Posts Tagged ‘al beadle’

September 27, 2011

An Essay by Will Bruder: Arizona’s Architecture – The First 100 years

by: Will Bruder

Tweet This week I am posting Will Bruder’s excellent essay for the 98th Arizona Town Hall meeting, “Capitalizing on Arizona’s Arts and Culture”. I’ll be posting the essay in 3 parts. In today’s post, which is the second part, Will gives an extraordinary account of the history of architecture in Arizona. If you missed part I, where Will defines architecture and the urban fabric, catch it here. If you’d like to read Will’s entire essay in one sitting, you can find it on the Arizona Town Hall report starting on page 76. Arizona’s architectural identity is built on a foundation…

May 31, 2010

Why not All Old Buildings Should be Saved

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet This weekend, the Phoenix Historic Neighborhood Coalition (PHNC) released the Most enDangered Dozen. It’s a list of local historic buildings in danger of being torn down, some because they are in blighted neighborhoods, some because they themselves are in terrible condition and some because their owners have foreclosed. In other words, these properties are on the verge of being sold to some very enterprising but potentially culturally insensitive people that will likely tear these buildings down. The buildings that made this list elicited different reactions from me. With some of them like the Art Deco Professional Building and Al…

May 20, 2010

Why Arizona Owes a Great Debt to Frank Lloyd Wright

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet In my previous post, What is the Arizona School, I mentioned that Frank Lloyd Wright was the father of the Arizona School, a term coined by Reed Kroloff for the style of architecture unique to this Place – the desert. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of taking a tour of Taliesin, Wright’s farm, residence and school complex in Spring Green, WI. Farm building at Taliesin – now used as residence space for students This tour gave me a deeper perspective on what Wright was working on before he made Scottsdale his winter home and embarked on a new style…

April 14, 2010

What is The Arizona School?

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet This week I’m sharing my thoughts on last week’s Modern Phoenix Home Tour and Expo. A few important ideas emerged over the course of events and I’d like to share them with you. On Monday I talked about the Panel Discussion on the Restaurant Revolution. Yesterday, Donna Reiner taught us about the mid-century modern banks in Phoenix. Today I’ll talk about the most important, inspiring and entertaining lecture I’ve heard in a while and that is Reed Kroloff’s talk on The Arizona School during the Modern Phoenix Expo on Saturday. Reed Kroloff was once a tenured professor and Assistant…

March 22, 2010

Why We Are Surrounded by Crappy Buildings

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet This weekend a client was driving me to a house to show me the style she’d like for some renovations at her house. I half expected to be shown a run-of-the mill stucco cookie-cutter home with little personality but that somehow seems luxurious to people. This isn’t a reflection on my client but on most people I’ve run into who aren’t designers themselves. I was shocked and relieved that she showed me this beautiful ultra-modern renovation of a mid-century modern home: The owner of this house directed us a few blocks north of him telling us that there was…