Published by Administrator April 11th, 2008
in Architecture, Durham and RDU.
From Triangle Modernist Homes:
By popular demand, TMH presents its first Mini-Tour on May 17. The event begins at Saint Stephens Episcopal Church off of Rugby Road in Durham (see directions and map below).
To respect the neighborhood and reduce disruption, a free shuttle bus will take participants to the houses. Please do not park on Rugby Road; only handicapped participants with North Carolina handicapped placards may park in front of the tour homes. Once at the first house, you may walk to the rest (about 10-15 minutes between) or take the shuttle bus. Bottled water and restrooms are available in each house.
We’ve got three really cool houses, including classics by Brian Shawcroft and Robert “Judge” Carr and the brand new “Three Pavilions” by Bill Waddell. Come and discover design ideas for your own dream home — or buy one of these (two are for sale). Each architect will be on hand at his house and available for your questions!
Register here.
Published by A Loud Arcane Toad February 27th, 2008
in WTF, Architecture and Raleigh.
Go to the John Holloway page on uber-compiler George Smart’s Web site. Scroll to the end of that page. Learn that another unique modernist house has been demolished by proppity rahts greedheads. Mourn.
Judging by Ron and Brenda Gibson’s current house on Alleghany Drive, whatever they build here is going to be your standard phony Colonial on steroids.
Published by The Furry Geezer January 28th, 2008
in WTF, Architecture, Raleigh and RDU.
One of my resolutions for the new year is to call up and take the
garden tour of the
Governor’s Mansion next spring. I do believe North Carolina’s first family could make a stand in that compound after the Apocalypse, it has turned into such a productive and self-sufficient looking site. The garden isn’t just the masterful sprays of annuals and diverse showy plants at the fences - they have big trays of asparagus plants
and lots of fresh veggies in season, and the trusty prison staff who maintain the grounds have built up quite a landscaping and gardening operation. I remember well the controversy when they built the brick wall around it - which was originally going to be solid brick. The uproar, promoted by good old NandO, dictated the dominating modification of the wrought iron fences, which didn’t really do their mollifying job very well - it is indeed a fortress with magazine quality plantings on the edges, and a general sense of protected and mostly private outdoor space which I personally do not begrudge them one iota. But living nearby and experiencing the wonderful architecture daily, I am struck by the amazing range of references one can think of while enjoying the walk around the perimeter. Privilege, influence, security, public outreach - oh! if you haven’t been to Halloween there, you’ve got to - it’s loads more fun than the history tour. And now the site has been blessed with that lodestone of Raleigh cultural consciousness - an inscrutable piece of public sculpture. I must say I like my thorny picture of it, but for the sculpture itself, in the context of that garden and that architecture, I could only say, when noticed it this week for the first time, … WTF?
A recent N&O article featuring design prof emeritus Wayne Taylor should be required reading for the “Mah proppity val-yews” crowd. For many folks who own only one house, crazed property values are not desirable. Nor are they desirable for folks who own zero houses, but have rented *I*T*B* their entire lives. Everybody, owner and renter alike, needs four walls and a roof.
Published by Robert E Leebowitz November 30th, 2007
in Architecture, Raleigh and RDU.
From TriangleModernistHomes.com: The new Raleigh Urban Exploration (UE) meetup.com group has gotten permission to explore and photograph Dick Bell’s Water Garden property on Glenwood on Sunday December 2 at 2:30. Here are some links to articles about the property:
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/760876.html
http://rduwtf.com/blog1/2007/10/08/water-garden-rip/
http://asla.org/lamag/lam06/february/changingplaces.html
The owner of the property, Matt Sumner of Black Mountain Development, will be there to let us in. There should be plenty of parking on the property itself, which is located at 8404 Glenwood Avenue, across from Sir Walter Chevrolet. Matt has asked us to sign liability waivers so that we won’t sue BMD if we fall in a ditch, break a leg on a loose board, etc. Sunset on Sunday will be at 5:00, so it will start to get dark around 4:30, which should be a pretty time to take exterior photos. Please feel free to invite anybody you think might be interested. This may be the last time anybody will be able to see this property before the new owners start building.
Here is a link to a map:
http://dickbellenvironments.com/map.html
Plans to demolish three historic houses at Five Points, floated years ago, now seem closer to happening. The fine folks over at newraleigh.com have posted on this and hinted at a question that we’d like to make considerably more explicit here. See below.
The Cinderella House, once a beauty shop, now occupied by a used/vintage clothing store, is a perfect example of the Old Weird Raleigh that we love, and that we will miss. Sprawl-versus-infill is an argument that won’t be solved by a blog post, or by a hundred blog posts. But is knocking down three venerable houses in one of Raleigh’s early 20th
century neighborhoods going to have a significant impact on sprawl?
Answer: no.
And even if it did, there’s a question we’d like to hear more often: Why does it have to be so fucking ugly? Why do we, good little urbanists, have to say “yes” to every bland half-assed po-mo four story building that comes down the pike, with slightly different colors of beige or brick exterior?
Why does it have to be so fucking ugly?
Truly, this is a wonder that brands, measures and celebrates the City of Greenways. The Reedy Creek Bridge is a 660-foot span across I-440 that is the longest pedestrian bridge in North Carolina. Inspired by the Sydney Harbor Bridge, it is the highlight of the House Creek Greenway, a mile of highly varied landscapes winding around the Museum of Art Campus that was designated a National Recreation Trail ) in 2006. It is also a highly visible symbol of amazing cross-currents of energy, all whipping up enthusiasm for Raleigh’s increasingly impressive greenway system. DOT, ) the City, Meredith, NCSU, ) the Art Museum, ) and a local greenway activist group, all provided impetus and input for the project. Moreover, the bridge physically links an impressive list of neighbors: two college campuses, the Museum, the Green Environmental Education Center, a University research forest, ) the Army National Guard Armory, some prime open space, and Umstead Park, which will eventually connect to the American Tobacco Trail.
The structure is imposing, an arresting sight from a car on the Beltline, and yet classic and well integrated in appearance. The twelve foot wide triple arch span provides an intimate (and for some, dizzying) experience of Beltline traffic,
and the simulated stone towers look very much in place and in proportion to the site.
It makes a satisfying goal whether you are coming from the beginning of the Reedy Creek trail at Hillsborough and Gorman, or making your way through the wooded hillside from the nature park at the Art Museum. Continue reading ‘Bridge Around Raleigh: Seven Wonders #4′
Published by Robert E Leebowitz October 26th, 2007
in WTF, Architecture, Raleigh and RDU.
We like the New Raleigh blog very much and somehow they’ve managed to start a great argument with the ghost of a now defunct blog, Raleighing. Raleighing was a daily read for us but it sometimes seemed like a cheerleader for any and all new development. The current discussion at New Raleigh is right up our alley. Raleighing commented in response to a New Raleigh post about the AIA’s list of the most important buildings in North Carolina by slamming some of our favorite houses and a vigorous argument ensued. We urge you to read the New Raleigh post and the ongoing discussion in the comments thread. We disagree with many of the arguments Raleighing is making, which we will summarize like so:
- Raleigh’s early modernist experiments repulsed people and created a backlash against Modernism in the region. Similarly, Nirvana drove people to purchase Britney Spears records.
- The market is the ultimate barometer of taste and if these houses were worth saving, people with money would save them. This can be seen in the choices of the houses and buildings built by the wealthy in recent decades.
- Early modernist houses such as the Catalano House, Paschal House, Poole Residence and Fadum House are similar to current day infill McMansions because they are incongruous with their surrounding neighborhoods. Continue reading ‘New Raleigh and the New Rich’
The Water Garden, a small office park on Highway 70 between Crabtree Mall and RDU Airport, is easy to overlook. It’s nestled behind bamboo, cattails and a pond that buffer the property from the traffic. A few years ago, I was driving an architect friend from the airport and as we approached The Water Garden, he remarked on the neighboring development, “That’s a development model for you: just rape and scrape the landscape clean and then cram as much shit on it as possible.” The Water Garden is an oasis in that earth-raped highway of crap. Today the N&O reports:
Water Garden project sinks RALEIGH — Landscape architect Dick Bell, who for three years has tried to redevelop 11 acres at the Water Garden Office Park off U.S. 70 in northwest Raleigh, is giving up on the project for good. A string of broken deals ruined several potential developments ranging from an 800,000-square-foot mixed-use building to a modest mix of condominiums and single-family homes. Bell agreed to sell the property for $1.6 million to a partnership that plans to build housing aimed at retirees.
Dick Bell has had an incredible impact on the shape and appearance of North Carolina. Bell is a landscape architect who, among other things, designed and built The Brickyard and the Student Center courtyard at NC State and Pullen Park. Last Year, he gave a lecture at the College of Design at NCSU and recounted the early years of the Design School. He described studying in Rome and traveling around Europe on a Vespa and how those travels shaped his vision and goals for North Carolina, especially his mission to make the profession of Landscape Architect known and respectable in North Carolina. He was cantankerous, strongly opinionated and thoroughly entertaining.
When Bell and his wife built The Water Garden, Raleigh ended where Glenwood Village now stands and Glenwood Ave - HWY 70 became a country road between Raleigh and Durham. Bell and his wife opened an art gallery on the grounds that featured NC artists and works by faculty from the School of Design. The opening night parties that accompanied gallery shows were legendarily raucous events (before our time but we’ve heard the stories) of local art history. Over a hundred cars parked along The Water Garden driveway and Highway 70, many of which stayed all night due to the multiple cases of wine and whiskey that flowed. The Garden Gallery closed earlier this year.
Take a Sunday drive ASAP and look at The Water Garden while you have a chance. The property features early work by Ligon Flynn, another star of the early School of Design. Dick Bell and Ligon Flynn both excel at creating environments and structures that are modern but very rooted in the Carolinas. It’s sad that Dick Bell was unable to realize any of his redevelopment plans for this property and the resulting development will most likely blend in with the neighboring environment - and that’s unfortunate in this case.
Published by The Furry Geezer September 26th, 2007
in Art, Architecture, Raleigh and Good Stuff.
My Seven Wonders list reflects places, buildings or objects that have a unique quality and also well represent a larger piece of Raleigh good stuff. The NC State campus is adorned with this fascinating spot, which encompasses architecture, physics, local building materials and a lot of fun. Go sit in one of these matching disks with a partner in the other and you will be able to exchange whispers at a hundred feet. Each disk has a sweet spot which perfectly captures the converged sounds from its opposite. They sit in a grassy lawn just east of the Brickyard, itself an NCSU icon (just behind the library off Hillsborough Street). You can impress anyone from a date to a four year old child with this trick of reflection and resonance. You can also check out the September 11th Oak planted right beside it.
In case you’re counting, My Wonder Number One was the Education Wall and I have proclaimed the Flag Guy as my Number Two. Dorton Arena and the Bridge Over The Beltline are definitely on my list for future posts, but I’m somewhat open on the last couple of spots. Give me a holler if you have an idea.
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