The architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable died on January 7 at age 91. Huxtable invented her chosen pursuit, writing about design and cities for the New York Times from 1963 to 1982. In 1970, she won the very first Pulitzer Prize for criticism and, whether you agree with her opinions or not, her writing makes you think about the built world around you.

From Chapter One of her book The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion:

What the perfect fake or impeccable restoration lacks are the hallmarks of time and place. They deny imperfections, alterations, and acccommodations; they wipe out all the incidents of life and change. The worn stone, the chafed corner, the threshold low and uneven from many feet, the marks on walls and windows that carry the presence and message of remembered hands and eyes—all of those accumulated, accidental, suggestive, and genuine imprints that imbue the artifact with its history and continuity, that have stayed with it in its conditioning passage through time—are absent or erased. There is nothing left of the journey from there to here, nothing that palpably joins the past to the present, that makes direct physical and emotional contact with the viewer, the bittersweet link with those who have been there before. 

Image of the I.M. Pei’s East Building of the National Gallery by RBCullen

Some midday Buckminster Fuller because, why not?

Over at Aqua-Velvet, there’s a fun photo essay featuring images taken for Life magazine of Fuller and his projects from the 1940s through the 1970s . (via The Rumpus)

kqedscience:

World’s Skinniest House Actually Gets Built, Opens

From Treehugger:

Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of living in small spaces. I write about them all the time. But the Keret House is 122 cm (48.031”) at its widest, 72 (28.34”) at its narrowest. I know people wider than that.

I also complained that “It’s like living in a squished ping pong ball.” But the architect explains that this was on purpose; the walls are made of translucent plastic to let in light. The whole thing works a lot better than I ever thought it would.

Imagine the amount of crowding that happens at parties… (Photo credit: Archinect)

99percentinvisible:

The Architecture Alphabet designed by Stephen Wildish for 99% Invisible.

How many can you name?

jabsterwocky:

Twisted architecture photos by Nicolas Kennedy Sitton.

The 2011 Pritzker Architecture Prize goes to Eduardo Souto de Moura, a Portuguese architect who blends modernism with tradition and history. Souto de Moura, 58, has built mostly in his home country and was previously not well-known in the United States. [slideshow here]