually, according to a 2003 study for the Department of Canadian Heritage. “This week, the Writers’ Trust of Canada will add a little fat to the bones thanks to a $1.87-million bequest — said to be the largest cash gift to writers in Canadian history — from the estate of literary giant George Woodcock and his wife Ingeborg.”

Kinkade Houses To Come To Life

Thomas Kinkade – the self-styles “painter of light” – is designing a series of homes in Idaho to look like housees in his paintings. “The California artist, beloved by middlebrow America but reviled by the art establishment, has signed a deal with developers in this resort city to help design five lake-view houses that are copies of homes in paintings such as ‘Beyond Autumn Gate.’ The houses will cost $4 million to $6 million.”