meta – mammoth // building nothing out of something

Category Archives: meta

March 16, 2010 – 6:00 am

places on architectural criticism

While mammoth by no means aspires to fit within the category of architectural criticism (though we do occasionally have something to say about it), Nancy Levinson’s recent meta-criticism of the genre in Places strikes me as essentially correct:
By now the rules are so familiar they seem almost inevitable. We’ve come more or less to accept [...]

By rholmes | Also posted in architecture, asides | Tagged , | Comments (7)
January 25, 2010 – 1:06 pm

the best architecture of the decade

[The Large Hadron Collider]
The end of a decade inspires a lot of list compiling; in that spirit, mammoth offers an alternative list of the best architecture of the decade, concocted without any claim to authority and surely missing some fascinating architecture.   But we hope that at least it’s not boring, as this was an exciting [...]

By mammoth | Also posted in architecture, economics, engineering, finance, infrastructure, landscape-architecture, the-expanded-field, urbanism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (62)
October 12, 2009 – 2:19 pm

urban systems design and the architectural disciplines

You should read Adam Greenfield’s post “Towards Urban Systems Design”, which includes some response to my brief note on Dan Hill’s post at Towards the Sentient City.  A couple items from Greenfield’s post below that I’d like to respond to, in reverse of the order in which they appear in the original, because that’s [...]

By rholmes | Also posted in architecture, landscape-architecture, technology, the-expanded-field, urbanism | Comments (3)
May 15, 2009 – 7:45 am

more on criticism and blogs

Additional responses to Abraham’s Blueprint screed:
1. Owen Hatherley at sit down man, you’re a bloody tragedy (who was named in said screed).
2. Infinite Thought gets at the heart of what is potentially the most valuable contribution of blogging (as a medium) to discourse:
“Abrahams criticises Owen and Fantastic Journal for discussing Ford, as if any discussion [...]

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May 12, 2009 – 4:02 pm

criticism and blogs

Tim Abrahams of Blueprint Magazine has popped off his twelve-gauge on architecture blogs, charging them with failing the project of architectural criticism through ‘nostalgia’ (that nasty bogeyman of progressivism), ‘consensus’, and disconnection from the ‘real world’.  Oddly, the first name he names is that of Things Magazine.  This is odd both (a) because Things is [...]

By rholmes | Tagged , | Comments (2)