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Have they brought back the window tax?!?!
If you type “window tax” into google, and click on “images”, you get images like this one: That being the first image that wikipedia shows you, in their entry on the Window tax. Says wikipedia about...
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Why don’t they just knock it down?
In central London there is an clapped-out old building. One option would be to demolish it and replace it with something nice in steel and glass. Another option, as Michael Jennings likes to point out,...
View ArticlePatrik Schumacher on solving the housing crisis
Incoming, from a libertarian friend whose views I always pay attention to: Have you seen article about Patrik Schumacher of Zaha Hadid on Dezeen? Uncompromising libertarian attitude to solving housing...
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New EU headquarters
This explains a lot: The European Union is moving into a new headquarters in Brussels, which features a huge glass atrium enclosing a bulging, lantern-like structure. See an earlier posting here from...
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Up on my roof
I am always on the lookout for elevated platforms, natural or artificial, to look out over London from, and to take photos from. And as luck would have it, one of my favourite such platforms is one...
View ArticleListening to Patrik Schumacher
Podcasts don’t suit everyone. Simply, for many, they tend to take too long to make their points. They have an additional drawback for me, which is that I love to listen to classical music, i.e. the...
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Zaha Hadid Architects thrives
One of the more significant libertarians on Planet Earth just now is Patrik Schumacher, whom I have mentioned here before, several times. Until recently Schumacher was the Number Two at Zaha Hadid...
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A Lincoln Lark
The Sage of Kettering and I have been on another day trip, this time to Lincoln. We have also visited a mystery town I shall leave you to guess below, and also at Stow-by-Lindsey, a tiny village west...
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Fake antiquity in Belgium
I encountered this photo, of a brand new building in Belgium, at the Twitter feed of something called Architectural Revival. Right now this photo has pride of place there, but just to be sure, this is...
View ArticleVera Kichanova on micro-homes
Last night I attended a meeting, and although I did not have any arguments with anyone about fake news, I did meet with Vera Kichanova, and learned from her that her Adam Smith Institute “report” (aka:...
View ArticleThe fall of the Temple of Reason
Terrible news from Paris of the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral. As I write, I understand that not all is lost of this masterpiece. The collapsed spire was a 19th Century addition, but the damage must be...
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day
If you want to preserve a building, buy it. – Stephen Green, in a short Instapundit post, linking to this piece about an attempt to preserve a “Tom’s Diner” whose owner wants to demolish it.
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Looking back at Christmas Day
It’s now that time of the year between Christmas and the New Year, when we here sometimes do big postings with lots of photos. Usually, these have been retrospective looks back at the year nearly...
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Architecture wars
Robinson Meyer tweets: If most Americans hate architectural abstraction and Mies-inspired modernism, then there’s still a compromise solution. It’s simple: All federal buildings should be designed in...
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day
At least a few federal agency buildings could be greatly improved by the complete omission of entrances. – Commenter Ferox
View ArticleOn why feminists ought to be glad about skyscrapers
Asks the headline above this Guardian piece by Leslie Kern: Do cities have to be so sexist? Let me ask a similar question: Do skyscrapers have to be so tall and yet so comparatively thin? Do...
View ArticleAn architect is struck off
I originally read this story about the striking off of the architect Peter Kellow by the Architects Registration Board (ARB) on page 19 of my paper copy of today’s Times. The headline reads “Architect...
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Time to short Amazon?
Brian Micklethwait has long observed that a company building a large new vanity HQ is highly corelated with the long march into decline That said, they have the world’s governments slaughtering their...
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A sad walk around Berlin
Our late colleague and friend Brian Micklethwait was very good at making people think. In particular he was very good at making me think, and even at times making me write. Often he would say something...
View ArticleMercedes, cladding and what Brian Micklethwait would say
Lewis Hamilton says he had ‘nothing to do’ with Mercedes deal with Grenfell firm A little bit of background. A company called Kingspan sold some of the cladding that was largely responsible for the...
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