James Dunbar

@jamesad.bsky.social

233 Followers 106 Following

architect, phd student (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL), traveler, photographer, future architectural historian, part-time punk (semi-retired), critiques of ISM

1938 photographic aerial survey by Harrison Ryker of the Hunters Point area from Evans to Innes which shows dirt paths and no roads where West / Middle / East Point roads are a decade later
comparison of maps: Harrison Ryker's aerial survey of San Francisco near Hunter's Point showing Middle Point Road (West Point to the west and East Point to the east) and current area in Google Maps today.
ZHA's Port House building in Antwerp
screen capture of a small section of the Latin Quarter in Paris showing locations of the restaurants and cheese shop
a bad overlay of Klee's Angelus Novus over the photo of Raghavendran
screen shot (partial title block) from a sheet of the drawings that are available from the NPS comment page. It is Sheet A-3.20 titled Rear Elevation. On the right-hand edge it says RELEASED FOR CONSTRUCTION and has a local hard drive address of: V:\Projects\St Therese Catholic Church\266206 A300 - Elevations.dwg
from the report: "Columbia Island itself was originally a man-made tidal flat that flooded at high tide. The first deposits placed in this area were from the 1915 dredging of the Virginia Channel. Each time the river was re-dredged, the spoil was deposited behind dikes and levees. By 1925, the island had been built up to a level 7' to 12' above m.1.w. through the placement of this uncompacted material. The new material dredged from 1925 to 1927 was used to build the island up to an elevation of about 20' above m.1.w."
map from 1862 of Washington DC and Virginia in the area of Arlington Cemetery. The river is much wider than current day, and the Memorial Circle (site of the arch) lies on the western shore of an island (today called Little Island south of Theodore Roosevelt Island).
image from Google maps of the property under construction
Photo of the spine of "Florentine Painting and its Social Background: 14th and early 15th centuries" by Antal
screenshot from Reddit r/Triangles My Triangle Song I Guess :) 🎵Triangles, Triangles, We Love Triangles! Circles, Squares, Are not my type, triangles are the hype! triangles, triangles, we love triangles!🎵 (loop if you want)
various post-it notes on my wall as part of my research. clockwise from top left: 'the state' and 'the individual' (Peter Rees - mortgage vs. rent); (aleatory conjunctures) A&H - a new kind of barbarism; thought turned into commodity; inauthenticity; IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY; alienation (compliance) *way of being (Levitas); redemption, salvation, absolution (charity); Hegel freedom --- Christianity; order -- chaos; how do we experience the world?; the shared experience of a class against capital; cost of living / auto-reduction; @26:47 'An Intro...' Baudrillard: urge to escape from the 'law of value'; the urge to waste energy [a small portion of a larger collection of fragments of thoughts]
photo of a library cart full of "1968 material from various sources" at the University of Florence Architecture Library archives.
photo of a commercial blueprint machine - conveyor belts ran at dangerous speeds and ammonia leaks happened more often than Health & Safety should allow
from top left: Gehry's Stata Center at MIT, Millenium Park in Chicago, the Louis Vuitton Fondation in Paris, the Bilbao Guggenheim, the IAC in NYC, the Yale Psychiatric Hospital, another at the entrance to Bilbao, and clay panels on exhibit at the Venice Biennale in 2008
photo looking west of St. Paul's dome framed by One New Change (taken in 2013)
another clip from a 1935 map of the Bronx showing Intervale and Wilkins' intersection
Screen cap from a biography on Trotsky: "As part of his daily routine, Trotsky liked to frequent the Triangle Dairy Restaurant on Wilkins Avenue in the East Bronx"
"Zona antifa" and International Squatters' symbol spray painted in black paint underneath "DETERRITORIALIZE" in orange paint
Screenshot which reads: A second overlooked milieu - that of theorists of space, design and capital - has attracted considerable attention in recent years amongst those attentive to the so-called Venice Group and/or the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Florence. Useful accounts of the nuances amongst thinkers as diverse as Massimo Cacciari, Claudio Greppi, Francesco Dal Co and Manfredo Tafuri can now be found in books by Gail Day (2010) and Pier Vittorio Aureli (2008), a thesis by Emre Ozyetis (2013), as well as shorter texts by Amit Wolf (2012), Alexandra Brown (2010) and James Dunbar (2016). With any luck, this research will soon be extended to a critical engagement with the journal Contropiano, with which many of these Italian theorists were also linked.
Google Street view of the accident's location (along Old Town street) - the damaged area is adjacent to a driveway and gate, but the wall that the car drove into is behind a relatively wide sidewalk and a few feet of planting - meaning the car drove over a curb, across the sidewalk, and over the planting area before colliding with the building at enough speed to damage the heavy timbers
exterior of the Rietveld-Schroder house (1994) [Olympus OM-10 with 50mm f1.8 on very grainy black and white film]
US Embassy in London - photo of two frogs amidst others dancing
image showing a hammer-shaped car window breaker in action - a 'spider web' of broken glass from a laminated glass windshield. NB: the side windows are tempered and easier to break than laminated glass.
Seventh. That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and their own State, or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game, and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to, and be governed by the civil powers.
Eleventh. That the power of organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia (the manner of disciplining the militia to be prescribed by Congress) remain with the individual States, and that Congress shall not have authority to call or march any of the militia out of their own State, without the consent of such State, and for such length of time only as such State shall agree. That the sovereignty, freedom and independency of the several States shall be retrained, and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this Constitution expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.
screencap from Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer: § 3 Life That Does Not Deserve to Live
crop from a 1904 map of Charlton (south side of the Thames)
a screencap from the Simpsons episode (S12, E10) of a prisoner's painting of a unicorn in outer space, which sets up this pun: Warden: "I'm askin' you, what's it breathing?" to which Homer replies "air?" and the Warden says "ain't no air in space" Homer says "there's an air in space museum"
OCR failure: screenshot showing the title as :The 'Work of Art in the Age of .)1tfechanical ReproductiotL
a group of people taking photos (and someone sketching) at the Royal Courts of Justice where the Banksy is (for now)
screen shot from Zillow showing partial image of a home for sale ($24,988,000) with Saltwater pool and spa, and a second home for sale ($25,500,000) with a Wine cellar
cover of the book The End of Architecture? Document adn Manifestos, with a Lebbeus Woods drawing as the background and a list of contributors including: Coop Himmelblau, Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl, Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Carme Pinos, Lebbeus Woods (and Frank Gehry, not noted on the cover)
A screen capture from McCrery Architects website showing a (very bad, even awful) residential project
from The Measure of Things website: 90,000 square feet is about one-and-three-fifths times as big as a Football field The size of a Football field is about 57,600 square feet. (American) (per NFL regulation) Per NFL rules, a football field should measure 109.728 m (120 yards) long by 48.768 m wide, for a total area of 57,600 square feet.
from The Measure of Things website: 90,000 square feet is about one-and-three-tenths times as big as The White House The size of The White House is about 67,000 square feet. (Washington, DC) (including wings) Housing the presidency, the White House occupies six stories and a total of 67,000 square feet of floor space. This space includes 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, 28 fireplaces, and 3 elevators, as well as a tennis court, bowling alley, movie theater, jogging track, swimming pool, and putting green.
page 70 from Mark Singer's Character Studies: "...called the Greenhouse Spa, proven specialists in mud wraps, manual lymphatic drainage, reflexology, shiatsu and Hawaiian hot-rock massage, loofah polishes, sea-salt rubs, aromatherapy, acupuncture, peat baths, and Japanese steeping-tub protocol. Evidently, Trump's philosophy of wellness is rooted in a belief that prolonged exposure to exceptionally attractive young female spa attendants will instill in the male clientele a will to live. Accordingly, he limits his role to a pocket veto of key hiring decisions. While giving me a tour of the main exercise room, where Tony Bennett, who does a couple of gigs at Mar-a-Lago each season and has been designated an "artist-in-residence," was taking a brisk walk on a treadmill, Trump introduced me to "our resident physician, Dr. Ginger Lea Southall" - a recent chiropractic-college graduate. As Dr. Ginger, out of earshot, manipulated the sore back of a grateful member, I asked Trump where she had done her training. "I'm not sure," he said. "Baywatch Medical School? Does that sound right? I'll tell you the truth. Once I saw Dr. Ginger's photograph, I didn't really need to look at her resume or anyone else's. Are you asking, 'Did we hire her because she'd trained at Mount Sinai for fifteen years?' The answer is no. And I'll tell you why: because by the time she's spent fifteen years at Mount Sinai, we don't want to look at her."
the 'underpants gnomes' meme from South Park showing Phase 1 as "Cut workforce & suspend testing" while Phase 2 still shows '?' and Phase 3 is still "Profit"
screen capture which reads: "just focusing on this treat: digging begins at 7:30 a.m. for a 100' tall flag pole. 100' above ground = approx. 110' total; digging would be for an approx. 6' wide footing x 11' deep. that's about 1,200 cubic feet of concrete give or take (~35 cubic meters). a concrete truck holds about 6 cubic meters, so that's 6 concrete trucks per footing. so - we start digging at 0730. let's also say we start both at once. the dig takes hours. then placement of the rebar cages (have they been pre-assembled?). then 12 concrete trucks pump concrete after the rebar has been placed and the anchor bolts for the base plate have been inspected (and pass inspection the first time!). does the mix pass the slump test? are all of the concrete trucks sequenced so that the concrete doesn't harden on the way? how long does it take to vibrate the concrete so that there's good adhesion to the rebar? remember this is (at least) six feet in diameter! then we wait for the concrete to harden (and test the cylinders at intervals for strength - usually up to 28 days). once the concrete has been tested to meet strength, then crane the flag poles in (where does the crane go - has this been thought through?). then put the flags on and hope all of your wind calculations were correct. and so by 11:00 a.m. at some time in the future, the flags will be raised. or there might be two flag-pole sized indentations on the white house when the wind kicks up.
a cart full of archival material labeled "Materiali 1968 da fondi vari" or "1968 materials from various sources"
Gary Larson's Far Side cartoon panel with a cat looking into a dryer - "CAT FUD" is written on the dryer door, on the floor leading to the dryer, and on the door to the room. Behind the washer is a dog with a thought bubble "Oh please, oh please..."
black and white photo of an arcade in Bologna
plaster wall in sunlight, window with shutters casting oblique shadows. Filottrano, Italy, in October, 2024.
annotated map of Venice from the train station to Campo San Giacomo dell'Orio
Image of a woman reclining on an alternative 'lounge' named Pratone by Italian Gruppo Strum in 1971. The Pratone (which means 'meadow') is made from flexible polyurethane and represents a small patch of grass, absurdly enlarged. There are 42 blades of grass, each about three feet high and about ten inches square at the base, tapering at the top.
A screencap from the United States Library of Congress website (loc.gov), showing a portion of an article in the Gazette of the United States, dated August 29, 1789. This was a printing of the draft Bill of Rights and the amendments are described as Articles. In the image the First Amendment is Article 4 and the Second Amendment is Article 5. The full text of Article 5 is as follows: "ART. 5. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person." This shows the clear link while this was being drafted that the militia was composed of 'the people' and the right of 'the people' to keep and bear arms for the militia shall not be infringed - and that anyone 'religiously scrupulous of bearing arms' shall not be compelled to render military service for that militia.
screenshot of YouTube options: "Not interested" and "Don't recommend channel"