Ft. Worth Water Gardens

Ft. Worth Water Gardens

The Ft. Worth Water Garden has long been on my list of buildings to visit, but to be honest, it wasn't near the top of that list.  That is largely due to my general dislike of the work of Phillip Johnson, the architect of so many large, over-simplistic behemouths that I have too quickly dismissed his work.

Kimbell Art Museum

Kimbell Art Museum

Last week I took a slight detour during a Texas roadtrip to stop by one of the greatest buildings of the twentieth century, Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth.  What can you say about the Kimbell that hasn't already been said, what superlatives can you you drum up to describe a building so elegant and timeless that you are frankly quite mute in front of it?

Bryant Webster Elementary School, Denver

Bryant Webster Elementary School, Denver

On the heels of a post about the amazing masonry of the Mullen Building, designed by Temple Hoyne Buell in 1933, I discovered an even more spectacular brick building that takes masonry construction and design to places I have never quite seen before.

architect's pet peeves no. 17 - fake quoins

architect's pet peeves no. 17 - fake quoins

"Quoins" are the exposed stone pieces that you sometimes see stacking up only on the corner of a building. They sometimes look like a zipper applied to the corner edges of a structure.