Ghost of a flea

Those wacky Japanese . . . haven't they ever heard of curtains?

At moments like these, my grandmother's perspective would be useful.

I assume this place will share the fate of Le Corbusier's "Unité d'habitation" once people move in; the intents of architects rarely survive the occupants. My favourite example of the same are some wonderful Brutalist/Cylon step-pyramid flats near Russell Square. The Brunswick Centre is most remarkable to me for the net curtains in the windows and flower pots on the balconies.

If “presenting obstacles to mving about one’s environment” increases longevity and challenges the brain, then my apartment is going to keep me alive and sharp as a tack well into my second century.

Incidentally, everything built on my campus in the last fifty years was designed by students of Mies van der Rohe. The buildings are as ugly as a damn pulp mill, and they're not particularly congenial to either staff or students. Most architects despise the people who inhabit their spaces.

I was thinking the exact thing about my apartment. Just taking care to avoid triggering a bookalanche is enough to keep me on my toes.

York University in Toronto's northern suburbs is reportedly based on some University of California system campus; this despite Canada's winter. More successful amongst my former employers was the campus of Lancaster University, reportedly inspired by some Spanish hill-top monastery. Admittedly, it is hard to go wrong with the the hills of the Lake District on the horizon.

As someone who works in a van der Rohe-designed space, I am fully on board with his conception and execution of commercial office towers. They have a certain epic scale that dwarfs the ordinary and shouts "important stuff happens here".

That said, I wouldn't want to live in a house designed by him. The kind of consideration and attention to ergonomic detail that a house requires is more or less explicitly ignored with arch-Modernists.

Ah, I missed it as well amazingly enough.. I am busy contemplating taking on the arranging of a 27th mortiversary celebration of Ian Curtis this May 18th that I was distracted...