Classicism in Conversation ICAA

What began as a conversation about the city of Atlanta quickly evolved into a discussion on American urbanism and city planning. In this episode of ​our mini-series ​Cities We Live In​, our guest is Paul Knight, an urban and architectural designer at Historical Concepts and the Executive Director at the nonprofit Douglas C. Allen Institute for the Study of Cities. Paul kicks off the discussion by posing the question first asked by professor Doug Allen to his seminar students at Georgia Tech: "How did we arrive here, at the corner of 5th Street and West Peachtree in Atlanta?" The answer, as our discussion makes clear, covers vast lineages of design in the western hemisphere: from the concept of the polis​ in ancient Greece, the urban environments built by the Roman Empire, and all the way to the American cities that sought to capture those same ideals. Human civilization has grappled with the challenges of designing better cities, ​and ultimately it comes down to how those city plans are laid out in the first place.
Cities We Live In is a study of what makes our favorite cities stand out, and in doing so conveying a need for a return to traditional design principles which make them so beloved. Not simply a history of urban form, Cities We Live In teaches us why good places matter.​

Our new mini-series Building Science breaks down the technical craft of designing buildings, using amusing anecdotes from a variety of experts. Hosted by building engineer and construction consultant Foster Lyons, this first episode features a rich conversation between four experts who take on the formidable topic of managing the effects of water on masonry buildings. From cornices to quoins, material science to mortar chemistry, and every other factor that protects a building from water damage, their conversation covers a variety of topics for architects and designers who want to learn about designing better buildings, and reveals that those classical design details on older buildings are far more than just decorations.

Foster Lyons, of Foster Lyons Building Science, hosts a four experts in this episode: Peter Marciano, of Legacy Building and Consulting LLC, who has three decades of experience doing building evaluations on flat-roofed masonry buildings in New York City; Christine Williamson, a building scientist, educator, and founder of the Instagram account @BuildingScienceFightClub, an educational project that teaches architects about building science and construction; Anthony Catania, an architect with his own firm who focuses on traditional urban building types, previously from Michael Watkins Architect in Washington D.C.; and Mark Santrach, an urban design consultant with his own firm, Design Reconsidered, previously at Hart Howerton in New York.

Interior designer Lauren Hill welcomes listeners to her home in Ravenswood, a suburb of Chicago. Lauren shares the design choices she implemented to make her home comfortable and welcoming to guests, and discusses why she chose to create a series of separate spaces in her home, instead of using what she calls the "old-school" open floor plan that seems to dominate American suburbs.  Homeowners and renters do not always have the means to completely overhaul their spaces, she says, so don't be afraid to mix and match different styles of furniture and artwork: "Eclectic is definitely just my style because of the pieces I've inherited and liked, and how my style has evolved over time."

Our mini-series "At Home" is a vicarious look at today's creatives. These are their stories of what it's like to live as a designer. You can follow the "At Home" mini-series with a special photo log, featured at classicist.org.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of young architecture and design professionals met on Zoom to discuss the future of their profession. The conversation began with some prescient observations about how public health considerations might impact the way buildings are designed, but it quickly expanded to a broader discussion about the fields of architecture and design in general. Will human behavior actually change as a result of a public health crisis, if history is any guide​? Is there a distinction anymore between the classical and the modern? Should an architect be expected to articulate their reasoning behind every aspect of their design? Even with the benefit of hindsight in looking back at the uncertain early days of the pandemic, listening to their conversation now still raises questions that resonate with centuries of debate about the fate of the profession.
Hosted by Mike Geller of G.P. Schafer Architect, the discussion featured the following speakers (in order of appearance):​ Kellen Krause of Historical Concepts; Dave Chessrown of N Architects; Kristina Mosco of Ferguson & Shamamian; Karl Landsteiner of Bade Stageberg Cox​; Robert Khederian, real estate agent at Compass; Mike O'Neill of Beyer Blinder Belle; ​Rodrigo Bollat Montenegro of Estudio Urbano; Brent Buck of Brent Buck Architects; and Whitley Esteban of Roman and Williams.

Classicism in Conversation returns for a new season with another installment of our popular mini-series Cities We Live In. Show host Kellen Krause and architects Anthony Catania and Rodrigo Bollat Montenegro visit Philip Bess, Professor of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, at his home in the Lincoln Square neighborhood in Chicago. Professor Bess shares how his interests brought him to Chicago, and discusses the history that created the modern urban landscape we see today. 
Though he initially moved to the city to find a job as an architect, his experiences in the city brought him to the study of urbanism and its impact on the way people live in their environment. He later led Notre Dame's graduate urban design studio on the multi-year project After Burnham: The Notre Dame Plan of Chicago 2109, which he discusses in this episode. As Professor Bess puts it, urbanism is not just about walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods - rather, it encompasses the study of the entire region, including the relationship between the agricultural lands and what Aristotle called the polis. 
Cities We Live In is a study of what makes our favorite cities stand out, and in doing so conveying a need for a return to traditional design principles which make them so beloved. Not simply a history of urban form, Cities We Live In teaches us why good places matter.

Architect Jacques Levet leads listeners through the history and architecture of New Orleans in this installment of our popular mini-series Cities We Live In. Jacques shares which landmarks of his home city are most inspiring to him as a designer, and discusses how the city's evolution has been affected by the periods of French, Spanish and American control. 

Cities We Live In is a study of what makes our favorite cities stand out, and in doing so conveying a need for a return to traditional design principles which make them so beloved. Not simply a history of urban form, Cities We Live In teaches us why good places matter.