touch

Walking to the National Mall in Washington today, I remembered how hard it is to pass by the East Wing of the National Gallery without stopping in. It's like visiting an old friend. And while pausing to say hello to the sculpture by Richard Serra and the painting by Robert Motherwell, we were struck by that other famous quality of the building - the way it invites the visitor's touch.

I. M. Pei's building has always compelled people to touch it, and I'm not sure why. It makes sense in the parts where the whole building comes to a sharp point - you just want to touch that prow, or whatever it is - but throughout the building there are stains on the walls right at the height of a visitor's hand, where countless museum-goers have left a little oily trace of their visit. It's the remarkable gift of this richly complex building that it engages people in such a warmly physical way.

You've got to love a building that makes you want to touch it:

tagged, again

At some point in the last 24 hours, we got some new graffiti at tin box. Somebody made a spray paint stencil and tried it out on our construction fence (left, and after the break), and on the electric pole next to our house. Cool tag. The art is definitely improving around the house.

tagged

The temporary construction fence got tagged at some point in the last couple of days. It’s not Banksy, unfortunately. But it is an interesting commentary on fences.

greener Florence

One more note about sustainability in Florence. They have a separate collection bin for organic waste, which is diverted to a municipal compost facility. This both reduces the amount of waste sent to landfills and reduces the amount of compost purchased by the city for its parks. Alongside the organic material bins are ones for cardboard and paper, plastic, glass and metal, and undifferentiated trash. It's a laudable waste management system, but it raises an important question about urbanism.

infrastructure and abundance

Rome has the world’s most picturesque plumbing. The constant flow of water from the city’s numerous fountains celebrates the surplus reaching the city from distant points through the region’s extraordinary system of aqueducts. Like religious offerings, these prolific fountains celebrate abundance by sacrificing a portion of the surplus publicly. These excessive displays are literally displays of excess.

unintended irony

Miami has some quirky habits. One is parking on the lawn (or at least the strip of grass between street and sidewalk referred to as "parkway" on site surveys). Another is dumping big piles of trash and yard waste along the side of the road.

Our house used to have a big trash pile in front of it, but the neighbors have stopped using our lot as a dumping ground since we started construction. And to a large extent the construction has minimized the amount of dog poop accumulating in front of the house. But these ever-present dumping piles raise a good question: how much stuff do we throw away?

Is it necessary to generate so much refuse in the course of everyday life? What techniques can we use to stop bringing stuff into our homes just so we can dump it out front a few hours later? What does it say about our regard for public space that we don't hesitate to dump trash out on the street?

update: tin box just recorded its 2,500th page view. Thanks for your input so far. Let us know what topics you'd like us to cover in future posts.