All posts tagged: Historic Preservation

Inside the Bean

From the silly to the sublime

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Today we played tourist in Chicago – a great city with way too much to see in one lifetime, let alone one day. Work takes me to Chicago three or four times a year, so with the exception of a 90-minute architectural tour taken by boat on the Chicago River – something everyone should do once (or more) in their lives – I turned Sunday over to Claire’s interests. We left Aunt Susan and Cousin Zoe’s home in Evanston and took the CTA ‘L’ train into the city.  When we stepped out from the below-ground station at Lake, Claire started looking around and said, “This feels like New York.” What she meant as a first time  visitor was that the crush of people, the canyon walls of buildings, and the energy felt like a big city. The pep in her step was quickly evident, as we headed out to Millennium Park. Why Millennium Park?  Because what self-respecting tourist to Chicago these days doesn’t want to take a selfie at Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate (or – …

Observations from the road: First edition

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John Kennedy once famously observed that Washington, DC, was a city with “Southern efficiency and Northern charm.” As a native Southerner, I believe that the geniuses who run the Ohio Turnpike will give those of us from the South a run for our money when it comes to inefficiency! But hold that thought…I am getting ahead of myself. On past travels chronicled on More to Come… I have taken short observations that don’t deserve full blog posts (some might say they shouldn’t be uttered in any forum) and strung them together as Observations from the Road.  I can already tell, after two days, that there will be a number of these on our cross-country trip.  So here I go with the first edition.  Read on at your own discretion…you’ve been warned. Wondering about the origin of words and phrases ain’t what it use to be – While driving through Pennsylvania yesterday, Claire asked “Where did the term ‘Bucket List’ originate?” Years ago, when you had a question where you weren’t absolutely certain of the answer, …

Not All Who Wander Tour 2014

Not all who wander are lost: The tour

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I have always wanted to drive cross-country. So when Claire left for college in California as a freshman in the fall of 2011, I told her about my bucket list dream and promised that one of her trips from Washington (the east coast one) to California would take place in a car with her dad. Guess who begins her senior year at the end of August?  And guess who passes a major birthday milestone next winter? With those deadlines looming, we leave on our drive tomorrow, August 1st.  It was now or never. And we are pumped about this trip! As we’d both driven much of the “southern” (i.e., direct) route in shorter trips, we decided to wander around a bit in the Midwest, the Great Plains, and the Pacific Northwest before we finally make our way to Southern California.  I’ve dubbed it our Not All Who Wander Are Lost tour.  I just wish I’d thought ahead to have t-shirts made!  (Cue the eye rolling by Claire.) So over the next 20 days, you’ll get …

Pokey the Preservationist

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Last Friday I was sitting outside on a beautiful summer day at the Red Wing Roots Music Festival, listening to Pokey LaFarge. Yesterday evening, I was skimming some YouTube videos to learn more about Pokey’s music when I came across a TedX talk entitled Pokey LaFarge:  Evolving Through Preservation. Whoa!  Could it be that Pokey is not only a great musician with a hot band, but also a preservationist? Well yes, that’s exactly what he is. Take a listen to this TedX talk from St. Louis – and after the music history lesson you’ll hear Pokey’s thoughts on how young people are taking old buildings and using them for new uses – just as they are doing with music and fashion. They are claiming these places and making them relevant today.  Just as we’ve been preaching in my day job at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. And as Pokey reminds us…he’s only 30 years old! Who knew that the next generation preservationist could come in the form of a hip traditionalist musician who happens …

Thomas Merton’s Revelation About Slack Key Guitar…

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…or how life on the road can become a bit confusing. Since the middle of May, I’ve traveled to Detroit, Honolulu, Chicago and Plano (twice), Seattle, Louisville, New York City (twice), and occasionally I’ve been here in Washington.  On Monday, I leave for Hot Spring, South Dakota. It has been a month where I’ve been with great friends and colleagues and have seen and experienced so many wonderful things…but they do have a tendency to get jumbled up when you spend so much time on planes and trains.  So forgive me if I have a famous monk playing some wonderful slack key guitar along the way. Here’s my grab-bag – in no particular order – of things sacred, wonderful and (perhaps) absurd from a month on the road. Cyril Pahinui is the Epitome of Cool I was in Honolulu to work with colleagues and partners to try to save the Natatorium, a beautiful if neglected saltwater pool and war memorial. While there, my colleague Brian Turner and I – both lovers of roots music – …

Planes, trains…but no automobiles

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Unlike their American counterparts, European cities are known for their many transportation options. Copenhagen and Stockholm fit this pattern, and we tested it all during our recent trip to Scandinavian. With our family’s interest in preservation and urban planning, we headed into these cities with exploration in mind.  Andrew, after just six weeks in the country, knew Copenhagen like the back of his hand. So we had an expert guide for our first week. What did we find? First, people walk a lot. They walk to the market to get their produce, and flowers, as seen at the top of the post. Also, Copenhagen knows how to make bicycles part of a real transportation network.  One-third of the city bikes to work, and with dedicated signals and lanes with curbs, they make it very easy for everyone.  The picture above is of a cycle counter that clocks thousands of daily bike trips across a busy bridge in the center of the city. Copenhagen residents also “dress for the destination, not for the trip” – meaning …

Put on a sweater like Patti Page

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I loved the recent Treehugger post In Praise of the Dumb House. Go ahead.  Click on the link and read the blog post from Lloyd Alter.  When you get to the picture of Patti Page, you may laugh out loud.  I did. Alter talks about all the newfangled gadgets to keep your house temperature perfect – and environmentally correct. But he points out the problem with this line of thinking: As Victor Olgyay noted exactly 50 years ago in his book Design with Climate, comfort is not determined by temperature alone, but by a combination of temperature, humidity and air movement. The Nest thermostat turns an air conditioner or furnace on or off, where you might be just as comfortable opening a window or turning on a fan. That’s what you would do in a dumb home. Instead, the Nest causes you to use energy to do what used to be free. He then goes on to say: There is also another problem with the smart thermostat: people no longer put on such smart sweater sets …

Fallingwater (Revisited)

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Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater is one of the architectural wonders of the world.  In the midst of the depression, when the Kaufmann family of Pittsburgh commissioned Wright to design their vacation home along Bear Run in the mountains of southwestern Pennsylvania, they envisioned a location that would give them a view of the beautiful 30′ waterfall that ran through their property. However, as the world soon discovered, Wright – who was then in a period of critical decline among architectural critics and the public – saw things differently. The results immediately captivated the country when the home was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1938, and it hasn’t stopped attracting visitors and attention since. Our family is no different.  After a business trip to the National Historic Landmark in early May 1998, I immediately booked a return trip a week later with Candice and our twins – Andrew and Claire – who were five years old at the time.  Both children were eager to see this place that mom and dad described with …