Cox Crow

Catesby Leigh writes in the City Journal,

Modernist buildings, whether clad in glass or not, simply aren’t built to age gracefully—not only because of the way they’re constructed, but also because they aren’t designed to be loved. They are either commercially expedient products of the consumer culture or, less often, expensively histrionic but ultimately ephemeral fashion statements of the sort that Frank Gehry and Jean Nouvel concoct.

And that, my friends, is my main gripe with Modernist architecture. It’s ugly, and gets uglier.

Avinash Kaushik posted a list of ten things to envy about working at Google, which are, oddly enough, similar to the reasons Joel Spolsky says I would love being a sysadmin at Fog Creek. Both companies place a lot of emphasis on working together, that is, in the same place. One works at, not for, Google.

It’s a wet, slushy day out today. I can understand that such weather might be unfamiliar at Google headquarters, though Google London might have some experience of it. I’m working at home today. What I’d like to know is what Google does in situations where the people can’t come to the Googleplex to work. I have no doubt that they have no software limitations on where they work, but it seems that locality is essential to the nature of Google.

Do y’all take a snow day?

In this month’s issue of National Geographic there is a photograph of a golf course in the Mojave Desert. (The article itself concerns the drought in the West.) Why on Earth would anyone want to build a golf course in the middle of the desert, and why would they then try to make it look like Scotland? It seems to me that the challenge of a desert course would be that it has no grass.

We moved the spare television, necessary because our primary unit is a Philips, from the basement to the bedroom. That was a dumb idea; there’s no TiVo up there. Anyway, I was flipping through the channels — who does that? — and landed on Charlie Rose talking with some guy who was very enthusiastic about what he is building in China. Apparently it’s not every day that you get to “build a city inside a city.” It’s just easier in some countries.

The interview is interesting, but I certainly hope his buildings are better built than his website.

David Sucher’s book, City Comforts is subtitled “How To Build an Urban Village.” The book is not just for cities. The things that make a city pleasant are the same things that make a town, a village, a hamlet, or any collection of homes pleasant.

Do not be put off by the title if you think of yourself as country folk. This book is helpful for the smallest of towns.