Modern security and seemly elegance need not be enemies

Dresden is healing by the desires of its citizens and the efforts of the architects and designers who serve them. That’s the right way round.

Haussmannian beauty featuring majestic bow-windows

Dresden. Every building pictured dates from the last twenty years, the result of a 2002 municipal referendum in which the city decisively voted in favour of reconstructing its historic centre.

The re-stitching and rebuilding of Dresden is one of the great stories of European civilisation of the last 20 years, staggeringly little known in Britain. All driven by popular preferences in the face of architectural resistance.

Decoration can be very cheap. This is nothing more than black bricks dancing through the red.

Buenos Aires, Argentina. Part Paris. Part Rome. Pure Latin. Quite possibly the greatest city to live in on Earth. Here’s why (from a Gringo):

The city park – Classic Planning style!

We want to create a floating sauna at the NCC River House. 🔥 Know someone who can design, build, and/or operate it? Send them our RFP and help the River House become an even hotter destination year-round. 📅 Apply by Aug. 21 Details: ncc-website-2.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/RFP-… 📷 ottawainfocus

Nous voulons créer un sauna flottant à la Maison riveraine de la CCN. 🔥 Connaissez-vous des personnes ou entreprises qui pourraient concevoir, construire et/ou exploiter ce genre de sauna? 📷 ottawainfocus

“Ornament is a crime” Alfred Loos “”Form follows function” Louis Sullivan France: hold my wine

Very important to preserve Canadianisms, including our spelling.

Keep an eye out for #OpenNCC! 👀   Curious about what’s shaping up in the National Capital Region? Join us for guided tours, expert talks, live music, and more — all happening across the Ottawa–Gatineau region.   📅 Saturday, September 13, 2025 🕑 10 am to 3 pm 💲 FREE

The King endured decades of mockery and vitriol for building a mixed use, walkable, vernacular urban quarter at Poundbury. Now the Government says that Poundbury will be the model for next generation of new towns. Quite a vindication!

Samuel Hughes He published a fantastic book “a vision of Britain”, his view of architecture. The “10 laws” were brilliant, one in particular “the buildings size should be relative to its importance”, wish the people who built the Barbican towers considered that when they ruined the skyline

Heavens, the King’s traditionally designed town, Poundbury make some architects & critics cross.For >30 years they have been petulantly mocking it, him, the ideas that underpin it & anyone who dares to agree with him: ‘fake, heartless, authoritarian’, ‘mock-British’, ‘Brexity’...

Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Gov .... Thirty years’ ago, most architects, councils & housebuilders ridiculed the notion that you could again build a traditional town that people liked to look at, walk though and be in. But now we know. The ‘experts’ were wrong. The King was right....

Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Gov Just to heap more sawdust into proverbial bowls of architectural muesli, the King’s 2nd urban extension, Nansledan, in economically more challenging Cornwall is also flourishing. Nicholas Boys Smith interviewed residents in 2018 and they already loved it... createstreets.com/projects/nanle…

In even better news, Poundbury is part of a growing counter-revolution of beautiful, resilient and popular place-making. This street near Paris is new and in complete contradiction of everything that traffic-modernism malignly did to our natural, emotional and built environments.

A modernist architecture critic criticizes Nils Freckeus' winning design of a Swedish architecture competition The critic says, it's impossible to see that "Design 1" could be in Uddevalla, Sweden In his opinion it could be anywhere in the world, unlike the Swedish "Design 2"🤦‍♂️