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Graceless Gropius

Today is the birthday of legendary 20th century architect Walter Gropius who, among other things, founded the Bauhaus School of design in 1919.  No doubt some in the architectural community of a more...

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Chair Chic: Comfortable French Design in the Age of Charles X

On this date in 1825 Charles X (1757-1836) was formally consecrated and crowned King of France, during the traditional high mass held for this purpose at the Cathedral of Rheims. While his reign may...

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Lift Your Eyes Unto the Heavens: How Gaudi Gets Atheists to Pray

Yesterday L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, published an interesting and thoughtful opinion piece on the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia and its symbolic importance by Lluís Cardinal...

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It Won’t Be Pretty: Stopping The Eisenhower National Memorial

On Monday evening the National Civic Art Society (“NCAS”) announced the winners of their competition to design an alternative to the Eisenhower National Memorial, a monstrosity by architect Frank Gehry...

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Stars & Stripes Forever: Unique Building in DC Celebrates Old Glory

Today is Flag Day, when Americans mark Congress’ adoption of the Stars and Stripes as the official flag of the United States, on this date in 1777.  Sadly, Flag Day does not seem to be as widely marked...

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Giving You a Piece of My Mind

One of the most important pieces of advice for those who engage in any kind of public communications practice is to know your audience. Whether you are giving a speech, writing a blog post, or tweeting...

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Mondrian and You: How Art Shapes Your Life

Today is the birthday of the great Dutch modernist painter Piet Mondrian (1872-1944).  His name may not be familiar to some of you, but chances are you will recognize his work, or imitations of it....

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Preserving Our Unique Capital City

Over the past week here in the Nation’s Capital there has been a fair amount of chatter about the possibility of raising the building height restrictions which have kept the  Washington skyline...

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Cuckoos from the Ashes

Beginning in the second half of the 20th century, Western culture developed a fixation on bringing ugliness out of the ruins of loveliness, at least when it comes to the rebuilding of churches...

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Putting on the Big Pants

One of the continued problems with contemporary architecture is its tendency to vacillate almost exclusively between only two extremes: the banal and the kitsch.  On the banal end of things we have an...

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Scribbles from the Courtier

Taking a page from the multi-talented Margaret Perry over at 10kP, I felt it only fair to try to placate my readers with a few notes until I find a bit more time to write a proper blog post.  Looking...

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Explaining the Google Doodle: Gaudí’s 161st Birthday

If you dropped by Google this morning you’ll have noticed that today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 161st birthday of the greatest of all Catalan architects, Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (1852-1926): As he...

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Bulldozing Mies van der Rohe

One of the most important architects of the 20th century, love him or hate him, was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969).  Mies built hugely influential structures in cities like Barcelona, Chicago,...

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Art and Abercrombie: Lowered Standards for Abysmal Times

The headline, “Royal Academy woos new audience from the Abercrombie and Fitch generation” caught my eye in the Torygraph this morning.  In a move designed to attract younger audiences to its halls, the...

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Moor, Moor, Moor

[N.B. I admit that the title of this piece is a rather bad pun on a classic disco song. I do not apologize.] Today is the birthday of one of America’s first internationally famous authors, Washington...

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For Readers: A (Word)Pressing Question

Over the weekend, one of my very regular readers and commenters pointed out that The Courtier has had the same look since it switched over to WordPress three years ago.  They suggested it might be time...

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You Voted! Time for a Blog Redesign

Thanks to everyone who participated in the redesign poll! You’ve sent some very helpful feedback, and I’m going to share some of the results with you: TEXT An overwhelming number of you said you’d...

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A Blog You Can Actually Read

Why I waited so long, I don’t know. With the blog redesign launched today, I don’t know why I resisted changing it for so many years, particularly in switching over from silver text on a dark brown...

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Clark Kent at Work: Buildings and the World of Superheroes

An interesting article from Smithsonian Magazine about Superman’s – ahem – office space was very kindly forwarded along to me recently by one of my readers.  The Architecture of Superman: A Brief...

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Making the Case for a New Georgetown Fountain

With news that EastBanc may be purchasing the site of the gas station across the street from the Four Seasons,  Georgetown developer Anthony Lanier finds himself in rather an important position, when...

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