There are 14 HABS/HAER surveys with the keyword “skyscraper.” Only one is in New York and it’s not a skyscraper: it’s the World Trade Center site as it existed in 2005, before rebuilding (after 9-11) began in earnest. The picture above gives a sense of the material in the survey: it’s a 2004 helicopter view …
Bold Ventures by Charlotte Van den Broeck is, to say the least, an odd book. The subtitle, “Thirteen Tales of Architectural Tragedy” gives a sense of the topic but not entirely. Van den Broeck, a poet most of the time, has assembled stories about buildings whose architects “either killed themselves or are rumored to have …
“The importance of stupidity in scientific research” by Martin Schwartz is, in my opinion, worth reading for several reasons. First, a well-written essay is generally a beautiful sight, and this is certainly that. Second, he makes an important point about scientific research. More importantly,. Schwartz’s conclusion is more widely applicable than he states it is. …
My walking commute takes me past Castle Clinton twice every day, which has been great on the days when I had a meeting on site and otherwise nice to look over progress of the project. I mentioned yesterday that it can be fuzzy when a project ends, so let’s look at a timeline for the …
Some years ago, I read How Experiments End by Peter Galison. A book on the history of science, and specifically on some fairly esoteric issues in physics, doesn’t have a strong connection to our work, but I saw one there anyway. One of the questions addressed in the book is the one posed by the …
