Category:Architecture
What does a city do when a major manufacturer moves to a new location and their old factories become derelict? If that city is Paris, France, and that manufacturer is Citroën, well, you turn it into a park of course – the Parc André Citroën. For the two years I lived in Paris, the Parc André Citroën was my back yard. In the winter I could see the park from my kitchen and living room windows. In the summer, the […]
A couple of weeks ago Super Bowl 51 was played at NRG Park in Houston. In the years I’ve lived in the area, the Houston skyline has changed quite a bit. Despite the downturn in the local economy caused by the collapse of the oil price in late 2014, construction has continued across the city and more glass towers have recently been completed downtown. Houston is a classic western US city with a (mostly) grid-based street layout and a massive […]
For today’s photo I chose an image of one set of air vents at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, TX. The building is named after Houston engineer George Rufus Brown, who joined his brother, Herman, in his fledgling engineering company, Brown and Root, in 1922. I worked with successor company, KBR, from 2009 – 2013. In these air vents I find similarities with the services of the Pompidou Center in Paris. And when I lived in […]
‘The only way is up’ wrote Johnny Henderson and George Jackson. I wondered if they’d stood at the foot of the Key West Lighthouse and pondered the climb. It’s not that tall, 73 ft (22m) officially, and the spiral staircase has only 88 steps. But it’s iron, and it wobbles. Of course, once you’re at the top, the only way is down. I was taught at a young age that when climbing you should stick to the inside when passing […]
Today’s photo is of the bell tower at the church of the Immaculate Conception in San Diego, California, for no real reason other than it’s a Sunday. Despite the Spanish/Mexican heritage of Texas, there’s not much Spanish/Mexican architecture in Houston – the city is too new. I have to go West and South for heritage architecture. Flip over to the west coast, however, and there’s no end of churches and missions from the Mexican border up to San Francisco. From […]
I came across this image of the Seattle Space Needle while browsing for something else recently. It was taken just before sunset on Fuji Velvia, hence the yellow tones of the structure. I remember when I took this photo I was in Seattle for an ‘Incineration Conference’ to learn the ins and outs of industrial scale incinerators. I took a couple of days off after the conference to explore the area. Having lived in Paris I’m left wondering if the […]