Housecleaning

Уважаемые дамы и господа, I’ve made a few changes around the sides and back pages of this blog. The Good Posts page has had some things added, while the About page has gained some more text and lost its cat.

A number of links had lapsed and others needed to be added. For example, the Postmodern Conservative link has been dead since the decline of Culture11, and American Socialism for the Rich and Design New Haven got new URLs.

I’ve added GGW co-bloggers at Beatus EstJust Up the PikeBeyondDC, and City Block. Don’t know why I didn’t have them before, but all you need to know is that they write about the same things I do, just 4-5 miles from Tenleytown, and with a wide range of viewpoints. Also, you can check out Richard Layman’s RPUS.

On the architecture side of things, I’ve updated the list with a number of local architecture blogs, including Design Cult, The Straight Torquer, and hidden gem, Washington, DC Architecture: History and Theory. That last one approaches DC with serious academic depth in a surprisingly legible style that I really admire.

Outside of DC, I’ve added faslanyc and Free Association Design, both frequent readers of Mammoth. Also, you can click through to Polis, a blog that covers global urbanism. With one Polis contributor, Peter Sigrist, we will be beginning a small dialogue about Soviet architecture. Check out his series of posts on the parks of Moscow, which will give you a solid night’s worth of fascinating reading.

Now, if you read Russian, you can now find a little section I hope will be growing over the next few months. Already, there is Вашня и Лабаринт (Tower and Labyrinth), Metroblog, Теории и Практики (Theory and Practice), Москва, Которой Нет (The Moscow that Isn’t There), and Moscow Cycle Chic, now that temperatures are getting up into the 60s.

My friend Anna deserves mention for the log of her social life NOMOFOMO, including, but not limited to, such topics as ancient hams and women in sparkly gold catsuits. Then there’s DC Blogs, which notes various DMV-area blogs, including this one.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Peoples’ District, which is possibly the most interesting web presence in DC right now. All it is is an image and a monologue about a resident. And it’s great.

McMillan Two gets some feedback

Last week, I published the McMillan Two concept, after hearing about it on the Kojo Nnamdi show and interviewing the designer, Nir Buras. I’ve been pretty excited by the dialogue – the post of GGW received 88 comments and several thousand views. Others have jumped in.

First was the excellent constructive criticism by Alex Block. But he outdid himself with another article arguing for an ecologically balanced solution, which built on a post by…

…Mammoth, who delivered a strident critique of the more Eurocentric and anti-wetland flaws in the proposal. I commented on the article, and the exchanges between me, J.D. Hammond, and Rob Holmes are all good dialogue. The example of the Port Lands project in Toronto is worth examining in depth.

Straßgefühl, the only other blog whose name rivals mine, offers a counter-proposal based on the Sumidagawa river in Tokyo. The post opens up a new direction of thought, but it’s marred by insisting that Buras would be building a pseudo-historical development,  since the proposal has no pretensions of history.

Obviously there was the news coverage too. BDC offered his thoughts, Ryan Avent jumped in with a skeptical but enthusiastic reception, JDLand noted that the plan exists, and DCist had its usual commentary.

If you’re still thirsty for information, you can look at the earlier reactions: City Block’s initial thoughts and then a look at precedents.  Straßgefühl kinda-sorta liked it before; and Spencer Lepler was generally ok as well.

But it is great to see this kind of dialogue happening. The issues of nature, tradition, environment, autonomy, and culture have a lot of intersections not yet explored. The only thing everyone agreed on: tear down the highways. Interesting, no?

Bonus: Here’s an in depth article about Buras from Las Vegas Weekly. Read it!