Archiculture

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We would like to help spread the word of a great new book by our friend and Archiculture collaborator Matt Dellinger. He has been working on the story for Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway (or available here) in earnest for the past few years and now has it ready to be shared with the world. My copy will be arriving this week but I urge anyone with an interest in City Planning or Urban Design to definitely pick this book up. Also, if you like to read great small-town, human interest stories with brilliant illustrations of how large scale planning can effect middle America then be sure to grab this book. Having read segments in the past, Matt has an uncanny ability to thread many dynamic and personal tales of those along the proposed highway into a singular masterful piece. Best of luck to Matt!

Further details:

Interstate 69 is an enlightening journey through the heart of America. With this epic tale of one vast and controversial road project, Matt Dellinger brings to life the country’s complex political, social, and economic landscape.

The 1,400-mile extension of I-69 south from Indianapolis, if completed, will connect Canada to Mexico through Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. This so-called “NAFTA Highway” has been in development for two decades, and while segments are under construction today, others may never be built. Eagerly anticipated by many as an economic Godsend, I-69 has also been opposed by environmentalists, farmers, ranchers, anarchists, and others who question both the wisdom of building more highways and the merits of globalization.

Part history, part travelogue, *Interstate 69* reveals the surprising story of how this extraordinary undertaking began, introduces us to the array of individuals who have worked tirelessly for years to build the road—or to stop it—and guides us through the many places the highway would transform forever: from sprawling cities like Indianapolis, Houston, and Memphis, to the small rural towns of the Midwestern rust belt, the Mississippi Delta, and South Texas.

In an era when bridges fall, levies fail, and states lease their toll roads to foreign-owned corporations, Americans are realizing the central importance of infrastructure, how it affects our standard of living and quality of life, and how it determines which places prosper and which places fade. This book vividly illustrates that the story of America is indeed the story of transportation—and that story continues.

Matt Dellinger connects these dots with an absorbingly human, on-the-ground examination of our country’s struggle with development. Interstate 69 captures the hopes, dreams, and fears surrounding what we build and what we leave behind.

Reviews:

“A great journey, with sharp reporting and fine writing and a genuine feel for an America we don’t often notice. With Dellinger at the wheel, the saga of the unfinished interstate becomes a wonderful tale.”
—Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief

“A rollicking dispatch from the heartland as great plans are laid for a mega-highway just at the moment when America runs out of gas. Matt Dellinger is a first-rate reporter and an agile portraitist who gives us a rare look at the loony shenanigans that shape our landscape and our society.”
—James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency

“Interstate 69 is not just about highways. It’s about Americans deciding on their future. The politics and arguments about this one proposed highway may or may not lead us somewhere—but like any great journey, it’s the trip that’s the thing.”
—Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

“From the first page Matt Dellinger draws a compellingly written narrative that is not only hard to put down but is sweeping in its context. America’s history, and its future, breathes in these pages.”
—Ken Auletta, author of Googled: The End of the World as We Know It

“Interstate 69 is about a road that doesn’t exist, and probably never will, and we learn anew about small town America whose fortunes ebbed and flowed with the advent of the superhighway. Dellinger has given us a new way to understand—and enjoy—our history.”
—Seymour Hersh, author of Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib

“Whether I-69 is ever built or not, it has provided Matt Dellinger a good route into the middle of our country, a fascinating and often-neglected place. His story of an imagined road, its boosters and its discontents speaks eloquently of the deep changes shaking up America today. This is an affectionate, hard-won, and skillfully-made book, filled with the pleasures of original discovery.”
—Ian Frazier, author of Great Plains and On the Rez

For more info follow Matt on Twitter @MattDellinger and join him on Facebook to hear of local speaking engagements.

via: LIFE

“65 years ago today, the head of the German military garrison in Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz, surrendered to Allied forces after a week of street battles, thus cementing what came to be known as the Liberation of Paris.

LIFE photographer Ralph Morse was on the scene to capture not only the tension between the German and Allied forces, but also the extraordinary events that followed when Paris was free once again.” - Huffington Post

See more of Ralph Morse’s recently published unreleased photos on LIFE.

via: New York Magazine

It’ll be interesting to see where this discussion goes in an economically starved city looking for any form of new development.

“You can see in the renderings above how each side envisions the future of the skyline. In Vornado’s, each tower is clearly visible in all its illuminated splendor. Co-existence, hooray! But in the Empire State Building’s, it’s like 15 Penn Plaza has obliviously and obnoxiously lumbered in front of the Empire State Building while you were taking a photo. “Um, excuse me, sir — sir? — you are right in our way.” - NYmag

Thanks for the tip Sam.

We interviewed Earthship Biotecture founder, Mike Reynolds aka The Garbage Warrior for the film back in March and have watched as he along with his dedicated team continue their amazing post-disaster work around the globe. Here is a recent email I received from the fine folks over at Earthship Biotecture about their work in Haiti:

“Earthship Team produces earthquake-resistant structure made from tires and bottles in Port Au Prince, Haiti in 4 and a half days.

Earthship Biotecture of Taos, NM completed a Tsunami Relief project in the Andaman Islands in 2005.
Now we are working in Port au Prince, Haiti to teach the local people displaced by the earthquake how to build self-sufficient, earthquake-resistant structures made from recycled materials and from rubble created by the earthquake. (See photos above.) These homes collect their own water, treat their own sewage, maintain a comfortable temperature without air conditioning and produce their own electric power.”

Some visual stimulation for your Monday afternoon.

Thanks for the tip Orbi.

found via good.is

This is an amazingly touching story captured through the archival oral history project, StoryCorps. A couple of the stories have been animated such as the story of Danny & Annie above and more are planned. Be sure to check out the StoryCorps website to find out more about this amazing project and listen to more of the interviews.

StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 30,000 interviews from more than 60,000 participants. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and on our Listen pages.

Click and zoom into each Borough for finer details:

Slowly but steadily this city is learning to return to its water. We have such a long way to go especially in contrast to my former home of San Francisco. Enjoy clicking around the waterfronts of NYC.

Thanks for the tip David.

via: Discovery News

This is a brilliant concept by the folks up at MIT’s SENSEable Cities Lab which have just won the American round of the 2010 James Dyson Award for inventing the Copenhagen Wheel. The article goes on to illustrate just how far the US has to go in the use of bicycles as a viable means of transportation:

“The team of MIT students, lead by Christine Outram, opted to name their creation after the very bike-friendly city of Copenhagen. That says a lot about the depressing state of affairs of bicycling in America, where less than a half percent of people get to work each day by bike, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.”

Ode to the day when riding even in a city like NYC is not a war. Maybe products like this will help get all those “others” to start pushing themselves over the bridges and into the gauntlets of Manhattan. I’ll be waiting for the support.

via: Popsci

Head over to Popsci to find out about the Power symbol’s growing success in becoming the logo on NYC condoms, or how the Swedish campgrounds symbol became the Command logo, or how the At symbol started with sixth century monks. I love how nested and ingrained our history becomes in our language, symbols and especially buildings.