Tagged With: Architecture

The Abell Building

The Abell Building

The Abell Building

I went up to Baltimore to take some pictures for Iris today. I can’t share those with you but I took this one of the Abell Building near the medical school. The Romanesque revival building was originally built in the 1870’s by Arunah Abell, the founder of the Baltimore Sun newspaper. It has recently been renovated and is an apartment building.

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Gooderham Building

Gooderham Building

Gooderham Building

Located between Wellington and Front Streets at Church Street in Toronto, the Gooderham Building, completed in 1892, is a good example of a flatiron building, similar to its more famous cousin, the Fuller Building in New York City. I had to edit this picture a bit to take out a half dozen pesky girls standing in the foreground, but I don’t think that’s too noticeable unless you look closely. I couldn’t just wait for them to move because I was sitting in the van at a traffic light and by the time they moved, I’d have been gone. I love buildings from this period. Classic.

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Glass and Steel

Glass and Steel

Glass and Steel

I had a little extra time this morning because of an appointment with my retina specialist so I drove around a bit. This glass building called out to me and I spent a few minutes photographing it from various angles. I enjoyed it so much I think I’ll post a small album of photos but here’s my favorite (I guess — it’s hard to pick one). I love the way the left edge just sort of fades into the sky.

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BWI Airport

BWI Airport

BWI Airport

It’s not exactly an Eero Saarinen but I’ve always liked BWI airport. Also, dropping people off there is a good excuse to stop take a short detour to G&M to buy some of the best crab cakes anywhere. They aren’t particularly cheap but at a half pound each and almost all crab meat, they’re worth it.

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Plaza Lofts Twenty-Two

Plaza Lofts Twenty-Two

Plaza Lofts Twenty-Two

I was in Hyattsville for a meeting this afternoon and we had lunch in University Town Center. I like the look of this building, Plaza Lofts Twenty-Two, a residential building overlooking the plaza.

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Tappan Zee Bridge

Tappan Zee Bridge

Tappan Zee Bridge

We drove up to Massachusetts today to see Dorothy for Homecoming weekend. We were there at Homecoming weekend her freshman year although we didn’t actually go to any of the scheduled events. She was just getting used to being away at college and wanted to show us some of the places she had discovered and to introduce us to some of her new friends. As a senior, this year is quite different. We still don’t have plans to attend a lot of the scheduled events, but we’ll do a few. Some of the friends are the same and there are a plenty of new friends.

Anyway, I prefer to take the slightly longer (by about 14 miles) route up the Garden State Parkway and across the Tappan Zee Bridge and the Merritt Parkway rather than taking the George Washington Bridge and sticking to Interstate 95 across New York and Connecticut. When we drove up in August of 2015 they were building the piers for the new bridge. Now we’re driving across the new bridge and you can just see a part of the old bridge on the right. This new bridge is officially named after former New York Governor Mario Cuomo but I think its name will always be the Tappan Zee Bridge, to me.

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Music Pavilion, at the Rio

Music Pavilion, at the Rio

Music Pavilion, at the Rio

Cathy and I went for burgers at the Rio this evening. It was cold and damp, with a light drizzle coming down, so it’s not too surprising that there were not a lot of folks walking alongside the pond. Nevertheless, we did and enjoyed the brisk and fresh air. The bandstand was, again, unsurprisingly, deserted. It’s a nice design, I think, with good lines. We’ve been a few times when bands were playing, children dancing, and everyone enjoying the show. Tonight, the show was solitude. Not everyones’ favorite performer, but worth seeing once in a while.

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U.S. Capitol Dome

U.S. Capitol Dome

U.S. Capitol Dome

We were at an event at the American Pharmacists Association building this evening where a friend of ours was honored by a non-profit that he’s worked with for about 40 years. The initial reception for our friend (and another honoree) was on the ground-floor terrace. Then we moved up to the rooftop (The Potomac View Terrace) for the main event, which was a benefit and fund-raising reception. The view from there was pretty nice, especially as the sun was setting and lit up the U.S. Capitol dome. The smaller dome on the right is above the National Statuary Hall, also part of the Capitol building. Between those two is the dome of the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History bisected by a flag pole on the roof of the FRB Federal Credit Union building, two blocks from where I was.

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Glenstone Museum

Glenstone Museum

Glenstone Museum

Dorothy’s friend Tony got five tickets to the Glenstone Museum (https://www.glenstone.org/) for today asked Dorothy if she wanted to be one of the five. She said she did and asked if I could be the fifth. They’ve both been a few times before but this was my first trip to the museum. It’s on a 51.9 acre property on Glen Road in Potomac, Maryland. As art goes, I can’t say that I was particularly impressed. The landscape is very nice, even now, before spring has come, it’s quite lovely. The ‘Pavilions’ (sic) is an interesting building but not at all my style, except for the water-filled courtyard, which I like quite a lot. This room, however, room 7, appropriately called the Viewing Gallery, is very nice. Not so much for the room itself but for the view. The front wall and a portion of the wall on the left is filled with a single, very clean pane of glass. In the room is a lovely, curved wooden bench that is wonderful. I could sit there for a long while. Overall, the landscaping is fairly young but nice and it will improve as it ages. I’d love to go in summer and see how different it is. Again, not so much for the art, which I can take or leave (and would probably leave). But for the outdoor areas. Regardless, I enjoyed myself and I’m quite thankful for being included.

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My Office Building Lobby

My Office Building Lobby

My Office Building Lobby

The building my office is in has a somewhat dated look. It’s exterior is red brick and glass and is even referred to at my company as ‘RB’, which stands for ‘Red Brick’. The lobby had a red brick floor and built-in red brick planters along the front windows and on the interior walls. It wasn’t beautiful but the large plants were pretty nice, as that sort of thing goes. With a two storey height, the fiddle-leaf figs (Ficus lyrata) were especially impressive. For what seems like an eternity, it’s been undergoing a makeover. The new, modern lobby is nearing completion and I can’t say I’m overly impressed. As you can see, there are some plants in containers against the far windows. I assume those will be placed around the lobby once it’s done. But it’s fairly stark, in my view.

Uptate: They added some furniture, so it isn’t quite so empty now. But it feels very artificial and not somewhere I’d go to sit and chat. Time will tell, I suppose.

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