City College San Francisco

When I sketch on site, I usually like to mix scribbly cartoons and diagrams with perspective views and details. Something like the “analytique” method codified at the Ecole de Beaux Artes in 19c Paris. From the thumbnail to the detail, as they said at Syracuse Architecture. Here’s a page from a visit this Spring to City College of San Francisco, at their Ocean Avenue campus. It’s giant portico is capped with “The Truth Shall Make you Free”.

Shopping in Vienna with Hans and Loos

These retail storefronts in Vienna designed by Hans Hollein (1934-2014) still look great after decades, and have sometimes outlived the original stores. They juxtapose marble and metal, flatness and depth, and use vitrines to view the precious items for sale inside, adding curiosity and intrigue to the shopping experience. Two nearby shopfronts designed by Adolf Loos are still intact, the Knize (1910) and Manz (1912) stores, over a century later. How different from most contemporary retail frontage a la Kawneer.