“Major airports are beginning to drive business siting and urban development in the 21st century, much as highways did in the 20th, railroads in the 19th, and seaports in the 18th. As aviation-oriented businesses cluster at and near major airports, a new urban entity is emerging: the Aerotropolis.”
Tag: 05.06
The New Airport City
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport employs 58,000 people. It “is but one example of how major airports are beginning to drive business siting and urban development in the 21st century, much as highways did in the 20th, railroads in the 19th, and seaports in the 18th. As aviation-oriented businesses cluster at and near major airports, a new urban entity is emerging: the Aerotropolis.”
More Writing, Less Reading (What’s Wrong Here?)
“The creative writers in this country—those who have earned an MFA and those who haven’t—produce untold millions of poems, stories, novels, and essays. But for whom are they writing? Where is the readership to support this prodigious output? Certainly, bookstores and libraries prove that there are still readers out there. Yet Reading at Risk sounds the alarm that the practice of literary reading in America is in serious decline. How can it be that MFA programs in creative writing flourish in a country where literary reading does not?”
Egypt Makes A List Of Antiquities It Wants Back
Egypt is making a list of antiquities it wants returned from other countries. The list of national icons “starts with the Nefertiti bust in Berlin and the Rosetta stone (ca. 200 b.c.) in the British Museum in London. Both of these objects left Egypt a long time ago, the Rosetta stone in the 1820s and the Nefertiti bust in 1912. From the Louvre, [secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities] Zahi Hawass wants the Dendera zodiac (50 b.c.), a map of the heavens that was sawed and blasted out of the ceiling of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera by the agent of a French collector in 1821.”
An Abu Dhabi Guggenheim?
Guggenheim director Thomas Krens still has dreams of world empire. He’s negotiating to open new Guggenheims “in Abu Dhabi and Moscow, ARTnewsletter has learned. According to an informed source, Abu Dhabi representatives have made a $2 million deposit to the foundation in connection with their discussions.”
Time Warp – A Seattle Museum Takes A Giant Leap
Charles and Emma Frye were Seattle collectors with reactionary Old World taste in painting. They left behind a flawed collection with a seriously large $92 million endowment, and now the institution’s new handlers have jumped both feet into the 21st Century with advnturous shows. “What is the frye’s core audience thinking? In a twinkling, rip van winkle became a wide-awake laboratory of contemporary experiment. Put another way, the frye time-traveled from a stuffy 19th century to a progressive 21st, without stopping, even to refuel, in the 20th.”