By Gregory L. Heller. Foreword by Alexander Garvin. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013, 290 pages, $36. Power Broker Ed Bacon was born, raised, and—except for a brief stint in Flint, Michigan—spent his long career in Philadelphia. Gregory L. Heller notes in fascinating detail every post and position Bacon held, every colleague, boss, opponent, mayor, and governor who crossed paths with him. More than a biography, this book is the story of mid-20th-century planning, complete with the passions and dogma that attended it, as told through one man in one city. In doing this, Heller answers the question still posed about
by Tracy Campbell. Yale University Press, 2013, 232 pages, $26. The Price of Monumentality This small, minimally illustrated black-and-white book is a curious tribute to Eero Saarinen's soaring monument in St. Louis. It is part of a series called Icons of America, joining the Statue of Liberty, Joe DiMaggio, Wall Street, Alger Hiss, The Hamburger, and others. The Gateway Arch has been back in the news since Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates won a competition in 2010 to redesign the area around it. That firm's scheme, intended to rejuvenate both the park and the adjacent downtown, will submerge and plant over
Back to Technology and the City « In the long-empty buildings of the Motor City's manufacturing past, technology firms are shaping new workspaces for the 21st century. Detroit's well-publicized bout with municipal bankruptcy is masking some positive trends taking place in the teetering city. Among the most important: technology firms are flocking to its downtown core, bringing an influx of young workers and remaking many of its older 20th-century buildings into high-tech havens. From two- or three-person startups to mortgage giant Quicken Loans, companies of all sizes have set up shop in long-neglected structures. Some are embracing the gritty industrial
Libreville, Gabon FATmaison Italian architects FATmaison design a private chapel in Gabon using an unusual mix of materials Photo courtesy FATmaison The architects designed a private memorial chapel in Libreville, Gabon, using a mix of modern and traditional materials and forms. The apse, enclosed in Cor-Ten steel and incised with a cross, is finished inside with Carrara marble and pine. The architects designed a private memorial chapel in Libreville, Gabon, using a mix of modern and traditional materials and forms. The apse, enclosed in Cor-Ten steel and incised with a cross, is finished inside with Carrara marble and pine. Several
Back to Technology and the City « With a new generation of tech entrepreneurs setting up shop, a steadily ballooning population, and Google Fiber on the way, a rapidly changing city tries not to lose its cool. On the top floor of a bland high-rise in downtown Austin, the city's future is being written—or, more accurately, coded. In the gutted shell of a once-staid office, now colonized by giant beanbags and quirky light fixtures, entrepreneurs in T-shirts hack away in podlike clusters of workstations, striving to develop the next big mobile app, cloud data service, e-commerce platform, or other piece
Back to Technology and the City « Investments in street-level urbanism and digital infrastructure are helping to turn a once-blighted industrial town into “Gig City,” a haven for businesses and a magnet for young professionals. On a recent evening, Dan Rose, the 32-year-old co-owner of the newly opened Flying Squirrel restaurant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, sat at the packed bar, sketching ideas for his next project, with architect Thomas Palmer, a graduate of Auburn University and its Rural Studio program. Rose is quintessential new-Chattanooga, a walking symbol of what the city aspires to be: after graduating from Skidmore College in upstate
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