The Morning News On a day that's devoted to the White House, let's have fun with architecture.
The Brutalist Coloring Book. Credit: TM™.

New Yorkers who want more marble in their workouts can now exercise at the Met, not with trainers but "athletic docents."

Make no mistake: this is a workout. Your body will perspire, your heart rate will rise and you’ll shed any light layers. (That said, my one request would be to increase the cardio incrementally and start with more stretches that early in the morning.) And because our enjoyment of anything increases when it’s otherwise prohibited, the workout’s massive pleasure derives from its illicitness: “trespassing” the Met before opening hours, writhing to Elton John within the galleries, gently sweating on various marble surfaces. It confers other singular bragging rights as well — like having done jumping jacks before the marble statue of a nude Perseus.

Not just for kids? Now available, the Brutalist Coloring Book.

Brutalism lovers, sharpen your cold grey and warm grey pencils and add some colour to some great concrete constructions.

"What would a city look like if it was a wall and nothing else?"

From Geoff Manaugh's BLDGBLOG, a puzzle that's part Trump, part Vandermeer: Andrew Kudless's rule-constrained exploration of how a wall could become a city.

I started to play around with slowly increasing a wall’s length while preventing it from moving outside a site or intersecting itself. At a certain point in the growth process, the wall takes over the entire site.

A new series on Netflix we're excited about, screening at Sundance this weekend and streaming next month, Abstract: The Art of Design. 

Featuring profiles of architect Bjarke Ingels, (our favorite) illustrator Christoph Niemann, theater designer Es Devlin, interior designer Ilse Crawford, graphic designer Paula Scher, photographer Platon, car designer Ralph Gilles, and Nike shoe magician Tinker Hatfield.

What do wealthy people need next? How about a tank?

Chalk this up more to design than architecture, but it looks like the wealthy can now buy their own tanks. Admittedly devoid of armaments, but equipped with tracks, gull-wing doors, a night vision and thermal imaging system.

"You can shut all the lights off at night and the vehicle is completely dark and you can run 60 miles an hour down the road and see everything you need to see to be able to drive safely."

Jan 20, 2017

"From 17th century Postmedieval English abodes to 19th century Tudors all the way through the “McMansions” of the 1990s," a handy guide to the vernacular of American homes.

"White elephants" are architectural outliers: buildings made with best intentions that fall out of use.

A good podcast episode from Monocle on the topic of white elephants, highlighting the Palestinians' first parliament building (still in limbo) and Belgrade's "redundant buildings." 

While we're on the topic, who knew Madrid had so much geometric architecture?

Jan 20, 2017
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