Michael T. Martin

Still somewhat obscure only because of its overwhelming ubiquity, space is itself an infrastructural technology that is mobile and monetized, traveling around the world as a repeatable phenomenon. From An Internet of Things via E-Flux

Leave it to architects to whitewash any tensions that exist within these NOLA projects. While I’m excited about them, lets not forget all the wrangling necessary to get this all off the ground.

With baseball season beginning in just two weeks (!!) here’s a look at some of the stadiums that never got built. Above is Buckminster Fuller’s design for a pre-Kingdome stadium in Seattle.

DesCours: An intersection of art and architecture

This is not to be missed: Starts Saturday 6pm at Site 02, 725 Howard Ave

“DesCours is unique in that it provides a platform for experimentation within the architectural field, showcasing architecture installations that use new materials, methods, technology and interactivity. DesCours presents an opportunity for viewing contemporary design within a historic setting by way of juxtaposition, thereby exposing the elegance achieved in the careful articulation of contrasting old and new. On a local scale, DesCours highlights the culturally rich fabric of New Orleans as a great backdrop for forward-thinking structural innovations that nod towards the future of architectural possibilities.

DesCours provides much more than a series of innovative architecture installations, in that it also invites musicians to perform nightly within the sites. This pairing of local musical talent, historic settings, and inventive architecture installations creates a truly one of a kind experience that invites audiences to see, hear, and experience these previously obscure spaces in a new light.”

Suggested site to check out

Site 03: Andy Sternad and John Kleinschmidt. Their exhibit explores the sound of water in New Orleans with recording from the lake front, the steamboat Natchez, water fountains in public parks, and even the Country Club in Bywater.

What exactly, if any, is the link between that [shotgun] housing and these shotgun tracts on the banks of the Big Muddy?”
[Quite possibly] the area’s French colonial heritage. Compare with the seigniorial system, introduced in Canada in 1627. As the St Lawrence River was the highway of the new-founded colony of New France (present-day Quebec), it made sense for the authorities to treat her busy banks as highly valuable real estate. The riverbanks were divided into narrow strips of land, each called a seigneurie (4). This frontage system survived the British takeover of Canada by at least a century; to this day, the so-called long lots determine much of riverine Quebec’s geography.
Similar considerations were at work on the banks of that other great river highway in that other French possession in North America, the Mississippi in Louisiana. Since the shape of these long lots is intimately linked to their value, and hence their taxability, it requires no great leap of the imagination to presume that such a frontage tax could be transposed from the banks of a busy river to the sides of a busy street. — What exactly, if any, is the link between that [shotgun] housing and these shotgun tracts on the banks of the Big Muddy?”

[Quite possibly] the area’s French colonial heritage. Compare with the seigniorial system, introduced in Canada in 1627. As the St Lawrence River was the highway of the new-founded colony of New France (present-day Quebec), it made sense for the authorities to treat her busy banks as highly valuable real estate. The riverbanks were divided into narrow strips of land, each called a *seigneurie* (4). This frontage system survived the British takeover of Canada by at least a century; to this day, the so-called long lots determine much of riverine Quebec’s geography.

Similar considerations were at work on the banks of that other great river highway in that other French possession in North America, the Mississippi in Louisiana. Since the shape of these long lots is intimately linked to their value, and hence their taxability, it requires no great leap of the imagination to presume that such a frontage tax could be transposed from the banks of a busy river to the sides of a busy street.